''Prolegomena de comoedia'' ( eng, Introduction to Comedy) is a modern collective name for several short
ancient Greek and
Byzantine writings in
Greek that are mostly found in the manuscripts of
Aristophanes' comedies or taken as excerpts from other texts. These writings are important for deepening the knowledge about the development of
Greek comedy. In
Dindorf's edition, the texts are given in the usual order:
#
Platonius
Platonius ( grc, Πλατώνιος, ''Platonios'') is the author of two writings on Greek comedy, which have been preserved in excerpts: ''On the Characteristics of Comedies'' (Περὶ διαφορᾶς κωμῳδιῶν) and ''On the Characte ...
, ''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 in his ''
Poetics
Poetics is the theory of structure, form, and discourse within literature, and, in particular, within poetry.
History
The term ''poetics'' derives from the Ancient Greek ποιητικός ''poietikos'' "pertaining to poetry"; also "creative" an ...
'', as well as a concise overview of the historical development of comedy from
Epicharmus and
Magnetes to
Diphilus. 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 in comic plays.
# List of names of seven poets of the
Old Attic 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 ...
and the number of plays each of them wrote.
# Anonymous, ''On comedy'' () ― from a ''
scholium'' in
Dyonisius Thrax's ''Grammar''.
#
Andronicus, ''On the order of poets'' ().
# Anonymous, ''Life of Aristophanes'' () ― an ancient biography of
Aristophanes.
# A biography of Aristophanes by another author.
# A biography of Aristophanes by yet another author.
# Entry on Aristophanes in ''
Suda
The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; grc-x-medieval, Σοῦδα, Soûda; la, Suidae Lexicon) is a large 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas (Σούδας) or Souidas ...
''.
#
Thomas Magister, a short biography of Aristophanes.
#
Antipater of Thessalonica, verses about Aristophanes and Diodorus' epitaph on the grave of Aristophanes (from the ''
Palatine Anthology'').
#
Demetrius Triclinius, an essay on
metres.
A work by
Dionysiades 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