Old Comedy (''archaia'') is the first period of the
ancient Greek comedy
Ancient Greek comedy was one of the final three principal dramatic forms in the theatre of classical Greece (the others being tragedy and the satyr play). Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods: Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, an ...
, according to the canonical division by the
Alexandrian grammarians.
[Mastromarco (1994) p.12] The most important Old Comic playwright is
Aristophanes
Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme
In Ancient Greece, a deme or ( grc, δῆμος, plural: demoi, δημοι) was a suburb or a subdivision of Athens and other city-states ...
– whose works, with their daring political commentary and abundance of sexual innuendo, effectively define the genre today.
Origins and history
The Greek word for comedy (''kōmōidía'') derives from the words for 'revel' and 'song' (''kōmos'' and ''ōdē'') and according to Aristotle comic drama actually developed from song. The first official comedy at the
City Dionysia
The Dionysia (, , ; Greek: Διονύσια) was a large festival in ancient Athens in honor of the god Dionysus, the central events of which were the theatrical performances of dramatic tragedies and, from 487 BC, comedies. It was the s ...
was not staged until 487/6 BC, by which time tragedy had already been long established there. The first comedy at the
Lenaia
The Lenaia ( grc, Λήναια) was an annual Athenian festival with a dramatic competition. It was one of the lesser festivals of Athens and Ionia in ancient Greece. The Lenaia took place in Athens in Gamelion, roughly corresponding to January. T ...
was staged later still, only about 20 years before the performance there of ''The Acharnians'', the first of Aristophanes' surviving plays. According to Aristotle, comedy was slow to gain official acceptance because nobody took it seriously, yet only 60 years after comedy first appeared at the City Dionysia, Aristophanes observed that producing comedies was the most difficult work of all. Competition at the Dionysian festivals needed dramatic conventions for plays to be judged, but it also fuelled innovations. Developments were quite rapid and Aristotle could distinguish between 'old' and 'new' comedy by 330 BC.
The origins of the Old Comedy were traced by
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
to the
komos
The Kōmos ( grc, κῶμος; pl. kōmoi) was a ritualistic drunken procession performed by revelers in ancient Greece, whose participants were known as komasts (κωμασταί, ''kōmastaí''). Its precise nature has been difficult to recon ...
or celebratory festival processions of ancient Greece, and the phallic songs that accompanied them. Although the earliest Athenian comedy, from the 480s to 440s BC, is almost entirely lost, it is clear that comedy had already crystallised into a highly structured form, with the chorus playing a central role. The most important poets of the period were
Magnes, whose work survives only in a few fragments of dubious authenticity, and
Cratinus
Cratinus ( grc-gre, Κρατῖνος; 519 BC – 422 BC) was an Athenian comic poet of the Old Comedy.
Life
Cratinus was victorious 27 known times, eight times at the City Dionysia, first probably in the mid-to-late 450s BCE (IG II2 2325. 50), ...
, who took the prize at the
City Dionysia
The Dionysia (, , ; Greek: Διονύσια) was a large festival in ancient Athens in honor of the god Dionysus, the central events of which were the theatrical performances of dramatic tragedies and, from 487 BC, comedies. It was the s ...
probably sometime around 450 BC. Although no complete plays by Cratinus are preserved, they are known through hundreds of fragments: he was noted in antiquity both for a mastery of plot and for the obscene vehemence of his attacks on
Pericles
Pericles (; grc-gre, Περικλῆς; c. 495 – 429 BC) was a Greek politician and general during the Golden Age of Athens. He was prominent and influential in Athenian politics, particularly between the Greco-Persian Wars and the Pelo ...
.
![Thalia sarcophagus Louvre Ma475](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Thalia_sarcophagus_Louvre_Ma475.jpg)
Aristophanes and his contemporaries
Aristophanes satirized and lampooned the most prominent personalities and institutions of his time, as can be seen, for example, in his scurrilous portrayal of
Socrates
Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...
in ''
The Clouds
''The Clouds'' ( grc, Νεφέλαι ''Nephelai'') is a Greek comedy play written by the playwright Aristophanes. A lampooning of intellectual fashions in classical Athens, it was originally produced at the City Dionysia in 423BC and was not ...
