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COMEDY: ORIGINS, DEVELOPMENT AND CHARACTERISTICS OF GENDER

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If you are interested and what is here is useful story about the origins of Comedy, more interest will, I hope, if retouch and refurbished a little post. Then do the same with the second most viewed entry ( Greek Historiography: origins and general features ), and finally with the champion. Can anyone guess what? For this .

the study of drama, tragedy and satirical way to deal, in this post and the next, comedy. As indicated at the beginning of , it seems more appropriate to deal with there (in the context of Hellenism) For New Comedy.

This entry will discuss four issues:

1. Origins of comedy.
2. Main phases of the evolution of the genre.
3. Features Old Comedy fundamental.
4. Old Comedy: Aristophanes precursors.



1. ORIGINS OF COMEDY

Similar to what was done in the case of the tragedy (see 17. The tragedy: the origins, development and circumstances ), open the entrance asking what can we say about origins of comedy.

At this point we again appeal to the testimony of Aristotle and indicate that in the case of comedy, its roots are even more uncertain than those of the tragedy, look at what Aristotle says in Poetics 5, 1449 to 37 - b 5:

changes experienced by the tragedy, and thanks to whom they occurred, are not unknown, but in the case of his early comedy is lost in oblivion because it was not considered something important at the outset: indeed, the ruler took to grant a chorus of comedians, the former being spontaneous. It has a memory of the poets cited in this genre since I was already a definite figure. But you know who introduced masks, prologues, the number of actors and all that sort of thing (trans. JB Torres).

As Aristotle himself indicates in the passage quoted in the case of this we have dramatically certainty about when and how it made its constituent elements (look what it says Brown 1987). Meanwhile

komoidía name derives from komos , the festive procession (see Herter 1947), the alternative hypothesis that derives from komoidía kome "village," Aristotle also refers Poetics 3, 1448 to 36-38.

Two simple data reflect the disparity in our knowledge of both Greek theatrical genres, tragedy and comedy:

• While the first tragedy Persians preserved are (472 a. C.), the oldest of the preserved comedies is almost fifty years more modern ( Acharnians, 425): that is, the comedy is presented as a genre and mature and therefore can not study the evolution of gender in early stages. While
• through the codices have transmitted thirty-two tragedies have only reached us in this way the eleven comedies of Aristophanes (the work of Menander has recovered slowly through the papyrus) .

2. MAIN STAGES OF THE EVOLUTION OF GENDER

Certainly, it is earlier than the cultivated Attic comedy in the West, in Sicily and Magna Grecia.
We need to acknowledge the existence of this type and indicate that their most prominent representative was Epicharmus (see what they say Cassio 1985, Kerkhof 2001, edition of the fragments in Rodríguez-Noriega 1996).

Now it is so little we know of that other comedy that seems right to outline the main steps in the evolution of the genre by focusing on Athens and starting the year 486, when it is witnessed the first performance of such dramatic within the Great Dionysia. Following
(about 440) were also made representations in the Lenaea comedy.

The comedy genre in Greece went through three phases, and differentiated by the Alexandrians:

• Old Comedy, Comedy
• 
  
• Media and New Comedy.

of an interested party to remember that evolution occurred in the sense that gender is progressively disengaged from political life, so that

• the ridicule of public property of the former (eg. , the demagogue Cleon, in several works of Aristophanes),
• criticism was passed customs and generic situations in the New.

Obviously, such a rate developments literary parallels with the development of new and bourgeois society Postclassic period, more and more away (unlike what happened in the Athens of Pericles) of the centers of political decision.

On the other hand, it should highlight the differences with respect to the evolution experienced by the tragedy:

genre
• while barely managed to survive the V century a. C.,
• comedy was able to adapt to changing times and remain a living genus that produced remarkable fruit;
• was alive Postclassic period genre that, indeed, managed to jump to Rome through the influence that Greek comedy exerted on authors such as Plautus and Terence.

3. FEATURES OF THE OLD COMEDY

At this time, and focusing and in the case of the Old Comedy, will discuss what should be considered as its fundamental characteristics.

has to pay special attention to the coexistence in the comedy of two distinct elements, the choir and the comic plot.

* The choir (see Bierl 2001), comprising a larger number than in the tragedy coreutas (twenty four) can be made

• by humans (in Acharnians )
• animals (frogs )
• or personified natural entities ( Clouds ).

His intervention is the most characteristic digression (see Sifakis 1971), during which the chorus breaks the "dramatic illusion" to face with the audience:

• the chorus (birds, clouds, etc ...) behaves as "birds" or "clouds" that visit Athens on the occasion of the festival;
• the digression has a touch of frivolity and often includes a self-praise of the poet a denigration of rivals in the contest.

