Difference between revisions of "Ancient Greek Comedy" - New World Encyclopedia

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'''Greek comedy''' is the name given to a wide genre of [[theatre|theatrical]] [[play]]s written, and performed, in [[Ancient Greece]]. Along with [[tragedy]], it makes up the greater portion of ancient Greek theatre, and its descendant traditions.
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'''Comedy''' was one of two principal [[Ancient Greek theatre|drama]] forms in ancient Greece, the other being [[tragedy]]. Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods, ''Old Comedy'', ''Middle Comedy'', and ''New Comedy''. Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the eleven surviving plays of [[Aristophanes]], while New Comedy is known primarily from the substantial papyrus fragments of [[Menander]]. Middle Comedy is largely lost, i.e. preserved only in relatively short fragments in authors such as [[Athenaeus of Naucratis]].
  
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==Evolution==
 
  
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The evolution of comedy is much simpler than that of its sister art, tragedy, though as to its origin and earlier development there is little exact information. All that [[Aristotle]] can tell us is that it first took shape in [[Megaris]] and [[Sicyon]], whose people were noted for their coarse humour and sense of the ludicrous, while [[Susarion]], the earliest comic poet, was a native of a Megarian town. Add to this that it arose from the phallic processions of the Greeks, as did tragedy from the [[dithyramb]], and we have about all that is known about the origins of comedy.
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[[Image:Theatre slave Louvre CA7249.jpg|thumb|right|180px|[[Slave]] wearing the short tunic, phlyax [[actor]]. Detail, side A from a Silician red-figured calyx-krater, ca. 350 B.C.E.–340 B.C.E..]]
  
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At country festivals held in celebration of the vintage it was the custom for people to pass from village to village, some in carts, uttering the crude jests and abuse unjustly attributed to the tragic choruses; others on foot, bearing aloft the phallic emblem and singing the praises of [[Phales]], the comrade of [[Bacchus]]. In cities it was also the custom, after an evening [[banquet]], for young men to roam around the streets with torches in their hands, headed by a [[lyre]] or [[flute]]-player. Such a group of revellers was called a ''comus'', and a member of the band a comoedus or comus-singer, the song itself being termed a comoedia, or [[comedy]], just as a song of [[satyr]]s was named a tragoedia, or [[tragedy]].
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==Origins==
 +
[[Image:NAMA Masque esclave.jpg|thumb|left|220px|[[Ancient Greek Theatre|Theatre]] mask of a ''First Slave'' in [[Greek comedy]], 2nd century B.C.E., [[National Archaeological Museum of Athens]]]]
 +
There is little exact information regarding the origin and early development of ancient Greek comedy. According to [[Aristotle]], writing a century and a half later, it first took shape in [[Megara]] and [[Sicyon]], and [[Susarion]], the earliest Athenian comic poet, is himself supposed to have come from Megara. Aristotle also connects the origin of Comedy with popular phallic processions, and claims that it received official recognition (and thus state support) in Athens ''somewhat later'' than tragedy did. The Suda, supplemented by some inscriptional evidence, suggests that the earliest dramatic competitions in Athens took place at the [[City Dionysia]] festival in the early 480s B.C.E., and that a second competition was added at the [[Lenaea]]festival around 450. But comedies of some sort written by [[Epicharmus]] were performed already in the 490s in the Greek city of [[Syracuse, Italy|Syracuse]] in Sicily, and the origins of the genre cannot in fact be determined with any precision. The name itself apparently comes from the Greek words [[komos]], which means ''reveling band'', and the verb ''aeido'', ''to sing''.
  
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The Phallic processions were continued as late as the days of Aristotle ([[384 B.C.E.|384]] – [[322 B.C.E.]]), and we learn from one of the [[oration]]s of [[Demosthenes]] that the riotous youths who infested the streets of [[Athens]] delighted in their comic buffooneries. [[Pasquinade]]s of the most obscene kind were part of the exhibitions. When formally established as part of the Dionysiac festivals, the Leneas and Dionysia, it had its chorus, though less numerous and costly than the dithyrambic choir, and the [[actor]]s, at first without masks, disguised their features by smearing them with the [[lees]] of [[wine]].
+
Comedies were performed in Athens in formal competitions at two major festivals in honor of [[Dionysus]], the god of wine and now of theater. Each festival seems to have featured five comic poets staging a single play apiece, although it is possible that programs were reduced to three poets for a period due to the financial pressures of the [[Peloponnesian War]]. Poets applied to the [[archon]] in charge of the relevant festival for the right to participate in it. If chosen, they were awarded a [[choregos]], i.e. a wealthy man who funded the performance as a form of taxation.
  
