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THE CLOTHED BODY IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
17-19 January 2002

James Robson
Open University

New Clothes, A New You: Transforming Makeovers in Aristophanes.

In a dramatic genre peopled with characters whose personalities are mutable, clothing takes on a special significance as it serves to mark out for the audience key attributes of each individual, such as gender, age and status. Like their personalities, though, the clothing of Aristophanes' characters is mutable too. At various points in the plays we meet characters who are dressed up (Agathon in Thesmophoriazusae), disguised (Dicaeopolis in Acharnians), or subject to a 'make-over' (Philocleon in Wasps) entailing the adoption of an entirely new set of clothes. In this paper I shall investigate the use to which Aristophanes puts clothing in his plays, focusing on the power of clothes to transform their wearer.