Academic literature on the topic 'Greek drama (Comedy) – History and criticism'
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Journal articles on the topic "Greek drama (Comedy) – History and criticism"
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Seidensticker, Bernd. "Ancient Drama and Reception of Antiquity in the Theatre and Drama of the German Democratic Republic (GDR)." Keria: Studia Latina et Graeca 20, no. 3 (2018): 75–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.4312/keria.20.3.75-94.
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Theatre in the German Democratic Republic was an essential part of the state propaganda machine and was strictly controlled by the cultural bureaucracy and by the party. Until the early sixties, ancient plays were rarely staged. In the sixties, classical Greek drama became officially recognised as part of cultural heritage. Directors free to stage the great classical playwrights selected ancient plays, on one hand, to escape the grim socialist reality, on the other to criticise it using various forms of Aesopian language. Two important dramatists and three examples of plays are presented and discussed: an adaptation of an Aristophanic comedy (Peter Hack’s adaptation of Aristophanes’ Peace at the Deutsche Theater in Berlin in 1962), a play based on a Sophoclean tragedy (Heiner Müller’s Philoktet, published in 1965, staged only in 1977), and a short didactic play (Lehrstück) based on Roman history (Heiner Müller’s Der Horatier, written in 1968, staged in 1973 in Hamburg in West Germany, and in the GDR only in 1988). At the end there is a brief look at a production of Aeschylus Seven against Thebes at the BE in 1969.
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Lowe, N. J. "I Comedy: Definitions, Theories, History." New Surveys in the Classics 37 (2007): 1–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0017383508000430.
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Comedy’, from Greek komoidia, is a word with a complex cultural history. Its modern, as opposed to its ancient, use covers all formally marked varieties of performed humour, whether scripted or improvised, group or solo, in any medium: theatre, film, television, radio, stand-up, and various hybrids and mutations of these. It is also, by extension, applied more loosely to novels and other non-performance texts that share recognizable features of plot, theme, or tone with the classical tradition of comic drama; and used more loosely still as a casual synonym for humour’. As a countable noun, however, the word is restricted to works with a narrative line; thus sketch shows, stand-up, and variety acts can be comedy’ but not comedies’.
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Brown, P. G. McC. "Love and Marriage in Greek New Comedy." Classical Quarterly 43, no. 1 (1993): 189–205. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0009838800044268.
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Writing of Terence's Andria (‘The Girl from Andros’) in 1952, Duckworth said: ‘In the Andria the second love affair is unusual; Charinus’ love for a respectable girl whose virtue is still intact has been considered an anticipation of a more modern attitude towards love and sex. More frequently in Plautus and Terence the heroine, if of respectable parentage, has been violated before the opening of the drama (Aulularia, Adelphoe), or she is a foreigner, a courtesan, or a slave girl' (Duckworth (1952), p. 158). Perhaps in 1993 it does not seem quite so ‘modern’ that Charinus is not only in love with a respectable virgin but wishes to marry her.
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Čiripová, Dáša. "Greek Drama in the Hellenistic Period." Slovenske divadlo /The Slovak Theatre 65, no. 4 (2017): 373–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/sd-2017-0022.
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Abstract This study deals with a period of the Greeco-Roman history related to theatre. Hellenism is a period which is often overlooked by theatre scholars although it is an immensely important and rich transformatory and revolutionary period from a historical point of view. Hellenism is not only marked with the encounter of two worlds, but also with their mutual enrichment. In the world of diverse peoples, theatre and drama turn to lighter themes (comedy is more popular than tragedy), show preference for entertaining theatre forms, gradually divert their attention from serious textual levels and turn to non-verbal genres. Menandros is a typical representative of Hellenistic drama. Unfortunately, a great number of texts and files, which would contain at least mentions of drama production at that time, have been lost.
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Wright, Matthew. "POETS AND POETRY IN LATER GREEK COMEDY." Classical Quarterly 63, no. 2 (2013): 603–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s000983881300013x.
