Download or read book Menander and the Making of Comedy written by J. M. Walton and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1996-02-28 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An engaging introduction to the plays and dramatic method of the most highly regarded comic writer of the classical period.
Download or read book Reproducing Athens written by Susan Lape and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-10 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reproducing Athens examines the role of romantic comedy, particularly the plays of Menander, in defending democratic culture and transnational polis culture against various threats during the initial and most fraught period of the Hellenistic Era. Menander's romantic comedies--which focus on ordinary citizens who marry for love--are most often thought of as entertainments devoid of political content. Against the view, Susan Lape argues that Menander's comedies are explicitly political. His nationalistic comedies regularly conclude by performing the laws of democratic citizen marriage, thereby promising the generation of new citizens. His transnational comedies, on the other hand, defend polis life against the impinging Hellenistic kingdoms, either by transforming their representatives into proper citizen-husbands or by rendering them ridiculous, romantic losers who pose no real threat to citizen or city. In elaborating the political work of romantic comedy, this book also demonstrates the importance of gender, kinship, and sexuality to the making of democratic civic ideology. Paradoxically, by championing democratic culture against various Hellenistic outsiders, comedy often resists the internal status and gender boundaries on which democratic culture was based. Comedy's ability to reproduce democratic culture in scandalous fashion exposes the logic of civic inclusion produced by the contradictions in Athens's desperately politicized gender system. Combining careful textual analysis with an understanding of the context in which Menander wrote, Reproducing Athens profoundly changes the way we read his plays and deepens our understanding of Athenian democratic culture.
Download or read book Classical Comedy written by Aristophanes and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2006-09-28 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the fifth to the second century BC, innovative comedy drama flourished in Greece and Rome. This collection brings together the greatest works of Classical comedy, with two early Greek plays: Aristophanes' bold, imaginative Birds, and Menander's The Girl from Samos, which explores popular contemporary themes of mistaken identity and sexual misbehaviour; and two later Roman comic plays: Plautus' The Brothers Menaechmus - the original comedy of errors - and Terence's bawdy yet sophisticated double love-plot, The Eunuch. Together, these four plays demonstrate the development of Classical comedy, celebrating its richness, variety and extraordinary legacy to modern drama.
Download or read book Menander New Comedy and the Visual written by Antonis K. Petrides and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-06 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows how both verbal and visual allusion position the plays of New Comedy within the context of contemporary polis culture.
Download or read book The Art of Greek Comedy written by Katherine Lever and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-04-26 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1956, this is a critical analysis of the comedies of Aristophanes and Menander studied in the context of the history of comedy, of the allied arts, and of contemporary life. Aristophanes and Menander are deservedly the most famous writers of Greek comedy. The extant comedies of Aristophanes are notable for wit, comical action, beautiful poetry, and the dramatization of such problems as health of mind and body, sex, money, government, law, religion, education, and drama, music and poetry. Menander portrays with delicate and sympathetic understanding a world in which the seeming evils of loss and discord eventually lead to the genuine goods of discovery and concord. The art of Aristophanes is critically examined in three chapters and that of Menander in one. For centuries Dionysos had been worshipped in a spirit of ecstasy which manifested itself in song, dance and the wearing of masks and costumes, pantomime, farce, and satire. The processes by which these diverse elements were developed and fused into the complex literary form of Old Comedy are the subject of the first three chapters. Aristophanes was not only pre-eminent as a writer of Old Comedy; he also participated in the transformation of Old Comedy into Middle Comedy, a curious and interesting dramatic form which is fully treated in the seventh chapter. In the last chapter the emergence of New Comedy is traced and the art of Menander criticized. The book ends with a brief indication of the various forms in which the spirit of Greek comedy had survived to the present day.
Download or read book The Comedy of Menander written by Netta Zagagi and published by Bloomsbury Academic. This book was released on 1994 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Menander (342 - 293 BC) was the greatest dramatist of Greek New Comedy, which has influenced the course of Western drama both in its realism and romanticism. And yet until a large part of his comedies came to light in papyri discovered in Egypt in 1908, his influence was exercised almost entirely through his Latin adapters, Plautus and Terence. This book offers an appreciation of Menander's work based on his own writings. It explores the many sides of Menander's dramatic art, emphasizing the versatality and originality of his plays, achieved both within and sometimes in the face of a well-established comic tradition and the conservative expectations of his audience.
Download or read book Plays and Fragments written by Menander and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2004-07-29 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Menander (c. 341-291 BC) was the foremost innovator of Greek New Comedy, a dramatic style that moved away from the fantastical to focus upon the problems of ordinary Athenians. This collection contains the full text of 'Old Cantankerous' (Dyskolos), the only surviving complete example of New Comedy, as well as fragments from works including 'The Girl from Samos' and 'The Rape of the Locks', all of which are concerned with domestic catastrophes, the hazards of love and the trials of family life. Written in a poetic style regarded by the ancients as second only to Homer, these polished works - profoundly influential upon both Roman playwrights such as Plautus and Terence, and the wider Western tradition - may be regarded as the first true comedies of manners.
Download or read book Menander in Antiquity written by Sebastiana Nervegna and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-25 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The comic playwright Menander was one of the most popular writers throughout antiquity. This book reconstructs his life and the legacy of his work until the end of antiquity employing a broad range of sources such as portraits, illustrations of his plays, papyri preserving their texts and inscriptions recording their public performances. These are placed within the context of the three social and cultural institutions which appropriated his comedy, thereby ensuring its survival: public theatres, dinner parties and schools. Dr Nervegna carefully reconstructs how each context approached Menander's drama and how it contributed to its popularity over the centuries. The resultant, highly illustrated, book will be essential for all scholars and students not just of Menander's comedy but, more broadly, of the history and iconography of the ancient theatre, ancient social history and reception studies.
