self explanatory material about Characteristics and structure of comedy. it contains definition of comedy and history and its basis sections into which it is divided. Old comedy , middle comedy. new comedy.

1. Characteristics
and structure
of Greek
comedy
Fareeha Shoukat
BS English 2017-21

2. What is comedy ?
a drama of light and amusing character and typically with a happy
ending
(Merriam-Webster-dictionary)
Comedy is a literary genre and a type of dramatic work that is amusing
and satirical in its tone, mostly having a cheerful ending. The motif of
this dramatic work is triumph over unpleasant circumstance by
creating comic effects, resulting in a happy .
https://literarydevices.net/comedy/

3. Ancient Greek comedy was a popular and influential form of theatre performed
across ancient Greece from the 6th century BCE. Comedy is divided into three
periods
 Old comedy(archaia)
Susarion- the earliest Athenian comic poet, Aristophanes-11 survivaling plays
 Middle comedy(mese)
"later than Aristophanes and his contemporaries, but earlier than Menander“.
 New comedy (nea)
Menander wrote 108 comedies and took the prize at the Lenaia festival eight times.Georgos, Dyskolos

4. The Lenaea Festival
In ancient Athens, there were annual competitions not only in tragedy but also
in comedy at the City Dionysia, starting in 486 B.C. The Lenaea festival started
having comedy competitions in 440. There were normally 5 comedies that
competed, but during the Peloponnesian War, the number was reduced to 3.
Unlike the writers of tragedy who put on a series of 4 plays, the writers of comedy
produced one comedy apiece

5. Function of Comedy
 humor and induce laughter.
 It also portrays social institutions and persons as corrupt, and ridicules them through satirizing,
parodying, and poking fun at their vices.
Origin of comedy
 Athens-Dionysus(god of wine, ritual madness, theatre, fertility, god of vegetation)
 In Roman he is known as Bacchus also as Liber. The word comedy seems to be connected
by derivation with the Greek verb meaning “to revel,” and comedy arose out of the revels
associated with the rites of Dionysus.
 Early source of comedy is the poems of Archilochus (7th century BCE) and Hipponax (6th
century BCE) which contain crude and explicit sexual humour. A third origin, and cited as such
by Aristotle, lies in the phallic songs which were sung during Dionysiac festivals.

6.  When tragedy and comedy came to light, poets were drawn by their natural bent towards one or the
other. Some became writers of comedies instead of lampoons, the others produced tragedies instead
of epics; the reason being that the former is in each case a higher kind of art and has greater value.
 Aristotle- poetics
 C. A. Trypanis wrote that comedy is the last of the great species of poetry Greece gave to the
world.
 Special effects that can be achieved when comedy lifts its voice in pseudo tragic rant and when
tragedy adopts the prosaic but affecting language of comedy. Horace
 Insight into Greek society in general and provide details on the workings of Greek government,
political institutions, legal systems, religious practices, education, and warfare in the Hellenic
world.
 Uniquely, the plays also reveal to us something of the identity of the audience and show just what
tickled the Greeks' sense of humour. Finally, Greek comedy and its immediate predecessor Greek
tragedy would together form the foundation upon which all modern theatre is based.

7. Conti…
 Plays include outspoken political criticism and comment on literary and philosophical topics.
 [On modern poets]
Small fry, I assure you, insignificant squeakers and twitterers, like a lot of swallows. A disgrace to their art. If ever
they are granted a chorus, what does their offering at the shrine of Tragedy amount to? One cock of the hind leg and
they’ve pissed themselves dry. You never hear of them again.
(159, Act One, Scene One, The Frogs by Aristophanes)
 we have eleven complete plays from him. There were two other layers to his plays. The first was pure and simple
humor, focused on scatological and sexual jokes.
 The other layer was personal and political. The few plays we have are filled with attacks on political and
intellectual people from his time; he did caricatures of Socrates, Cleon, and Euripides
 Plays include The Clouds (423 BC), a satire on the misuse of philosophical argument directed chiefly against
Socrates, and The Frogs (405 BC), a satire on Greek drama directed chiefly against Euripides..

8. Conti…
 Peloponnesian Wars that were going on when he wrote.
 Middle Comedy - Menander. The style is considered a transition between the
traditional and new comedy, but you can think of Middle Comedy as a simpler form
of Old Comedy.
 The chorus -used less and less.
 The playwrights of the New Comedy genre built on the legacy from their
predecessors, but adapted it to the portrayal of everyday life, rather than of public
affairs. The satirical and farcical element which featured so strongly in Aristophanes'
comedies was increasingly abandoned.
 They wear masks, their dancing is expressive, as conveyed by the hands, arms and
body.

9. There are five types of comedy in
literature:
 Romantic Comedy
Romantic comedy involves a theme of love leading to a happy conclusion.
 Comedy of Humors
Ben Johnson is the first dramatist who conceived and popularized this dramatic genre during the late
sixteenth century. The term humor derives from the Latin word Humor, which means “liquid.” It comes
from a theory that the human body has four liquids, or humors, which include phelgm, blood, yellow
bile, and black bile.
 Comedy of Manners
This form of dramatic genre deals with intrigues and relations of ladies and gentlemen living in a
sophisticated society
 Sentimental Comedy
Sentimental drama contains both comedy and sentimental tragedy.
 Tragicomedy
This dramatic genre contains both tragic and comedic elements

10. Structure

11. Structure
 Aristophanic comedies have a more elaborate structure than the typical tragedy.
 A typical structure for Aristophanes' Old Comedy would be prologue, parados, agon,
parabasis, episodes, and Exodus, with a chorus of 24.
 Actors wore masks and had padding front and back.
 Costumes might include giant phalluses.
 He used equipment like the mechane or crane and the ekkyklema or platform. He
made up long, complicated, compound words where appropriate, like
cloudcuckooland.

12. Prologue: A monologue
or dialogue.
Parode (Entrance Ode)
Agôn (Contest): Two
speakers debate the issue
Parabasis(coming forward):
 Ode
 Epirrhema (Afterword)
 Antode (Answering Ode)
 Antepirrhema (Answering
Afterword)
Episode
Exode (Exit Song)

13. Conclusion
Aristotle describes the genre of comedy and especially how it differs from tragedy.
Among other distinctions, Aristotle says comedy represents men as worse than
they are in real life, whereas tragedy shows them better. Tragedy uses real people,
whereas comedy uses stereotypes. Aristotle says the plot for comedy came
originally from Sicily.
Old Comedy had been performed for 60 years prior to Aristophanes. In his time, as
his work shows, Old Comedy was changing.

14. References
 https://literarydevices.net/comedy/
 https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Ancient_Greek_comedy
 https://www.britannica.com/art/comedy
 https://www.britannica.com/art/Old-Comedy
 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Aristot.+Poet.+1449a&redirect=tru
e
 https://web.eecs.utk.edu/~bmaclenn/Classes/US210/Greek-play.html#comedy
 https://www.thoughtco.com/parode-ancient-greek-tragedy-comedy-
111952#:~:text=Stasimon%20(Stationary%20Song)%3A%20A,chorus%20after%20th
e%20last%20episode.