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The comic dramatists of the fifth centuryb.c.were notable for their preoccupation with poetics – that is, their frequent references to their own poetry and that of others, their overt interest in the Athenian dramatic festivals and their adjudication, their penchant for parody and pastiche, and their habit of self-conscious reflection on the nature of good and bad poetry. I have already explored these matters at some length, in my study of the relationship between comedy and literary criticism in the period before Plato and Aristotle. This article continues the story into the fourth century and beyond, examining the presence and function of poetical and literary-critical discourse in what is normally called ‘middle’ and ‘new’ comedy.
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Lowe, Christopher. "THE STRUCTURE OF PLAUTUS’ MENAECHMI." Classical Quarterly 69, no. 1 (2019): 214–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0009838819000260.
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Widely different views have been held concerning the structure of Plautus’ Menaechmi. On the one hand, the sequence of misunderstandings arising from the presence in the same city of a pair of identical twins with the same name has been likened to clockwork and attributed in essentials to an unknown Greek dramatist. On the other hand, E. Stärk has stressed features of the play which are typical of improvised comedy and put forward the bold theory that it was constructed by Plautus himself, following traditions of pre-literary Italic drama but using stock motifs of Greek New Comedy. I wish to suggest that the truth lies between these extreme positions.
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Olson, S. Douglas. "Names and Naming in Aristophanic Comedy." Classical Quarterly 42, no. 2 (1992): 304–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0009838800015949.
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One of the ironies of literary history is that the survival of Aristophanic comedy and indeed of all Greek drama is due to the more or less faithful transmission of a written text. Reading a play and watching one, after all, are very different sorts of activities. Unlike a book, in which the reader can leaf backward for reminders of what has already happened or forward for information about what is to come, a play onstage can be experienced in one direction only, from ‘beginning’ to ‘end’. Nor can a play be put down and picked up again at one's leisure or interrupted while the audience puzzles over a difficult or intriguing passage. Live theatre is an ephemeral and essentially independent thing, which must be experienced in its own time and on its own terms or not at all, and as a result we modern readers, dependent on the written page, are at a marked disadvantage in understanding ancient drama. Taplin's study of staging in Aeschylus has shed considerable light on the dramatic technique of Athenian tragedy. Stage-practice in Aristophanic comedy, and in particular the ways in which names and naming are used there, has received much less attention.
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Walker, William. "Anadiplosis in Shakespearean Drama." Rhetorica 35, no. 4 (2017): 399–424. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/rh.2017.35.4.399.
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A complex definition of the figure, anadiplosis, develops in the tradition that runs from ancient Greek and Roman rhetoricians up to sixteenth-century continental rhetorical theorists such as Susenbrotus. Drawing on and enriching this tradition, the English rhetoricians of Shakespeare's day defined the figure as the repetition of the word or words with which one phrase or line ends, at or near the beginning of the succeeding phrase or line. A series of anadiploses was understood to make for a gradatio (or climax). Having been schooled in these and other definitions of the tropes and figures, Shakespeare implements anadiplosis, as well as the rhetoricians’ rich metaphorical description of it, in his text. In so doing, he enhances his representation of people who are impassioned, thoughtful, witty, deranged, and ridiculous. In keeping with the rhetoricians’ recognition of the polysemy of the figure, Shakespeare also implements this figure to narrate events and make some of them seem inevitable (usually in history and tragedy) and others unlikely (usually in comedy). The Shakespearean script also frequently includes dialogic anadiplosis: the sharing of the figure by two speakers. In this form, it plays a significant role in Shakespeare's creation of authentic dialogue.
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Gianvittorio, Laura. "New Music and Dancing Prostitutes." Greek and Roman Musical Studies 6, no. 2 (2018): 265–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22129758-12341323.
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Abstract Old Comedy often brings prostitute-like dancers on stage while parodying the New Music. This paper argues that such dances were reminiscent of sex practices, and supports this view with dance-historical and semantic evidence. For the history of Greek dance, I survey the literary evidence for the existence of a dance tradition that represents lovers and their acts, and which would easily provide Comedy with dance vocabulary to distort. The semantic analysis of three comic passages, all criticising the New Music in sexual terms, shows a consistent overlapping between the semantic fields of eroticism and of bodily movement, with several terms indicating both figures of lovemaking and figures of dance. By performing comically revisited erotic dances or by verbally alluding to them, prostitutes would powerfully embody the conservative criticism of Old Comedy against the new trends in dance promoted by the New Music.