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By [[Plato]] comedy is defined as the generic name for all exhibitions which have a tendency to excite laughter. Though its development was mainly due to the political and social conditions of Athens, it finally held up the mirror to all that was characteristic of Athenian life.
+
==Periods of Ancient Greek Comedy==
 +
The [[Alexandrine grammarians]] seem to have been the first to divide Greek comedy into what became the canonical three periods:<ref name="Mastromarco94">Mastromarco (1994) p.12</ref>  Old Comedy (''archàia''), Middle Comedy (''mese'') and New Comedy (''nea''). These divisions appear to be largely arbitrary, and ancient comedy almost certainly developed constantly over the years.
  
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==Forms of Ancient Greek Comedy==
+
===Old Comedy (''archàia'')===
  
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By a consensus of authorities comedy has been arranged in three divisions, or rather should they be termed variations in form - the old, the middle and the new.
+
The earliest Athenian comedy, from the 480s to 440s B.C.E., is almost entirely lost.
  
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===Old Comedy===
+
In order to impress the refined and cultured community of [[Athens]] in the age of [[Pericles]] the dramatists of the Old Comedy  borrowed all its most attractive features of tragedy:  choral dances, masked actors, poetic metres, scenery and stage mechanisma, and the dramatic form of [[Attic Greek]]. Thus comedy became a recognized branch of the drama,  presenting brilliant  dialogue and poetic beauty in the choral parts comparable to tragedy plays of the same period.
 +
 
 +
The most important dramatist of the Old Comedy was [[Aristophanes]].  His works define the legacy of Old Comedy, with their pungent political satire and abundance of sexual and scatological innuendo.  Aristophanes lampooned the most important personalities and institutions of his day, as can be seen in his buffoonish portrayal of [[Socrates]] in ''[[The Clouds]]'', and in his anti-military farce ''[[Lysistrata]]''. 
 +
 
 +
The Old Comedy subsequently influenced later European writers such as [[Rabelais]],  [[Cervantes]], [[Jonathan Swift|Swift]], and [[Voltaire]]. In particular, they copied the technique of disguising a political attack as buffoonery.
 +
 
 +
The legacy of Old Comedy can be seen in contemporary times in political satires such as ''[[Dr. Strangelove]]'' and in the televised buffoonery of [[Monty Python]] and ''[[Saturday Night Live]]''.
 +
 
 +
===Middle Comedy (''mese'')===
 +
 
 +
The line between Old and Middle Comedy is not very clearly marked, [[Aristophanes]] and others of the latest writers of the Old Comedy becoming the earliest writers of the Middle Comedy. The Middle Comedy was  an offshoot of the Old Comedy, but differed from it in three essential particulars: Middle Comedy had no chorus, public characters were not impersonated or personified on the stage, and the objects of ridicule were general rather than personal, literary rather than political. Where Old Comedy was caricature and lampoon, Middle Comedy was criticism and review.
 +
 
 +
The period of the Middle Comedy extended from the close of the [[Peloponnesian War]] to the enthrallment of [[Athens]] by [[Philip of Macedon]]; that is to say, from the closing years of the [[5th Century B.C.E.|fifth century B.C.E.]] to nearly the middle of the [[fourth century B.C.E.]]. It was extremely prolific in plays, but not especially so in genius. The favorite themes were the literary and social peculiarities of the day, which, together with the prominent systems of philosophy, were treated with light and not ill-natured ridicule. The Middle Comedy freely parodied the grandest tragedies of [[Aeschylus]] and [[Sophocles]], the noblest passages of [[Homer]], and the most beautiful lyrics of [[Pindar]] and [[Simonides]]. Subjects taken directly from ancient mythology were treated in the same way. In dealing with society, classes rather than individuals were attacked, as courtesans, parasites, revelers, and especially the self-conceited cook, who, with his parade of culinary science, was always a favorite target for the shafts of middle comedy.
 +
 
 +
===New Comedy (''nea'')===
 +
 
 +
[[Image:Figurine actor BM TerrD226.jpg|thumb|Molded terracotta figurine of an actor wearing the mask of a bald-headed white man, from the New Comedy, 2nd century B.C.E., from [[Canino]], Italy]]
 +
The new comedy lasted throughout the reign of the [[Macedonian]] rulers, ending about [[260 B.C.E.]].
  
