Lisistrata e il Commissario: dialettica comica e identità performativo

This article explores the dynamics of comic dialectics in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, focusing on the agon between the title character and the Commissioner. Far from being a mere comedic confrontation, their exchange reveals a deeper ideological conflict between two worldviews: one grounded in essentialist assumptions about identity, and the other rooted in a performative conception of subjectivity. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from contemporary gender and performance studies (notably Butler, Goffman, Sacks), the essay demonstrates how Aristophanic comedy anticipates key aspects of modern debates by staging identity as the effect of discursive and social positioning rather than of innate attributes. The scene in question—where Lysistrata symbolically feminizes the Commissioner by dressing him in women’s clothing—dramatizes the reversibility and constructedness of social categories, especially gender roles. This performative turn is not merely theatrical but political: it inverts power relations, reconfigures agency, and underscores the contingent nature of identity. However, the analysis also cautions against reading Aristophanes’ use of performativity as ideologically coherent or univocal. Through comparison with other scenes from the Aristophanic corpus (e.g., Wasps, Plutus, Acharnians), the essay argues that performative identity functions as a dramaturgical device rather than a stable ideological position. It is validated or delegitimized depending on its alignment with the heroic energy and transformative project of the comic protagonist. Thus, while the Lysistrata-Commissioner agon exemplifies a progressive, performative vision of identity, Aristophanic comedy as a whole accommodates both essentialist and performative logics, mobilizing them according to dramaturgical needs rather than ideological consistency. This ambivalence reflects the genre’s core reliance on rhetorical inversion, symbolic violence, and the carnivalesque suspension of social norms.