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Goldberg, Sander M. "Roman Comedy Gets Back to Basics." Journal of Roman Studies 101 (May 25, 2011): 206–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0075435811000074.
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Twenty-one plays survive under the name of Plautus. Add the six by Terence and the fragmentary record from Andronicus in the mid-third century to Turpilius late in the second, and the result is a significant corpus with something for nearly everyone: an extensive record of Latin at a key period in its history, a major arena for the Romans' ongoing struggle with Hellenism, a genre more central to later Western drama than anything Greek, and, however well scholarship may sometimes obscure the fact, plays that are genuinely funny and replete with the sights, sounds, and smells of what passes for daily life in the Roman Republic. Small wonder the comoedia palliata once attracted some of the great names in Roman studies. What Alison Sharrock was taught to regard as only ‘a stereotype-ridden exercise in lamentable literary secondariness’ (ix) must from the beginning have meant something quite different to Ritschl and Leo, not to mention Studemund, whose eyesight never recovered from the strain of transcribing the Ambrosian palimpsest of Plautus. How did the study of comedy ever become a literary backwater? And what has happened to it since?
Dissertations / Theses on the topic "Greek drama (Comedy) – History and criticism"
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Ponelis, Karlien. "Die invloed van die Plautiniese klug op die moderne klug." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/52206.
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Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2001.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The present thesis deals with the impact of the ancient Greek farce on modem
literature with specific reference to the play Kinkels innie Kabel (1971) by the
contemporary Afrikaans author André P. Brink. This play is loosely based on
Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors, which in tum derives from Plautus'
Menaechmi. Brink's play thus resonates with an entire European tradition.
The relationship between the modem and the ancient farce is studied with reference to
the concept of comedy. Comic effects, the difference between comedy and tragedy in
respect of the handling of vital issues and the comic vision of the playwright are all
taken into account. The analysis of the development of Athenian Old Comedy to the
Roman Comedy refers to the contribution of Plautus and Terence to the continuation
and revitalisation of Greek New Comedy. A comparison of these two playwrights
reveals the characteristics of the farce and the difference between farce and comedy.
The modem relevance of the farce is studied on the basis of Brink's text. For this
purpose Plautus' original plot, the Shakespearian version and Brink's rendition are
discussed and compared. On the basis of the similarities and differences in plot,
caricaturisation, misidentifications, politics, fantasy, coincidence, irony, farcical
violence, mechanical structure, temporal structure and linguistic register, the influence
of the ancient farce on its modem counterpart is demonstrated. In addition to farce,
Brink employs the classical devices of satire and parody to drive home his (political)
message. Finally it is shown that the farcical in Plautus, Shakespeare and Brink serves
a significant and serious thematic purpose.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie verhandeling handel oor die impak van 'n antieke Griekse
komedievorm, die klug, op moderne werke en denke. A.P. Brink se verhoogstuk
Kinkels innie Kabel (1971) is 'n vrye verwerking van William Shakespeare se
The Comedy of Errors. Laasgenoemde werk is weer op sy beurt gebaseer op
Plautus se Menaechmi. In sy verwerking van Plautus en Shakespeare laat A.P.
Brink die hele Europese tradisie deurklink.
Die verhouding tussen die moderne klug en die antieke klug word bestudeer
deur te fokus op die term komedie: die verhouding daarvan met lag en hoe die
komedie van die tragedie verskil ten opsigte van die hantering van
lewensproblematiek en komiese visie van die komedieskrywer, maak deel uit
van hierdie bespreking. Die komedie se herkoms en ontwikkeling vanaf die Ou
Komedie tot die Romeinse Komedie, val ook onder die soeklig. In aansluiting
hiermee word Plautus en Terentius bespreek as twee komedieskrywers wat 'n
rol gespeel het in die oorlewering en verlewendiging van die Griekse Nuwe
Komedie. Hierdie twee skrywers word ook met mekaar vergelyk sodat die
eienskappe van die klug geïllustreer word, en hoe dit in wese verskil van
komedie.