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The old comedy, dating from the establishment of [[democracy]] by Kleisthenes, about [[510 B.C.E.]], arose, as we have seen, from the obscene jests of [[Dionysus|Dionysian]] revellers, to which was given a political application. In outward form these comedies were the most extravagant of [[burlesque]], in essence they were the most virulent of abuse and personal vilification. In its license of word and gesture, on its audacious directness of invective, no restriction was placed by the dramatist, the audience or the authorities. The satire and abuse were directed against some object of popular dislike, to whom were not only applied such [[epithet]]s as coward, fool and knave, but he was represented as saying and doing everything that was contemptible, as suffering everything that was ludicrous and degrading. But this alone would not have won for comedy such recognition as it received from the refined and cultured community of the age of Pericles. The comic dramatist who would gain a hearing in Athens must borrow from tragedy all its most attractive features, its choral dances, its masked actors, its metres, its scenery and stage mechanism, and above all the chastened elegance of the [[Attic Greek|Attic language]] - for this the audience required from the dramatist, as from the [[Lyric poetry|lyric]] poet and the [[orator]]. Thus comedy became a recognized branch of the drama, often presenting a brilliant sparkle in dialogue and a poetic beauty in the choral parts not unworthy of the best efforts of the tragic muse. Thus, also, it became a powerful engine in the hands of a skillful and unscrupulous politician.
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Very little of the text of the New Comedy has survived. A few Greek fragments  have come down to us. During the [[twentieth century]]. The complete text of ''[[Dyskolos]]'', a play by [[Menander]], the leading writer of New Comedy, has been rediscovered. It is the only example of New Comedy to have survived in its entirety. A few long fragments by Menander have survived as well from such plays as The Arbitraton, [[The Girl from Samos]], The Shorn Girl, and The Hero). Thus much knowledge of the New Comedy is  derived from the [[Latin]] adaptations by [[Plautus]] and [[Terence]].
  
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It was upon this stock that the mighty genius of [[Aristophanes]] grafted the [[Pantagruel]]ism, which, ever since it was reproduced by [[Rabelais]], has had among European writers, as in [[Cervantes]], [[Jonathan Swift|Swift]], [[Voltaire]] and others, some adequate representation. Though the word Pantagruelism is applied by Rabelais to the characters sustained by court fools, he made a free use both of the spirit and mechanical appliances of old Greek comedy, adopting the disguise of buffoonery to attack some prevailing form of cant and hypocrisy. And this is precisely what Aristophanes did, the term invented by the great French master accurately describing the chief characteristics of his prototype.
+
For the first time love became a principal element in the drama. The New Comedy relied on [[stock character]]s such as the [[senex iratus]], or "angry old man," the domineering parent who is all too often led into the vices and follies for which he has reproved his son, and the [[Miles Gloriosus|bragging soldier]] or mercenary soldier newly returned from war with a noisy tongue, a full purse and an empty head. With these exceptions, the characters were very much the same as in the middle comedy. The new comedy  represented  Athenian society and the social morality of the period; but it made no attempt to improve it, presenting only in attractive colors .
  
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===Middle Comedy===
+
The New Comedy influenced much of Western European literature, in particular the comic drama of [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]] and [[Ben Jonson]], [[William Congreve (playwright)|Congreve]] and [[William Wycherley|Wycherley]]<ref>The Drama: Its History, Literature and Influence on Civilization, vol. 1. ed. Alfred Bates. London: Historical Publishing Company, 1906. pp. 30-31.</ref>.
  
−
The line between old and middle comedy is not very clearly marked, Aristophanes and others of the latest writers of the one becoming the earliest writers of the other. The latter was indeed merely an offshoot of the former, but differed from it in three essential particulars:
+
Much of contemporary romantic and situational comedy descends from the New Comedy sensibility, in particular generational comedies such as ''[[All in the Family]]'' and ''[[Meet the Parents]]''.
−
#it had no chorus
 
−
#public characters were not impersonated or personified on the stage
 
−
#the objects of its ridicule were general rather than personal, literary rather than political.
 
−
Where Old Comedy was caricature and lampoon, Middle Comedy was criticism and review.
 
