Uma leitura semiótica de Tesmoforiantes de Aristófanes

Abstract

The aim of this work is to analyze the structure of the play Thesmophoriazusae (411 BC), accomplished by the Greek comic playwright Aristophanes (447 BC – 385 BC), in light of the Greimasian semiotic theory aka French discursive semiotics. To achieve this purpose, we will base our analysis on the works done by Fiorin (2013) and Barros (2008), in which we can find the ideal analysis model to be applied here, following the generative path of meaning. In so doing, our work will be divided into three parts. Initially, some considerations will be made about the Ancient Comedy and the specific play which is the focus of this article. In the second part, we will start from the fundamental level of meaning and then establish the primordial relations within the text, linked to the fundamental oppositions that guide Aristophanes’ works. In the third and final part, our focus will be on the narrative level, in which we can analyze more deeply the attitudes of each of the characters and their significant dimensions within the play. Besides the semiotic studies, we will also refer to the works of Slater (2002), Pompeu (2011) and Sousa e Silva (1987), as far as the analysis of other essential elements of the above-mentioned play is concerned. This article allows us to conclude that Aristophanes’ theatrical comedy is constituted by a both political and literary reflection of the 5th century BC, and that the semiotic analysis constitutes an important epistemological tool for the understanding of the structures and meaning of the above-mentioned play.