Ancient Greek comedy. Origin of comedy, components, originality of ancient Attic comedy

Ancient Attic comedy, like tragedy, was born from the ritual games of the holidays of Dionysus. Another source is an elementary form of folk farce - a comic skit in which a stupid thief, a braggart scientist, etc. are ridiculed.

The term “comedy” goes back to the ancient Greek word comōidía, which literally means “song of komos,” i.e., the song of participants in a festive village procession dedicated to the glorification of the life-giving forces of nature and usually associated with the onset of the winter solstice or spring equinox. The etymology of the concept is consistent with the message of Aristotle, who traces the beginning of comedy to the improvisations of the founders of phallic songs (“Poetics”, Chapter IV), which were an indispensable part of the komos, expressing the hopes of farmers for a rich harvest and a good offspring of livestock.

The characteristic features of ancient Attic comedy as a genre are political ridicule aimed at certain people and concerning current contemporary issues, fabulousness and fantasticness.

One of the most remarkable features of the structure of ancient Attic comedy was the active role of the chorus, the bearer of the main journalistic idea of the play, although often dressed in fancy costumes of birds, animals, clouds, cities, underground spirits, etc.

Attic comedy uses typical masks (“boastful warrior”, “scientific charlatan”, “clown”, “drunken old woman”, etc.), Its object is not the mythological past, but living modernity, current, sometimes even topical, issues of political and cultural life. “Ancient” comedy is primarily a political and accusatory comedy, transforming folklore “mocking” songs and games into a weapon of political satire and ideological criticism.

Other distinguishing feature“ancient” comedy, this is complete freedom of personal mockery of individual citizens with open naming of their names. The ridiculed person was either directly brought onto the stage as a comic character, or became the subject of caustic, sometimes very rude, jokes and hints made by the choir and comedy actors. For example, in the comedies of Aristophanes, such persons as the leader of radical democracy Cleon, Socrates, and Euripides are brought onto the stage. More than once attempts were made to limit this comedic license, but throughout the 5th century. they remained unsuccessful.

Typical masks of folklore and Sicilian comedy are also used. even when the characters are living contemporaries; Thus, the image of Socrates in Aristophanes to a very small extent recreates the personality of Socrates, but is mainly a parodic sketch of a philosopher (“sophist”) in general with the addition of typical features of the mask of a “scientific charlatan.”

In the New Comedy, the parody of tragedy, which was still present in the Middle Comedy, almost disappeared, probably because the public was not familiar enough with the works of tragedians to understand the allusions to them. But the ridicule of philosophers continues, as they did in the Middle Comedy; They concern mainly the Stoics and Epicurus and very rarely Plato. Mythological themes are much less common than in Middle Comedy; most often they come to Diphilus. The number of comedies entitled with the names of hetaeras is significantly less than in the Middle Comedy.

The heyday of the new Attic comedy dates back to the end of the 4th and 3rd centuries. BC e. We know more than 60 names of its representatives, but we know their works almost only from excerpts. True, this gap is partially compensated by alterations of the Roman poets Plautus (approx. 250-184) and Terence (approx. 190-159 BC). Menander, Philemon, Diphilus, Apollodorus, Posidippus, Demophilus.

The external difference between the “new” comedy and the “ancient” was the absence of a chorus, which did not fit its content, which required greater intimacy. Choir songs are sometimes mentioned in the text, but they had no bearing on the action and served only as divertissement during intermissions. In the performance of these comedies the number of actors was not limited to three. Another feature of the comedy was the special figure of the “prologue”, which gave, as often happened in the tragedies of Euripides, an explanation of the content of the play.

The main features of the New Attic Comedy: concentration of interest on private conflicts and love intrigue; the desire for everyday verisimilitude, the rejection of unbridled play of fantasy; disappearance of features of folk cult performance; attraction to stereotypical situations and mask characters (hetaera, slave, stingy father, boastful warrior, etc.). The “new” comedy reacts to political events occasionally and in passing

2. The evolution of Aristophanes’ creativity. The problematics and poetics of his comedies.

Evolution:

1) 427-421, this is the first stage of the Peloponnesian War. This period is strongly political, with the observance of a ritual-choral style.

2) the second period (414-405) from 421 to 414 we do not have any information.

This period is no longer so clearly political. Its themes are mainly social and satirical; comedies contain satire on poets and theater in connection with political demands.

3) third period (392-388) the collapse of the old agricultural-ritual-political comedy, approaching the later everyday comedy of manners, cultivation of utopian ideals, the predominance of dialogue over the chorus, the absence of parabass.

1) Changing the role of the choir

At first, the choir participated in the action until the parabassa; in the parabassa, the choir spoke on behalf of the author and then had nothing to do with the plot. The chorus openly expressed the author's tendency.

Later, Aristophanes sought to involve the chorus in the development of the plot.

2) Deep opening individual properties the nature of the characters. For example, Lysistrata is purposeful, demanding, unbending.

The living character of a slave. In "Acharnians" and "Birds" the slaves are wordless extras, unlike the slave in "Frogs".

In terms of content, Aristophanes’s comedy is divided into two parts: in the first, a thesis is presented and debated, and in the second, the practical consequences of this thesis are depicted, and two cases are possible: either these consequences turn out to be clearly bad, and through this the unsuitability of what was assumed by the theses is proven, or on the contrary, the consequences turn out to be good. The first case can be seen in "Clouds", where the consequences illustrate the harm of sophistic teachings that triumphed over ancient education. The second case can be seen in Lysistrata.

Aristophanes's verse is varied; V different parts In comedy, different poetic meters are used, mainly depending on what the part is intended for - for conversation or for singing.

Therefore, in dialogue some meters are used, in lyrical parts - others.

The dialogue uses: 1) iambic untruncated trimeter, 2) iambic truncated tetrameter, 3) trochaic truncated tetrameter, 4) anapestic truncated tetrameter.

Be that as it may, it is quite obvious that the language of all the characters in Aristophanes is exactly the same. This was also noticed by the author of the treatise “Comparison of Aristophanes with Menander,” in which Aristophanes is accused of having such a way of expression that is the same for all characters. Not a single Athenian citizen speaks any

incorrect language; even slaves always use the excellent Attic language; There is nothing like Tolstoy’s “tayo” in Attic comedy. On the contrary, strangers appearing on the stage are always represented as speaking the language or dialect of the people to which they belong: for example, the Boeotian and Megarian in the Acharnans, the Spartan in Lysistrata; or they speak broken Attic: for example, Persian in “Acharnians”, Scythian in “Thesmophoriazus”. This serves as proof that the Athenians all spoke the same language: otherwise Aristophanes would not have missed the opportunity to laugh

over some vulgar feature of his compatriots (Sobolevsky)

3. Comedy "Clouds": conflict, issues, system of images, techniques for creating a comic effect.

Conflict of generations; conflict between old and new; the conflict between ancient education and sophistic teachings. Aristophanes sought to reveal the political danger of sophistic dialectics. Aristophanes takes up arms in his play against the philosophy of the Sophists and speaks of its corrupting influence on the morals of society and especially on youth. He mercilessly put Socrates to shame and, in his person, all fashionable science.

Issues:

The problem of education, the problem of truth and lies

Techniques of comic effect:

ü A grotesque exaggeration of the “sophisticated mind” of Socrates

ü Comic contrast of “high” and “low”: the abstract theory of Socrates and the sober, practical mind of Strepsiades.

