The strongest contrast between comedy and tragedy was that comedy drew its subjects from everyday life and social reality. This meant that its plot consisted of people's preconceptions and shortcomings, of current political or social events. This is why comedy is a fundamental source for our knowledge of the period it took place in.
We have no knowledge of the early stages of comedy's
evolution, but we do know that in the course of the festival
called Lenaea (organized by the Eponymous Archon in the
month of Gamelion, answering to our modern January and February)
comedy was played. The Lenaea was in honour of Dionysus 'Lenaeus'.
His worship took place outside the city walls, and was of earlier
origin than that of Dionysus 'Eleuthereus', patron of tragedy. The
first occasion on which comedy was part of the Lenaea was in the
There is general agreement that the birth of comedy was from the singing of a noisy partying group, the comus, uniting the god's worshippers in unbridled high spirits. A feature of these junketings was the procession with the phallus and appropriate songs. We are told that the people carrying the phallus singled out members of the audience for (often vulgar) verbal teasing - the kind of cheerful coarse teasing that is even today a constant feature of the Carnival weeks in modern Greece. It was in this time-honoured custom, still very much alive and kicking, that the personal attacks and buffooneries of Aristophanes' plays had their roots.
Aristophanic comedy exhibited these processions, dances and choruses in their developed form. A standard feature of it was the parabasis - an onslaught with aggressive verses which formed the axis, properly speaking. However, other parts were added that now called for an actor. The most important of these was the quarrel scene known as agon.
The first writer known to have inserted any dramatic content
into comedy was Epicharmus. Though born on Cos at the
start of the
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