''Prolegomena de comoedia'' ( eng, Introduction to Comedy) is a modern collective name for several short

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

and

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

writings in

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

that are mostly found in the manuscripts of Aristophanes'

comedies Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term origin ...

or taken as excerpts from other texts. These writings are important for deepening the knowledge about the development of

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 ...

. In Dindorf's edition, the texts are given in the usual order: # Platonius, ''On the feature of comedy'' ( grc, Περὶ διαφορᾶς κωμῳδιῶν). # Platonius, ''On the feature of styles'' () # Anonymous, ''On comedy'' (). This short essay is often cited because it gives a historical view of the origins of Greek comedy, thus supplementing the scanty information given 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 ph ...

in his '' Poetics'', as well as a concise overview of the historical development of comedy from

Epicharmus Epicharmus of Kos or Epicharmus Comicus or Epicharmus Comicus Syracusanus ( grc-gre, Ἐπίχαρμος ὁ Κῷος), thought to have lived between c. 550 and c. 460 BC, was a Greek dramatist and philosopher who is often credited with ...

and

Magnetes The Magnetes (Greek: ) were an ancient Greek tribe. In book 2 of the ''Iliad,'' Homer includes them in the Greek Army that is besieging Troy, and identifies their homeland in Thessaly, in a part that is still known as Magnesia. They later also con ...

Diphilus Diphilus (Greek: Δίφιλος), of Sinope, was a poet of the new Attic comedy and a contemporary of Menander (342–291 BC). He is frequently listed together with Menander and Philemon, considered the three greatest poets of New Comedy. He wa ...

. This is the most frequently quoted work from the ''Prolegomena de comoedia'' and, unless otherwise stated, this is the essay referred to when the work ''On Comedy'' ( lat, De comoedia) is cited in the literature. # Anonymous, ''On comedy'' () ― the author of this essay is different from the previous one. # Anonymous, ''On comedy'' () ― the author of this essay is different from the previous ones. # Anonymous, ''On comedy'' () ― the author of this essay, which consists of only few sentences, is different from the previous ones. # A short essay of a few sentences, by an unknown author, about the

chorus Chorus may refer to: Music * Chorus (song) or refrain, line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse * Chorus effect, the perception of similar sounds from multiple sources as a single, richer sound * Chorus form, song in which all verse ...

in comic plays. # List of names of seven poets of the Old Attic Comedy and the number of plays each of them wrote. # Anonymous, ''On comedy'' () ― from a ''

scholium Scholia (singular scholium or scholion, from grc, σχόλιον, "comment, interpretation") are grammatical, critical, or explanatory comments – original or copied from prior commentaries – which are inserted in the margin of th ...

'' in Dyonisius Thrax's ''Grammar''. # Andronicus, ''On the order of poets'' (). # Anonymous, ''Life of Aristophanes'' () ― an ancient biography of

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion ( la, Cydathenaeum), was a comic playwright or comedy-writer of ancient Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his for ...

. # A biography of Aristophanes by another author. # A biography of Aristophanes by yet another author. # Entry on Aristophanes in '' Suda''. #

Thomas Magister Thomas, surnamed Magister or Magistros ( el, Θωμάς Μάγιστρος), also known by the monastic name Theodoulos Monachos, was a native of Thessalonica, a Byzantine scholar and grammarian and confidential adviser of Andronikos II Palaiologos ...

, a short biography of Aristophanes. #

Antipater of Thessalonica Antipater of Thessalonica ( grc-gre, Ἀντίπατρος ὁ Θεσσαλονικεύς; c. 10 BC - c. AD 38) was a Greek epigrammatist of the Roman period. Biography Antipater lived during the latter part of the reign of Augustus, and perha ...

, verses about Aristophanes and Diodorus' epitaph on the grave of Aristophanes (from the ''

Palatine Anthology The ''Palatine Anthology'' (or ''Anthologia Palatina''), sometimes abbreviated ''AP'', is the collection of Greek poems and epigrams discovered in 1606 in the Palatine Library in Heidelberg. It is based on the lost collection of Constantinus Cep ...

''). #

Demetrius Triclinius Demetrius Triclinius ( el, Δημήτριος Τρικλίνιος; b. ca. 1300), a native of Thessalonica, was a Byzantine scholar who edited and analyzed the metrical structure of many texts from ancient Greece, particularly those of Aeschylus, S ...

, an essay on

metres The metre (British spelling Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable va ...

. A work by

Dionysiades Dionysiades ( grc, Διονυσιάδης) of Tarsus was an ancient Greek tragic poet who lived in the time of Alexander the Great (second half of the 4th century BC). According to Strabo, he was the best of the tragic poets included in the so-c ...

entitled ''Styles or Lovers of Comedy'' (), "in which he describes () the styles of omicpoets", may have served as a foundation and starting point for at least some of these writings. This work seems to be the first attempt to make a distinction between different literary styles of Attic comedians.Rudolf Pfeiffer, ''History of Classical Scholarship: from the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age'', Oxford, 1968, p. 160.

References

{{reflist

External links

''Prolegomena de comoedia'' in: Wilhelm Dindorf (ed.), ''Aristophanis Comoediae'', pp. 19–44.

Greek comedy