Comoedia
(
κωμῳδία).
1. Greek
The Greek comedy, like the Greek tragedy and satyric drama, had its origin in the festivals
of Dionysus. As its name,
κωμῳδία, or the song of the
κῶμος, implies, it arose from the unrestrained singing and
jesting common in the
κῶμος, or merry procession of
Dionysus. According to the tradition, it was the Doric inhabitants of Megara, well known for
their love of fun, who first worked up these jokes into a kind of farce. The inhabitants of
Megara accordingly boasted that they were the founders of Greek comedy. From Megara, it was
supposed, the popular farce found its way to the other Dorian communities, and one Susarion
was said to have transplanted it to the Attic deme of Icaria about B.C. 580. No further
information is in existence as to the nature of the Megarian or Dorian popular comedy. The
local Doric farce was developed into literary form in Sicily by Epicharmus of Cos (about B.C.
540-450). This writer gave a comic treatment not only to mythology, but to subjects taken
from real life. The contemporary of Epicharmus, Phormus or Phormis, and his pupil Dinolochus,
may also be named as representatives of the Dorian comedy.
The beginnings of the Attic comedy, like those of the Attic tragedy, are associated with
the deme of Icaria, known to have been the chief seat of the worship of Dionysus in Attica.
Not only Thespis , the father of tragedy, but also Chionides and Magnes (about B.C. 550),
who, if the story may be trusted, first gave a more artistic form to the Megarian comedy,
introduced by Susarion, were natives of Icaria. Comedy did not become, in the proper sense, a
part of literature until it had found welcome and consideration at Athens in the time of the
Persian Wars; until its form had been moulded on the finished outlines of tragedy; and until,
finally, it had received from the State the same recognition as tragedy. See
Tragoedia.
The Old Comedy, as it was called, had its origin in personal
abuse. It was Crates who first gave it its peculiar political character, and his younger
contemporary, Cratinus, who turned it mainly or exclusively in this direction. The masters of
the Old Comedy are usually held to be Cratinus and his younger contemporaries, Eupolis and
Aristophanes. It attained its youth in the time of Pericles and the Peloponnesian
War—the period when the Athenian democracy had reached its highest development.
These three masters had many rivals—who fell, however, on the whole beneath their
level—among others Pherecrates, Hermippus, Teleclides, Phrynichus, Ameipsias,
Plato, and Theopompus.
A good idea of the characteristics of the Old Comedy may be formed from the eleven
surviving plays of
Aristophanes (q.v.). The
Greek tragedy has a meaning for all time; but the Old Comedy, the most brilliant and striking
production of all Athenian literature, has its roots in Athenian life, and addressed the
Athenian public only.
Dealing from the very first with the grotesque and absurd side of things, it was the
scourge of all vice, folly, and weakness. The social life of Athens, so restless and
yet so open, offered an inexhaustible store of material; and the comedian was always sure of
a witty, laughter-loving public, on whom no allusion was lost. The first aim of the Athenian
comedy was, no doubt, to make men laugh, but this was not all. Beneath it there lay a serious
and patriotic motive. The poet, who was secured by the license of the stage, wished to bring
to light and turn to ridicule the abuses and degeneracy of his time. The Attic comedians are
all admirers of the good old times, and accordingly the declared enemies of the social
innovations which were beginning to make their way—the signs in many cases, no
doubt, of approaching decline. It was not, however, the actual phenomena of life which were
sketched in the Old Comedy. The latter is really a grotesque and fantastic caricature; the
colours are laid on thick, and propriety, as we moderns understand it, is thrown to the
winds. These plays abound in coarseness and obscenity of the broadest kind, the natural
survival of the rude license allowed at the Dionysiac festival. The choice and treatment of
the subjects show the same tendency to the grotesque and fantastic. Fancy and caprice revel
at their will, unchecked by any regard either for the laws of poetical probability or for
adequacy of occasion. The action is generally quite simple, sketched out in a few broad
strokes, and carried out in a motley series of loosely connected scenes. The language is
always choice and fine, never leaving the forms of the purest Atticism. The metres admit a
greater freedom and movement than those of the tragedy.
A comedy, like a tragedy, consisted of the dramatic dialogue, written mostly in iambic
senarii, and the lyrical chorus. The division of the dialogue into
πρόλογος, ἐπεισόδιον, and
ἔξοδος, and of the
chorus into
πάροδος and
στάσιμα, are the same as in tragedy. But, while the tragic chorus consisted of
fifteen singers, there were twenty-four in the comic. A peculiarity of the comic chorus is
the
παράβασις, a series of lines entirely unconnected with
the plot, in which the poet, through the mouth of the chorus, addresses the public directly
about his own concerns or upon burning questions of the day. (See
Parabasis.) Like the tragedies, the comedies were performed at the great
festivals of Dionysus, the
Dionysia (q.v.) and the
Lenaea (q.v.). On each occasion five poets competed
for the prize, each with one play.