ü At the end of the play, when Strepsiades sets fire to the “thought room,” he answers Socrates’ question with his own words spoken at the meeting: “I walk on the air, contemplating the sun.” The comedy of this answer is enhanced by the similarity of the situation: first Strepsiades asked Socrates, standing below, and now Socrates and his students were below.

ü In the form of grotesque, the pompous empty speeches of teachers, their peremptory tone and confidence that only they own the truth are ridiculed.

Why was Socrates chosen as the main sophist?

ü One of the main qualities of Socrates was his excellent mastery of sophistic dialectics; he was considered a very skilled master of sophistic reasoning, even among the sophists themselves.

ü The same attitude towards socio-political issues as the Sophists: contempt for democracy and highly revered moral traditions (it is foolish to elect officials by lot, since the true rulers are the “knowledgeable”, those who know how to govern. Socrates was accused of arouses contempt among young people for the established state style.

In fact, Socrates also differed from the Sophists in many ways.

ü Socrates did not give paid lectures and did not claim to know absolute truth.

ü He was not interested in natural scientific problems (in the play he says that “the sky is an iron furnace, and people are coals”).

However, Aristophanes gave some specificity to the image of Socrates. He gave external characteristics philosopher: Socrates walked barefoot, his appearance was ugly

Image system:

In the comedy "Clouds" the following characters are presented: Strepsiades - an old man, a man of the old school, hardworking, honors the gods and customs, defends his faith; Pheidippides is his son, a young man; Xanthius - servant of Strepsiades; student of Socrates; Socrates is a philosopher, a man about 46 years old; Justice is an allegorical person, representative

ancient Athenian education; Crooked court is an allegorical face,

representative of the new, sophistic Athenian education; Pasii - old man, creditor of Strepsiades; Aminius - a young man, creditor to Strepsiades; the witness brought by Pasius is a mute person; Chaerephon, student of Socrates, speaking only one verse - 1505.

The chorus consists of Clouds, depicted as women.

4. Comedy "Frogs": composition, conflict, problems, meaning of agon, images of the main characters, originality of the comic.

Conflict: a clash of two worldviews: the conservative landowning Athenian democracy of the formative period and the radical democracy of the Peloponnesian War with the manifestation of a crisis of ideology.

The comedy is devoted to criticism of the ideological foundations of Euripides' dramaturgy and his stage techniques. At the same time, it contains many statements by Aristophanes on issues of internal and foreign policy of Athens.

Issues: What is true art? What are the main advantages of tragedy?

There are three plans in comedy:

First: the usual buffoonery with the participation of Dionysus and his slave. The comedy of their adventure is based on a parody of the myth of how the hero and strongman Hercules descended to Athens and stole Cerberus. Farcical techniques, rude jokes, brawls, amusing clowning are the accessories of the first part of the comedy.

Second: Publicistic plan. Political motives in mystic choral songs.

Third: Literary dispute between Aeschylus and Euripides. Why Aeschylus and Euripides?

The work of Aeschylus reflected the worldview of Athenian democracy. But Euripides paid more attention to the human personality; his worldview is close to the sophists.

The comedy "Frogs" splits into two parts. The first depicts the journey of Dionysus to the kingdom of the dead. The god of tragic competitions, troubled by the emptiness on the tragic scene after the recent deaths of Euripides and Sophocles, goes to the underworld to bring out his favorite Euripides. This part of the comedy is filled with clownish scenes and spectacular effects; the cowardly Dionysus, who has stocked up on the lion skin of Hercules for a dangerous journey, and his slave find themselves in various comic situations, meeting with the figures with whom Greek folklore populated the kingdom of the dead. Dionysus, out of fear, changes roles with the slave and each time to his own detriment. The comedy got its name from the choir of frogs, which, during the crossing of Dionysus to the underworld on Charon's shuttle, sing their songs; the parody of the choir of mystics is curious for us because it is a reproduction of cult songs in honor of Dionysus. The hymns and ridicule of the choir are preceded by an introductory speech by the leader - a prototype of a comedic parabass. The problems of "Frogs" are concentrated in the second half of the comedy, in the agony of Aeschylus and Euripides. Euripides, who has recently arrived in the underworld, claims the tragic throne, which until then undoubtedly belonged to Aeschylus, and Dionysus is invited as a competent person - the judge of the competition. Aeschylus turns out to be the winner, and Dionysus takes him with him to earth, contrary to the original plans. intention to take Euripides. The competition in "Frogs", partly parodying the sophistic methods of evaluating lit. works, is the oldest monument of ancient literature. critics. The style of both rivals and their prologues are analyzed. The first part examines the main question of the tasks of poetic art, the tasks of tragedy. Euripides:

For truthful speeches, for good advice and for being smarter and better

They make citizens of their native land.

According to the precepts of Homer, in tragedies I created majestic heroes -

And Patroclus and Teucrov with a soul like a lion. I wanted to raise citizens to them,

So that they can stand on a par with the heroes when they hear the trumpets of war.

The main characters in this comedy are as follows. Dionysus as the God of theatrical affairs; Xanthius, his servant; Euripides, poet; Aeschylus poet; Pluto, god of the underworld. The main choir consists of “mysters,” that is, initiates into the Eleusinian mysteries; the secondary chorus consists of frogs and acts only offstage. It is not clear why the play is named after this secondary chorus, and not after the main one. Most of the action takes place in the underground world.

Aristophanes' comedy "Frogs" is interesting as an expression of the views of its author. It is directed against Euripides, who is portrayed as a sentimental, effeminate, anti-patriotic poet. The comedy is interesting, further, for its sharp anti-mythological tendency. The god of the theater is Dionysus, stupid, cowardly and pathetic. Meaning of agon: Through agon, Aristophanes compares the work of Aeschylus with the work of Euripides.

The main part of the play begins - the competition between Aeschylus and Euripides. First, the attacking side is Euripides, who accuses Aeschylus of deliberately prolonging tragedies and of deliberately trying to deceive the audience with the long silence of the character to lengthen the songs of the choir and to amaze them with deliberately invented terrible words, meaningless in essence, but sonorous and alarming in their absurdity.

mystery: the word “horse-cock” (“hippalectrion”) in one tragedy of Aeschylus made Dionysus suffer from insomnia all night, reflecting on its meaning.

Then the roles change, and Aeschylus begins to attack; in contrast to Euripides, he directs attacks not at the external form, but at the internal content of the dramas, accusing Euripides of the immorality of the plots. The crime of Euripides, according to Aeschylus, is that in his plays he depicts wives in love and cheating on their husbands and teaches young people to talk in vain and not to do business. However, in the further debate attention is drawn to speech technique. And here again, the first to attack is the representative of the new, emerging verbal technique and sophistic mastery of reasoning, Euripides, who reproaches Aeschylus for the inaccuracy of language and for expressing the same concept in two different words.

Then Aeschylus attacks. He points out the inaccuracy of Euripides' way of expression. Thus, Euripides says in one tragedy: “At first Oedipus was a happy man”; Aeschylus objects: “Oedipus could not be happy, because even before his birth there was

It is predicted that he will kill his father.” Then Aeschylus points out the monotony of the construction of Euripides' prologues: his poems are structured in such a way that in the first half of the verse the participle is placed in names. n. male kind and thanks to this, in the second half of the verse after the caesura, you can insert a phrase like “lost the bottle,” for example: “Egypt, having arrived in Argos with her sons, ... lost the bottle.” Then, in the dispute, the opponents criticize each other's musical side of the choral and solo songs of their tragedies.