Download or read book The Plays and Fragments written by Menander, and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2008-05-08 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The greatest writer of Greek New Comedy and the founding father of European comedy, Menander (c.341-290 BC) wrote over one hundred plays, of which only one complete play and substantial fragments of others survive. This new verse translation is accurate and highly readable, providing a consecutive text by using surviving words in the damaged papyri.
Download or read book The Making of Menander s Comedy written by Sander M. Goldberg and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-01-13 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The discovery on papyrus of plays by Menander, the greatest writer of Greek New Comedy, at last makes possible an evaluation on his own terms of an ancient author who, through the adaptations of Plautus and Terence, profoundly influenced the course of western drama. The present study establishes a critical perspective for understanding the kind of comedy Menander wrote, his roots, the theatrical effects he sought, and the extent of his achievement. Chapters on the major plays analyse their techniques of construction and characterisation, suggesting both the strengths and the limitations of Menander's comic tradition. This study is based on the Oxford Greek text but cites all ancient authors in translation to open the discussion to a wider audience. An introductory chapter places the tradition of New Comedy in the history of drama, and modern parallels are drawn wherever helpful. It will therefore be of value to students of drama as well as to classicists.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Greek Comedy written by Martin Revermann and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-12 with total page 523 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a unique panorama of this challenging area of Greek literature, combining literary perspectives with historical issues and material culture.
Download or read book Menander in Contexts written by Alan H. Sommerstein and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-04 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The comedies of the Athenian dramatist Menander (c. 342-291 BC) and his contemporaries were the ultimate source of a Western tradition of light drama that has continued to the present day. Yet for over a millennium, Menander’s own plays were thought to have been completely lost. Thanks to a long and continuing series of papyrus discoveries, Menander has now been able to take his place among the major surviving ancient Greek dramatists alongside Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes. In this book, sixteen contributors examine and explore the Menander we know today in light of the various literary, intellectual, and social contexts in which his plays can be viewed. Topics covered include: the society, culture, and politics of his generation; the intellectual currents of the period; the literary precursors who inspired Menander (or whom he expected his audiences to recall); and responses to Menander, from his own time to ours. As the first wide-ranging collective study of Menander in English, this book is essential reading for those interested in ancient comedy the world over.
Download or read book New Comedy written by Aristophanes and published by Methuen Drama. This book was released on 1994-03-14 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains: Women in power; Wealth; The malcontent; The woman from Samos.
Download or read book The Comedy of Menander written by Netta Zagagi and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Menander (342-293 BC) was the greatest dramatist of Greek New Comedy, which has influenced the course of Western drama both in its realism and in its romanticism. Until recently, his influence was exercised almost entirely through his Latin adapters, Plautus and Terence. Since 1908, however, large parts of his comedies have come to light in papyri discovered in Egypt and so, for the first time, we have been able to appreciate Menander's art on the basis of his own writings. This book - one of the first to attempt such an overall appreciation - explores the many sides of Menander's dramatic art, emphasizing the versatility and originality of his plays, achieved within - but sometimes in the face of - the conventions of a well-established comic tradition and the conservative expectations of his audience. Professor Zagagi analyzes the plots of many of Menander's comedies, including numerous scenes and passages, and deals with such topics as convention and variation, ways of varying traditional situations and techniques; the function of the Chorus; repetition vs. surprise; Menander's treatment of human character and emotions; the realistic and divine dimensions of his dramas, as well as his use of the laws and social customs of his age and place. Menander's familiarity with his audiences - their tasks, outlook and demands of a good comedy - is explored through the study of his versatile dramatic techniques.
Download or read book Greek Comedy and Ideology written by David Konstan and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1995 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study analyzes how the structure of ancient Greek comedy betrays and responds to cultural tensions in the society of the classical city-state. Individual chapters treat Aristophanic and Menandrean comedies.
Download or read book Menander written by Menander (of Athens.) and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These comedies by Greek dramatist Menander reveal that the oft-employed theme of mistaken identity is as old as the great Dionysus. The Penn Greek Drama Series presents original literary translations of classical Greek drama. The aim of the series is to make both the works and their interpretations accessible to the reading public.
Download or read book Aristophanes and Menander Three Comedies written by Timothy J. Moore and published by Hackett Publishing. This book was released on 2014-09-03 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Three Comedies features the work of three dramatic geniuses of the glorious, no-holds-barred tradition of ancient Athenian comedy. Here Aristophanes, the eight-hundred-pound gorilla of Old and Middle Comedy meets Menander, elephant in the room of New Comedy, in a match made possible by Douglass Parker--if not Athenian exactly, or even ancient, possibly the maddest chameleon ever to absorb the true colors of an ancient choral song, transpose a lost pun, or channel a venerable, giant, dung-eating cockroach for the benefit of those who couldn’t be there the first time. Timothy J. Moore offers concise and informative introductions and notes to Parker’s brilliant translation of Aristophanes' fantastical Peace and Money, the God and Menander’s lively, domestic Samia--and includes, as a bonus, Parker's James Constantine Lecture at the University of Virginia, "A Desolation Called Peace: Trials of an Aristophanic Translator."
