Paratragic Fragmentation and Patchwork-Citation as Comic Aesthetics: the Potpourri Use of Euripides' Helen and Andromeda in Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae and Their Symbolic Meaning

The performative fragmentation of the famous women plays of the previous year 412 BC is central for the meaning of the Thesmophoriazusae. The fragmenting paratragodia is not just paradigmatic comic intertextual and metatheatrical play in endless repetitions, but the parasitic and parodic use of Helen and Andromeda supports the syntagmatic course of action on a symbolic level. On this level that works on the concept of female and male initiation we can even detect an increasing trajectory towards the comic end. Laying bare fractured parts of texts as well as integrating them into a new entity do not make the fragments isolated remnants, passages to be packed away into collections, but to vivid centers of energy. The fractured surface gets in touch with the comic embedding, creating often suspension of sense or even nonsense from which new sense can emanate. Fragmentation is creative, bringing forth art, it releases energy and potentials of new sense and meaning. The escape pattern and the cultural idea of passage in puberty thus move towards a comic solution without any tragic citations, to a comic trick, and, to the end of the phase of transitional exception by reestablishing marriage and sexual contact.