'', and in his racy anti-war farce ''
Lysistrata
''Lysistrata'' ( or ; Attic Greek: , ''Lysistrátē'', "Army Disbander") is an ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC. It is a comic account of a woman's extraordinary mission to end the Peloponne ...
''. Aristophanes was only one of a large number of comic poets, however, working in Athens in the late 5th century BC; his biggest rivals were
Hermippus
Hermippus ( grc-gre, Ἕρμιππος; fl. 5th century BC) was the one-eyed Athenian writer of the Old Comedy, who flourished during the Peloponnesian War. Life
He was the son of Lysis, and the brother of the comic poet Myrtilus. He was younger t ...
and
Eupolis
Eupolis ( grc-gre, Εὔπολις; c. 446c. 411 BC) was an Athenian poet of the Old Comedy, who flourished during the time of the Peloponnesian War.
Biography
Nothing whatsoever is known of his personal history. His father was named Sosipolis. ...
. Classical literary criticism placed Aristophanes somewhere between the harshness of Cratinus and the smoothness of Eupolis.
All the Old Comedy writers worked within a highly structured format –
parados A parodos (also parode and parodus; grc, πάροδος, 'entrance', plural ), in the theater of ancient Greece, is a side-entrance to the stage, or the first song that is sung by the chorus at the beginning of a Greek tragedy.
Side-entrance to t ...
,
agon, and
parabasis
In Greek comedy, the parabasis (plural parabases; grc, παράβασις, plural: ) is a point in the play when all of the actors leave the stage and the chorus is left to address the audience directly. The chorus partially or completely abandons ...
– which paradoxically offered maximum scope for improvisatory flights of fancy. Song, dance, costume, and chorus all played important roles, as did the
parody
A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subj ...
of the ‘senior’ drama,
tragedy
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy ...
. Possibly due to the influence of tragedy was the important role of a heroic figure in Aristophanic comedy: as
Northrop Frye
Herman Northrop Frye (July 14, 1912 – January 23, 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century.
Frye gained international fame with his first book, '' Fearful Symm ...
put it, “In Aristophanes there is usually a central figure who constructs his (or her) own society in the teeth of strong opposition”. The diminished role of the protagonist (and chorus) in his latest works marks a point of transition to the
Middle comedy
Ancient Greek comedy was one of the final three principal dramatic forms in the theatre of classical Greece (the others being tragedy and the satyr play). Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods: Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, an ...
.
The trend from Old Comedy to New Comedy saw a move away from highly topical concerns with real individuals and local issues towards generalized situations and stock characters. This was partly due to the internationalization of cultural perspectives during and after the Peloponnesian War. For ancient commentators such as Plutarch, New Comedy was a more sophisticated form of drama than Old Comedy. However, Old Comedy was in fact a complex and sophisticated dramatic form incorporating many approaches to humour and entertainment. In Aristophanes' early plays, the genre appears to have developed around a complex set of dramatic conventions, and these were only gradually simplified and abandoned.
The City Dionysia and the Lenaia were celebrated in honour of Dionysus, the god of wine and ecstasy. (
Euripides
Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful e ...
' play ''
The Bacchae
''The Bacchae'' (; grc-gre, Βάκχαι, ''Bakchai''; also known as ''The Bacchantes'' ) is an ancient Greek tragedy, written by the Athenian playwright Euripides during his final years in Macedonia, at the court of Archelaus I of Macedon. ...
'' offers the best insight into fifth century ideas about this god.) Old Comedy can be understood as a celebration of the exuberant sense of release inherent in his worship. It was more interested in finding targets for satire than in any kind of advocacy. During the City Dionysia, a statue of the god was brought to the theatre from a temple outside the city, and it remained in the theatre throughout the festival, overseeing the plays like a privileged member of the audience. In ''The Frogs'', the god appears also as a dramatic character, and he enters the theatre ludicrously disguised as
Hercules
Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures.
The Romans adapted the Gr ...
