Old Comedy
Ancient Greek farce
Old Comedy is the earliest form of ancient Greek comic drama, flourishing in Athens during the fifth century BCE.
Distinguished by bawdy humor, fantastical plots, personal attacks on public figures, and a chorus that addressed the audience directly, it dealt freely with politics and current events.
Aristophanes is its best-known practitioner.
The plays of Old Comedy satirized Athenian democracy without restraint.
Singers performing together
- masksFace-covering disguises
- phallusMale organ symbol
- costumesClothes for assuming roles
- orchestraLarge instrumental ensemble
skene · theatron · actors · dancing · singing · slapstick · buffoonery · spectacle
State without conflict
Rule by the people
- demagoguesPoliticians manipulating mass emotion
- warArmed struggle between groups
- peaceFreedom from disturbance
- PeloponnesianOf Greece's hand-shaped peninsula
Athens · sophists · rhetoric · philosophy · gods · mythology · gender · sex
Greek city-state magistrate
- competitionStruggle for supremacy
- victoryDefeating an opponent
- trilogyThree linked creative works
- fragmentsIncomplete broken pieces
chorus
Singers performing together
orchestra · skene · theatron · actors · dancing · singing · slapstick · buffoonery · spectacle · entrances
Peace
State without conflict
- SocratesAncient Athenian questioning philosopher
- EuripidesGreek tragic dramatist
- DionysusGreek deity of wine
chorus · satire · political · bawdy · fantasy · utopia · parody
democracy
Rule by the people
- demagoguesPoliticians manipulating mass emotion
- warArmed struggle between groups
- peaceFreedom from disturbance
Peloponnesian · Athens · sophists · rhetoric · philosophy · gods · mythology · gender · sex · gluttony
archon
Greek city-state magistrate
- competitionStruggle for supremacy
- victoryDefeating an opponent
- trilogyThree linked creative works
- Greek comedyAristophanes, The Birds, Greek theatre, Greek drama, Dionysian
- Greek tragedytragedy, Greek tragedy, Greek tragedies, Sophocles, Aeschylus
Old ComedyGreek tragedy
Classical dramatic form featuring downfall
tragedy · Sophocles · Euripides · Aeschylus · tragic drama
old, comedy, comic, comical, comedic, comically, comicality, comedians, comedienne