Phallic processions

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Phallic processions, or Penis Parade,[1] originally called phallika in the Ancient Greece, were a common feature of Dionysiac celebrations; they were ceremonial group walkings that advanced to a cult center, and were characterized by obscenities and verbal abuse.[2] Among the "obscenities", a common one was the display of the fetishized phallus".[3][4]

Aristotle, in a famous passage of the Poetics, formulated the hypothesis that comedy originated from "those who lead off the phallic processions", which were still common in many towns at his time.[5][2][6]

This sacred religious ceremonies and cults, are instead categorized as profane by the monotheistic religions' worldview. In August 2000, to promote a representation of Aristophanes' The Clouds, a traditional Greek phallic procession had been organized, with a 25-foot long phallus paraded by the cast with the accompaniment of Balkan music; the phallic device was banned by the staff of the Edinburgh Festival.[1]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Tim Younger THE PENIS PARADE or A TALE OF A TAIL
  2. ^ a b Dunkle, Roger The origins of comedy in Introduction to Greek and Roman Comedy
  3. ^ Pickard-Cambridge 1962, 144-62
  4. ^ Reckford 1987, 443-67
  5. ^ Poetics, 1449a-b
  6. ^ Mastromarco, Giuseppe: (1994) Introduzione a Aristofane (Sesta edizione: Roma-Bari 2004). ISBN 8842044482 p.3

[edit] References

  • Richardson, N. J., The Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Oxford, 1974, pp. 214-15
  • O’Higgins, Laurie, Women and Humor in Classical Greece. Cambridge, 2003. p. 57
  • For the outrageous practice of "abuse from the wagons" see Fluck, H., Skurrile Riten in griechischen Kulten. Diss. Freiburg. Endingen, 1931., pp. 34-51
  • Pickard-Cambridge, Arthur, Dithyramb, Tragedy, and Comedy. 2nd edition, rev. by T.B.L. Webster. Cambridge, 1962.
  • Reckford, Kenneth, Aristophanes’ Old-and-New Comedy. Chapel Hill, 1987. pp.463-65
  • [Ralph M. Rosen] (2006) Comic Aischrology and the Urbanization of Agroikia, pages 219-238
  • The Problem of Origins in Cornford, F. M. the Origin of Attic Comedy. Ed. T. H. Gaster. Intro Jeffrey Henderson. Ann Arbor: U of MI P, 1993.
  • Eric Csapo Riding the Phallus for Dionysus: Iconology, Ritual, and Gender-Role De/Construction Phoenix, Vol. 51, No. 3/4 (Autumn - Winter, 1997), pp. 253-295 doi:10.2307/1192539
  • THE RURAL DIONYSIA of Apollonius Sophistes
  • ARISTOPHANES CLOUDS