중희극 부의 신 415-612의 논쟁에 나타난 부의 본질에 대한 의미 고찰

Abstract

This paper is about the verses of 415-612 from Plutus, which contains the debate between Chremylos, who represents ‘wealth,’ and Penia, which symbolizes ‘poverty.’ The comic debate developed in the verses is a social program of the future world that did not exist in the real world of the time. This program armed the mythical Plutus with a god of wealth and made it appear in the world in order to mock the luxury life of the wealthy of the community. This is also a comic task that Aristophanes invites Plutus into the work to make the audience think. At first glance, it seems to denigrate poverty and worship wealth, but ironically it provides an opportunity for the audience to understand the location of wealth that is lacking the value of justice. Plutus is a play in which the rich win vaguely despite the fact that the whole composition meets a reasonable opponent in the debate and cannot overcome it by argument. Particularly, it is a nonsense comedy that problem of wealth and poverty in the 415-612 verses takes the salvation of the polis as the storyline of the work, but in the end, the efforts of wealth to achieve individual well-being do not end happily. The purpose of Aristophanes’ dramatization in writing this work was not to make poverty imperfection a laugh, but to try to see through the essence of life by taunting that the fantasies he unfolds are the essence of human imperfection. In this paper, Aristophanes’ social-critical view of wealth and poverty, which was intended to play a role as a poet of life, was noted, and the meaning was considered through the preoccupation of the debate about the nature of wealth.