New Comedy

Synopsis

Written in the century following the defeat of Athens by the Spartans in the Peloponnesian War, these four plays signal a change of emphasis in stage comedy more appropriate to the new world order of the fourth century BC.

Aristophanes is the only Greek playwright whose work spans the fifth and fourth centuries BC and links the direct slapstick and bawdy of Old Comedy to the more subtle situational New Comedy.

Women in Power and Wealth complete the cycle of Aristophanes's extant plays begun in Aristophanes Plays: One and Plays: Two, translated by Kenneth McLeish.

Writing seventy years after Aristophanes's death, Menander's only complete surviving works, The Malcontent and The Woman from Samos are here translated by J. Michael Walton.

Kenneth McLeish and J. Michael Walton provide full introductions, discussing the plays and placing them in their political and social context.