Literature:
1. Govnya V.V. Aristophanes. M., 1955.
2. Guseinov G.Ch. Aristophanes. M., 1988
3. Sobolevsky S.I. Aristophanes and his time. M., 1957.
4. Yarkho V.N. Aristophanes. M., 1954.
5. Yarkho V.N., Polonskaya K.P. Ancient comedy: A manual for a special course. - M.: Moscow University Publishing House, 1979.

ANCIENT ATTIC COMEDY

Along with tragedy and satyr drama, she has been an equal participant in theatrical performances in honor of Dionysus since 487/486 BC. e. comedy.

The origin of comedy is as complex as the origin of tragedy. The term “comedy” goes back to the ancient Greek word comōidía, which literally means “song of komos,” i.e., the song of participants in a festive village procession dedicated to the glorification of the life-giving forces of nature and usually associated with the onset of the winter solstice or spring equinox. The etymology of the concept is consistent with the message of Aristotle, who traces the beginning of comedy to the improvisations of the founders of phallic songs (“Poetics”, Chapter IV), which were an indispensable part of the komos, expressing the hopes of farmers for a rich harvest and a good offspring of livestock.

The ritual frankness of the primitive komos facilitated the penetration of accusatory elements into it, when, in the process of social stratification, the tendencies of the rich members of the clan to oppress the bulk of farmers were revealed. In any case, late ancient sources report that once upon a time ordinary people, oppressed by some rich man, gathered at night near his house and sang songs exposing the cruelty and greed of the offender. Over time, the state appreciated the social significance of these peasant invectives and ordered their performers to repeat their mocking songs during the day and in front of all the people. They even named the name of a certain poet Susarion, who lived in the first half of the 6th century. BC e. and clothed agricultural improvisations in poetic form, and Susarion’s activities were associated with the short-term flourishing of democracy in the Peloponnesian city of Megara.

Although the historical reliability of such evidence cannot be considered completely proven, they undoubtedly correctly capture the accusatory nature of phallic songs and komos in general, later inherited by literary Attic comedy.

Another source of it was an elementary and equally ancient form of folk farce - a comic skit in which a stupid rich man, rogue or thief tries to deceive, steal or otherwise infringe on the interests of the main character, but always fails and leaves the stage in disgrace, accompanied by blows sticks and friendly laughter from the audience. The characters in such a farce could even be gods or mythical heroes: the cheerful atmosphere of the Dionysian festival allowed them to be treated freely.

The genre of folklore, everyday and parody-mythological scenes first received literary treatment, apparently, in the work of the Sicilian comedian Epicharmus (late 6th - first half of the 5th century BC), known to us only by the names and minor fragments of his comedies. Here we meet among the characters and gods, and the insatiable glutton Hercules, and the rogue Odysseus, but also some household types(for example, parasite), later characteristic of Attic comedy. In its development, already late antique criticism identified three periods, designating them respectively as ancient, middle and new, and modern history literature adheres to this division, since it allows one to quite clearly characterize the genre features of comedy at each stage of its existence.

Illustration:

Ser. IV century BC e.

Theater at Epidaurus, attributed to the architect Polycletus the Younger

The participation of the choir created a specific compositional structure of the ancient comedy, reflecting the main features of its origin from choral (accusatory) and dialogic (farcical) elements.

The comedy opened with a prologue - usually a dialogic scene in which the exposition of the plot was given, the arrangement of its participants was outlined, and sometimes very significant events took place. The prologue was followed, as in the tragedy, by the chorus, but much more lively, and often the chorus was directly involved in the action, taking the side of the main character or, conversely, trying in every possible way to prevent the fulfillment of his plan. Sometimes the choir, which in the comedy consisted of 24 people, could split into two warring halves. But regardless of this, the choir’s performances throughout the comedy are characterized by a symmetrical structure: the songs were performed alternately by two half-choirs.

The clash, which emerged in the prologue and intensified after the performance of the choir, reached its highest tension in the agon scene, that is, the dispute between two opponents, encouraged and encouraged to maximum persistence by the semi-choirs. With the victory of one of the parties, the content of the conflict was essentially exhausted. The second half of the comedy consisted of a string of farcical scenes, connected only by the personality of the main character: either he exposed and drove away all sorts of crooks who wanted to take advantage of the victory he had already won, or, less often, with each new episode he came closer to his defeat, and then the victory turned out to be illusory , imaginary. The comedy ended with the song of the choir leaving the orchestra.

Between the agon and the episodes of the second half of the comedy, its most original part, the so-called parabass, was usually wedged in: the choir’s address to the audience, a kind of lyrical and journalistic digression, in which the author, through the mouth of the choir, spoke directly to the audience about himself and current events, gave political advice, recalled about the past and at the same time attacked those whose behavior he considered incompatible with civil

morality. Parabasa represented, apparently, the oldest choral core of comedy, accusatory in its main purpose.

Social and political activity, intervention in the discussion of topical issues, sharp criticism of any political figures, poets, philosophers constituted another significant feature of ancient Attic comedy. Growing out of perky peasant denunciations, designed to entertain and instruct the masses of people during national festivals, which consisted to a large extent of the same Attic farmers, the ancient comedy knew no boundaries either in condemning persons, institutions, customs it disliked, or in the frankness and fantasy of the plot. situations. In essence, it was a deeply democratic genre and it was not by chance that it gained access to the Great Dionysia in 487/486, three years after the victory at Marathon, when the influence of the Attic peasantry strengthened. The authors of comedies, like tragic poets, performed as an artistic competition: three playwrights competed annually, each with one comedy. Around 444, comedies also began to be staged in Lenaia.

The number of Athenian comedians was very large: over fifty names of poets who wrote in the 5th - early 4th centuries are known. Of these, ancient criticism singled out - probably by analogy with the tragic triad - Cratinus, Eupolis and Aristophanes, but only fragments of the first two have reached us. Thus, the only monuments of ancient Attic comedy for us are the comedies of Aristophanes.

There are plays with a parody-mythological plot, but neither one nor the other constitutes the face of Attic comedy. Its object is not the mythological past, but living modernity, current, sometimes even topical, issues of political and cultural life. “Ancient” comedy is primarily a political and accusatory comedy, transforming folklore “mocking” songs and games into a weapon of political satire and ideological criticism.

Another distinctive feature of “ancient” comedy, which attracted attention already in later antiquity, is complete freedom of personal mockery of individual citizens with open naming of their names. The ridiculed person was either directly brought onto the stage as a comic character, or became the subject of caustic, sometimes very rude, jokes and hints made by the choir and comedy actors. For example, in the comedies of Aristophanes, such persons as the leader of radical democracy Cleon, Socrates, and Euripides are brought onto the stage. More than once attempts were made to limit this comedic license, but throughout the 5th century. they remained unsuccessful.

The method of ridiculing public order and individual citizens remains caricature. “Ancient” comedy usually does not individualize its characters, but creates generalized caricature images, also using typical masks of folklore and Sicilian comedy. This occurs even when the characters are living contemporaries; Thus, the image of Socrates in Aristophanes to a very small extent recreates the personality of Socrates, but is mainly a parodic sketch of a philosopher (“sophist”) in general with the addition of typical features of the mask of a “scientific charlatan.”

