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Middle Comedy

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From: The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre
Date: 19960101
Author:PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND

Middle Comedy, term applied to the last two plays of Aristophanes , the Ecclesiazusae ( Women in Parliament ) and Plutus , and those of his immediate successors in the early and middle 4th century BC, from which much of the spirit of revelry present in Old Comedy has disappeared. The chorus shrinks, the importance of the plot grows, and dramatic illusion is taken more seriously. The earlier Middle Comedy plays are still concerned, though to a lesser degree, with politics, but they are less personal and fantastic, and even the obscenity becomes less obvious. Judging from the remaining ...

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