Greek comedy flourished in the fifth and fourth centuries BC, both in and beyond Athens. Aristophanes and Menander are the best-known writers whose work is in part extant, but many other dramatists are known from surviving fragments of their plays. This sophisticated but accessible introduction explores the genre as a whole, integrating literary questions (such as characterisation, dramatic technique or diction) with contextual ones (for example... more...

Comic Business situates Aristophanic comedy in the context of competitive (re)performance culture in 5th- and 4th-century Greece. It seeks to illuminate how the dazzling busyness of Aristophanic comedy is the creation of a carefully manipulating craftsman trying to outdo his rivals in the fierce competition of the dramatic festivals. Theoretically informed by theatre semiotics and frame-based models of conceptualizing the theatrical event, it analyzes... more...