Die relevansie van die klug in moderne denke word bestudeer aan die hand van
Brink se teks. In hierdie verband word daar 'n uiteensetting gegee van die
oorspronklike Plautiniese verhaal, die Shakespeariaanse weergawe en die
Brinkiaanse teks. Aan die hand van die ooreenkomste en verskille in intrige,
karikaturisering, identiteitsvergissings, politiek, die fantasie-element, toeval,
ironie, klugtige geweld, die meganiese struktuur, die tydstruktuur en taalregister
word die invloed van die antieke klug op die moderne klug geïllustreer.
Benewens die klug word Brink se werk ook verder beïnvloed deur twee
klassieke middele, met name satire en parodie. Hiermee bring Brink sy
(politieke) boodskap tuis. Ten slotte word die dieperliggende temas in Plautus,
Shakespeare en Brink se werk bespreek deur aan te toon dat die werk nie net om
die klugtige gaan nie, maar ook die meer ernstige.
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Tanner, Jane Hinkle. "Sharing the Light: Feminine Power in Tudor and Stuart Comedy." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1994. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc278551/.
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Studies of the English Renaissance reveal a patriarchal structure that informed its politics and its literature; and the drama especially demonstrates a patriarchal response to what society perceived to be the problem of women's efforts to grow beyond the traditional medieval view of "good" women as chaste, silent, and obedient. Thirteen comedies, whose creation spans roughly the same time frame as the pamphlet wars of the so-called "woman controversy," from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth centuries, feature women who have no public power, but who find opportunities for varying degrees of power in the private or domestic setting.
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Doyle, Anne-Marie. "Shakespeare and the genre of comedy." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/177.
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Traditionally in the field of aesthetics the genres of tragedy and comedy have been depicted in antithetical opposition to one another. Setting out from the hypothesis that antitheses are aspects of a deeper unity where one informs the construction of the other’s image this thesis questions the hierarchy of genre through a form of ludic postmodernism that interrogates aesthetics in the same way as comedy interrogates ethics and the law of genre. Tracing the chain of signification as laid out by Derrida between theatre as pharmakon and the thaumaturgical influence of the pharmakeus or dramatist, early modern comedy can be identified as re-enacting Renaissance versions of the rite of the pharmakos, where a scapegoat for the ills attendant upon society is chosen and exorcised. Recognisable pharmakoi are scapegoat figures such as Shakespeare’s Shylock, Malvolio, Falstaff and Parolles but the city comedies of this period also depict prostitutes and the unmarried as necessary comic sacrifices for the reordering of society. Throughout this thesis an attempt has been made to position Shakespeare’s comic drama in the specific historical location of early modern London by not only placing his plays in the company of his contemporaries but by forging a strong theoretical engagement with questions of law in relation to issues of genre. The connection Shakespearean comedy makes with the laws of early modern England is highly visible in The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure and The Taming of the Shrew and the laws which they scrutinise are peculiar to the regulation of gendered interaction, namely marital union and the power and authority imposed upon both men and women in patriarchal society. Thus, a pivotal section on marriage is required to pinion the argument that the libidinized economy of the early modern stage perpetuates the principle of an excluded middle, comic u-topia, or Derridean ‘non-place’, where implicit contradictions are made explicit. The conclusion that comic denouements are disappointing in their resolution of seemingly insurmountable dilemmas can therefore be reappraised as the outcome of a dialectical movement, where the possibility of alternatives is presented and assessed. Advancing Hegel’s theory that the whole of history is dialectic comedy can therefore be identified as the way in which a society sees itself, dramatically representing the hopes and fears of an entire community.
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D'Ermo-Tenaglia, Doria. "Calandro, un personaggio nella storia della critica, 1788-1980 : saggio di bibliografia critica." Thesis, McGill University, 1986. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=65467.
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Kwong, Jessica Mun-Ling. "Playing the whore : representations of whoredom in early modern English comedy." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2014. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.707984.
