Comedy Studies

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Aristophanes' Cloudcuckooland to Terry

Pratchett's Discworld: Comedy as social
conscience

Eve Smith

To cite this article: Eve Smith (2013) Aristophanes' Cloudcuckooland to Terry Pratchett's
Discworld: Comedy as social conscience, Comedy Studies, 4:1, 23-33, DOI: 10.1386/
cost.4.1.23_1

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1386/cost.4.1.23_1

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 COST 4 (1) pp. 23–33 Intellect Limited 2013

Comedy Studies
Volume 4 Number 1
© 2013 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/cost.4.1.23_1

Eve Smith
Liverpool John Moores University

Aristophanes’
Cloudcuckooland to
Terry Pratchett’s Discworld:
Comedy as social conscience

Abstract Keywords
Building on S. Critchley’s notion of humour as Superego II, this article proposes Pratchett
a model of comedy as social conscience as a generic classification within political Discworld
comedy based on the function of comedy within the society in which it is produced Aristophanes
and consumed. Considering Aristophanic comedy in terms of its function within comedy
Athenian society and extrapolating to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld as a contemporary society
equivalent, this article defines comedy as social conscience as a comedic text in any fantasy
medium, that is popular and accessible, that creates intertextual relationships and superego II
mobilizes contemporary discourses to create a reflexive awareness in the audience, intertextuality
recognizing the self as part of the society requiring growth and transformation.

Comic genres are often defined by their medium, period or form (e.g. King
2002; Leggatt 1999; Mills 2005, 2009). This article suggests a generic classi-
fication based on the social function of the comedic text; a genre that uses
the full arsenal of comedy from irony and satire to farce, banter, scatology,
slapstick and paranomasia to make its audience think about their reality. The
comedian is often considered an outsider to society commenting on what is

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Eve Smith

1. On presenting a draft observed in that society. Likewise it has long been accepted that the fantasy
of this article at the
‘With humorous intent’
realms of utopian fictions may mirror aspects of our world suggesting ways
conference in 2012, in which humanity could improve society. At the intersection of the fantastic
a number of fine art with the comedic there is another possibility, in Freudian terms the part of the
scholars considered
how this model would psyche that is both part of the self and also a representative of wider social
work with comic works structures is the super ego. In his 1927 essay on humour S. Freud admits that
in their field. While this within the psyche humour represents the super ego in a more benevolent
is outside my area, I
believe it is possible. manner than the accepted norm of chastisement and suppression. S. Critchley
calls this super ego II, characterizing it in contrast to the ‘prohibiting parent’
of the traditional super ego as ‘the child that has become the parent: wiser
and wittier’ (Critchley 2001: 104). Super ego II, then, is a form of conscience
that encourages growth and transformation. Mapping this relationship from
aspects of the psyche to the relationship between the comedic text and the
wider social milieu in which it exists, this article posits a type of comic fantasy
that is self reflexive and that uses Brechtian Verfremdung techniques, present-
ing familiar ideas in unfamiliar circumstances, allowing for direct reference to
and criticism of the society in which it is produced and consumed: Comedy
as social conscience. According to Jane Feuer genre theorists have the task of
dividing cultural forms into groups and justifying these classifications once
they are made (1992: 138). I would like to argue for a cross media generic clas-
sification of comedy as social conscience by taking the earliest extant example
of this, the old comedy of Aristophanes, as a model and comparing it with a
contemporary example, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. After using a common
three point model of genre that links text, audience and institutional aspects
(Lacey 2000: 133) to consider a series of relationships around this work, I will
conclude by suggesting this may be used as a tool for analysing the social
function of comedy.
In contrast with media specific sub genres, Comedy as social conscience
may appear across a range of media. Michael S. Silk (2000: 61–62) argues
that while tragedy is by definition a dramatic form, comedy only started as
a performative form because its roots were in a society where performance
was the usual form of expression, underlining its potential to work across any
medium. In contemporary society notions of adaptation and transmediality
may be illustrated through the range of access points to Pratchett’s Discworld
series. Originally a series of novels, these comic narratives have been adapted
for performance on both stage and screen as well as inspiring a host of gaming
options and merchandise (Smith 2011). So comedy as social conscience in a
contemporary context may include comic drama on stage and screen, sitcom,
cartoons, and of course the novel1. So given the cross media nature of this
genre, the institutional aspects will need to be more general rather than the
particular institutions of specific media and discussed here in terms of produc-
tion and distribution.
The context of production for this type of comedy requires that the author
have a level of independence that allows a critical attitude. For Aristophanes
this meant the freedom as a citizen of Athenian Democracy to express his
opinions and to compete for a chorus in the Lenaia and Dionysia festivals.
While we know that he was prosecuted for being unpatriotic (Walton 1993: xii)
and there is evidence that he rewrote Clouds after its initial poor reception
(Cartledge 2008: 22–24), there is nothing to suggest that there was any official
form of censorship of the Athenian dramas once a chorus had been awarded,
and Aristophanes continued to write, and criticize public figures, and have his
plays performed to much acclaim after his prosecution. John Morreall links the

