Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/427

407 GREEK ] DRAMA 407 loftier stature. Euripides was nut afraid of rags and tatters ; but the sarcasms of Aristophanes on this head seem feeble to those who are aware that they would apply to King Lear as well as to Telephus. r^riols of The history of Greek comedy is likewise that of an Greek essentially Attic growth, although Sicilian comedy was comedy. ear ii er i n date than her Attic sister or descendant. The Sicilian former is represented by Epichannus (fl. 500), and by the comedy. names of one or two other poets. It probably had a chorus, and, dealing as it did in a mixture of philosophical discourse, antithetical rhetoric, and wild buffoonery, neces sarily varied in style. Though in some respects it seems to have resembled the Middle rather than the Old Attic comedy, its subjects sometimes, like those of the latter, coincided with the myths of tragedy, of which they were doubtless parodies. The so-called mimes of Sophron (fl. 430) were dramatic scenes from Sicilian life, intended, not for the stage, but for recitation. Attic. Attic comedy is usually divided into three periods or species, viz. : )ld&amp;gt; I. Old Comedy, which dates from the complete establish ment of democracy by Pericles, though a comedy directed against Themistocles is mentioned. The Megarean farcical entertainments had long spread in the rural districts of Attica, and were now introduced into the city, where Cratinus and Crates (fl. 450) first moulded them into the forms of Attic art. The final victory of Pericles and the democratic party may be reckoned from the ostracism of Thucydides (444) ; and so eagerly was the season of freedom employed by the comic poets that already four years after wards a law which was, however, only a short time in force limited their licence. Cratinus, 1 an exceedingly bold and broad satirist, apparently of conservative ten dencies, was followed by Eupolis (44G-after 415), every one of whose plays appears to have attacked some in dividual, 2 by Phryuichus, and others ; but the representative of old comedy in its fullest development is Aristophanes (c. 444-c. 380), a comic poet of unique and unsurpassed genius. Dignified by the acquisition of a chorus (though of a less costly kind than the tragic) of masked actors, and of scenery and machinery, and by a corresponding lite rary elaboration and elegance of style, Old Attic comedy nevertheless remained true both to its origin and to the purposes of its introduction into the free imperial city. It borrowed much from tragedy, but it retained the phallic abandonment of the old rural festivals, the licence of word and gesture, and the audacious directness of personal invec tive. These characteristics are not features peculiar to ristopha- Aristophanes. He was twitted by some of the older comic poets with having degenerated from the full freedom of the art by a tendency to refinement, and he took credit to him self for having superseded the time-honoured cancan and the stale practical joking of his predecessors by a nobler kind of mirth. But in boldness, as he likewise boasted, he had no peer ; and the shafts of his wit, though dipped in wine-lees and at times feathered from very obscene fowl, flew at high game. 3 He has been accused of seeking to degrade what lie ought to have recognized as good ; 4 and it has been shown with complete success that he is not to be taken as an impartial or accurate authority on Athenian history. But partisan as he was, he was also a genuine patriot ; and his very political sympathies which were conservative were such as have often stimulated the most effective political satire, because they imply an antipathy to every species of excess. Of the conservative quality of reverence he was, however, altogether devoid ; and his 1 Archilochi. 8 Knights. 4 Clouds. love for Athens was that of the most free-spoken of sons. Flexible even in his religious notions, he was in this as in other respects ready to be educated by his times ; and, like a true comic poet, he could be witty at the expense even of his friends, and, it might almost be said, of himself. In wealth of fancy, 5 and in beauty of lyric melody, he ranks high among the great poets of all times. The distinctive feature of Old, as compared with Middle The i Comedy, is the jiarabasis, the speech in which the chorus, 01(1 c moving towards and facing the audience, addressed it in n C{ y the name of the poet, often abandoning all reference to the action of the play. The loss of the parabasis was involved in the loss of the chorus, of which comedy was deprived in consequence of the general reduction of expenditure upon the comic drama, culminating in the law of Cinesias (39G). 6 But with the downfall of the independence of Athenian public life, the ground had been cut from under the feot of its most characteristic representative. The catastrophe of the city (405) had been preceded by the temporary over throw of the democracy (411), and was followed by the establishment of an oligarchical &quot; tyranny &quot; under Spartan protection; and when liberty was restored (404), the citizens for a time addressed themselves to their new life in a soberer spirit and continued (or passed) the law prohibit ing the introduction by name of any individual as one of the personages of a play. The change to which comedy had to accommodate itself was one which cannot be defined by precise dates, yet it was not the less inevitable in its progress and results. Comedy, in her struggle for existence, now chiefly devoted herself to literary and social themes such as the criticism of tragic poets, 7 and the literary crazo of women s rights 8 and the transition to Middle Comedy accomplished itself. Of the later plays of Aristophanes, three 9 are without a parabasis, and in the last of those preserved to us 10 the chorus is quite insignificant. II. Middle Comedy, whose period extends over the MUU1 remaining years of Athenian freedom, thus differed in sub stance as well as in form from its predecessor. It is re presented by the names of thirty-seven writers (more than double the number of poets attributed to Old Comedy) among whom Eubulus, Antiphanes, and Alexis are stated to have been pre-eminently fertile and successful. It was a comedy of manners as well as character, although its ridicule of particular classes of men tended to the creation of stand ing types, such as parasites, courtesans, revellers, and a favourite figure already drawn by Aristophanes 11 the self-conceited cook. In style it necessarily inclined to become more easy and conversational ; while in that branch which was devoted to the parodying of tragic myths, its purpose may have been to criticise, but its effect must have been to degrade. This species of the comic art had found favour at Athens already before the close of the great civil war; its inventor was the Thasian Hegemon, at whose Giyantomaclda the Athenians were laughing on the day when the news arrived of the Sicilian disaster. III. New Comedy, which is dated from the establishment New of the Macedonian supremacy (338) is merely a further development of Middle. If its favourite types were more numerous, including the captain (of mercenaries) the original of a long line of comic favourites the cunning slave, &c., they were probably also more conventional. New Comedy appears to have first constituted love intrigues the main subject of dramatic actions. The most famous of the 64 writers said to have belonged to this period of comedy were Philemon (fl. from 330), Menander (342- 29), 1 hil 3 Birds. 6 Strattis, Chorieida. 7 Aristophanes, Frogs; Phryuichus, Musoe; Tragvtdi, 8 Aristophanes, Ecclesiazusce. 9 Lysistrata; Thesmophoriazusce; I lutus II. 10 Plutus. ll ^Eulosic and ileu
 * Maricas (Hyperbolus); ttuptee (Alcibiades); Lacones (Cimon), &c