  
−
The period of the middle comedy extended from the close of the [[Peloponnesian war]] to the enthralment of Athens by [[Philip of Macedon]]; that is to say, from the closing years of the [[5th century B.C.E.|fifth]] to nearly the middle of the [[fourth century B.C.E.]]. It was extremely prolific in plays, but not especially so in genius. The favorite themes were the literary and social peculiarities of the day, which, together with the prominent systems of [[Greek philosophy|philosophy]], were treated with light and not ill-natured ridicule. The grandest tragedies of [[Æschylus]] and [[Sophocles]], the noblest passages of [[Homer]], and the most beautiful lyrics of [[Pindar]] and [[Simonides]] were freely parodied, and in the same way were treated subjects taken directly from ancient mythology. In dealing with society, classes rather than individuals were attacked, as courtesans, parasites, revellers, and especially the self-conceited cook, who, with his parade of culinary science, was always a favorite target for the shafts of middle comedy.
+
==See also==
 +
*[[Agon]] at the [[Dionysia]] (mixed audiences) and [[Lenaia]] (local Athens audience only)
 +
*[[Phallic processions]]
 +
*[[Theatre of Dionysus]]
 +
*[[Cult of Dionysus]]
  
 +
==List of Comic Dramatists==
 +
Some dramatists overlap into more than one period.
 +
===Old Comedy===
 +
*[[Susarion]] of [[Megara]] (~580 B.C.E.)
 +
*[[Epicharmus of Kos]] (~540-450 B.C.E.)
 +
*[[Cratinus]] (~520-420 B.C.E.)
 +
*[[Chionides]] 486 B.C.E.
 +
*[[Magnes (comic poet)|Magnes]] 472 B.C.E.
 +
*[[Eunicus]]  5th c.BC
 +
*[[Eupolis]] (~446-411 B.C.E.)
 +
*[[Hegemon of Thasos]] 5th c.BC
 +
*[[Telecleides]] 5th c.BC
 +
*[[Pherecrates]] 5th c.BC
 +
*[[Crates (comic poet)]] ca.450 c.BC
 +
*[[Hermippus]] 435 B.C.E.
 +
*[[Phrynichus (comic poet)|Phrynichus]] (~429 B.C.E.)
 +
*Cantharus[http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0605.html] 422 B.C.E.
 +
*[[Strattis]] (~412-390 B.C.E.)
 +
*Cephisodorus[http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0677.html] 402 B.C.E.
 +
*[[Plato (comic poet)]] late 5th c.BC
 +
*[[Nicophon]] 5th c.BC
 +
*[[Nicochares]] (d.~345 B.C.E.)
 +
*[[Callias Schoenion]][http:-bio/0577.html]
 +
*[[Sannyrion]][http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/3039.html]
 +
*[[Diocles of Phlius]][http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/1016.html]
 +
*'''[[Aristophanes]]'''(~456–386 B.C.E.)
 +
*His sons Araros, Philippus, and Nicostratus were also comic poets.
 +
*[[Antiphanes]] (~408-334 B.C.E.)
 +
===Middle Comedy===
 +
*[[Eubulus (poet)|Eubulus]] early 4th c.BC
 +
*[[Epicrates of Ambracia]] 4th c.BC
 +
*[[Anaxandrides]]  4th c.BC
 +
*[[Alexis]]  (~375 B.C.E. - 275 B.C.E.)
 +
*'''[[Menander]]''' (~342–291 B.C.E.)
 
===New Comedy===
 
===New Comedy===
 +
*Philippides[http://books.google.com/books?id=daENAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PR45&dq=Philippides]
 +
*[[Philemon (poet)|Philemon]] of [[Soli, Cilicia|Soli]] or [[Syracuse, Sicily|Syracuse]] (~362–262 B.C.E.)
 +
*[[Apollodorus of Carystus]] (~300-260 B.C.E.)
 +
*[[Diphilus]] of [[Sinope]]  (~340-290 B.C.E.)
 +
*[[Machon]] of Corinth/Alexandria 3th c.BC
 +
*[[Poseidippus of Cassandreia]] (~316–250 B.C.E.)
 +
*Laines or Laenes 185 B.C.E.
 +
*Philemon 183 B.C.E.
 +
*Chairion or Chaerion 154 B.C.E.
  