For a short time, but a short time only, a limitation had been put upon the absolute
freedom with which the poets of the Old Comedy lashed the shortcomings of the government and
its chief men. The downfall of the democracy, however, deprived them of this liberty. The
disastrous issue of the Peloponnesian War had, moreover, ruined the Athenian finances, and
made it necessary to give up the expensive chorus and with it the
παράβασις. Thus deprived of the means of existence, the Old Comedy was doomed to
extinction. In its place came what was called the Middle Comedy,
from about B.C. 400 to 338. This was a modification of the Old Comedy, with a character
corresponding to the altered circumstance of the time. The Middle Comedy was in no sense
political; it avoided all open attack on individuals, and confined itself to treating the
typical faults and weaknesses of mankind. Its main line was burlesque and parody, of which
the objects were the tragedies and the mythology in general. It was also
severe upon the lives of the philosophers. It dealt in typical characters, such as bullies,
parasites, and courtesans. The writers of the Middle Comedy were very prolific, more than
eight hundred of their plays having survived as late as the second century A.D. The most
celebrated of them were Antiphanes of Athens and Alexis of Thurii; next to these came
Eubulus, and Anaxandrides of Rhodes.
A new departure is signalized by the dramas of what is called the New
Comedy. In these, as in the modern society drama, life was represented in its minutest
details. The New Comedy offered a play regularly constructed like that of tragedy,
characterized by fine humour, and but seldom touching on public life. The language was that
of ordinary society, and the plot was worked out in a connected form from the beginning to
the dénouement. The chief art of the poets of the New Comedy lay in the
development of the plot and the faithful portraiture of character. The stock subjects are
illicit love affairs; for honest women lived in retirement, and stories of honourable love,
therefore, were practically excluded from the stage. The ordinary characters are young men in
love, fathers of the good-natured or the scolding type, cunning slaves, panders, parasites,
and bragging officers. Besides the dialogue proper, we find traces of parts written in lyric
metres for the higher style of singing. These were, in all probability, like the dialogue,
performed by the actors.
The fate of the New resembles that of the Middle Comedy, only a few fragments of its
numerous pieces having survived. Of some of them, however, we have Latin adaptations by
Plautus and Terence. Its greatest master was Menander, besides whom should be mentioned
Diphilus, Philemon, Philippides, Posidippus, and Apollodorus of Carystus. The New Comedy
flourished from B.C. 330 till far into the third century A.D.
In about B.C. 300, the old Dorian farce was revived in a literary form in Southern Italy by
Rhinthon, the creator of the
Hilarotragoedia (
Ἱλαροτραγῳδία). The
Hilarotragoedia was for the most part a
parody of the tragic stories. It is also called, from its creator,
fabula
Rhinthonica.
2. Roman
Like the Greeks, the Italian people had their popular dramatic pieces—the
versus Fescennini, for instance, which were at first introduced, in B.C. 390,
from Etruria, in consequence of a plague, to appease the wrath of heaven. (See
Fescennini Versus.) From this combination sprang the
satura, a performance consisting of flute-playing, mimic dance, songs,
and dialogue. The
Atellanae Fabulae (q. v.) were a second species of popular
Italian comedy, distinguished from others by having certain fixed or stock characters. The
creator of the regular Italian comedy and tragedy was a Greek named Livius Andronicus, about
B.C. 240. Like the Italian tragedy, the Italian comedy was, in form and contents, an
imitation, executed with more or less freedom, of the Greek. It was the New Greek Comedy
which the Romans took as their model. This comedy, which represents scenes from Greek life,
was called
palliata, after the Greek
pallium, or
cloak. The dramatic
satura and the
Atellana, which
afterwards supplanted the
satura as a concluding farce, continued to
exist side by side. The Latin comedy was brought to perfection by Plautus and Terence, the
only Roman dramatists from whose hands we still possess complete plays. We should also
mention Naevius and Ennius (both of whom wrote tragedies as well as comedies), Caecilius, and
Turpilius, with whom, towards the end of the third century B.C., this style of composition
died out.
About the middle of the second century B.C., a new kind of comedy, the
fabula togata (from
toga), made its appearance. The form of it
was still Greek, but the life and the characters Italian. The
togata was
represented by Titinius, Atta , and Afranins, who were accounted masters in this kind of
writing. At the beginning of the first century B.C., the
Atellana assumed an
artistic form in the hands of Pomponius and Novius; and some fifty years later the
mimus, also an old form of popular farce, was similarly handled by Laberius
and Publilius Syrus. The
mimus drove all the other varieties of comedy
from the field, and held its ground until late in the imperial period. See Fabula;
Mimus;
Pantomimus;
Satira.
The Roman comedy, like its model, the New Comedy of the Greeks, had no regular chorus, the
intervals being filled up by performances on the flute. (See
Chorus.) The play consisted, like the Roman tragedy, partly of passages
of spoken dialogue (
diverbia) in iambic trimeters, partly of musical
scenes called
cantica. See
Canticum.
For the details of comic acting and a bibliography, see
Drama;
Theatrum.