The plot of the comedy is mostly fantastic in nature. Most often, some unrealizable project of changing existing social relations is carried out; for example, in the comedies of Aristophanes, the hero concludes a separate peace with Sparta for himself and his family (“Acharnians”) during the Peloponnesian War, establishes a bird state (“Birds”), etc. Satire takes the form of utopia. The very improbability of the action creates a special comic effect, which is further enhanced by the frequent disruption of stage illusion in the form of actors addressing the audience.

of two main parts. The first, pronounced by the leader of the entire choir, is an appeal to the audience on behalf of the poet, who here settles scores with his rivals and asks for favorable attention to the play. At the same time, the choir passes in front of the audience in a marching rhythm (“parabassa” in the proper sense of the word). The second part, the song of the choir, has a strophic character and consists of four parts: the lyrical ode (“song”) of the first hemichoir is followed by a recitative epirrema (“proverb”) of the leader of this hemichoir in a dance trocheic rhythm; in strict metrical accordance with the ode and epirrhema, the antoda of the second hemichoria and the antepirrema of its leader are then located.

The principle of “epyrrematic” composition, i.e. pairwise alternation of odes and epirrhemes, also permeates other parts of the comedy. This includes, first of all, the “competition” scene, and the race, in which the ideological side of the play is often concentrated. Agon in most cases has a strictly canonical construction. Two characters “compete” with each other, and their dispute consists of two parts; in the first, the leading role belongs to the side that will be defeated in the competition, in the second - to the winner; both parts open symmetrically with choral odes in metrical correspondence and an invitation to begin or continue the competition. There are, however, scenes of “competition” that deviate from this type.

The following structure can be considered typical for “ancient” comedy. The prologue provides an exposition of the play and outlines the hero's fantastic project. This is followed by a parod (introduction) by the choir, a live scene, often accompanied by a scrum, in which the actors also participate. After the agon, the goal is usually achieved. Then the parabasa is given. The second half of the comedy is characterized by farcical-type scenes in which the good consequences of the project are depicted and various annoying aliens who disturb this bliss are chased away. The choir here no longer takes part in the action and only borders the scenes with their songs; Following them, an epirrhematically constructed part is often found, usually unfortunately called the “second parabassa”. The play ends with a procession of komos. The typical structure allows for various deviations, variations, and rearrangements of individual parts, but the fifth-century comedies known to us, one way or another, gravitate toward it.

In this structure, some aspects seem artificial. There is every reason to think that the original place of the parabassa was the beginning of the play, and not its middle. This suggests that at an earlier stage the comedy was opened by the entrance of the chorus, as was the case in the early stages of tragedy. The development of coherent action and the strengthening of the actor's parts led to the creation of a prologue spoken by the actors and the relegation of the parabass to the middle of the play. When and how the structure we examined was created is unknown; we find it already in its finished form and observe only its destruction, a further weakening of the role of the chorus in comedy.

Aristophanes

Of the numerous comedic poets of the second half of the 5th century. ancient criticism singled out three as the most outstanding representatives of “ancient” comedy. These are Cratinus, Eupolis and Aristophanes. The first two are known to us only from fragments. In Cratinus, the ancients noted the harshness and frankness of ridicule and the richness of comedic invention, in Eupolis - the art of sequential plotting and the grace of wit. From Aristophanes, eleven plays (out of 44) have been preserved in their entirety, which give us the opportunity to get an idea of the general nature of the entire genre of “ancient” comedy.

Aristophanes' literary activity took place between 427 and 388; in its main part it falls on the period of the Peloponnesian War and the crisis of the Athenian state. The intensified struggle of various groups around the political program of radical democracy, contradictions between city and countryside, issues of war and peace, the crisis of traditional ideology and new trends in philosophy and literature - all this was clearly reflected in the works of Aristophanes. His comedies, in addition to their artistic significance, are a most valuable historical source reflecting the political and cultural life of Athens at the end of the 5th century. In political matters, Aristophanes approaches the moderate democratic party, most often conveying the sentiments of the Attic peasantry, dissatisfied with the war and hostile to aggressive foreign policy radical democracy. He took the same moderately conservative position in the ideological struggle of his time. Peacefully making fun of fans of antiquity, he turns the edge of his comedic talent against the leaders of the urban demos and representatives of new-fangled ideological movements.

Among the political comedies of Aristophanes, the Horsemen (424) are the most poignant. This play was directed against the influential leader of the radical party, Cleon, at the time of his greatest popularity, after his brilliant military success over the Spartans.

Among the measures carried out by Cleon was an increase in fees for participation in people's courts. This was one of the state handouts to Athenian citizens, which was very popular among the city demos. In the comedy “Wasps” (422), Aristophanes brings out a passionate lover of judicial duties, the old man Kleonoslav; his son Kleonokhulus does not allow his father into court and keeps him locked up. In terms of dramatic structure, this play is a typical example of carnival comedy. Like Riders, Wasps opens with comic dialogue from slaves; An exposition of the plot follows, addressed to the audience and peppered with barbs aimed at individual citizens. The action itself begins with Kleonoslav's unsuccessful attempts to deceive the vigilance of his guards with the help of various acrobatic tricks; he even tries, parodying Odysseus, to escape, hiding under the belly of a donkey. Behind Kleonoslav appears a chorus of “wasps” with large stings; these are the elders, his comrades on the panel of judges. The clash between the choir and Kleonokhulos leads, as usual, to the “agon”. Kleonoslav glorifies the power of judges, while Kleonokhul tries to show that judges are just toys in the hands of clever demagogues. Politically, this is the most serious part of the comedy. A wicked parody of Athenian legal proceedings is represented by the scene of the trial of a dog who stole a piece of cheese, played out after the agony. The second half of the play, after the parabassa, has a completely farcical character. The old man, cured of judicial passion, plays the role of a “clown.” He learns dandy manners from his son, goes with him to a party, gets drunk, makes scandals, trails the flutist, and all this ends in a riotous dance of the komos.

A number of Aristophanes' comedies are directed against the military party and are dedicated to the praise of peace. Thus, in the already mentioned comedy "Acharnians", the earliest of the plays that have come down to us (425), the peasant Dikeopolis ("Fair Citizen") makes personal peace with neighboring communities and is blissful, while the boastful warrior Lamachus suffers from the hardships of war. At the moment of conclusion”: the so-called Peace of Nikia (421) “Peace” was delivered. The peasant Trigaeus rises to the sky on a dung beetle (a parody of Euripides' Bellerophon) and, with the help of representatives of all Greek states, retrieves the goddess of the world imprisoned in a deep cave; The goddess of the fruit harvest comes out with her, with whom Trigeus then celebrates the wedding. In the comedy Lysistrata (411), the women of the warring regions go on a “strike” and force the men to make peace.

Somewhat different from the usual carnival type are those comedies that pose not political, but cultural problems. Already the first (not extant) comedy of Aristophanes, “The Feasting Ones” (427), was devoted to the issue of old and new education and depicted the bad consequences of sophistic education. Aristophanes returned to the same theme in the comedy “Clouds” (423), which ridiculed sophistry; But “Clouds,” which the author considered the most serious of the works he had written until then, were not successful with the audience and received the third prize. Subsequently, Aristophanes partially revised his play, and in this second edition it has come down to us.

