Description:
This paper offers a new interpretation of Ar. Nub. 554. The aim is to stress the dependence of the expression ἐκστρέψας ... κακὸς κακῶς on a principle of ancient literary criticism here called the "poetic identity principle", based on the overlap between the author's nature and the content of his work. This dependence has been neglected until now. Therefore, I shall prove the principle is present in the line by first analysing the structure of the sequence in which the line is found (518–559) and then comparing l. 554 to other of Aristophanes' loci. Moreover, I shall argue that Aristophanes usually recalls the principle to build negative and positive poetic paradigms: such a principle may also concern the author himself within his own work, which had not been noticed before.