Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: The literary history of mythological comedy, from Epicharmus, the inventor of the genre, to the Attic dramatists, is permeated by intertextual relations and cross-references between individual authors. Cratinus took over the Epicharmean form of myth burlesque and combined it with political satire of Athenian public life. Cratinus’ mythical plays owe to Epicharmus a number of comic themes and dramaturgical patterns: the portrayal of the cannibalistic Cyclops as a gourmet, the games of disguise and role-playing, the sophisticated meta-literary exploitation of the epic tradition and of the spectators’ Homeric knowledge. Aristophanes avoided full-scale myth burlesque in his acme, but he included individual vignettes of mythical parody in his complex polyphonic plots. The scene of the three gods’ embassy at the finale of the Birds employs all the typical techniques of mythological comedy.
Source: Veleia
DOI: 10.1387/veleia.24885
Author: Ioannis Konstantakos
Institution: National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Language: English
Topic: Classical Antiquity Studies
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4392518835