Menander, New Comedy and the Visual

Menander, New Comedy and the Visual PDF Author: Antonis K. Petrides
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316195090
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
This book argues that New Comedy has a far richer performance texture than has previously been recognised. Offering close readings of all the major plays of Menander, it shows how intertextuality - the sustained dialogue of New Comedy performance with the diverse ideological, philosophical, literary and theatrical discourses of contemporary polis culture - is crucial in creating semantic depth and thus offsetting the impression that the plots are simplistic love stories with no political or ideological resonances. It also explores how the visual aspect of the plays ('opsis') is just as important as any verbal means of signification - a phenomenon termed 'intervisuality', examining in particular depth the ways in which the mask can infuse various systems of reference into the play. Masks like the panchrēstos neaniskos (the 'all-perfect youth'), for example, are now full of meaning; thus, with their ideologically marked physiognomies, they can be strong instigators of literary and cultural allusion.

Menander, New Comedy and the Visual

Menander, New Comedy and the Visual PDF Author: Antonis K. Petrides
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316195090
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 335

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book argues that New Comedy has a far richer performance texture than has previously been recognised. Offering close readings of all the major plays of Menander, it shows how intertextuality - the sustained dialogue of New Comedy performance with the diverse ideological, philosophical, literary and theatrical discourses of contemporary polis culture - is crucial in creating semantic depth and thus offsetting the impression that the plots are simplistic love stories with no political or ideological resonances. It also explores how the visual aspect of the plays ('opsis') is just as important as any verbal means of signification - a phenomenon termed 'intervisuality', examining in particular depth the ways in which the mask can infuse various systems of reference into the play. Masks like the panchrēstos neaniskos (the 'all-perfect youth'), for example, are now full of meaning; thus, with their ideologically marked physiognomies, they can be strong instigators of literary and cultural allusion.

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

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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

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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

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

New Perspectives on Postclassical Comedy

New Perspectives on Postclassical Comedy PDF Author: Antonis Petrides
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 152755158X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
PIERIDES II, Series Editors: Philip Hardie and Stratis Kyriakidis The re-emergence of Menander from the landfills of Egypt in the late-19th century and the subsequent discovery of the Bodmer Codex in the 1950s caused a sensation among scholars. After a period in which the primary editing and reconstruction of the substantially preserved plays and fragments was the main line of criticism, scholars were finally in a position to take a deep breath and look at Menander and New Comedy, both Greek and Roman, in wider contexts of interpretation and with fresh perspectives drawn from innovative work both in Classical and more modern studies. This book aims to showcase these new approaches to postclassical comedy. The individual contributions, six in total, approach New Comedy as theatrical performance, but also as a dynamic player in the socio-political discourses of the polis culture that gave birth to it. The chapters highlight continuities as well as discontinuities with the cultural and literary past of Athens and the Greek world, but mostly emphasise the progressiveness of New Comedy as a genre and its importance for the nascent culture of Hellenism and Rome thereafter. Blume’s introductory chapter tells the story of Menander’s re-emergence from the tenebrae in full detail. The other five chapters are dual in nature: expositional of a method, but also practical examples of it. They are arranged in a fashion which underlines the major theoretical underpinnings of New Comedy studies, as they are being developed in the present: Cultural Studies (David Konstan and Susan Lape), Intertextuality and Performance (Antonis K. Petrides and Rosanna Omitowoju), and Reception in Rome (Sophia Papaioannou).

The New Comedy of Greece and Rome

The New Comedy of Greece and Rome PDF Author: Richard L. Hunter
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521316521
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
The first literary account of a style of comic drama which was to become the root of all subsequent Western comedy. Places the social comedy of Menander, Plautus and Terence in its ancient context and considers its universal literary qualities.

The Masks of Menander

The Masks of Menander PDF Author: David Wiles
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521543521
Category : Crafts & Hobbies
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
An examination of the conventions and techniques of the Greek theatre of Menander and subsequent Roman theatre.

The Art of Ancient Greek Theater

The Art of Ancient Greek Theater PDF Author: Mary Louise Hart
Publisher: Getty Publications
ISBN: 1606060376
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
An explanation of Greek theater as seen through its many depictions in classical art

The Greek Sense of Theatre

The Greek Sense of Theatre PDF Author: J Michael Walton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317513967
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
In this updated and extended edition of The Greek Sense of Theatre, scholar and practitioner J.Michael Walton revises and expands his visual approach to the theatre of classical Athens. From the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides to the old and new comedies of Aristophanes and Menander, he argues that while Greek drama is seen now as a performance-based rather than a strictly literary medium, more attention should still be paid to the nature of stage image and masked acting as part of this conception.

Behind the Mask

Behind the Mask PDF Author: Angela M. Heap
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472528093
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
This new study of Menander casts fresh light not only on the techniques of the playwright but also on the literary and historical contexts of the plays. Menander (342/1-292/1 BCE) wrote over a hundred popular comedies, several of which were adapted by Plautus and Terence. Through them, he was a major influence on Shakespeare and Molière. However, his work survived only in excerpts and quotation until some significant texts reappeared in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries on papyrus. The mystery of their loss and rediscovery has raised key questions surrounding the transmission of these and other Greek texts. Theatrical masks from the fourth century BCE discovered on the island of Lipari now also provide important material with which this book examines how the plays were originally performed. A detailed investigation of their historical setting is offered which engages with recent debates on the importance of social status and citizenship in Menander's plays. The techniques of characterization are also examined, with particular focus on women, slaves and power relationships in his Epitrepontes. It appears that the audience was invited, sometimes subversively, behind the mask of this sophisticated comedy to discover that people do not always conform to literary expectations and social norms.