24
 Aristophanes’ Cloudcuckooland to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld

birth of comedy with democracy, although not causally (Morreall 2009: 65).
And while comedy definitely exists in undemocratic societies, there is a reac-
tionary function of comedy in the carnivalesque (Smith 2012) or Erich Segal’s
Holiday model that he applies to the comedies of Plautus that suggest that
comedy functions as a social safety valve in an oppressive regime, with
humorous inversions being followed by a reinstatement of normality so that
the hegemonic domination is actually reinforced by this temporary anarchy
(Segal 1987). So while there have been assertions that Aristophanes himself
may have been politically conservative, and C. Platter (2007) argues that the
political dimension of Aristophanes work is diluted by his textual ambivalence,
his plays certainly ‘engage with the problems of Athenian democracy’ (Bowie
1996: 293). I am therefore arguing that comedy as social conscience exists in a
cultural context that allows critical discussion of the dominant ideology.
In a contemporary context total independence in the production of a
comedy is rare. TV comedy will usually have a sponsor, or at least a commis-
sioning editor, but the question then becomes to what extent does this influ-
ence the values of the production? So The Simpsons may be owned by Fox,
but this does not prevent the writers from criticizing their parent company.
In the case of Pratchett there are certain indications of independence. First,
the writer working on their own generally has less need to compromise their
work, although again they may have to work to publishers’ criteria. In this
Pratchett has enjoyed considerable flexibility, in part due to the relationship

Figure 1: Aristophanes © Charlotte Espley.

25
Eve Smith

2. Colin Smyth speaking he has with Colin Smythe, originally his publisher, who then became his
at the Discworld
Convention, 2008.
agent. For example, the first Discworld book The Colour of Magic (T. Pratchett,
1997c) was delivered for a contract for a collection of short stories.2 Despite
the huge success of the Discworld series Pratchett has enjoyed the freedom to
write other books such as his non-discworld Children’s fiction and 2012 saw
the publication of the first book of a new science fiction series The Long Earth
co-authored with Stephen Baxter. So Pratchett has the freedom to write the
stories he wants to write while he is very protective over film and TV rights
so that he also retains some control over how his stories are represented by
others. While adaptations of Discworld have been successful onstage, tele-
vision, radio and gaming there have been protracted negotiations over film
rights, resulting in the 2012 launch of a production company, Narrativia, to
manage cross media use of the Pratchett corpus. The board of Narrativia
comprises Pratchett, his long-standing PA/Business Manager, Rob Wilkins,
television Screenwriter Guy Burt and Pratchett’s Daughter, award winning
games designer Rhianna Pratchett, this mix of skills highlights the transme-
diality of the new venture while the venture itself continues the freedom of
expression in production originally offered to Pratchett by Colin Smythe and
which is so important for comedy as social conscience.
Linking institutional concerns with the audience leads to the importance
of access to the means of distribution. The festival occasion of the Dionysia
and Lenaia, meant that Old Comedy was received by its audience in a festive
mode and these religious festivals were a celebration shared by the whole
community. All citizens had access to the festivals from the second half of
the fifth century bc when the Theoric fund was instituted to ensure that no
citizen should ever be excluded from the theatre through lack of money
(Walton 1991: 71). J. Mike Walton suggests that the audience for Aristophanes
plays would have been around 15,000, while Silk (2000) defines this in percent-
age terms at around 10 per cent of the population. So the presentation is in a
social context and accessible to a heterogeneous audience representing a large
proportion of the population.
Historically comedy has been seen as a lower form of culture, considered
to exist solely as entertainment, with no higher purpose. However, the idea
of laughter as a conduit to the preconscious allows satire and other politi-
cal forms of comedy to have an impact unavailable to more rational forms
of political communication in which ideas may be rejected out of hand by
the process of resistance employed by the ego (Freud 2003: 107). Therefore
comedy is often able to present a range of ideas that would not otherwise
be palatable to its audience. For some of the most savage political comedy
on television, at the intersection of comedy and political activism, the idea
of distribution becomes a real concern. Broadcast of the 1997 series Brass Eye
was delayed for six months due to concerns about potentially controversial
Myra Hindley references and it may be suggested that only Channel 4 would
ever have broadcast it. Likewise Mark Thomas has historically been confined
to late evening slots on Channel 4, with his 2010 project The Manifesto being
recorded for Radio 4. While I admire both the political conviction and the
comic ingenuity of Mark Thomas, his extreme politics leading to marginal
access to means of distribution suggests that his work is more likely to be
seen and heard by those who already share his convictions rather than a more
general audience. This type of hard core satire tends to be more aligned with
a traditional super ego, which stands apart and chastises. In contrast comedy
as social conscience includes the self as part of the social group that requires

