Menander and the Making of Comedy

Menander and the Making of Comedy PDF Author: J. M. Walton
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN: 0275934209
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
This fascinating introduction to the comedy of Menander is the work of two classical scholars, both of whom have worked extensively as theatre practitioners. This is the first book to consider the plays of Menander primarily as performance pieces and to uncover the dramatic technique of this widely admired comic writer, whose plays had all but disappeared until the 1950s. Looking at the theatrical context of Menandrian comedy in its widest sense, the book includes discussions of recent productions, the recovery of the texts, the treatment of women and slaves, the nature of Menander's comedy, and where it may have led within the European tradition. This book will be of interest to both students of theatre and classicists.

Menander and the Making of Comedy

Menander and the Making of Comedy PDF Author: J. M. Walton
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN: 0275934209
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
This fascinating introduction to the comedy of Menander is the work of two classical scholars, both of whom have worked extensively as theatre practitioners. This is the first book to consider the plays of Menander primarily as performance pieces and to uncover the dramatic technique of this widely admired comic writer, whose plays had all but disappeared until the 1950s. Looking at the theatrical context of Menandrian comedy in its widest sense, the book includes discussions of recent productions, the recovery of the texts, the treatment of women and slaves, the nature of Menander's comedy, and where it may have led within the European tradition. This book will be of interest to both students of theatre and classicists.

The Making of Menander's Comedy

The Making of Menander's Comedy PDF Author: Professor of Classics Sander M Goldberg
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520042506
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Get Book Here

Book Description


Reproducing Athens

Reproducing Athens PDF Author: Susan Lape
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400825911
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 311

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Classical Comedy

Classical Comedy PDF Author: Aristophanes
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141959487
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 383

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Menander, New Comedy and the Visual

Menander, New Comedy and the Visual PDF Author: Antonis K. Petrides
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107068436
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 335

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book shows how both verbal and visual allusion position the plays of New Comedy within the context of contemporary polis culture.

Menander in Antiquity

Menander in Antiquity PDF Author: Sebastiana Nervegna
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110732825X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 335

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

The Cambridge Companion to Greek Comedy

The Cambridge Companion to Greek Comedy PDF Author: Martin Revermann
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521760283
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 523

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book provides a unique panorama of this challenging area of Greek literature, combining literary perspectives with historical issues and material culture.

Women and the Comic Plot in Menander

Women and the Comic Plot in Menander PDF Author: Ariana Traill
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139472623
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Get Book Here

Book Description
Taking a fresh look at mistaken identity in the work of an author who helped to introduce the device to comedy, in this book Professor Traill shows how the outrageous mistakes many male characters in Menander make about women are grounded in their own emotional needs. The core of the argument derives from analysis of speeches by or about women, with particular attention to the language used to articulate problems of knowledge and perception, responsibility and judgement. Not only does Menander freely borrow language, situations, and themes from tragedy, but he also engages with some of tragedy's epistemological questions, particularly the question of how people interpret what they see and hear. Menander was instrumental in turning the tragic theme of human ignorance into a comic device and inventing a plot type with enormous impact on the western tradition. This book provides original insights into his achievements within their historical and intellectual context.

The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy

The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy PDF Author: Michael Fontaine
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199743541
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 913

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy marks the first comprehensive introduction to and reference work for the unified study of ancient comedy. From its birth in Greece to its end in Rome, from its Hellenistic to its Imperial receptions, no topic is neglected. The 41 essays offer cutting-edge guides through comedy's immense terrain.

The Facts on File Companion to Classical Drama

The Facts on File Companion to Classical Drama PDF Author: John E. Thorburn
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
ISBN: 0816074984
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 689

Get Book Here

Book Description
Surveys important Greek and Roman authors, plays, characters, genres, historical figures and more.