Description
Book SynopsisA 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).
Trade ReviewA unique resource for the serious study of comedy, this book is vast in scope and of incalculable value for those who do not read Greek. Choice This book is a landmark, which has come to stay. Bryn Mawr Classical Review This volume, which is aimed at general readers... and whose generous dimensions rival the size of an Oxford Classical Dictionary, will be an essential resource for anyone who wants to inquire into what is known of Athenian comedy beyond the surviving plays of Aristophanes and Menander... Rusten offers a concise and balanced account. New England Classical Journal The Birth of Comedy is a singularly ambitious and very welcome work. Times Literary Supplement A true reference book, to be dipped into when certain facts or information are required and thoughtfully arranged in an accessible style. Scholarly and academic in both approach and scope, this is a valuable resource for anyone interested in or researching not only Ancient Greek comedy but also the history of comic plays, theatre and drama. After twenty years spent compiling the material it is a resource that will not date and one that should provide for interesting scholarly debate and research outcomes. Reference Reviews A valuable scholarly enterprise. Classical Journal It will certainly be appearing on my reading lists in future. Journal of Hellenic Studies
Table of ContentsList 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, 486–280 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. 420–390 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