26
 Aristophanes’ Cloudcuckooland to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld

transformation. This inclusive aspect situates comedy as social conscience

firmly into the realm of the popular where the comic mode of presentation
may bring political or socio-political ideas to people who do not necessarily
already agree with them.
The social context of the Athenian Festivals is unusual in contemporary
theatre, where the norm is a darkened auditorium with allocated seats. It is
more common in comedy clubs, but a community theatre can also create this
shared experience and reading groups or fan organizations can also make a
social occasion. Cultural practices around the reading of bestselling books, such
as book readings, conventions or Pratchett’s notoriously lengthy book sign-
ings may also show how the presentation and sharing of the work becomes a
social occasion. The books are accessible though commercial retail outlets and,
for those who lack the funds to purchase a book, though libraries. However,
while Aristophanes’ work was originally only available to citizens of Athens
and took some time to be readily available elsewhere, access to the Discworld
diegesis is more diverse. It has both moved beyond readers of novels with the
various adaptations into other media and has been taken to a global level with
translations into over 40 languages.
The next point of the three-point genre model is the audience. While it
is my main contention that the function of this type of comedy is to create a
counter hegemonic critical awareness in its audience, there is no actual record
that this was ever the case for Aristophanes. However, there are certain things
that we can be fairly confident in, such as the references to Aristophanes’
own prosecution in Frogs and to the fact that Clouds was cited in the case
against Socrates, which suggest quite strongly that the ideas presented in
Aristophanes’ plays were circulated among the Athenian population, even if
people did not actually agree with those ideas. Likewise the fan community,
both virtual and live, circulate meanings about the Discworld books. There are
those who refuse to see any ‘hidden meaning’ in the Discworld series, prefer-
ring to view it as an aesthetic experience, something that has value in its own
right, there are also readers who value the layers of connotation as part of that
experience.
Let us now turn to the text itself. There have been many attempts to define
comedy, S. Neale and F. Krutnik (1990) suggest that comedy had traditionally
been defined by one of two criteria, the generation of laughter or a particular
narrative form that includes a happy ending, S. Purdie (1993) rejects a simi-
lar definition put forward by Howarth in favour of the idea that comedy is
defined by its joking exchanges. While I maintain, like Neale and Krutnik,
that the generation of laughter is fundamental and that the narrative structure
is not essential to comedy in a broad sense, a narrative structure that incor-
porates the joking exchange is key to comedy as social conscience. However,
the key element of the narrative structure is its dialectical quality rather than a
happy ending. While non-narrative comedy can also be political, it functions
in a different way. Likewise I have identified this functionality in the media
I work with: the novel, drama, television and film, but do not preclude its
applicability to other media.
The basic structure of a play by Aristophanes is something akin to a
debate. The Prologue sets up an idea, the Parados sets this into motion as
the main action or conflict between the actors and the chorus, the Agon
is a formal debate or contest that will decide the outcome of the play, the
Parabasis, when the leader of the chorus steps forward to ‘speak in the poet’s
voice’ may be connected to the main narrative, but is generally seen as giving

