The Cambridge Companion to Greek Comedy

Martin Revermann

Jun 2014 · Cambridge University Press

About this ebook

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 audience response, festival context, interface with ritual or political frames). In addition, it also discusses relevant historical issues (political, socio-economic and legal) as well as the artistic and archaeological evidence. The result provides a unique panorama of this challenging area of Greek literature which will be of help to students at all levels and from a variety of disciplines but will also provide stimulus for further research.

About the author

Martin Revermann is Professor of Classics and Theatre Studies at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Comic Business: Theatricality, Dramatic Technique and Performance Contexts of Aristophanic Comedy (2006). He also co-edited Performance, Iconography, Reception: Studies in Honour of Oliver Taplin (with P. Wilson, 2008) and Beyond the Fifth Century: Interactions with Greek Tragedy from the Fourth Century BCE to the Middle Ages (with I. Gildenhard, 2010). In addition, he is the author of articles on Greek comedy and tragedy, Brecht, Homer, theatre-related vase paintings and theatre theory.