How Wasps drew on The Oresteia
A documented line of influence: Aristophanes demonstrably engaged Aeschylus’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
The Oresteia
Aeschylus · 458 BCE
Ancient GreeceThe influenced
Wasps
Aristophanes · 422 BCE
Ancient GreeceRelevance
7/10
On Wasps’s page
- Wasps is a sustained parody of Aeschylus, and it lands sharpest with the Oresteia fresh in mind
- Philocleon's dog-trial restructures the Eumenides courtroom; the night-watch prologue echoes Agamemnon; Bdelycleon forcing a new cloak on his father mirrors the Furies changing their robes after the verdict
- Read the trilogy first and you'll catch the jokes Aristophanes built straight on top of it
On The Oresteia’s page
- The tragedy Aristophanes spent a whole comedy taking apart
- Wasps rebuilds the Eumenides jury trial as a domestic farce — a dog hauled up for stealing cheese instead of Orestes on trial for matricide
- The watchman's prologue of Agamemnon and the Furies' costume change after the verdict both reappear, deflated into slapstick — proof that within thirty years Aeschylus was canonical enough to parody