27
Eve Smith

political advice, the play then returns to the consequences of the Agon and
ends with the exodus, where a resolution is reached and the actors and chorus
leave the stage in a kind of celebration. At first glance this may seem quite
similar to other comic structures, such as Evanthius’s structure, which was
common in the middle ages, of protasis, or exposition, an epitasis, or compli-
cation, a catatasis, a new and further element of complication, and a catastro-
phe or resolution (Neale and Krutnik 1990:27). The key difference between
Aristophanic comedy and new comedy or renaissance comedy may seem to
lie in the subject matter, being of socio-political nature rather than domestic
or romantic, but structurally this means that the to-ing and fro-ing is actually
more like a political debate than the boy meets girl with added complications
of so many Shakespearian comedies. And crucially the resolution is not the
reinstatement of the status quo that existed at the beginning of the play, as is
the traditional outcome of farce, it is the logical outcome of the agon; a trans-
formation based on the reasoning of political debate. In Birds the play begins
with the idea that Athens has become infested with lawyers and scroungers.
The unusual one sided Agon develops the idea of a paradise existing among
the birds to the establishment of a bird city that controls the traffic between
men and gods. Despite the joking exchanges that allow the protagonist to
become the ruler of the fantasy space of Cloudcuckooland usurping Zeus and
finally marrying Sovereignty, there is a sinister undertone as he moves from
oppressed to oppressor. This is not the wedding of a renaissance comedy in
which all wounds are healed, it is a shift in the status quo that should be
questioned. As Purdie notes ‘There is a difference between establishing that
comedy ends with celebratory feelings and agreeing that it should be only and
unreflectively celebrated’ (1993: 121).
Turning to the Discworld, the series nature of Pratchett’s work means that
there is never an assumption that all issues are resolved, and the long-term
development of characters, such as Vimes, underline the notion of growth
and transformation (Smith 2012). On the level of individual works Small Gods
(T. Pratchett, 1996) presents a dialectic between the history that was written
and the story as it is unfolding. It is the role of history monk, Lu Tze to ensure
that history happens as it is written, a social superego surreptitiously manipu-
lating events to create historical significance. However, Lu Tze is a creation of
comedy as social conscience, and rather than sticking to a script that has been
written, he engages with the events of Brutha’s encounter with his god Om,
and the attempt by the corrupt Vorbis to claim the role of prophet for himself.
While Brutha learns that gods do not really concern themselves with humans,
growing from a novice, who believes the scriptures literally, to the head of a
different type of church that was for people rather than gods, Lu Tze sweeps
around seemingly insignificant moments, such as the cooling process of an
apparently unimportant component in a major weapon, to ensure the history
that he wants. Ultimately Lu Tze does not simply get history back on track,
but gives it an extra nudge to avoid the 100 years of war that had been written,
a transformation that is a more logical outcome of walking with one’s deity
than the prescribed war. While this usurpation of a destiny would be seen as
problematic for the traditional superego, for comedy as social conscience, the
notion of learning is more significant than sticking to the rules, so the abbot’s
reponse to Lu Tze’s change of plan is ‘Just so long as it turns out all right in
the end’ (Pratchett 1996: 377).
Comedy as social conscience uses humour and comic structures to bring
the audience to a different way of thinking. In order for this to happen the

28
 Aristophanes’ Cloudcuckooland to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld

starting point needs to be one that the audience can clearly identify with,
so comedy as social conscience uses intertextual references to other cultural
works and the mobilization of popular discourses.
Intertextuality, playing with a known text or reference to create a new one,
or creating a diachronic dialogue with a previous text, is often considered a
feature of postmodernism, but it was also a feature of old comedy. In Clouds
Aristophanes plays with the philosophy of Socrates.
In Frogs, the protagonist, Dionysus, ventures to Hades to bring back a
poet from the underworld to address the lack of morality in contemporary
Athens and there is a scene in which the words of Aeschylus and Euripides
are weighed in order to ascertain which of the great poets is more worthy.
In Acharnians Dikaiopolis says that the war was caused by the kidnap-
ping first of Megarian and then Athenian prostitutes, a reference to Helen
of Troy as the cause of the Trojan wars, which formed the basis for several
Athenian tragedies. Likewise Platter highlights the dialogue of generic styles
in Aristophanes including the use of high linguistic styles associated with
tragedy placed in the mouths of low comic characters, which both undermine
the tragic original and create a comic incongruity.
The appreciation of the humour in these instances relies on the audiences’
knowledge of the sources, which would have been part of the popular culture
of the time.
Twentieth-century comedy often uses classical texts for intertextual refer-
ences, such as Tom Stoppard’s play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which
turns two minor characters from Shakespeare’s Hamlet into the protagonists of
his existential fantasy. A more Aristophanic use of Shakespeare may be seen in
the Witch strand of the Discworld series. Wyrd Sisters (T. Pratchett, 1997a), where
a king is murdered by his cousin and three witches attempt to put things straight
may be seen as the plot of Macbeth viewed from a different angle. Lady Felmet’s
attempts to use propaganda in distorting the people’s view of events, highlights
contemporary understanding of the play Macbeth as flattering the then Queen
Elizabeth I, rather than as an accurate representation of history. Significantly for
a study of comedy is the dialogue of texts at the level of recognizable lines. Wyrd
Sisters opens with a vivid depiction of a night time storm and three figures,