. He observes to the audience that every time he is on hand to hear a joke from a comic dramatist like Phrynichus (one of Aristophanes' rivals) he ages by more than a year. This scene opens the play, and it is a reminder to the audience that nobody is above mockery in Old Comedy—not even its patron god and its practitioners. Gods, artists, politicians and ordinary citizens were legitimate targets; comedy was a kind of licensed buffoonery, and there was no legal redress for anyone who was slandered in a play. There were certain limits to the scope of the satire, but they are not easily defined. Impiety could be punished in fifth century Athens, but the absurdities implicit in the traditional religion were open to ridicule. The
polis
''Polis'' (, ; grc-gre, πόλις, ), plural ''poleis'' (, , ), literally means "city" in Greek. In Ancient Greece, it originally referred to an administrative and religious city center, as distinct from the rest of the city. Later, it also ...
was not allowed to be slandered, but as stated in the biography section of this article, that could depend on who was in the audience and which festival was involved.
For convenience, Old Comedy, as represented by Aristophanes' early plays, is analysed below in terms of three broad characteristics—topicality, festivity and complexity. Dramatic structure contributes to the complexity of Aristophanes' plays. However, it is associated with poetic rhythms and meters that have little relevance to English translations and it is therefore treated in a separate section.
Topicality
Old Comedy's emphasis on real personalities and local issues makes the plays difficult to appreciate today without the aid of scholarly commentaries—see for example articles on ''
The Knights
''The Knights'' ( grc, Ἱππεῖς ''Hippeîs''; Attic: ) was the fourth play written by Aristophanes, who is considered the master of an ancient form of drama known as Old Comedy. The play is a satire on the social and political life of cla ...
'', ''
The Wasps
''The Wasps'' ( grc-x-classical, Σφῆκες, translit=Sphēkes) is the fourth in chronological order of the eleven surviving plays by Aristophanes. It was produced at the Lenaia festival in 422 BC, during Athens' short-lived respite from the ...
'' and ''
Peace
Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. ...
'' for lists of topical references. The topicality of the plays had unique consequences for both the writing and the production of the plays in ancient Athens.
* Individual masks: All actors in
classical Athens
The city of Athens ( grc, Ἀθῆναι, ''Athênai'' .tʰɛ̂ː.nai̯ Modern Greek: Αθήναι, ''Athine'' or, more commonly and in singular, Αθήνα, ''Athina'' .'θi.na during the classical period of ancient Greece (480–323 BC) wa ...
wore masks, but whereas in tragedy and New Comedy these identified stereotypical characters, in Old Comedy the masks were often caricatures of real people. Perhaps Socrates attracted a lot of attention in Old Comedy because his face lent itself easily to caricature by mask-makers. In ''The Knights'' we are told that the mask makers were too afraid to make a caricature of Cleon (there represented as a Paphlagonian slave) but we are assured that the audience is clever enough to identify him anyway.
* The real scene of action: Since Old Comedy makes numerous references to people in the audience, the theatre itself was the real scene of action and theatrical illusion was treated as something of a joke. In ''The Acharnians'', for example, the
Pnyx
The Pnyx (; grc, Πνύξ ; ell, Πνύκα, ''Pnyka'') is a hill in central Athens, the capital of Greece. Beginning as early as 507 BC ( Fifth-century Athens), the Athenians gathered on the Pnyx to host their popular assemblies, thus making ...
is just a few steps from the hero's front door, and in ''Peace'' Olympus is separated from Athens by a few moments' supposed flight on a dung beetle. The audience is sometimes drawn or even dragged into the action. When the hero in ''Peace'' returns to Athens from his flight to Olympus, he tells the audience that they looked like rascals when seen from the heavens, and seen up close they look even worse. In ''The Acharnians'' the hero confronts the
archon basileus ''Archon basileus'' ( grc, ἄρχων βασιλεύς ') was a Greek title, meaning "king magistrate": the term is derived from the words ''archon'' "magistrate" and '' basileus'' "king" or " sovereign".
Most modern scholars claim that in Classic ...
