Ancient Greek Comedy: History, Structure, Aristophanes and Menander
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- čas přidán 8. 06. 2024
- The origin of Ancient Greek comedy has been lost to time, however, we know from pottery depicting men as actors dressing up in wild costumes that it was a firmly established genre by the 6th century BCE. Ancient Greek comedy can be split into three distinct categories, Old Comedy, Middle Comedy (which has been mostly lost to us), and New Comedy, and would poke fun at contemporary issues, politicians, philosophers, and fellow poets and artists.
Old comedy refers to comedy written in the 5th century BCE, and the earliest comedy that has survived to us today is Aristophanes’ Acharnians which was originally performed in 425 BCE. Old Comedy was deeply engaged in the political situation of the time they were composed, but it incorporated fantastical elements like giant creatures and actors jumping across huge geographical distances. In the late fourth century and into the early third century BCE, a new style of comedy arrived, which has been called New Comedy. Some scholars suggest an intermediary category called Middle Comedy, which was less about political themes and more concerned with mythological parodies but no full texts survive from this time. We know a bit more about the writers of New Comedy, including Philemon who wrote 97 plays, Diphilus who wrote around 100 plays and Philippides. However, Menander, who wrote around 100 plays, is considered to be the greatest poet of New Comedy, even though Philemon actually won more festivals than Menander!
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- CHAPTERS -
0:00 Introduction
0:37 Origins of Greek Theatre and Comedy
2:08 Structure of a Comedy Play
4:23 Old Comedy and Aristophanes
5:41 New Comedy and Menander
7:55 Outro
- WANT TO KNOW MORE? -
Ancient Greek Comedy worldhistory.org/Greek_Comedy/
Ancient Greek Theatre worldhistory.org/Greek_Theatre/
Ancient Greek Tragedy worldhistory.org/Greek_Tragedy/
Aristophanes worldhistory.org/Aristophanes/
The Wasps worldhistory.org/The_Wasps/
The Plays of Cratinus worldhistory.org/article/794/...
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The music used in this recording is the intellectual copyright of Michael Levy, a prolific composer for the recreated lyres of antiquity, and used with the creator's permission. Michael Levy's music is available to stream at all the major digital music platforms. Find out more on:
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#ancientgreekcomedy #greekcomedy #aristophanes #menander
Have you read any ancient greek comedy? Did you find it funny? Let us know if you've read any, and why or why not you thought it was funny!!
Read a fair bit of Aristophanes (Wasps, Frogs, Acharnians, Lysistrata, Wealth, Birds, Clouds, Assemblywomen). Love them. If the Life of Brian scene with women changing voices to buy rocks for the stoning wasn't inspired by the first scene of Assemblywomen, with Praxagora getting her friends to practice with fake beards and deep voices for the Assembly, I'd be surprised.
The closest to Aristophanes today, with the sudden jumps from political satire, to puns, to just pure silliness, is Shaun Micallef. And I love his stuff too.
Great summary!!
Thanks so much!!
Another comprehensive and clear presentation! I haven't read any Greek comedies but I'm going to try and take a run at it after watching this video. I'd love to know what the role of these were in overall Greek society. Were they similar to the way that many later playwrights would use satire? Were they purely for entertainment? Did any playwrights get in trouble for either their content or delivery? This opens up so many questions...
Thanks for this great video
You're very welcome, and thanks for watching! 🙂
This was so wonderfully informative!!! Thank you!! ❤️
You are so welcome! Thank you for watching!!!
Super....
this helped me succeed my drama formative
Congratulations! We love hearing that. 🙂
Great job
Thanks for watching!
I appreciate your insight, but I guess I was looking for something else when it came to the structure of Greek comedy. I was expecting that you'd talk about the protagonist, antagonist, plot, climax and conclusion (mainly because I get confused about what happens to the protagonist and antagonist). I wasn't expecting that you'd talk about the outworking of the play itself. Maybe I'm way off.
Can you please suggest me some new comedy plays?
did you kner
I'M ALREADY ACQUAINTED WITH MENANDER SINCE GRADESCHOOL DAYS. I DIDN'T WASTE MY TUITION FEE SINCE KINDERGARTEN DAYS ❤️ I GRADUATED WITHIN 4 YEARS ONLY. FROM THE BEGINNING, I'M SINCERE TO MY DAD ALEJO AQUINO MARQUEZ AND MY MOM MA. CARMELA LOPEZ-VITO MARQUEZ. IT'S OBVIOUS, FOR THE BEGINNING, I LOVE MY PARENTS GENUINELY. BEING A ELOQUENT DECENT WOMAN SINCE KINDERGARTEN DAYS. SINCE KINDERGARTEN DAYS, I'M SINCERE TO TITA BETTINA ❤️ I LOVE TITA BETTINA SINCE KINDERGARTEN DAYS BECAUSE SHE IS A NICE PERSON ❤️ I'M HONEST ❤️ I'M SINCERE ♥️ TIME: 12:33NOONTIME
Practical joke big
BCE? So the current and fleeting era gets to rewrite what’s been handed down to us? Absolutely not.