The old man Strepsiades, entangled in debt because of the aristocratic habits of his son Pheidippides, heard about the existence of sages who know how to make “the weaker stronger” (p. 102), “wrong to right,” and goes to the “thought room” for training. The bearer of sophistic science, chosen as the object of a comedic portrayal, is Socrates, a face well known to all Athenians, an eccentric in manners, whose “Silenic” appearance alone was already suitable for a comic mask. Aristophanes made him a collective caricature of sophistry, attributing to him the theories of various sophists and natural philosophers, from which the real Socrates was in many respects very far. While the historical Socrates usually spent all his time in the Athenian square, the learned charlatan of the “Clouds” is engaged in nonsense research in a “thought room” accessible only to initiates; surrounded by "faded" and skinny students, he is in a hanging basket "hovering in the air and reflecting on the sun." Socrates accepts Strepsiades into the “thought room” and performs the rite of “initiation” on him. The pointless and vague wisdom of the sophists is symbolized in the chorus of “divine” clouds, the veneration of which must henceforth replace traditional religion. In the future, both the natural science theories of the Ionian philosophers and new sophistic disciplines, such as grammar, are parodied. Strepsiades, however, turns out to be incapable of perceiving all this wisdom and sends his son in his place. From theoretical issues, satire moves into the realm of practical morality. Before Pheidippides, Pravda (“Fair Speech”) and Krivda (“Unfair Speech”) compete in the “agon.” The truth praises the old strict education and its beneficial results for the physical and moral health of citizens. Falsehood protects freedom of desire. Falsehood wins. Pheidippides quickly masters all the necessary tricks, and the old man sends his creditors away. But soon the son's sophistic art turns against his father. A lover of the old poets Simonides and Aeschylus, Strepsiades did not agree in literary tastes with his son, a fan of Euripides. The dispute turned into a fight, and Pheidippides, having beaten the old man, proves to him in a new “agony” that the son has the right to beat his father. Strepsiades is ready to admit the strength of this argument, but when Pheidippides promises to prove that it is legal to beat mothers, the enraged old man sets fire to the “thought room” of the atheist Socrates. The comedy ends thus without the usual ritual wedding. It should, however, be borne in mind that, according to the ancient message, the current final scene and the competition between Truth and Falsehood were introduced by the poet only in the second edition of the play.

In the second part of the comedy, the satire is much more serious than in the first. Aristophanes, educated and free from all superstitions, is by no means an obscurantist or an enemy of science. In sophistry, he is frightened by the separation from polis ethics: the new education does not lay the foundations for civic virtues. From this point of view, the choice of Socrates as a representative of new movements was not an artistic mistake. No matter how great the differences between Socrates and the Sophists were on a number of issues, he was united with them by a critical attitude towards the traditional morality of the polis, which Aristophanes defends in his comedy.

Aristophanes holds the same views in relation to new literary trends. He often ridicules fashionable lyric poets, but his main polemic is directed against Euripides, as the most prominent representative new school in the leading poetic genre of the 5th century. - tragedy. We find ridicule of Euripides and his ragged, lame heroes already in the Acharnians; The play “Women at the Festival of Thesmophoria” (411) was specifically directed against Euripides, but Aristophanes’ polemic received its most fundamental character in “The Frogs” (405).

This comedy falls into two parts. The first depicts the journey of Dionysus to the kingdom of the dead. The god of tragic competitions, troubled by the emptiness on the tragic scene after the recent deaths of Euripides and Sophocles, goes to the underworld to bring out his favorite Euripides. This part of the comedy is filled with buffoonish scenes and spectacular effects. The cowardly Dionysus, who had stocked up on the lion skin of Hercules for the dangerous journey, and his slave Xanthius find themselves in various comic situations, meeting with fantastic figures with whom Greek folklore populated the kingdom of the dead. Dionysus, out of fear, constantly changes roles with Xanthius, and each time to his own detriment. The comedy got its name from the chorus of frogs who, during the crossing of Dionysus to the underworld on Charon’s shuttle, sing their songs with the refrain “brekekekex, koax, koax”; This choir is used only in one scene and is subsequently replaced by a choir of mystics (i.e., those who have joined the mysteries). The parody of the mystic choir is interesting to us because it represents a literary reproduction of cult songs in honor of Dionysus, which served as one of the origins of comedy. The hymns and ridicule of the choir are preceded here by the opening speech of the leader, composed in anapests, the cult prototype of the comedic parabass.

The problems of “Frogs” are concentrated in the second half of the comedy, in the “agon” of Aeschylus and Euripides. Euripides, who has recently arrived in the underworld, lays claim to the tragic throne, which until then undisputedly belonged to Aeschylus, and Dionysus is invited, as a competent person, to be the judge of the competition. Aeschylus turns out to be the winner, and Dionysus takes him with him to earth, contrary to his original intention to take Euripides. The competition of tragic poets in "Frogs", partly parodying sophistic methods of evaluating literary works, is for us the oldest monument of ancient literary criticism. The style of both rivals, their prologues, the musical and lyrical side of their dramas are analyzed. The first part of the competition is of greatest interest, in which the main question of the tasks of poetic art and, in particular, the tasks of tragedy is considered. The poet is a teacher of citizens.

Aeschylus asks.

Euripides' answer reads:

For truthful speeches, for good advice and for being smarter and better

They make citizens of their native land.

From this position, accepted by both rivals as the original one, the tragedy of Aeschylus turns out to be a worthy successor to the ancient poets:

According to the precepts of Homer, in tragedies I created majestic heroes -

And Patroclus and Teucrov with a soul like a lion. I wanted to elevate citizens to them,

So that they can stand on a par with the heroes when they hear the trumpets of war.

As for Euripides, his heroes, due to their pathological passions and proximity to the average level, cannot serve as models for citizens. The majesty of the images of the tragedy should be matched by sublime speeches, the sublime appearance of the characters, everything that Euripides consciously abandoned. Aristophanes by no means turns a blind eye to the shortcomings of Aeschylus’s tragedies, to their lack of dynamism, to the pathetic overload of style, but the ordinariness of the language of Euripides’ characters and the sophistic tricks of their speeches seem to him unworthy of tragedy.

Do not sit at the feet of Socrates,

Don't chat, forgetting about the Muses,

Forgetting about the higher meaning

Tragic art, -

This is the right, wise path,
- concludes the choir at the end of the competition. Here again the image of Socrates appears as a representative of sophistic criticism, undermining the ideological foundations of the tragedy. Aristophanes rightly sees new ideological trends as a threat to the educational role that poetry had played until then in Greek culture. Indeed, starting from the sophistic period, poetry ceases to be the most important tool for discussing ideological problems, and this function passes to prosaic literary genres, oratory and philosophical dialogue.

"The Frogs", staged shortly before the decisive defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War and the collapse of the Athenian sea power, represents the last comedy of the "ancient" type known to us. The later works of Aristophanes differ significantly from the previous ones and indicate the beginning of a new stage in the development of comedy.

Already in the second half of the Peloponnesian War, the political situation was not conducive to freedom of mockery of prominent statesmen. Starting with “The Birds,” Aristophanes’s sharpness of political satire, its topicality and concreteness weakens. The final blow to comedic license was dealt by the unfortunate outcome of the Peloponnesian War. In weakened Athens, political life no longer had its former stormy character, and the masses lost interest in current political issues. The small landowners, to whose sentiments Aristophanes always listened sensitively, were so ruined that participation in the national assembly, which distracted the peasant from his work, began to be paid for. Topical political comedy has lost ground; There is information, albeit vague, that the freedom of comedic ridicule has been subject to legislative restrictions.