... As the cauldron bubbled an eldritch voice shrieked: ‘When shall we

three meet again?’
There was a pause.
Finally another voice said, in far more ordinary tones: ‘Well, I can do
next Tuesday’.
(Pratchett 1997a: 5)

In contrast to Stoppard’s use of more obscure parts of Shakespeare, Pratchett

uses one of the most famous lines and by giving it a mundane response,
creates the incongruity required to produce laughter. Thus on the opening
page Pratchett demonstrates to his audience, both that he will be using the
ideas around Macbeth, and that he will do so in a way that is both humor-
ous and accessible. Having established this intertextual link, when Pratchett
writes Lords and Ladies (1997b) four years later, the parallels between
Pratchett’s novel and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1600) require
less overt references. A group of artisans rehearsing a play in a forest and a
fairy queen are similar enough to Shakespeare’s play not to need direct quota-
tions. Thus the indirect quotation ‘Something about meeting by moonlight’

29
Eve Smith

3. Survey respondents (Pratchett 1997b: 350) does not create the laughter inducing incongruity of
refer to a 2007 online
survey N=1327, further
‘Next Tuesday’, but rather creates the more subtle pleasure of recognition.
discussion of this The extent to which Aristophanes drew on intertextual references may
survey may be found in be demonstrated by the decision to include a Who’s Who appendix in the
Smith (2011).
Methuen World Classics editions of his plays. This appendix includes some
60 entries for known figures such as gods and heroes from mythology that
Aristophanes either mentions or lampoons in his work. However, the same
appendix includes reference to 78 ‘real’ Athenians. So, while Aristophanes use
of Socrates in Clouds may be seen as an intertexual reference, the debates
around the teachings of Socrates, are more an example of how popular
discourses are used in this type of comedy. There are also frequent refer-
ences to the politics and military campaigns of the day with politicians Kleon
and Alcibiades being of particular prominence and the Peloponnesian wars
always in view. In Discworld we can see similar use of the popular concerns
of the day in the development of the debate around speciesism, which usually
stands in for racism, in the series of books featuring the city watch, and, to
show that concerns have not changed too much since Aristophanes day, there
are two particular books, Jingo (T. Pratchett, 1998) and Monstrous Regiment
(T. Pratchett 2003), which are anti-war narratives responding to the first and
second gulf wars, respectively.
In addition to cultural references, the accessibility of comedy as social
conscience depends on its sympathetic protagonists, Aristophanes uses a
host of figures that are representative of the average Athenian, even when he
depicts Dionysus in Frogs, it is not as a god, but as a fat coward, who likes a
drink. In the Discworld Pratchett has created a range of likeable characters,
including Death, the coward Rincewind, the heroic Carrot and the inimitable
Granny Weatherwax. However, the most popular by far is Vimes (Smith 2012),
a flawed, reformed alcoholic who by chance saves the city and marries the
richest woman in Ankh Morpork. When fans were asked why Vimes was their
favourite character many of them referred to him as an Everyman, but there
were also mentions of both his cynicism and his morality. So, like Aristophanes,
Pratchett is using a figure that may be seen as a representative of his audience,
that they can identify with, but who acts in a way that makes his audience
think, or as one respondent put it, ‘Because he thinks exactly as I wish I did,
but is not too perfect because he also thinks sometimes exactly as I do’ (survey
respondent 36).3 And it is this type of everyman character that is able to inspire
a change in the reader: ‘I aspire to his level of decency. I enjoy the cynical
humour. A book with Vimes in implies the rest of the Watch and I enjoy the
ensemble as a whole. He’s a good man’ (survey respondent 176). Vimes is also
often viewed as Pratchett’s representative in his work, echoing the parabasis of
old comedy in which the chorus speaks in the poet’s voice. Thereby presenting
the self as part of the social group requiring debate and change.
As with most traditional comedy there are elements of the mundane, the
everyday; However, what makes comedy as social conscience is a convic-
tion to an idea, the act of seeing this idea through to a probably incongru-
ous conclusion, which may be seen as a comment on the politicians’ failure to
consider the full ramifications of their decisions. So in Acharnians Aristophanes
takes the notion of an individual peace and runs with it, resulting in pros-
perity for the peaceful Dikiapolis while all around there is the poverty of war.
Pratchett’s entire Discworld series was initially based on the conventions of the
sword and sorcery type fantasy, but then taken to a logical conclusion, so in
this world questions such as who deals with the sewage, result in the creation

