In The Birds, written by Aristophanes, two Athenians seek a Utopian refuge from the madness of city life and found a city of birds located between Earth and Olympus. Unfortunately, the idealism of their perfect new City - christened (in 414BC) 'Cloud Cuckoo Land' - is corrupted. When The Birds was performed it featured a Chorus which represented twenty-four different species of birds; one of Aristophanes' other politically anthropomorphic plays, The Wasps, which was devised as an attack on the failures of Athenian democracy, featured a chorus of actors dressed in black and yellow stripes who swarmed the stage stinging each other. From the fifth century BC onwards, Greek Comedy fizzed and flourished, crossing boundaries of time and space, often informed by a savage political spleen.
But how did Greek comedy evolve? Why did its subsequent development differ so radically from that of Greek tragedy? To what extent did it reflect the anxieties and preoccupations of a nascent democracy? And can it be said to have left any lasting legacy?
Contributors
Paul Cartledge, Professor of Greek History at the University of Cambridge
Edith Hall, Professor of Drama and Classics at Royal Holloway, University of London
Nick Lowe, Senior Lecturer in Classics at Royal Holloway, University of London
