The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy

by: Fontaine, M. Scafuro, A.D.

In recent decades literary approaches to drama have multiplied: new historical, intertextual, political, performative and metatheatrical, socio-linguistic, gender-driven, transgenre-driven. New information has been amassed, sometimes by re-examination of extant literary texts and material artifacts, at other times from new discoveries from the fields of archaeology, epigraphy, art history, and literary studies. The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy marks the first comprehensive introduction to and reference work for the unified study of ancient comedy. From the birth of comedy in Greece to its end in Rome, from the Hellenistic diffusion of performances after the death of Menander to its artistic, scholarly, and literary receptions in the later Roman Empire, no topic is neglected. 41 essays spread across Greek Comedy, Roman Comedy, and the transmission and reception of Ancient comedy by an international team of experts offer cutting-edge guides through the immense terrain of the field, while an expert introduction surveys the major trends and shifts in scholarly study of comedy from the 1960s to today. The Handbook includes two detailed appendices that provide invaluable research tools for both scholars and students. The result offers Hellenists an excellent overview of the earliest reception and creative reuse of Greek New Comedy, Latinists a broad perspective of the evolution of Roman Comedy, and scholars and students of classics an excellent resource and tipping point for future interdisciplinary research.

Table of Contents
Introduction. Ancient Comedy: The Longue Durée
Part One: Greek Comedy
I. Beginnings
1. In Search of the Essence of Old Comedy: From Aristotle's Poetics to Zielinksi, Cornford and Beyond (Jeffrey Rusten)
2. Performing Comedy in the Fifth through Early Third Centuries (Eric Csapo)
3. Dionysiac Festivals in Athens and the Financing of Comic Performances: Choregia and Democracy (Andronike Makres)
II. The Greek Comedians and their Plays
4. The First Poets of Old Comedy (Ian Storey)
5. The Last Laugh: Eupolis, Strattis, and Plato against Aristophanes (Mario Telò)
6. Aristophanes (Bernard Zimmermann)
7. Comedy in the Fourth Century I: Mythological Burlesques (Ioannis M. Konstantakos)
8. Comedy in the Fourth Century II: Politics and Domesticity (Jeffrey Henderson)
9. Comedy in the Late Fourth and Early Third Centuries BCE (Adele C. Scafuro)
10. Menander (Adele C. Scafuro)
11. Reconstructing Menander (Alain Blanchard)
12. Crossing Genres: Comedy, Tragedy, and Satyr Play (Johanna Hanink)
13. Crossing Conceptual Worlds: Greek Comedy and Philosophy (David Konstan)
III. Attic Comedy and Society
14. The Politics of Comic Athens (David Rosenbloom)
15. Law and Greek Comedy (Emiliano J. Buis)
16. Religion and the Gods in Greek Comedy (Scott Scullion)
IV. The Diffusion of Comedy in the Hellenistic World
17. The Diffusion of Comedy from the Age of Alexander to the Beginning of the Roman Empire (Brigitte Le Guen)
18. Hellenistic Mime and its Reception in Rome (Costas Panayotakis)
Part Two: Roman Comedy
I. Beginnings
19. The Beginnings of Roman Comedy (Peter Brown)
20. Festivals, Producers, Theatrical Spaces, and Records (George Fredric Franko)
21. Plautus between Greek Comedy and Atellan Farce: Assessments and Reassessments (Antonis K. Petrides)
II. The Roman Comedians and their Plays
22. Plautus' Dramatic Predecessors and Contemporaries in Rome (Wolfgang David Cirilo De Melo)
23. Plautus and Terence in Performance (Erica M. Bexley)
24. Metrics and Music (Marcus Deufert)
25. Prologue(s) and Prologi (Boris Dunsch)
26. Between Two Paradigms: Plautus (Michael Fontaine)
27. The Terentian Reformation: From Menander to Alexandria (Michael Fontaine)
28. The Language of the Palliata (Evangelos Karakasis)
29. Tragedy, Para-tragedy and Roman Comedy (Gesine Manuwald)
III. Roman Comedy and Society
30. Roman Comedy and the Social Scene (Erich Gruen)
31. Law and Roman Comedy (Jan Felix Gaertner)
32. Religion in Roman Comedy (Boris Dunsch)
Part Three: Transmission and Ancient Reception
33. 'Introduction' to Aristophanea (Nigel Wilson)
34. Later Greek Comedy in Later Antiquity (Heinz-Günther Nesselrath)
35. The Rebirth of a Codex: Virtual Work on the Ambrosian Palimpsest of Plautus (Walter Stockert)
36. The Transmission of Terence (Benjamin Victor)
37. Graphic Comedy: Menandrian Mosaics and Terentian Miniatures (Sebastiana Nervegna)
38. Greek Comedy, the Novel, and Epistolography (Regina Höschele)
39. Roman Comedy in the Second Sophistic (Regine May)
40. The Reception of Plautus in Antiquity (Rolando Ferri)
41. Aelius Donatus and His Commentary on Terence's Comedies (Chrysanthi Demetriou)
Appendices
1. New Texts: Greek Comic Papyri 1973-2012 (Eftychia Bathrellou)
2. Post-Menandrian Comic Poets: An Overview of the Evidence and a Checklist (Ben Millis)

The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy

by: Fontaine, M. Scafuro, A.D.

• ISBN-13: 9780190887216 / 978-0-19-088721-6
• ISBN-03: 0190887214 / 0-19-088721-4
• Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2018