CMRS 110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Theatre Of Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Comedy, Beck

• School: U of S
• Department: Classical Medieval Renaissance
• Course: CMRS 110
• Professor: Porter John

Document Summary

Greek and roman comedy a brief overview. A highly topical form of comedy that focuses on issues of the day. Birds, the hero is transformed into a bird, builds a bird kingdom in the sky, and, by means of a blockade, compels both humans and the gods to yield power to him and his feathery colleagues. ) Old comedy can be quite bawdy, even vulgar at times. It incorporates a number of elements from earlier dramatic/cultic traditions: thus, e. g. , the prominence of the chorus (who often appear in the form of animals, insects, natural objects, etc. Today, greek old comedy is represented by *aristophanes, whose eleven surviving plays (dated to 425 - ca. 388 bc) offer the best evidence for this genre. The plays of aristophanes also constitute one of our best sources for the athenian political scene during the period of peloponnesian war: *greek middle comedy (athens, in the first half of the fourth century bc)