−
The new comedy lasted throughout the reign of the Macedonian rulers, ending about [[260 B.C.E.]]. It may be studied to better advantage in the [[Latin]] adaptations by [[Plautus]] and [[Terence]] than in the few Greek fragments that have come down to us (though during the [[twentieth century]], the complete text of [[Dyskolos]], a play by [[Menander]], the leading writer of New Comedy, has been rediscovered. It is the only example of New Comedy to have survived in its entirety. A few long fragments by Menander have survived as well from such plays as The Arbitration, [[The Girl from Samos]], The Shorn Girl, and The Hero), nor did it differ essentially from the comic drama of [[Shakespeare]] and [[Ben Jonson]], [[William Congreve (playwright)|Congreve]] and [[Wycherley]]. For the first time love became a principal element in the drama, but it was seldom an honest love. The stock characters of the "heavy father," the domineering parent who is all too often led into the vices and follies for which he has reproved his son, and the mercenary soldier newly returned from war with a noisy tongue, a full purse and an empty head also make their appearances. With these exceptions, the characters were very much the same as in the middle comedy. There can be little doubt that the new comedy faithfully represented the most salient features of Athenian society; but it made no attempt to improve it, presenting only in attractive colors the lax morality of the age.
+
==Notes==
 +
{{Reflist}}
  
−
==References==
+
==References==
 
* Aristotle, ''Poetics'', lines beginning at 1449a. [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Poet.+1449a]
 
* Aristotle, ''Poetics'', lines beginning at 1449a. [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Poet.+1449a]
−
*''The Drama: Its History, Literature and Influence on Civilization'', volume 1, by [[Alfred Bates]]. ([[London]]: Historical Publishing Company, [[1906]])
+
*''The Drama: Its History, Literature and Influence on Civilization'', volume 1, by [[Alfred Bates]]. ([[London]]: Historical Publishing Company, 1906)
 
* P.W. Buckham, ''Theatre of the Greeks'', 1827.
 
* P.W. Buckham, ''Theatre of the Greeks'', 1827.
 
* [[F. M. Cornford|Francis MacDonald Cornford]], ''The Origin of Attic Comedy'', 1934.
 
* [[F. M. Cornford|Francis MacDonald Cornford]], ''The Origin of Attic Comedy'', 1934.
 +
*[[Giuseppe Mastromarco|Mastromarco, Giuseppe]]: (1994) ''Introduzione a Aristofane'' (Sesta edizione: Roma-Bari 2004). ISBN 8842044482
 
*Xavier Riu, ''Dionysism and Comedy'', 1999. [http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2000/2000-06-13.html]
 
*Xavier Riu, ''Dionysism and Comedy'', 1999. [http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2000/2000-06-13.html]
 +
*[http://www.researchislife.net/oldcomedy]
  
 
==External links==
 
==External links==
 
*[http://www.theatrehistory.com/ancient/bates001.html An article on the origin of comedy]
 
*[http://www.theatrehistory.com/ancient/bates001.html An article on the origin of comedy]
−
*[http://www.leeds.ac.uk/classics/heath/Aristotle%20on%20comedy.pdf "Aristotle on Comedy" by Prof. Malcolm Heath, University of Leeds]
+
*[http://www.leeds.ac.uk/classics/heath/Aristotle%20on%20comedy.pdf "Aristotle on Comedy" by Malcolm Heath, University of Leeds]
−
*[http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20060713.shtml BBC Radio 4 "In Our Time" programme on ancient Greek Comedy, Thursday 13 July 2006]  
+
*[http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20060713.shtml BBC Radio 4 "In Our Time" programme on ancient Greek Comedy, Thursday 13 July 2006]
 +
*[http://home.wxs.nl/~brouw724/CommunitasEn.html Communitas and classical Greek ritual theatre on www.mysticism.nl]
  
 
[[Category:Art, music, literature, sports and leisure]]
 
[[Category:Art, music, literature, sports and leisure]]
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{{credit1|Ancient Greek Comedy|65074126}}
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{{credit1|Ancient_Greek_Comedy|231054657}}

Revision as of 19:41, 12 August 2008

Comedy was one of two principal drama forms in ancient Greece, the other being tragedy. Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods, Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, and New Comedy. Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the eleven surviving plays of Aristophanes, while New Comedy is known primarily from the substantial papyrus fragments of Menander. Middle Comedy is largely lost, i.e. preserved only in relatively short fragments in authors such as Athenaeus of Naucratis.


Slave wearing the short tunic, phlyax actor. Detail, side A from a Silician red-figured calyx-krater, ca. 350 B.C.E.–340 B.C.E.

