Download 4. Ancient Greek comedy

Ancient Greek comedy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Comedy was one of two principal dramatic 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
Twice a year the Athenians honored the god Dionysus with festivals that included theatre
performances. The City Dionysia, which occurred in March, admitted comedies to its
competition in 487 BCE, while the Lenaea festival, held in January, began having comic
competitions in 432 BCE. The performances were held outside in the Theatre Dionysus at
the foot of the Acropolis beneath the Parthenon. . Detail, side A from a Silician redfigured calyx-krater, ca. 350 BC–340 BC.
Contents
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1 Origins
2 Periods of Ancient Greek Comedy
o 2.1 Old Comedy (archàia)
o 2.2 Middle Comedy (mese)
o 2.3 New Comedy (nea)
3 See also
4 List of Comic Dramatists
o 4.1 Old Comedy
o 4.2 Middle Comedy
o 4.3 New Comedy
5 Notes
6 References
7 External links
Origins
Theatre mask of a First Slave in Greek comedy, 2nd century BC, 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., 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.
Aristotle wrote in his Poetics that Comedy is a representation of laughable people and
involves some kind of blunder or ugliness which does not cause pain or disaster.[1]
Periods of Ancient Greek Comedy
The Alexandrian grammarians, and most likely Aristophanes of Byzantium in particular,
seem to have been the first to divide Greek comedy into what became the canonical three
periods:[2] 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 BC, is almost entirely lost. The
most important poets of the period were Magnes, whose work survives only in a few
fragments of dubious authenticity, and Cratinus, who took the prize at the City Dionysia
probably sometime around 450 BC. Although no complete plays by Cratinus are
preserved, they are known through hundreds of fragments.
For modern readers, the most important Old Comic dramatist is Aristophanes, whose
works, with their pungent political satire and abundance of sexual and scatological
innuendo, effectively define the genre today. Aristophanes lampooned the most important
personalities and institutions of his day, as can be seen, for example, in his buffoonish
portrayal of Socrates in The Clouds, and in sexual and political farce Lysistrata. It is
nonetheless important to realize that he was only one of a large number of comic poets
working in Athens in the late 5th century, his most important contemporary rival being
Eupolis.
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 today in political
satires such as Dr. Strangelove and in the televised buffoonery of Monty Python and
Saturday Night Live.
Old Comedy has been called one of the "sports" of literature in that it is so fantastic and
unbridled.[3]
Middle Comedy (mese)
The line between Old and Middle Comedy is not clearly marked chronologically,
Aristophanes and others of the latest writers of the Old Comedy being sometimes
regarded as the earliest Middle Comic poets. For ancient scholars, the term may have
meant little more than "later than Aristophanes and his contemporaries, but earlier than
Menander". Middle Comedy is generally seen as differing from Old Comedy in three
essential particulars: it had no chorus, public characters were not impersonated or
personified onstage, and the objects of ridicule were general rather than personal, literary
rather than political. For at least a time, mythological parody was popular among the
Middle Comic poets. Stock characters of all sorts also emerge: courtesans, parasites,
revelers, philosophers, boastful soldiers, and especially the self-conceited cook with his
parade of culinary science
Because no complete Middle Comic plays have been preserved, it is impossible to offer
any real assessment of their literary value or "genius". But many Middle Comic plays
appear to have been revived in Sicily and Magna Graecia in this period, suggesting that
they had considerable widespread literary and social appeal.
New Comedy (nea)
Molded terracotta figurine of an actor wearing the mask of a bald-headed man, from the
New Comedy, 2nd century BCE, from Canino, Italy
The new comedy lasted throughout the reign of the Macedonian rulers, ending about 260
BC.
Substantial fragments of New Comedy have survived, but no complete plays. The most
substantially preserved text is the Dyskolos ("Difficult Man, Grouch") by Menander,
discovered on a papyrus in 1958. The so-called "Cairo Codex" (found in 1907) also
preserves long sections of plays as Epitrepontes ("Men at Arbitration"), The Girl from
Samos, and Perikeiromene ("The Girl who had her Hair Shorn"). Much of the rest of our
knowledge of 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 tries to thwart his son or daughter from achieving wedded happiness, and who is
often led into the same vices and follies for which he has reproved his children, and the
bragging soldier newly returned from war with a noisy tongue, a full purse and an empty
head. The new comedy depicted Athenian society and the social morality of the period,
presenting it in attractive colors but making no attempt to criticize or improve it.
The New Comedy influenced much of Western European literature, in particular the
comic drama of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, Congreve and Wycherley[4].
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
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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
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Susarion of Megara (~580 BC)
Epicharmus of Kos (~540-450 BC)
Cratinus (~520-420 BC)
Chionides 486 BC
Magnes 472 BC
Eunicus 5th c.BC
Eupolis (~446-411 BC)
Hegemon of Thasos 5th c.BC
Telecleides 5th c.BC
Pherecrates 5th c.BC
Crates (comic poet) ca.450 c.BC
Hermippus 435 BC
Phrynichus (~429 BC)
Cantharus[1] 422 BC
Strattis (~412-390 BC)
Cephisodorus[2] 402 BC
Plato (comic poet) late 5th c.BC
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Nicophon 5th c.BC
Nicochares (d.~345 BC)
Callias Schoenion[http:-bio/0577.html]
Sannyrion[3]
Diocles of Phlius[4]
Aristophanes(~456–386 BC)
His sons Araros, Philippus, and Nicostratus were also comic poets.
Antiphanes (~408-334 BC)
Middle Comedy
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Eubulus early 4th c.BC
Epicrates of Ambracia 4th c.BC
Anaxandrides 4th c.BC
Alexis (~375 BC - 275 BC)
Menander (~342–291 BC)
New Comedy
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Philippides[5]
Philemon of Soli or Syracuse (~362–262 BC)
Apollodorus of Carystus (~300-260 BC)
Diphilus of Sinope (~340-290 BC)
Machon of Corinth/Alexandria 3th c.BC
Poseidippus of Cassandreia (~316–250 BC)
Laines or Laenes 185 BC
Philemon 183 BC
Chairion or Chaerion 154 BC
Notes
1. ^ Aristotle, Poetics, line 1449a: "Comedy, as we have said, is a representation of inferior
people, not indeed in the full sense of the word bad, but the laughable is a species of the
base or ugly. It consists in some blunder or ugliness that does not cause pain or disaster,
an obvious example being the comic mask which is ugly and distorted but not painful."
2. ^ Mastromarco (1994) p.12
3. ^ Cf. Philip W. Harsh, "A Handbook of Classical Drama", Chapter V, "Introduction to
Old Comedy", p.257. "Old comedy is one of the 'sports' of literature. Fantastic from the
beginning, if we may judge from the costumes of the komos-chorus, it deliberately
cultivated its perversity."
4. ^ The Drama: Its History, Literature and Influence on Civilization, vol. 1. ed. Alfred
Bates. London: Historical Publishing Company, 1906. pp. 30-31.
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External links
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An article on the origin of comedy
Brief article on Old Comedy
"Aristotle on Comedy" by Malcolm Heath, University of Leeds
BBC Radio 4 "In Our Time" programme on ancient Greek Comedy, Thursday 13
July 2006
Communitas and classical Greek ritual theatre on www.mysticism.nl
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_comedy"
Categories: Ancient Greek plays | Comedy | Comic poets