, sitting in the front row, and demands to be awarded first prize for a drinking competition, which is a none too subtle way for Aristophanes to request first prize for the drama competition.
* Self-mocking theatre: Frequent parodying of tragedy is an aspect of Old Comedy that modern audiences find difficult to understand. But the Lenaia and City Dionysia included performances of both comedies and tragedies, and thus references to tragedy were highly topical and immediately relevant to the original audience. The comic dramatist also poked fun at comic poets and he even ridiculed himself. It is possible, as indicated earlier, that Aristophanes mocked his own baldness. In ''The Clouds'', the Chorus compares him to an unwed, young mother and in ''The Acharnians'' the Chorus mockingly depicts him as Athens' greatest weapon in the war against Sparta.
* Political theatre: The Lenaia and City Dionysia were state-sponsored, religious festivals, and though the latter was the more prestigious of the two, both were occasions for official pomp and circumstance. The ceremonies for the Lenaia were overseen by the
archon basileus ''Archon basileus'' ( grc, ἄρχων βασιλεύς ') was a Greek title, meaning "king magistrate": the term is derived from the words ''archon'' "magistrate" and '' basileus'' "king" or " sovereign".
Most modern scholars claim that in Classic ...
and by officials of the
Eleusinian mysteries
The Eleusinian Mysteries ( el, Ἐλευσίνια Μυστήρια, Eleusínia Mystḗria) were initiations held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone based at the Panhellenic Sanctuary of Elefsina in ancient Greece. They are the " ...
. The City Dionysia was overseen by the
archon eponymos
In ancient Greece the chief magistrate in various Greek city states was called eponymous archon (ἐπώνυμος ἄρχων, ''epōnymos archōn''). "Archon" (ἄρχων, pl. ἄρχοντες, ''archontes'') means "ruler" or "lord", frequently ...
and the priest of Dionysus. Opening ceremonies for the City Dionysia featured, in addition to the ceremonial arrival of the god, a parade in full armour of the sons of warriors who died fighting for the polis and, until the end of the Peloponnesian War, a presentation of annual tribute from subject states. Religious and political issues were topics that could hardly be ignored in such a setting and the plays often treat them quite seriously. Even jokes can be serious when the topic is politics—especially in wartime. The butts of the most savage jokes are opportunists who prey on the gullibility of their fellow citizens, including oracle-mongers, the exponents of new religious practices, war-profiteers and political fanatics. In ''The Acharnians'', for example,
Lamachus Lamachus ( el, Λάμαχος) was an Athenian strategos or general in the Peloponnesian War. He commanded as early as 435 BCE, and was prominent by the mid 420s. Aristophanes caricatured him in ''The Acharnians'' and subsequently honoured his m ...
is represented as a crazed militarist whose preparations for war are hilariously compared to the hero's preparations for a dinner party.
Cleon
Cleon (; grc-gre, Κλέων, ; died 422 BC) was an Athenian general during the Peloponnesian War. He was the first prominent representative of the commercial class in Athenian politics, although he was an aristocrat himself. He strongly advocat ...
emerges from numerous similes and metaphors in ''The Knights'' as a protean form of comic evil, clinging to political power by every possible means for as long as he can, yet the play also includes simple hymns invoking Poseidon and Athena, and it ends with visions of a miraculously transformed Demos (i.e. the morally reformed citizenry of Athens). Imaginative visions of a return to peaceful activities resulting from peace with Sparta, and a plea for leniency for citizens suspected of complicity in an oligarchic revolt are other examples of a serious purpose behind the plays.
* Teasing and taunting: A festival audience presented the comic dramatist with a wide range of targets, not just political or religious ones—anyone known to the audience could be mocked for any reason, such as diseases, physical deformities, ugliness, family misfortunes, bad manners, perversions, dishonesty, cowardice in battle, and clumsiness. Foreigners, a conspicuous presence in imperial Athens, particularly at the City Dionysia, often appear in the plays comically mispronouncing Attic words—these include Spartans (''Lysistrata''), Scythians (''Thesmophoriazusae''), Persians, Boeotians and Megarians (''The Acharnians'').