Origins

Theatre mask of a First Slave in Greek comedy, 2nd century B.C.E., National Archaeological Museum of Athens

There is little exact information regarding the origin and early development of ancient Greek comedy. According to Aristotle, writing a century and a half later, it first took shape in Megara and Sicyon, and Susarion, the earliest Athenian comic poet, is himself supposed to have come from Megara. Aristotle also connects the origin of Comedy with popular phallic processions, and claims that it received official recognition (and thus state support) in Athens somewhat later than tragedy did. The Suda, supplemented by some inscriptional evidence, suggests that the earliest dramatic competitions in Athens took place at the City Dionysia festival in the early 480s B.C.E., and that a second competition was added at the Lenaeafestival around 450. But comedies of some sort written by Epicharmus were performed already in the 490s in the Greek city of Syracuse in Sicily, and the origins of the genre cannot in fact be determined with any precision. The name itself apparently comes from the Greek words komos, which means reveling band, and the verb aeido, to sing.

Comedies were performed in Athens in formal competitions at two major festivals in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine and now of theater. Each festival seems to have featured five comic poets staging a single play apiece, although it is possible that programs were reduced to three poets for a period due to the financial pressures of the Peloponnesian War. Poets applied to the archon in charge of the relevant festival for the right to participate in it. If chosen, they were awarded a choregos, i.e. a wealthy man who funded the performance as a form of taxation.

Periods of Ancient Greek Comedy

The Alexandrine grammarians seem to have been the first to divide Greek comedy into what became the canonical three periods:[1] Old Comedy (archàia), Middle Comedy (mese) and New Comedy (nea). These divisions appear to be largely arbitrary, and ancient comedy almost certainly developed constantly over the years.

Old Comedy (archàia)

The earliest Athenian comedy, from the 480s to 440s B.C.E., is almost entirely lost.

In order to impress the refined and cultured community of Athens in the age of Pericles the dramatists of the Old Comedy borrowed all its most attractive features of tragedy: choral dances, masked actors, poetic metres, scenery and stage mechanisma, and the dramatic form of Attic Greek. Thus comedy became a recognized branch of the drama, presenting brilliant dialogue and poetic beauty in the choral parts comparable to tragedy plays of the same period.

The most important dramatist of the Old Comedy was Aristophanes. His works define the legacy of Old Comedy, with their pungent political satire and abundance of sexual and scatological innuendo. Aristophanes lampooned the most important personalities and institutions of his day, as can be seen in his buffoonish portrayal of Socrates in The Clouds, and in his anti-military farce Lysistrata.

The Old Comedy subsequently influenced later European writers such as Rabelais, Cervantes, Swift, and Voltaire. In particular, they copied the technique of disguising a political attack as buffoonery.

The legacy of Old Comedy can be seen in contemporary times in political satires such as Dr. Strangelove and in the televised buffoonery of Monty Python and Saturday Night Live.

Middle Comedy (mese)

The line between Old and Middle Comedy is not very clearly marked, Aristophanes and others of the latest writers of the Old Comedy becoming the earliest writers of the Middle Comedy. The Middle Comedy was an offshoot of the Old Comedy, but differed from it in three essential particulars: Middle Comedy had no chorus, public characters were not impersonated or personified on the stage, and the objects of ridicule were general rather than personal, literary rather than political. Where Old Comedy was caricature and lampoon, Middle Comedy was criticism and review.

The period of the Middle Comedy extended from the close of the Peloponnesian War to the enthrallment of Athens by Philip of Macedon; that is to say, from the closing years of the fifth century B.C.E. to nearly the middle of the fourth century B.C.E. It was extremely prolific in plays, but not especially so in genius. The favorite themes were the literary and social peculiarities of the day, which, together with the prominent systems of philosophy, were treated with light and not ill-natured ridicule. The Middle Comedy freely parodied the grandest tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles, the noblest passages of Homer, and the most beautiful lyrics of Pindar and Simonides. Subjects taken directly from ancient mythology were treated in the same way. In dealing with society, classes rather than individuals were attacked, as courtesans, parasites, revelers, and especially the self-conceited cook, who, with his parade of culinary science, was always a favorite target for the shafts of middle comedy.

New Comedy (nea)

Molded terracotta figurine of an actor wearing the mask of a bald-headed white man, from the New Comedy, 2nd century B.C.E., from Canino, Italy

The new comedy lasted throughout the reign of the Macedonian rulers, ending about 260 B.C.E.