With the change in the nature of comedy, the role of the chorus, that komos, which was previously the main bearer of the accusatory moment, fell. And here, well-known signs of decline are observed already at the end of the 5th century. Thus, the first part of the parabasa (“parabasa” in the proper sense of the word), which in the early comedies of Aristophanes served for the poet’s polemics with his literary and political opponents, in “Birds” and “Women at the Festival of Thesmophoria” is put in connection with the plot, and in "Lysistrata" and "Frogs" are completely eliminated. In the 4th century. the role of the choir is already completely weakening; the songs that he performs between individual episodes of the comedy have the nature of insert numbers, which are not included in its text when the comedy is published. However, even in the new political conditions, Aristophanes does not refuse to pose social problems in the form of a carnival plot with “inverted” social relations, typical of “ancient” comedy. In his subsequent comedies known to us, he returns to the theme of social utopia. This topic was also relevant in serious literature. The severe crisis of the beginning of the 4th century, the sharp stratification of property within Greek communities, the impoverishment of large masses of free citizens - all these symptoms of the collapse of the polis caused the search for new forms of state system. A number of utopian projects for an ideal state emerged. Characteristic feature These slave-owning utopias are the reactionary idealization of the polis “joint private property”, the idea of creating a slave-owning state in which “citizens” would feed on equal rights at the expense of slave labor. The most famous of these projects is Plato's Republic, in which people are divided into

three classes - artisans, warriors and philosophers, and for the consuming classes, i.e. warriors and philosophers, Plato proposes to abolish private property and family. A caricature of this kind of utopia is provided by Aristophanes’ comedy “Women in the National Assembly” (“Legislators”, 392): women, having seized power, establish community of property and community of wives and husbands, which leads to various kinds of comic conflicts in property and love soil.

The utopia in the comedy “Plutos” (“Wealth”, 388) has a more fabulous character. The poor man Khremil, having captured the blind Plutos, the god of wealth, cures him of blindness. Then everything in the world turns upside down: honest people begin to live in abundance, but things go badly for the sneaker and the rich old woman, who until then kept her young lover with her money; gods and priests turn out to be unnecessary and rush to adapt to the new order. The “agon” has a serious character in this comedy. Poverty appears in it and proves that need and labor, and not wealth and idleness, are the sources of culture. Poverty poses a question that is fatal to all ancient utopias: who will work and produce if everyone is a rich consumer? Slaves, says the stereotypical answer. And who will take on the labor of catching and selling slaves? There is no answer to this. “You won’t convince me, even if you convince me!” exclaims Khremil and drives Poverty away.

The work of Aristophanes ends one of the most brilliant periods in the history of Greek culture. He delivers a powerful, bold and truthful, often profound satire on the political and cultural state of Athens during a period of crisis of democracy and the coming decline of the polis. The distorting mirror of his comedy reflects the most diverse strata of society, men and women, statesmen and generals, poets and philosophers, peasants, city dwellers and slaves; caricatured typical masks take on the character of clear, generalizing images. Since Aristophanes is for us the only representative of the genre of “ancient” comedy, it is difficult for us to assess the degree of his originality and determine what he owes to his predecessors in the interpretation of plots and masks, but he always shines with an inexhaustible supply of wit and the brightness of lyrical talent. With the simplest techniques he achieves the most acute comic effects, although many of these techniques, constantly reminding us that comedy arose from “phallic” games and songs, may have seemed too crude and primitive in later times.

The specific features of ancient Attic comedy were so closely related to the political and cultural conditions of life in Athens in the 5th century that the reproduction of its stylistic forms in later times was possible only experimentally. We find such experiments in Racine, Goethe, and the romantics. Writers who were truly close to Aristophanes in the type of their talent, such as Rabelais, worked in a different genre and used different stylistic forms.

Average comedy

The elimination of the political aspect and the weakening of the role of the choir led to the fact that Attic comedy went into the 4th century. along the paths outlined by Epicharmus. Ancient scholars called it “average” comedy. The comedy production of this time is very large. The ancients counted 57 authors, of whom the most famous were Antiphanes and Alexis, and 607 plays of "average" comedy, but none of them survived in their entirety. We have only reached large number titles and a number of fragments. This material allows us to conclude that in the “average” comedy, parody-mythological themes occupied a large place, and not only the myths themselves were parodied, but also the tragedies in which these myths were developed. The most popular tragic writer at this time was Euripides, and his tragedies were most often parodied (for example, Medea, The Bacchae). Another category of titles indicates everyday themes and the development of typical masks: “Painter”, “Flutist”, “Poetess”, “Doctor”, “Parasite”, etc. The heroes of the comedy are often foreigners: “Lydian”, “Beotian” . The rudeness of ridicule characteristic of “ancient” comedy was softened here. This does not mean, however, that living contemporaries have ceased to be featured in comedy; the old custom has been preserved, but only the figures depicted belong to a different environment, to a different sphere of urban “celebrities”. These are hetaeras, spendthrifts, and cooks. Food and love, the original motives of carnival ritual games, continue to be characteristic of the “average” comedy, but only in a new design, closer to everyday life. By reducing the carnival disorder and the buffoonish, “clown” moment, a more strict and complete dramatic action grew, often based on a love affair. “Middle” comedy constitutes a transitional stage to the “new” Attic comedy, comedy of characters and comedy of intrigue, which developed at the end of the 4th century, to the beginning of the Hellenistic period.

CHAPTER III. PROSE V - IV centuries.

Literary prose, which arose in the 6th century. in Ionia, developed intensively over the next two centuries. The scope of application of the verse word, which until then was a universal tool of literary creativity, is steadily narrowing; prose is pushing aside poetry, replacing it in a number of areas. Both the emergence of prose (p. 93 ff.) and its growth are associated with the collapse of the mythological worldview, with the development of critical and scientific thought. The Sophistic movement, dealing a crushing blow to polis ideology, is also a turning point in the history of Greek prose. From the last quarter of the 5th century. the proportion of prose increases so much that it becomes the dominant branch of Greek literature until the end of the Attic period.

Presophistic prose develops in those two directions that have emerged since its origins in Ionia. This is, firstly, scientific and philosophical prose, and then historical and narrative. Sophistry joins these genres various types“speeches” and new artistic forms of philosophical presentation. Then three main branches are established into which ancient literary theory classified literary prose: historiography, eloquence and philosophy. Beyond this

The main part of comedy is agon, that is, argument. In literary comedy, the topic of the dispute is determined by current socio-political events, but in its origin, agon is a rudiment of folk comedy associated with the ritual ritual of fertility holidays. An essential part of these holidays was the depiction of the struggle between spring and winter, the young year with the old, and so on. The victory was celebrated with a feast of drinking and amorous entertainment. In literary comedy, the theme of agon was outlined in the prologue in the dialogue of the actors, then this theme was picked up by the choir (parod) coming out to the orchestra. Then the agon reached its climax, and the victory ended with a feast and glorification of the joys of love. This ended the comedy, and the actors and the choir left the orchestra (exodus).

Along with the main theme of the agon, played by actors and a choir divided into two warring half-choirs, the comedy also included occasional everyday scenes. They were represented by actors without the participation of a choir in the second part of the comedy before the exodus. These scenes owe their origin to folk comic drama, known for a long time among many nations. Such scenes were a favorite type of spectacle. They depicted the adventures of an unlucky thief, a narcissistic charlatan doctor, a stupid and ugly red tape worker or a glutton; sometimes gods or heroes appeared instead of everyday figures, but always in the role of comic characters. For example, Zeus is the hero of love affairs, jealous Hera, glutton Hercules, rogue Odysseus, etc. Participants in the performance in masks improvised the text, adhering to the basic plot scheme of an everyday or parody-mythological nature.