30
 Aristophanes’ Cloudcuckooland to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld

of the character Harry King, King of the Golden River (Pratchett 2000), the
Discworld’s entrepreneur who made a fortune from sewage, and at the same
time an allusion to John Ruskin’s famous poem. In NightWatch when there is an
uprising and the people are barricading the city, what happens to all the traffic
and trade trying to get into the city? An intertextual reference to Les Miserables
also becomes a comment on the practicalities of war and revolution, of course
Vimes ensures that the revolutionaries are on the side of the barricades with
the incoming produce, so that the revolutionaries all eat steak dinners. On a
lighter note, there are continual references to the constant changing of tech-
nology, from the imp-based iconograph in The Colour of Magic, which uses the
imp painting a picture very fast as a fantasy world substitute for a camera, to
Vimes struggles with various models of imp organizer. The phases that Vimes
goes through, initially attempting to use the organizer, frustration, ignoring the
organizer, trying to get rid of the organizer, and finally allowing the contrap-
tion to organize his schedule, may be familiar to readers getting to grips with
the latest phone technology. Paul Cartledge suggests that this kind of mingling
of the commonplace with the absurd can only happen in comic fantasy (2008:
38). This may be the case if a broader view of the term fantasy such as J. G.
Cawelti’s notion of the moral fantasy (1976: 38) is used, then a fantasy Britain
in which a fantasy Pimlico is stating its independence, much like Dikiapolis in
Acharnians, may be seen as comic fantasy or comedy as social conscience in the
Ealing comedy Passport to Pimlico. So we end up with a fantasy world, which
to a greater or lesser extent resembles our own that is used to highlight issues
and concerns in our world in order to bring the audience to a critical attitude
to those issues. For while both Aristophanes many fantastic spaces, such as
Cloudcuckooland, and Pratchett’s Discworld may be considered fantasy
worlds, their roots and concerns lie very much at the heart of the societies in
which they were produced and in which their audiences lived.
To conclude I am positing a sub-generic category of comedy as social
conscience based on the plays of Aristophanes, that is a popular form in any
medium, utilizing freedom of expression to create comedic narrative with a
dialectical rather than reactionary structure that uses intertextuality and famil-
iar discourses to create cultural resonance and provoke in its audience a critical
attitude to the dominant ideology. Comedy as social conscience incorporates
satire, but differs from it as superego two differs from traditional superego;
rather than simply criticizing others in society it includes the self as part of
that society and is more benevolent in its critique, the aim being a questioning
of the status quo with a view to learning, growth and transformation rather
than submission to the hegemonic order. Although this model was formu-
lated with comic fantasy such as Pratchett’s Discworld series, it may also be
applied to the comedic in a more realist moral fantasy. It has been suggested
‘genres are not neutral categories, but rather ideological constructs that
provide and enforce a pre-reading’ (Feuer 1992: 145) so in naming Comedy
as Social Conscience I hope to suggest a reading of this type of comedy that is
both critical and political.

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—— (1993), ‘Birds’, in J.M. Walton (ed.) Aristophanes Plays: Two (trans.
K. McLeish), London: Methuen, pp. 147–233.

31
Eve Smith

—— (1993), ‘Clouds’, in J.M. Walton (ed.) Aristophanes Plays: Two (trans.

K. McLeish), London: Methuen, pp. 69–145.
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32
 Aristophanes’ Cloudcuckooland to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld

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Suggested citation
Smith, E. (2013), ‘Aristophanes’ Cloudcuckooland to Terry Pratchett’s
Discworld: Comedy as social conscience’, Comedy Studies 4: 1, pp. 23–33,
doi: 10.1386/cost.4.1.23_1

Contributor details
Having abandoned the heady world of accountancy for the much more excit-
ing and cut-throat world of academia, Eve Smith is completing a Ph.D. on
Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series at Liverpool John Moores University, where
she works as a sessional lecturer. Previous articles from her research on
Discworld have been published in Diegesis and Participations.
Contact: 23 St Michaels Church Road, Liverpool, L17 7BD, UK.
E-mail: e.d.smith@ljmu.ac.uk

Eve Smith has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that was
submitted to Intellect Ltd.

33
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