Ancient Greek comedy

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Detail, side A from a Silician red-figured calyx-krater (c. 350 BC–340 BC).

Ancient Greek comedy was one ofthe 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, and New Comedy. Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the eleven surviving plays of Aristophanes, while Middle Comedy is largely lost, i.e. preserved only in relatively short fragments in authors such as Athenaeus of Naucratis. New Comedy is known primarily from the substantial papyrus fragments of Menander. The philosopher Aristotle wrote in his Poetics (c. 335 BC) that comedy is a representation of laughable people and involves some kind of blunder or ugliness which does not cause pain or disaster. C. A. Trypanis wrote that comedy is the last of the great species of poetry Greece gave to the world.

Periods

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: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 (archaia)

See also: Aristophanes#Aristophanes and Old Comedy

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 his racy feminist anti-war 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.

Terracotta comic theatre mask, 4th/3rd century BC (Stoa of Attalus, Athens)

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: the role of the chorus was diminished to the point where it had no influence on the plot; 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 burlesque was popular among the Middle Comic poets. Stock characters of all sorts also emerge: courtesans, parasites, revellers, 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 influence.

New Comedy (nea)

Figurine of an actor wearing the mask of a bald-headed man, 2nd century BC.

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, and first published in 1958. The Cairo Codex (found in 1907) also preserves long sections of plays as Epitrepontes ("Men at Arbitration"), Samia ("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.

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.

Dramatists

Some dramatists overlap into more than one period.

Old Comedy

• Susarion of Megara (~580 BC)
• Epicharmus of Kos (~540-450 BC)
• Phormis, late 6th century
• Dinolochus, 487 BC
• Euetes 485 BC
• Euxenides 485 BC
• Mylus 485 BC
• Chionides 487 BC
• Magnes 472 BC
• Cratinus (~520-420 BC), won a series of victories from 454 BC to 423 BC
• Euphonius 458 BC
• Crates c. 450 BC
• Ecphantides
• Pisander
• Epilycus
• Callias Schoenion
• Hermippus 435 BC
• Myrtilus
• Lysimachus
• Hegemon of Thasos, 413 BC
• Sophron
• Phrynichus, won 4 victories between 435 BC and 405 BC
• Lycis, before 405 BC
• Leucon
• Lysippus
• Eupolis (~446-411 BC)
• Aristophanes (~456–386 BC), won more than 12 victories between 427 BC and 388 BC
• Ameipsias (c. 420 BC)
• Aristomenes, between 431-388 BC
• Telecleides 5th c. BC
• Pherecrates 420 BC
• Plato
• Diocles of Phlius
• Sannyrion
• Philyllius, 394 BC
• Hipparchus
• Archippus, 415 BC
• Polyzelus, c.364 BC
• Philonides
• Xenophon
• Arcesilaus
• Autocrates
• Eunicus 5th c. BC
• Apollophanes c.400 BC
• Nicomachus, c.420 BC
• Cephisodorus 402 BC
• Metagenes, c.419 BC
• Cantharus 422 BC
• Nicochares (d.~345
• Strattis (~412-390 BC)
• Alcaeus, 388 BC
• Xenarchus, around 393 BC
• Theopompus

Middle Comedy

• Nicophon 5th c.BC
• Eubulus early 4th c. BC
• Araros, son of Aristophanes 388, 375
• Antiphanes (~408-334 BC)
• Anaxandrides 4th c. BC
• Calliades 4th c. BC
• Nicostratus, son of Aristophanes
• Phillipus, son of Aristophanes
• Philetarus c. 390 BC - C. 320 BC
• Anaxilas, 343 BC
• Ophelion
• Callicrates
• Heraclides
• Alexis (~375 BC - 275 BC)
• Amphis mid-4th century BC
• Axionicus
• Cratinus Junior
• Eriphus, plagiarist of Antiphanes
• Epicrates of Ambracia 4th c. BC
• Stephanus, 332 BC
• Strato
• Aristophon
• Sotades
• Augeas
• Epippus
• Heniochus
• Epigenes
• Mnesimachus
• Timotheus
• Sophilus
• Antidotus
• Naucrates
• Xenarchus
• Dromo
• Crobylus, possibly New Comedy, after 324 BC
• Timocles 324 BC
• Damoxenus c. 370 BC - 270 BC

New Comedy

• Eubelus
• Philippides,^[14] 335 BC, 301 BC
• Philemon of Soli or Syracuse (~362–262 BC)
• Menander (~342–291 BC)
• Apollodorus of Carystus (~300-260 BC)
• Diphilus of Sinope (~340-290 BC)
• Euphron^[15]
• Titus Maccius Plautus (254-184)
• Dionysius, after Archestratus
• Theophilus, contemporary with Callimedon
• Sosippus, contemporary with Diphillus
• Anaxippus, 303 BC
• Demetrius, 299 BC
• Archedicus, 302 BC
• Sopater, 282 BC
• Hegesippus
• Plato Junior
• Theognetus
• Bathon
• Diodorus
• Machon of Corinth/Alexandria 3rd c. BC
• Poseidippus of Cassandreia (~316–250 BC)
• Laines or Laenes 185 BC
• Philemon 183 BC
• Chairion or Chaerion 154 BC

Poets of Uncertain date

• Lexiphanes (either Middle comic or New)