Influence Of Comedy In Ancient Athens

Satire is a literary manner built on wit and humor with a critical attitude directed to human institutions and humanity.  A successful satiric play will show certain truths about society and then try to improve upon them.  Satire is meant to be constructive rather than destructive.  Aristophanes uses satire in Lysistrata to convey many different themes such as war and peace, the struggles of power and class, and the life and death issues that are seen in war.  Satire is successfully used and seen in Lysistrata by stereotyping women in general and then the different classes of women as well.  Double entendres are seen throughout the play to help add humor to the play.  Sex is

Theater in ancient Greece was considered the climax of the days long cultural festival of The City Dionysia. At the festival, various types of plays were shown but one of the most popular was tragedy. These tragedies show the main character, usually a god or person of myth, going through human suffering and the terrible sequence of events that followed; and were produced in 472- 401 BCE. In order for a play to be performed at The City Dionysia festival; tragic playwrights would first have to appeal to the state official that was organizing the festival by submitting ideas to him and his committee. The ideas submitted were outlines of main themes and points of interest to be performed in the play. If a playwright was selected by the state official and his committee, then they received a financial backer and a chance to compete in the drama competition of the festival. The state official, or his committee, was likely pushing their own agenda and choose playwrights that matched their ideals. This is just one example of how theater in ancient Greece was used to influence the morality of Greek culture by using the stories of tragedies, like those of Euripides.

Aristophanes wrote The Acharnians at a time where the world he saw around him was changing. Athens had been at war for six years with no end in sight, the leader who started the war has been killed by a plague, and just three years prior Athens almost voted to kill off one of its allies for trying to leave the Delian League. He was seeing a whole new side of Athens. A side in which the concept of an independent polis has been lost and Athens is at war with its former allies. These are the things that inspire Aristophanes’ Greek comedy to be born. He uses the theater to address the questions he has about what is

Theatre became important to Greek cultures when it became a part of the festival honoring the god Dionysus (The god of wine and fertility).”( Greek Mythology in Theater by Bruce Tucker October 27, 2016) The theater festival was founded to bring unity among the Attican tribes.( Greek Mythology in Theater by Bruce Tucker October 27, 2016) Athens was the main center of these traditions. Everyone came to sing and dance in hope for a good harvest. At one point, a Greek named Thespis began to sing praises to the god, with others responding, which led to the actor and chorus. During the festival everyone would dance and sing in a circle, in the middle of which was the altar to Dionysus. Over time the festivals started giving thanks to other themes, and eventually had nothing to do with Dionysus or any god, but began to turn into classical Greek plays. (First Ancient History, Oxford University Press 2000 pg.166)

Theatre flourished in Greece, particularly in Athens, between c. 550 BC and c. 220 BC. During its beginnings theatrical performances were part of Dionysia, a festival held in honour of the god Dionysus. The plot of the plays was always inspired by Greek mythology, a theme that is still common today. Many modern plays and movies have been directly based on or incorporated elements of Greek mythology or simply mythology in general. Every play had a chorus, though the size and importance of it varied. The

During the time of Euripides, approximately the second half of the fifth century B.C., it was a period of immense cultural crisis and political convulsion (Arrowsmith 350). Euripides, like many other of his contemporaries, used the whole machinery of the theater as a way of thinking about their world (Arrowsmith 349). His interest in particular was the analysis of culture and relationship between culture and the individual. Euripides used his characters as a function to shape the ideas of the play (Arrowsmith 359).

Greek drama was performed in the late 6th century BCE in ancient Greece. Tragedians like Euripides wrote very influential and popular plays such as the Bacchae. Greek tragedies lead to Greek comedies such as Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. Many of the Greek dramas have similar concepts, one of being duality. Without duality, the nature of our lives and the environment around us remains unbalanced.

The reason we still have theatre today is purely because of Roman and Greek dramas. Even just the term “play” comes from Latin’s “ludus” meaning to play. Nowaday we still use this entertainment to distract our people from surrounding issues. Comedy is

Ancient Greek Theater is the first historical record of “drama,” which is the Greek term meaning “to do” or “to act.” Beginning in the 5th century BC, Greek Theater developed into an art that is still used today. During the golden age of the Athenians plays were created, plays that are considered among the greatest works of world drama. Today there are thousands of well-known plays and films based on the re-make of ancient drama.

Though both genres of theatre are closely tied to religion, Greek theatre and medieval drama have different religious motivations that impact the ways in which the theatrical event is utilized. In Greece, theatre was used to entertain or please the Gods, more specifically the God Dionysus, during the most important of the four Athenian festivals: the Great Dionysia. The first known Greek playwrights, such as Thespis and Euripides, were chosen to compete in the festival and submit three tragedies and one satyr play to be performed in front of approximately 15,000 spectators. In classical Greece, theatre was the center of citizenship and society; religious ideologies towards Dionysus were not only realized by performances, but strongly encouraged by the state. For example, if a citizen could not afford to attend the

Aristophanes paved the way for comedy and how it would be viewed by citizens in ancient Greece. By incorporating satire and comedy, Aristophanes portrayed the social and political climate of the time. More specifically, Lysistrata, a play by Aristophanes, gives insight into the role women have in the Athenian society. The theme of gender roles in the play, Lysistrata, has evolved to parallel the social norm of feminism by women today. Lysistrata is a satirical comedy and portrays the women are at odds with man regarding several different matters, most notably the waging war on itself. The role Aristophanes embellishes within the characters are reversed between man and woman. The women, who were largely subservient to the needs and whims of

“Since his [Aristophanes’] plays were often sharply critical of Athenian policies, his ability to make people laugh was essential to conveying his message. He was a practitioner of what we now call Old Comedy, an irreverent form that ridiculed and insulted prominent people and important institutions” (80).

    According to Aristotle (who speculates on the matter in his Poetics), ancient comedy originated with the komos, a curious and improbable spectacle in which a company of festive males apparently sang, danced, and cavorted rollickingly around the image of a large phallus.  (If this theory is true, by the way, it gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "stand-up routine.")

In the ‘Frogs’ and ‘Wasps’ written by the “eminently best” comedian of the fifth century, Aristophanes, we see he utilized humour to exact the important message that Athens is corrupt, and on the verge of chaos. The Athenian audience would expect to be thrust into a world of humour in the City Dionysia, somewhere parallel to their own (e.g. the Athenian jury in the ‘Wasps’, and the failings of the government in ‘Frogs’). It is vital, then, that Aristophanes conveys his political and social views through slapstick, farce, and caricature to interest the audience. This is an important component in both plays as the audience is able to simultaneously accept his diplomatic views whilst being entertained. After all his main point for producing his plays were to produce something with a “little fable, with a moral”.

In Ancient Greece religion and theater went hand in hand. The Greeks developed religion that was based on worship of many Gods. In honor of the Gods there were festivals with dancing, music, and theatrical performances. During the festivals the whole city would come to a complete stand still. All businesses were closed, politics were put on the back burner, and wars were halted. All social classes were welcome to come to the festival, and they all did. One of the most famous religious festivals is the City Dionysia, a festival in honor of the god Dionysus, god of wine, revelry, and fertility. The festival was held in ancient Athens, in March for five days, featuring dramatic competitions. These dramatic competitions consisted of dithyrambs, tragedies, comedies, and satyr plays. The tragedy competition was four plays per playwright, three tragedies and one satyr play. There were two processions; the first was carrying the statue of Dionysus from the temple to the theater of Dionysus at the foot of the Acropolis. The second were the patrons parading through the