Tag Archives: Satyr Play

July 20, 2012 · 12:16 am

ANCIENT GREEK COMEDY: ALCAEUS

Balladeer’s Blog has  examined 24 ancient Greek comedies so far in terms of their continuing relevance over 2,400 years later. This will be the fourth time I will focus on one of the ancient Greek comedians whose entire corpus is very, very fragmentary, touching briefly on all of their known works. For background info on ancient Greek comedy plus my previous reviews click here: https://glitternight.com/ancient-greek-comedies/ 

ALCAEUS – This comic playwright came along for the tail end of Attic Old Comedy. Alcaeus’ career ranged from approximately 405 BCE to the 380s BCE and we have fragmentary remains of eight comedies from an unknown total body of work.

1. TRAGI-COMEDY – This play gave comedic treatment to the traditional rivalry between comedy and tragedy on the ancient Athenian stage. The comedy had fun with the Continue reading →

66 Comments

Filed under Ancient Greek Comedy

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

December 28, 2011 · 12:08 am

ANCIENT GREEK COMEDIES: DIONYSALEXANDROS (C: 430’s BCE)

For this 5th installment of my posts on Ancient Greek Comedies I’ll examine Dionysalexandros by Cratinus. For my post providing background info on ancient Greek comedies click here: https://glitternight.com/2011/09/22/at-long-last-my-ancient-greek-comedy-posts-begin/

Cratinus was one of the Big 3 in Attic Old Comedy along with Aristophanes and Eupolis, both of whom were much younger than he was. I chose Dionysalexandros as the first of his comedies to examine because it is a brilliant and, from the fragmentary evidence available on all non-Aristophanic comedies, a bold and possibly unique hybrid of Attic Old Comedy and traditional Satyr Plays.   

THE PLAY

In Dionysalexandros Cratinus pushed the envelope by Continue reading →

40 Comments

Filed under Ancient Greek Comedy

Tagged as , , , , , , ,