* On the other hand, the comic plot must have been introduced by Crates, if we pay attention to Aristotle, Poetics 5 (see Bonanno 1972), however, has to have some kind of influence exerted on the comic story by Epicharmus and "pampering" cultivated in the West.

The comic plot is different from the tragic to not stand in the remote past and to show, however, an obvious roots in the circumstances of its historical moment.

Certainly these roots in this is perfectly compatible with the use of fantasy and utopia.
As ideal structure of Old Comedy can suggests the following:

A prologue in which the comic hero presents his plan to solve a problem is the párodos the choir, which faces after the hero in the agon epirremático, once it has reached a relative parabasis consensus occurs, then the hero tries to realize his plan, come after a series of scenes in which various characters take position on the protagonist and his plans, until finally, the play closes, between parties, with the triumph of the hero.

4. Old Comedy: Aristophanes PRECURSORS

In line with the presentation on Aristophanes (see entry ) may specify other features of Old Comedy.

now agree to close the exhibition on its basic characteristics in mind that, with Aristophanes, Old Comedy and is presented in its full maturity, and that before him there were other important playwrights (see what they say Handley 1982; Melero 1998; Harvey and Wilkins 2000). This is implied by proposing Horacio playwrights triad:

Eupolis atque Cratinus Aristophanesque poetae ( Serm. I 4, 1).

remember, in short, that knowledge of these other authors have been able to expand in S. XX by the findings of papyri, especially in the case of Éupolis, a contemporary of Aristophanes (see Storey 2003).

Joseph B. Torres Guerra

SOME REFERENCES:

* On the general characteristics of comedy:
Berthiaume, G., Les roles du mágeiros: étude sur la Boucherie, la cuisine et le sacrifice dans la Grèce ancienne, Leiden, 1982.
BIERL, A., Der Chor in der Alten Komödie: Ritual und Performativität, Munich, 2001.
Bonanno, MG, "Democracy Athenian and Attic drama development. II. Comedy, "in R. Bianchi Bandinelli (ed.), history and civilization of the Greeks. III. Greece at the time of Pericles, Barcelona, \u200b\u200b1981, pp. 317-356 ( and Civilization Storia dei Greci, Milan, 1979).
CARRIERE, JC, Le carnaval et la politique: an introduction à la comédie grecque, Paris, 1979.
GIL, L., "Comedy Attica and Athenian society, ECLAS 18 (1974), pp. 61-82, 151-186, 19 (1975), pp. 59-88.
Halliwell, H., "Comic Satire and Freedom of Speech in Classical Athens", JHS 111 (1991), pp. 48-70.
HOFMANN, H., Mythos und Komödie, Hildesheim, 1976. LÓPEZ
Ferez, JA (ed.), Greek Comedy and its influence on English literature, Madrid, 1998.
MELERO, A., "Comedy. The Old Comedy ", in JA Lopez Ferez (ed.), History of Greek Literature, Madrid, 1988, pp. 431-474.
MELERO, A., "The formation of the poetic comedy," in D. Stephanie et alii (eds.), Papers Greek and Latin Literature. II. Greco-Latin poetic genres, Madrid-Santiago de Compostela, 1998, pp. 183-207.
Rössler W., y ZIMMERMANN, B., Carnevale e nella Grecia antica utopia, Bari, 1991.
Sifakis, GM, para base and Animal Choruses, Londres, 1971.
STARK, I., The malicious Muse: ridicule as a social and mental control in Greek comedy, Múnich, 2004.
J. WILKINS, The boastful Chef: The Discourse of Food in Ancient Greek comedy, Oxford, 2000.
ZIMMERMANN, B., The Greek comedy, Darmstadt, 1998. Sobre los
* Origen de la comedia:
HERTER, H., From Dionysian Dance for comic game Iserlohn, 1947.
ROSEN, MR, Old Comedy and the Iambographic Tradition, Atlanta, 1988.
* On the main stages in the evolution of comedy:
Bonanno, MG, Cratete Studi his comic, Padua, 1972.
CASSIO, AC, "Two Studies on Epicharmus and His Influence", HSCPh 89 (1985), pp. 37-51.
Handley, EW, "Aristophanes'Rivals" PCA 79 (1982), pp. 23-25.
HARVEY, D., and WILKINS, J. (Eds.), The Rivals of Aristophanes : Studies in Athenian Old Comedy, London, 2000.
Kerkhof, R., Dorische Posse, Epicharm Attische und Komödie, Munich, 2001.
MELERO, A., "Comedy prearistofánica" in Proceedings of the IX English Congress of Classical Studies, Madrid, 1998, volume IV, pp. 3-25.
GUILLEN RODRIGUEZ-NORIEGA, L. (Ed.), Syracuse Epicharmus : testimonies and fragments, Oviedo, 1996.
STOREY, IC, Eupolis, Poet of Old Comedy, Oxford, 2003.