With a new introduction and some revisions, these essays on Classical Greek satyr plays, originally published in various venues between 2002 and 2010, suggest new critical approaches to this important dramatic genre and identify previously neglected dimensions and dynamics within their original Athenian context. Griffith shows that satyr plays, alongside the ludicrous and irresponsible, but harmless, antics of their chorus, presented their audiences with culturally sophisticated narratives of romance, escapist adventure, and musical-choreographic exuberance, amounting to a zparallel universey to that of the accompanying tragedies in the City Dionysia festival. The class oppositions between heroic/divine characters and the rest (choruses, messengers, servants, etc.) that are so integral to Athenian tragedy are shown to be present also, in exaggerated form, in satyr drama, with the satyr chorus occupying a role that also inevitably recalled for the Athenian audiences their own (often foreign-born) slaves. Meanwhile the familiar main characters of tragedy (Heracles, Danae and Perseus, Hermes and Apollo, Achilles, Odysseus, etc.) are re-deployed in an engaging milieu of erotic encounters, miraculous discoveries, guaranteed happy endings, marriages, and painless release from suffering for all, both for the well-behaved heroes and also for the low-life, playful satyrs (the slaves of Dionysus). In their fusion of adventure and romance, fantasy and naïvete, Aphrodite and Dionysus, Athenian satyr plays thus anticipate in many respects, Griffith suggests, the later developments of Greek pastoral and prose romance.

The esteem in which satyr drama was held in antiquity still arouses curiosity and controversy. Twelve new papers, generated in North America by a distinguished cast of scholars, explore questions central to the genre. How did satyr drama relate to comedy and tragedy; how closely was it tied to its tragic trilogy? How did the Athenians react to pro-satyric drama, such as the Alcestis? How far did satyr plays reflect contemporary political life? Fresh conclusions are adduced from the fragments, particularly those of Aeschylus, and there is special study of Euripides' Cyclops, not least for its possible reflection of the fifth-century sophists.

From archaic Greece to the Roman Empire, the remains of comic and satyric performances reveal a range of literary, aesthetic, historical, religious, and geographical connections. This book analyzes the details of this interplay diachronically, showing that comedy and satyr plays influenced each other in nearly all stages of their development.

For the first time one volume provides the reader with scholarly examination of the genre of satyr drama by experts in multiple fields: philology, textual criticism, literary interpretation, ancient reception, and archaeology. Sections are devoted t

The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy marks the first comprehensive introduction to and reference work for the unified study of ancient comedy. From its birth in Greece to its end in Rome, from its Hellenistic to its Imperial receptions, no topic is neglected. The 41 essays offer cutting-edge guides through comedy's immense terrain.