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Turner, Irene. "Farce on the borderline with special reference to plays by OscarWilde, Joe Orton and Tom Stoppard." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1987. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31949204.
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Hanink, Johanna Marie. "Classical tragedy in the age of Macedon : studies in the theatrical discourses of Athens." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.609148.
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Ciesko, Martin. "Menander and the expectations of his audience." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2004. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:ae81b7d0-87da-4e3e-bd00-3b49743a82c1.
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Fiktion der Handlung? This highly conventional genre can, I claim, through both embracing and problematising its very conventionality express itself with irony and subtlety that is at least as effective as open self-praise by poets in comic genres that allow it.
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George, R. H. "Accommodation and coercion in comedy and tragedy : an analysis of the social and political implications of the development of classical Greek drama." Thesis, University of Essex, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.336945.
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Oh, Seiwoong. "The Scholarly Trickster in Jacobean Drama: Characterology and Culture." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1993. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc278216/.
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Whereas scholarly malcontents and naifs in late Renaissance drama represent the actual notion of university graduates during the time period, scholarly tricksters have an obscure social origin. Moreover, their lack of motive in participating in the plays' events, their ambivalent value structures, and their conflicting dramatic roles as tricksters, reformers, justices, and heroes pose a serious diffculty to literary critics who attempt to define them. By examining the Western dramatic tradition, this study first proposes that the scholarly tricksters have their origins in both the Vice in early Tudor plays and the witty slave in classical comedy. By incorporating historical, cultural, anthropological, and psychological studies, this essay also demonstrates that the scholarly tricksters are each a Jacobean version of the archetypal trickster, who is usually associated with solitary habits, motiveless intrusion, and a double function as selfish buffoon and cultural hero. Finally, this study shows that their ambivalent value structures reflect the nature of rhetorical training in Renaissance schools.
Books on the topic "Greek drama (Comedy) – History and criticism"
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Lowe, N. J. Comedy. Published for the Classical Association [by] Cambridge University Press, 2008.
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Newiger, Hans-Joachim. Drama und Theater: Ausgewählte Schriften zum griechischen Drama. M & P Verlag für Wissenschaft und Forschung, 1996.
Find full textBook chapters on the topic "Greek drama (Comedy) – History and criticism"
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Costanzo, William V. "Comedy, History, and Culture." In When the World Laughs. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190924997.003.0005.
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How has comedy evolved around the globe from earliest times to today? Chapter 4 offers a chronology of comedy. Distinguishing among laughter, comedy, and humor, it finds evidence of humor in ancient texts and imagery, tracing the evolution of comic genres through classical Greek drama, Sanskrit poetry, early China, medieval Europe, and feudal Japan. The chronology continues with an account of popular festivals of laughter, comedic stage performances, and precursors of the comic novel, showing how they led to modern literary and cinematic forms as well as televised sitcoms and live standup. Motion pictures borrowed silent gags and witty wordplay from vaudeville, channeled the freewheeling energy of picaresque stories into episodic road movies, adapted the amatory impulses of Shakespeare’s romantic comedies to the screen, and turned the Carnivalesque spirit into scenes of cinematic mischief and mayhem.
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Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe. "3." In Poetics of History, translated by Jeff Fort. Fordham University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.5422/fordham/9780823282340.003.0006.
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Peter Szondi famously claimed that after Aristotle there was a “poetics of tragedy,” but after Schelling there was a “philosophy of the tragic.” Lacoue-Labarthe argues that this is only half correct, in that this philosophy of the tragic is still and also a poetics of tragedy, insofar as this philosophy is based on Aristotle and on the question of the tragic effect. In a commentary on letter 10 of Schelling’s Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism (written in 1795), Lacoue-Labarthe shows that Schelling articulates in its most pointed form the historical dialectic played out in the struggles of Greek tragedy, a struggle in which mimesis reaches into a kind of sublime terror, an unsublatable mimesis that links catharsis with death. The chapter ends with a reminder that a thinking of dialectics and death is at the core of Hegel’s thought and with a quotation from Georges Bataille, who exclaimed, in “Hegel, Death and Sacrifice,” that the deathly scene of sacrifice “is a comedy!”