Study Guide for Exam I: Old Comedy and Aristophanes

Format

• cut-and-dried identifications: basic factual information (small credit per item, and a small component of the exam)
• passages from the plays we’ve read: identify context, and discuss briefly what the passage shows about Aristophanes’ comedies (each a medium-small quantum of credit, but adding up to a major component of the exam)
• essay: discuss a thematic question, drawing for support of your contentions on specific, concrete evidence from several plays (the largest single item of credit; a major component of the exam)

Things to study

• major characters in each play we’ve read (including Euripides and Socrates as they existed in Athens beyond the plays)
• the identity of the chorus in each play we’ve read
• technical terms for the parts of an Old Comedy: prologue, parodos, scene or episode, agon, parabasis, exodos
• Athenian politicians Aristophanes particularly cared about: Cleon, Lamachus, Cleonymus, Alcibiades, Nicias (distinctive characteristics)
• important parts of an ancient Greek theatre: theatron, orchestra, stage, skene, mechane, ekkyklema
• festivals for dramatic performance: City Dionysia, Lenaia

Strategy: think of specific passages that illustrate important points, so you can back up your arguments with concrete evidence on the test. Be sure you explain clearly how the passage helps demonstrate your point.

• the function of comedy in Athenian civic life
• qualities and predilections of the "comic hero"
• how a comic Chorus relates to the principal characters
• how a comic Chorus relates to the audience and Athens
• competition between comedies as part of a public religious festival
• comic fantasy and how it relates to real life
• "dramatic illusion" and how it may be broken ("metatheater")
• tragedy and comedy: what can they each do and not do?
• allegory: giving a dramatic role to an abstract concept
• scapegoating as a strategy for healing
• religion and celebration in Athenian life
• public speaking in Athenian civic life
• Athenians and the courts
• the Sophistic movement: how the "new learning" can affect society
• peace versus war
• Athenian imperialism
• traditional assumptions about men and women in the ancient Greek community
• food
• sex
• wine and drunkenness
• dancing and Dionysos

This file last updated 8 February 2003 by jlong1@orion.it.luc.edu.
http://www.luc.edu/depts/classics/