Aside from the wellknown plays of Aristophanes, many of the comedies of Ancient Greece are known only through fragments and references written in Greek. Now a group of distinguished scholars brings these nearly lost works to modern readers with lively English translations of the surviving texts. The Birth of Comedy brings together a wealth of information on the first three generations of Western comedy. The selection of translations is based on the universally praised scholarly edition in Greek, Poetae Comici Graeci, by R. Kassel and C. A. Austin. Authors are presented in chronological order. Additional chapters contain translations of texts relating to comedy at dramatic festivals, staging, audience, and ancient writers on comedy. The book includes more than forty illustrations of comic scenes, costumes, and masks. The introduction assesses the fragments' contributions to the political, social, and theatrical history of classical Athens. A glossary of ''komoidoumenoi'' -- the ancient word for ''people mentioned in comedies'' -- provides background information on the most notorious comic victims. A full index includes not only authors, play titles, and persons mentioned, but themes from the whole Greek comic sphere (including politics, literature and philosophy, celebrities and social scandals, cookery and wine, sex and wealth).The Birth of Comedy makes accessible for the first time the rich evidence for all aspects of classical Greek comedy.
List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Symbols and Abbreviations Introduction Fragments of Comedy Principles of This Selection How to Use This Book List of Translators and Sections Plays and Fragments of Special Interest Sources of the Comic Fragments A Short History of Athenian Comedy Attested Dates of Athenian Comedies, 486280 BCE Part I. Beginnings 1. Proto-Comedy 2. Epicharmus of Sicily Part II. Athenian Old Comedy Introduction 3. Festivals, Competitions, and Victory Lists 4. The First and Second Generations (except Cratinus) 5. Cratinus 6. Eupolis 7. Aristophanes 8. Phrynichus and Platon 9. Other Authors, ca. 420390 BCE 10. Theater, Audience, Actors, Chorus, and Costume of Old and Middle Comedy 11. Scenes from Old or Middle Comedy on Fourth-Century South Italian Vases Part III. Middle Comedy Introduction 12. Anaxandrides, Eubulus, and Ephippus 13. Antiphanes 14. Timocles and Nicostratus 15. Alexis 16. Other Authors Part IV. Athenian New Comedy Introduction 17. Masks, Actors, Staging, and Scenes from New Comedy 18. Philemon 19. Menander 20. Diphilus of Sinope 21. Other Authors Epilogue 22. Survival of Comedy in Hellenistic Greece and Republican and Imperial Rome 23. Ancient Theories of Comedy and Laughter, and Ancient Writers on Comedy Komoidoumenoi Bibliography Illustration Credits Index
""It will certainly be appearing on my reading lists in future.""