At the beginning of the 5th century. BC The poet Epicharmus lived in Sicily. According to tradition, he was the first to write texts for such fun performances, that is, he limited improvisation and introduced a single and complete action. The works of Epicharmus are known only in fragments. His plays did not have a chorus. Their content was borrowed either from myth or from everyday life. The names of Epicharmus's everyday comedies "The Villager", "Robberies", "The Megarian Women" and others have been preserved. A papyrus fragment of the comedy "Odysseus the Defector" was found in Egypt. Odysseus is sent to Troy as a spy, but, not wanting to risk himself, he climbs into a roadside ditch and composes a story about his stay in the enemy camp. In one fragment, for example, a mighty hero is described. Hercules:

If you saw him eat, you would die.

From the throat there is thunder, from the jaws there is a roar,

You can hear the creaking of the roots and the cracking of fangs,

Whistles with his nostrils, moves his ears.

In southern Italy and Sicily, folk everyday scenes were widespread, which were performed in costumes, but without any theatrical setting and without masks. They were called mimes and became known to us in the literary adaptation of the Syracusan Sophron, who was probably a contemporary of Epicharmus. In addition to the titles of Sophron's mimes ("Fishermen", "Darners", "Old Men", etc.), a papyrus fragment has reached us that contains a conversation between two women engaged in magical ceremonies.

In Athens, folk comic skits combined with komos songs. Here comedy acquired its classical form, and its content became ideologically purposeful and socially significant. Already ancient philologists noted that ancient comedy could arise only in conditions of freedom of speech and criticism. The freedom of personal and political exposure that flourished in Periclean Athens contributed to its development and popularity. Therefore, the ancient comedy, using the moment of argument and clash that is obligatory for folk round dancing, entered into the struggle for high social ideals and took up arms against everyone who encroached on the foundations of the polis.

Tradition has preserved to this day three names of great comedic poets. The first of them, Cratinus, was called the Aeschylus of comedy and they said that he “followed in the footsteps of Archilochus and was severe in his attacks,” since he always threw “his censures directly and, as they say, headlong, at dishonest people.” Eupolis, who died in the war, became famous for the wit and courage of his comedies. The Athenians especially loved one of his comedies, in which he forced the great statesmen of the past to come out of the underworld to help Athens. Only fragments survive from the comedies of Cratinus and Eupolis. Therefore, the only author of ancient comedy known to us is its third representative, Aristophanes, of whose 44 works 11 have survived in full.

According to Aristotle, the art of constructing comic action, developed in Sicily, had a certain influence on the development of comedy in Athens. Nevertheless, fundamental to the general direction of the “ancient” Attic comedy are precisely those moments whose absence in Epicharmus we have just noted. Attic comedy uses typical masks (“boastful warrior”, “scientific charlatan”, “clown”, “drunken old woman”, etc.); among the works of Athenian comedic poets there are plays with a parody-mythological plot, but neither constitutes the faces of Attic comedy. Its object is not the mythological past, but living modernity, current, sometimes even topical, issues of political and cultural life.

Combining komos with cartoon scenes within a simple but still coherent plot, the “ancient” comedy has a very unique symmetrical division associated with the ancient structure of komos songs. The comic choir consisted of 24 people, i.e. twice as large as the tragedy choir of pre-Sophocles' times. It split into two semi-choirs, sometimes warring with each other. In the past, these were two holiday “gangs” “competing” with each other; in literary comedy, where the “competition” usually falls on the actors, what remains of the duality of the chorus is the external form, the alternating performance of songs by separate half-choirs in strictly symmetrical correspondence. The most important part of the choir is the so-called parabass, performed in the middle of the comedy. It usually has no connection with the action of the play; the choir bids farewell to the actors and addresses the audience directly. The parabasa consists of two main parts. The first, pronounced by the leader of the entire choir, is an appeal to the audience on behalf of the poet, who here settles scores with his rivals and asks for favorable attention to the play. At the same time, the choir passes in front of the audience in a marching rhythm (“parabassa” in the proper sense of the word). The second part, the song of the choir, has a strophic character and consists of four parts: the lyrical ode (“song”) of the first hemichoir is followed by a recitative epirrema (“proverb”) of the leader of this hemichoir in a dance trocheic rhythm; in strict metrical accordance with the ode and epirrhema, the antoda of the second hemichoria and the antepirrema of its leader are then located.

The principle of “epyrrematic” composition, i.e. pairwise alternation of odes and epirrhemes, also permeates other parts of the comedy. This includes, first of all, the “competition” scene, the agon, in which the ideological side of the play is often concentrated. Agon in most cases has a strictly canonical construction. Two characters “compete” with each other, and their dispute consists of two parts; in the first, the leading role belongs to the side that will be defeated in the competition, in the second - to the winner; both parts open symmetrically with choral odes in metrical correspondence and an invitation to begin or continue the competition. There are, however, scenes of “competition” that deviate from this type.

The following structure can be considered typical for “ancient” comedy. The prologue provides an exposition of the play and outlines the hero's fantastic project. This is followed by a parod (introduction) by the choir, a live scene, often accompanied by a scrum, in which the actors also participate. After the agon, the goal is usually achieved. Then the parabasa is given. The second half of the comedy is characterized by farcical-type scenes in which the good consequences of the project are depicted and various annoying aliens who disturb this bliss are chased away. The choir here no longer takes part in the action and only borders the scenes with their songs; among them there is often an epirrhematically constructed part, usually unfortunately called the “second parabassa”. The play ends with a procession of komos. The typical structure allows for various deviations, variations, and rearrangements of individual parts, but the fifth-century comedies known to us, one way or another, gravitate toward it.

This is an antique comedy A cult drama dedicated to Dionysus, performed by a choir and actors. All types ancient comedy(folk and literary) had a poetic form and were performed accompanied by music; actors and choreographers wore masks. There were two historically and typologically independent forms of literary comedy: Sicilian and Attic. The nature of Attic comedy changed significantly over time, therefore, already in antiquity, three successive stages were distinguished: ancient, middle and new Attic comedy. Southern Italian folk comedy developed under the predominant influence of Attic literary comedy. Roman comedy was created and developed according to the model of exclusively new Attic comedy. From different types comedy in the strict sense should be distinguished from other dramatic genres, which were “comic” in spirit, but were not considered comedy in Greece, since they were not genetically associated with strictly defined forms of the cult of Dionysus. These include satyr drama (a type of tragedy) and various small dialogical forms, devoid of genre unity, which were called mimes. Only in Rome, where Greek cult and theatrical formalities lost their meaning, did Latin mime begin to be viewed as a type of comedy.

Sicilian comedy

Sicilian comedy is already known in developed form based on the work of the poet Epicharmus(c. 550-460 BC) from Syracuse. Fragments of 40 of his comedies have been preserved, which show that the original and main theme of Sicilian comedy was travesty depictions of myths (“The Wedding of Hebe”, “Pyrrha and Prometheus”, “Philoctetes”, etc.). However, as Aristotle points out (Poetics, V), Epicharmus and (virtually unknown to us) Formius began to use “fictional”, i.e. not mythological stories. An example of the development of a purely everyday theme is given by the image of a parasite in a lengthy passage from the comedy “Hope, or Wealth,” but here, judging by the name, personified deities could have participated. Some passages touch on philosophical issues. The comedies of Epicharmus are written in the Dorian dialect in iambic.

