Fragments of Old Comedy, Volume I


Book Description

Laughter in stitches. The era of Old Comedy (ca. 485 – ca. 380 BC), when theatrical comedy was created and established, is best known through the extant plays of Aristophanes, but there were many other poets whose comedies survive only in fragments. This new Loeb edition, the most extensive selection of the fragments available in English, presents the work of more than fifty-five poets, including Cratinus and Eupolis, the other members (along with Aristophanes) of the canonical Old Comic triad. For each poet and play there is an introduction, and for many there are brief notes and recent bibliography. Also included are a selection of ancient testimonia to Old Comedy, nearly one hundred unattributed fragments (both book and papyri), and descriptions of thirty vase paintings illustrating Old Comic scenes. The texts are based on the monumental edition of Kassel and Austin, updated to reflect the latest scholarship. The complete Loeb Fragments of Old Comedy is in three volumes.




Alexis: The Fragments


Book Description

This 1996 text was the first detailed commentary on the fragments remaining from the plays of the Greek comic poet Alexis (c. 375-270 BC).




The Making of Menander's Comedy


Book Description




A Commentary on Isocrates' Busiris


Book Description

This volume contains the first scholarly commentary on the puzzling work Busiris – part mythological jeu d’esprit, part rhetorical treatise and part self-promoting polemic – by the Greek educator and rhetorician Isocrates (436-338 BC). The commentary reveals Isocrates’ strategies in advertising his own political rhetoric as a middle way between amoral ‘sophistic’ education and the abstruse studies of Plato’s Academy. Introductory chapters situate Busiris within the lively intellectual marketplace of 4th-century Athens, showing how the work parodies Plato’s Republic, and how its revisionist treatment of the monster-king Busiris reflects Athenian fascination with the ‘alien wisdom’ of Egypt. As a whole, the book casts new light both on Isocrates himself, revealed as an agile and witty polemicist, and on the struggle between rhetoric and philosophy from which Hellenism and modern humanities were born.




FrC 19.2 Antiphanes frr. 101–193


Book Description

Antiphanes is one of the most important writers of the Middle Attic comedy. His plays deal with matters connected to mythological subjects, although others referenced particular professional and national persons or characters, while other plays focused on the intrigues of personal life. This volume contains a critical text, translation and complete philological, literary and historical commentary on the fragments of Antiphanes' Zakynthios and subsequent plays, along with the fragments without a play-title (including dubia).




Myth-Making in Aristophanes Innovation and Evolution in Attic Comedy


Book Description

This book focuses on the development of Attic comedy as it is evinced in four fragmentary plays by Aristophanes: Polyidus, Daedalus, Aeolosicon, and Cocalus. The significance of these plays lies in the fact that they present characteristics which are not prominent in the extant plays. They are mythological comedies that Aristophanes might have composed as parodies of tragedies. The four dramas exhibit elements largely present in Middle and New Comedy, such as the use and re-use of myths, the production of large-scale burlesque, domestic plots, unfolded outside Attica. This is a book directed to the wider audience, to all enthusiasts of Classics. It facilitates the understanding of an aspect of Aristophanes’ work, discernible only within his fragmentary dramas. This study thus revisits Old Comedy and enriches the scholarship with new insights and new discoveries regarding Aristophanes, his literary interactions, as well as his innovating and influential work.




Thesaurus Linguae Graecae


Book Description

The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae: A Bibliographic Guide to the Canon of Greek Authors and Works (TLG®) is a comprehensive catalog of the authors and works that have survived in Greek from antiquity (eighth century BCE) to the present era and have been collected and digitized by the TLG® in its fifty-year history. It provides biographical information about each author, such as dates, place of birth, and literary activity, as well as a list of their extant works and print publications. This volume encompasses more than 4,400 authors and 17,000 individual works. It offers a concise and authoritative literary history of Greek literature and is an indispensable reference source for its study.




The Facts on File Companion to Classical Drama


Book Description

Surveys important Greek and Roman authors, plays, characters, genres, historical figures and more.




The Idea of Iambos


Book Description

A long overdue study of the genre of Greek iambic poetry from the 7th to the late 4th centuries BCE. Employing the evidence of ancient testimonies, Andrea Rotstein also considers the more general question of how literary genres were perceived in ancient Greece.