Very little of the text of the New Comedy has survived. A few Greek fragments have come down to us. During the twentieth century. The complete text of Dyskolos, a play by Menander, the leading writer of New Comedy, has been rediscovered. It is the only example of New Comedy to have survived in its entirety. A few long fragments by Menander have survived as well from such plays as The Arbitraton, The Girl from Samos, The Shorn Girl, and The Hero). Thus much knowledge of the New Comedy is derived from the Latin adaptations by Plautus and Terence.

For the first time love became a principal element in the drama. The New Comedy relied on stock characters such as the senex iratus, or "angry old man," the domineering parent who is all too often led into the vices and follies for which he has reproved his son, and the bragging soldier or mercenary soldier newly returned from war with a noisy tongue, a full purse and an empty head. With these exceptions, the characters were very much the same as in the middle comedy. The new comedy represented Athenian society and the social morality of the period; but it made no attempt to improve it, presenting only in attractive colors .

The New Comedy influenced much of Western European literature, in particular the comic drama of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, Congreve and Wycherley[2].

Much of contemporary romantic and situational comedy descends from the New Comedy sensibility, in particular generational comedies such as All in the Family and Meet the Parents.

See also

  • Agon at the Dionysia (mixed audiences) and Lenaia (local Athens audience only)
  • Phallic processions
  • Theatre of Dionysus
  • Cult of Dionysus

List of Comic Dramatists

Some dramatists overlap into more than one period.

Old Comedy

  • Susarion of Megara (~580 B.C.E.)
  • Epicharmus of Kos (~540-450 B.C.E.)
  • Cratinus (~520-420 B.C.E.)
  • Chionides 486 B.C.E.
  • Magnes 472 B.C.E.
  • Eunicus 5th c.BC
  • Eupolis (~446-411 B.C.E.)
  • Hegemon of Thasos 5th c.BC
  • Telecleides 5th c.BC
  • Pherecrates 5th c.BC
  • Crates (comic poet) ca.450 c.BC
  • Hermippus 435 B.C.E.
  • Phrynichus (~429 B.C.E.)
  • Cantharus[1] 422 B.C.E.
  • Strattis (~412-390 B.C.E.)
  • Cephisodorus[2] 402 B.C.E.
  • Plato (comic poet) late 5th c.BC
  • Nicophon 5th c.BC
  • Nicochares (d.~345 B.C.E.)
  • Callias Schoenion[http:-bio/0577.html]
  • Sannyrion[3]
  • Diocles of Phlius[4]
  • Aristophanes(~456–386 B.C.E.)
  • His sons Araros, Philippus, and Nicostratus were also comic poets.
  • Antiphanes (~408-334 B.C.E.)

Middle Comedy

  • Eubulus early 4th c.BC
  • Epicrates of Ambracia 4th c.BC
  • Anaxandrides 4th c.BC
  • Alexis (~375 B.C.E. - 275 B.C.E.)
  • Menander (~342–291 B.C.E.)

New Comedy

  • Philippides[5]
  • Philemon of Soli or Syracuse (~362–262 B.C.E.)
  • Apollodorus of Carystus (~300-260 B.C.E.)
  • Diphilus of Sinope (~340-290 B.C.E.)
  • Machon of Corinth/Alexandria 3th c.BC
  • Poseidippus of Cassandreia (~316–250 B.C.E.)
  • Laines or Laenes 185 B.C.E.
  • Philemon 183 B.C.E.
  • Chairion or Chaerion 154 B.C.E.

Notes

  1. ↑ Mastromarco (1994) p.12
  2. ↑ The Drama: Its History, Literature and Influence on Civilization, vol. 1. ed. Alfred Bates. London: Historical Publishing Company, 1906. pp. 30-31.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Aristotle, Poetics, lines beginning at 1449a. [6]
  • The Drama: Its History, Literature and Influence on Civilization, volume 1, by Alfred Bates. (London: Historical Publishing Company, 1906)
  • P.W. Buckham, Theatre of the Greeks, 1827.
  • Francis MacDonald Cornford, The Origin of Attic Comedy, 1934.
  • Mastromarco, Giuseppe: (1994) Introduzione a Aristofane (Sesta edizione: Roma-Bari 2004). ISBN 8842044482
  • Xavier Riu, Dionysism and Comedy, 1999. [7]
  • [8]

External links

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