Festivity
The Lenaia and City Dionysia were religious festivals, but they resembled a gala rather than a church service.
* Dirty jokes: A relaxation in standards of behaviour was permitted and the holiday spirit included bawdy irreverence towards both men and gods. Old Comedy is rich in obscenities and the crude jokes are often very detailed and difficult to understand without expert commentary, as when the Chorus in ''The Acharnians'' places a curse on Antimachus, a choregus accused of niggardly conduct, wishing upon him a night-time mugging as he returns home from some drunken party and envisioning him, as he stoops down to pick up a rock in the darkness, accidentally picking up a fresh turd instead. He is then envisioned hurling the turd at his attacker, missing and accidentally hitting Cratinus, a lyric poet not admired by Aristophanes. This was particularly funny because the curse was sung (or chanted) in choreographed style by a Chorus of 24 grown men who were otherwise known to the audience as respectable citizens.
* The musical extravaganza: The Chorus was vital to the success of a play in Old Comedy long after it had lost its relevance for tragedy. Technically, the competition in the dramatic festivals was not between poets but between choruses. In fact eight of Aristophanes' eleven surviving plays are named after the Chorus. In Aristophanes' time, the Chorus in tragedy was relatively small (twelve members) and its role had been reduced to that of an awkwardly placed commentator, but in Old Comedy the Chorus was large (numbering 24), it was actively involved in the plot, its entry into the action was frequently spectacular, its movements were practised with military precision and sometimes it was involved in choreographed skirmishes with the actors. The expenditure on costumes, training and maintenance of a Chorus was considerable, and perhaps many people in the original audience enjoyed comedy mainly for the spectacle and music. The chorus gradually lost its significance as New Comedy began to develop.
* Obvious costumes: Consistent with the holiday spirit, much of the humour in Old Comedy is slapstick buffoonery and dirty jokes that do not require the audience's careful attention, often relying on visual cues. Actors playing male roles appear to have worn tights over grotesque padding, with a prodigious, leather phallus barely concealed by a short tunic. Female characters were played by men but were easily recognized in long, saffron tunics. Sometimes the visual cues are deliberately confused for comic effect, as in ''The Frogs'', where Dionysus arrives on stage in a saffron tunic, the buskin boots of a tragic actor and a lion skin cloak that usually characterized
Heracles
Heracles ( ; grc-gre, Ἡρακλῆς, , glory/fame of Hera), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptiv ...
—an absurd outfit that provokes the character Heracles (as no doubt it provoked the audience) to guffaws of helpless mirth.
* The farcical anti-climax: The holiday spirit might also have been responsible for an aspect of the comic plot that can seem bewildering to modern audiences. The major confrontation (''agon'') between the 'good' and 'bad' characters in a play is often resolved decisively in favour of the former long before the end of the play. The rest of the play deals with farcical consequences in a succession of loosely connected scenes. The farcical anti-climax has been explained in a variety of ways, depending on the particular play. In ''The Wasps'', for instance, it has been thought to indicate a gradual change in the main character's perspective as the lessons of the agon are slowly absorbed. In ''The Acharnians'', it has been explained in terms of a unifying theme that underlies the episodes, demonstrating the practical benefits that come with wisdom. But the early release of dramatic tension is consistent with the holiday meanings in Old Comedy and it allows the audience to relax in uncomplicated enjoyment of the spectacle, the music, jokes and celebrations that characterize the remainder of the play. The celebration of the hero's victory often concludes in a sexual conquest and sometimes it takes the form of a wedding, thus providing the action with a joyous sense of closure.
Later influence/parallels
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...
claimed a formative role for the Old Comedy in the making of
Roman satire
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...
.
The Old Comedy subsequently influenced later European writers such as
Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...
,
Racine
Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ) (; 22 December 163921 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille as well as an important literary figure in the Western traditi ...
, and
Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tr ...
. Also,
François Rabelais
François Rabelais ( , , ; born between 1483 and 1494; died 1553) was a French Renaissance writer, physician, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He is primarily known as a writer of satire, of the grotesque, and of bawdy jokes and ...