Ancient Attic comedy

From 487 BC. Official competitions of comic choirs begin in Athens. The first poet of comedy known by name was Chionides. Ancient comedy is known from the work of its latest representative, Aristophanes, from whom 11 comedies, staged in 425-388 BC, have survived. From other poets 5th century BC (Kratin, Kratet, Eupolis) fragments have reached. The ancient comedy opens with a prologue, which, as in a developed classical tragedy, develops into an expanded dialogic scene; Next comes the parod, i.e. a song accompanying the choir's entrance to the orchestra. Behind the people, the agon begins, a competition between the two main characters; The central part of the comedy is occupied by the parabaza, a lengthy performance by the choir (while performing the parabaza, the choruses took off their masks). The parabaza is surrounded by a series of loosely connected small scenes presented by actors, and the comedy ends with an exodus, a song that accompanies the departure of the choir from the orchestra. Parabase is a complex melic composition, built mainly on the antistrophic principle; it is not directly related to the plot of the comedy and contains declarations by the author dedicated to various topical issues. A consistently developing plot was not important for ancient comedy. According to Aristotle (Poetics, V), a coherent comic "myth" (i.e. fabula) was first introduced by Crates (after 450 BC) following the example of Sicilian comedy. The content of the comedy was largely determined by its cult origin: scenes of gluttony, fights, erotic jokes characteristic of rituals associated with the cult of fertility were required, along with abuse (invective) directed against specific individuals. Since Aristotle's Poetics, this personal invective has been seen as a necessary element of ancient comedy. Gods were often depicted either traditionally or as personified deities. There are known comedies whose plot was purely mythological, for example: “Dionysoalexander” by Cratin (after 430 BC), in which the myth of the court of Paris was presented; mythological (albeit outside traditional mythology) are the comedies “The World” (421 BC) and “The Birds” (414 BC) by Aristophanes. Ancient comedy is characterized by an allegorical (mainly political) interpretation of myths, which indicates its important ideological role in a society whose consciousness was still based mainly on mythology. Comedies on “fictional” plots were political pamphlets, not everyday dramas, but not only politicians, but also philosophers (“Clouds” of Aristophanes, 423 BC), musicians and poets became victims of comedians: attacks on tragedians and rivals -comedians are often found in Aristophanes. A favorite motif was a parody of tragedy. Thus, comedy became one of the first forms of literary and artistic criticism. The characters of ancient comedy are caricatures; if these are real persons, then their characters are narrowed and reduced to one feature, chosen by the poet for ridicule; ethical issues in general, comedians are not interested. Like other genres of Greek poetry, comedy had its own metrical rules. The main dialogical meters of Greek drama - iambic trimeter and trochaic tetrameter - are interpreted in comedy in many ways differently than in tragedy, and the metrical development of choral parts is also unique; the language of comedy was close to colloquial. The comic choir consisted of 24 people, the number of actors could reach up to five. The masks of ancient comedy were grotesque and ugly; the masks of real faces bore a portrait resemblance.

Middle Attic comedy

The Middle Attic Comedy is tentatively dated to 404-336 BC., represented by the names Platonomics, Antiphanes, Aristophon, Alexis; the preservation of the texts is very poor, but an idea of this period can be formed from the late dramas of Aristophanes - “Frogs” (405), “Women in the National Assembly” (389), “Wealth” (388). There are no significant structural changes, but choral interludes appear to separate comedy scenes; and in the future this becomes the norm. Political topics lose relevance and disappear; in their place comes a political utopia; everyday life is depicted more realistically. Aristophanes is interested in myth either as an allegory or as a pretext for a parody of tragedy, but Plato and other poets use mythological names. Ridicule of philosophers becomes a favorite topic.

New Attic Comedy

In the 330s BC. Attic comedy was radically reformed, and already by 324 BC. refers to the first comedy of Menander, who was later recognized as the best representative of the new comedy. Thanks to the discovery of ancient papyrus manuscripts already in the 20th century, lengthy excerpts from the seven comedies of Menander became known; the text of “The Grouch” (316 BC) has been preserved in full. Other significant poets of the new comedy active in the second half of the 4th century BC. (Diphilus, Philemon, Apollodorus), are known from fragments and from free imitations in the Roman palliata. There is very little information about the later representatives of the genre. The new Attic comedy, neither in form nor in content, is a continuation of the ancient one and is an ethical “comedy of characters”, the model for which was the tragedies of Euripides. The structure of the new comedy is also generally oriented towards the tragedy of the late 5th century BC. The comedy consists of a prologue and exodus, followed by several acts corresponding to the episodes of the tragedy and separated by choir parts. The choir does not take part in the action; in many cases the poet did not write a text for the choir, but only “left room” for it. Already in Menander the division into five acts is presented; Roman theorists, starting with Horace (“Science of Poetry”), consider such a division as a necessary structural requirement of comedy. The plot must be complex, but carefully and consistently built, while in the famous neo-Attic comedies (as well as in the Roman palliata), the principles of plot construction formulated in Aristotle’s “Poetics” are quite accurately observed. As in the later tragedy, summary the comedy is presented in the prologue. Fantastic and mythological plots are not allowed in the new comedy; gods are possible only as characters in the prologue. Topics - from everyday life ordinary people; and the social status of the characters is also a paramount genre requirement. However, the main task and artistic goal of the new comedy was not a naturalistic depiction of everyday life, but a poetic study of ethical types, which in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle were called ethos (ethos - “character”). The familiar meaning of the word “character” appeared precisely in the new comedy (Menander, fragment 72). Action was seen as the outward manifestation of ethos; each comic character was associated with a limited set of plot moves and situations; appearance and the speech of the characters had to be strictly consistent with their character. The artistic method of the new comedy becomes clear in many ways thanks to the collection of ethical essays “Characters”, compiled by Aristotle’s student Theophrastus. Rigid schematism and stereotyping were perceived in ancient times as a virtue, but the poet had to apply plot and ethical schemes with subtlety, without transgressing the boundaries of life-like verisimilitude. An important (for ancient theorists, the main) difference between the new comedy and the ancient one was the complete rejection of personal invective. A comedy should, while entertaining, instruct the audience, therefore necessary element comedies were maxims. The stage representation of the character was a mask with sharp, easily recognizable features. Descriptions of the masks of the new comedy, which are given by a lexicographer of the 2nd century AD, have been preserved. Julius Pollux (Polydeuces).

Southern Italian comedy

In the Greek cities of Southern Italy, performances by wandering Phlias actors, considered servants of Dionysus, were popular. Fliaks represented travesty mythological comedies or parodies of tragedies. A literary adaptation of the drama of the fliacs was made by Rinton from Tarentum (3rd century BC), who reworked the plots of the tragedy in the spirit of neo-Attic comedy. Such a drama was called hilarotragedy (from hilaros - “cheerful”), Roman theorists identified the genre of rhinton drama (rinthonica). The only completely preserved text is the Latin comedy of Plautus (3rd-2nd century BC) “Amphitryon”, which the author himself defines as a tragicomedy. The participation in the action of gods and kings, the necessary characters of the tragedy, was considered as an important genre-forming feature that distinguishes Rinton drama from ordinary comedy, but otherwise “Amphitryon” is a typical New Attic comedy. From the indigenous peoples of Italy, the Osci created a comedy called Atellana. In the 2nd century BC. Atellana appeared on Latin.

Roman comedy

Performances of comedies in Latin in Rome began in the mid-3rd century BC. By the end of the 1st century, an extensive system of comic genres had been created, including togata, palliata, literary atellana and mime.

The word comedy comes from Greek komoidia - “comic song” from komos “bacchanalian procession” and oide, which means “song”