The Clouds and The Pot of Gold [antikvár]

aristophanes and the clouds The clouds belongs to the genre known as Old Comedy, the distinctive Greek comic form of the fifth century b.c. For us, because of the selective processes of literary sur- vival, Old Comedy and Aristophanes are virtually syn- onymous. Although a multitude of fragments have been preserved, we have no complete plays by any other author from this important period. It is a form that, for modern audiences and readers, contains some unusual and occa- sionally puzzling features. They are puzzling, however, only because modern ideas of comedy derive from a later period, finding their source in the sort of play that Plautus wrote rather than in Aristophanes. Once we make the necessary mental adjustment Aristophanes' comedies may be seen as a natural outgrowth of the theater and social conditions of his time. Greek comedy, like Greek tragedy, seems to have orig- inated in community festivals and choral revels, and the basic ingredients are the same in each case—a chorus that can both act as narrator or commentator and take an important part in the action, and a limited number of actors who may each take several roles in the course of one play. Tragedy develops as a fairly rigid alternation of choral song and acted scenes. In comedy the pattern is looser. This is probably due to the comparatively late date at which comedy won official recognition and was ad- mitted to the dramatic festivals. It had less time to acquire rules and traditions, and so developed in a more flexible and uninhibited manner. In comedy the chorus may have immense importance in some parts of the play and be practically ignored at others. The dramatist is free to manipulate the various components of his comedy as the mood takes him. In tragedy the dramatist was limited by expediency and convention to a fairly small repertoire of