Disrupting illusion in ancient Greek comedy: a cognitive perspective

ABSTRACT This paper applies a modern, cognitive model, the conceptual blending theory, to ancient Greek comic fragments, with the aim of shedding light on the relationships between actor and audience. The theory maintains that spectators blend an actor and his character into one new concept of identity during a performance. In particular, I shall investigate the model in relation to a way of disrupting the dramatic illusion found in ancient Greek comedy, namely when the actor seems to step out of the character and the line between the two identities supposedly becomes thinner. My focus is on the fourth-century Bc—hence the choice of fragments—, which I argue is a turning point not only for the evolution of the theatre but also for the mechanisms of blending.