,
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-emin ...
,
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish Satire, satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whig (British political party), Whigs, then for the Tories (British political party), Tories), poe ...
, and
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his ...
may have derived elements from it. Western writers took particular inspiration from Aristophanes' disguising of political attacks as buffoonery. Old Comedy displays similarities to modern-day political satires such as ''
Dr. Strangelove
''Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb'', known simply and more commonly as ''Dr. Strangelove'', is a 1964 black comedy film that satirizes the Cold War fears of a nuclear conflict between the Soviet Union and t ...
'' (1964) and the televised buffoonery of
Monty Python and ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves a ...
''.
[Seth Lerer, ''Comedy through the Ages'' (recorded lecture series), Springfield, Virginia: The Teaching Company, 2000.]
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
was profoundly influenced by Aristophanian comedy-writing. According to Robert R. Speckhard, "like Shaw, Aristophanes wrote comedies of ideas, and, though one finds no evidence that Shaw is indebted to Aristophanes, it is clear that in facing much the same dramatic problem that Aristophanes faced, Shaw came up with much the same solution. Because the comic machinery is easier to spot in Aristophanes (where there is no attempt, as in Shaw, to disguise it with any surface realism), what Aristophanes has done becomes a helpful point of reference from which to study what Shaw has done."
[Shaw and Aristophanes: How the Comedy of Ideas Works, Robert R. Skeckhard, 1965, Penn State University Press, p. 2.]
See also
*
Comic opera
Comic opera, sometimes known as light opera, is a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending and often including spoken dialogue.
Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a ne ...
*
Crates (comic poet)
*
Onomasti komodein
References
Further reading
*Barrett, David (1964) ''The Frogs and Other Plays'' Penguin Books
*Barrett, David and Alan Sommerstein (eds)(2003) ''The Birds and Other plays'' Penguin Classics
* Mastromarco, Giuseppe (1994) ''Introduzione a Aristofane'' (Sesta edizione: Roma-Bari 2004).
* Dobrov, Gregory W., ed. 1995. ''Beyond Aristophanes: Transition and Diversity in Greek Comedy.'' American Classical Studies 38. Atlanta: Scholars Press.
* Ehrenberg, Victor. 1962. ''The People of Aristophanes: A Sociology of Old Attic Comedy.'' 3d ed. New York: Schocken.
* Harvey, David, and John Wilkins, eds. 2000. ''The Rivals of Aristophanes: Studies in Athenian Old Comedy.'' London: Duckworth and the Classical Press of Wales.
* Henderson, Jeffrey. 1993. Problems in Greek Literary History: The Case of Aristophanes’ Clouds. In ''Nomodeiktes: Greek Studies in Honor of Martin Ostwald.'' Edited by Ralph M. Rosen and Joseph Farrell, 591–601. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
* Rosen, Ralph M. 2015. “Aischrology in Old Comedy and the Question of ‘Ritual Obscenity’” In ''Ancient Obscenities: Their Nature and Use in the Ancient Greek and Roman Worlds.'' Edited by Dutsch, D. and A. Suter, 71-90. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
* Rosen, Ralph M. 1988. ''Old Comedy and the Iambographic Tradition.'' American Classical Studies 19. Atlanta: Scholars Press.
* Rothwell, Kenneth S., Jr. 2007. ''Nature, Culture, and the Origins of Greek Comedy: A Study of Animal Choruses.'' Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
* Rusten, Jeffrey. 2006. "Who “Invented” Comedy? The Ancient Candidates for the Origins of Comedy and the Visual Evidence." ''American Journal of Philology'' 127.1: 37–66.
* Sifakis, Grigoris M. 2006. "From Mythological Parody to Political Satire: Some Stages in the Evolution of Old Comedy." ''Classica et Mediaevalia'' 57:19–48.
* Sommerstein, Alan. 2011. "Hinc Omnis Pendet?: Old Comedy and Roman Satire." ''Classical World'' 105.1: 25-38.
{{Authority control
Ancient Greek comedy
Greek political satire