Gwendolyn Quintana Old and New Comedy Descendants 01187235 A large group of modern day comedies can be subdivided into New Comedy and Old Comedy descendants that have maintained hallmark elements of New and Old Comedy New and Old Comedy have proved to play a role and influence in today s comical and arts society Although equally amusing New Comedy and Old Comedy can be discriminated by several genre elements such as the presence of a chorus character choices and the type of humor used comic fantasy scatological sexual etc among many others A widely accepted attribute of Old Comedy is that there is a need to have a social or political boundary that allows for only a predetermined audience to understand the puns as intended In other words background knowledge prior to attending the play is needed to understand the jokes in context of the play text drama etc A great example of this in The Clouds by Aristophanes is the parody like puns that are made on Socrates My favorite of which is when the student describes Socrates explanation of gnat farting that the gnat s intestinal track was narrow therefore air passing through it because of the constriction was pushed with force towards the rear So then that orifice being a hollow space beside a narrow tube transmits the noise caused by the force of air ln160 167 Of course only Socrates would say such a ridiculous comment This is an example of the social boundary that is made for the humor The audience would have to at this time understand who Socrates was and know his usual radical thought process Without this prior knowledge the humor may have still been humorous but in the sense that the play was making fun of Socrates philosophical mind Although the original Greek story of Hercules may not be an example of Old Comedy the modernized Disney comedy Hercules of 1997 is very much a modern Gwendolyn Quintana Old and New Comedy Descendants 01187235 descendent of Old Comedy In this comical modernized version of Hercules the muses play the role of the chorus in that they provide a foundational story or the gospel truth to the opening of the story 49 00 Every time the chorus addresses the audience they tell the audience a small truth such as the evil plan that Hades has in store 6 00 Without the vital choral role the audience would remain somewhat confused as to the beginnings and the direction of the story plot Comedy has had an evolutionary progression of chorus incorporation into and out of comic plays Ancient Greek Old Comedy unlike New Comedy depends greatly on the voice of the chorus The chorus can be used to voice the thoughts of the gods inform the audience of the plot of the play sing and dance choral odes engage in dialogue with the actors play In The Clouds by Aristophanes we see just this The Clouds serve as an integral part of the play in that they are directly interacting or addressing the audience and characters directly There is a scene when Strepsiades and Socrates directly address the Clouds and look to their insight Keep quiet A great host of deities is coming here they re going to sing with rousing choruses of song resounding music of the pipes ln365 390 This is when Socrates gives Strepsiades the idea The Clouds are heavenly Clouds great goddesses for lazy men ln 389 From here they go into small conversation Nonetheless the importance of the heavenly Clouds is admired throughout the comedy This shows that the chorus or The Clouds in this play has an impact on the characters and story plot Likewise earlier in the parabasis the chorus addresses the audience and essentially tells them that they are dumb for not choosing this play to win the competition This is an example to show that audience is likewise influenced by the chorus Likewise Disney s Hercules uses Gwendolyn Quintana Old and New Comedy Descendants 01187235 socially based humor which is a trademark characteristic of Old Comedy This is a connection in comical puns that the audience of only our era or only Americans or only people with background ancient Greek literature would understand There are various examples of this I thought it was comical when Phil the satyr and Hercules enter Thebes and Thebes is characterized to be an ancient version of New York crazy hectic and populated Hercules walks through Thebes and has a brief encounter with an obviously illegal sun dial dealer 39 30 The dealer approaches his and says hey mac you wanna buy a sun dial in his raspy voice and exposing his repertoire of sun dials inside his inner coat as to mimic the illegal vendors of New York Only an audience familiar with the culture of big cities such as NY either by first hand or television would understand this Therefore this example is directed to an Americanized audience There are further Americanized references in film such as Hades Boston accent or Hercules first gold American Express card 49 30 Another type of audience that is directly addressed is the ancient Greek literature knowledgeable audience A direct example of this is during the opening scenes when all the gods are congregated at Hercules birth and Apollo flies in whispering to Zeus I haven t seen this much love in a room since Narcissus discovered himself 4 00 The audience must have some prior knowledge on the Greek gods and who Narcissus is to understand why Apollo would have said that or why Narcissus is staring at himself in the mirror making rico suave faces to himself Another example of just this would be when Hercules allegedly dies and Phil the satyr says there goes another one just like Achilles 48 00 The audience would again have to have some prior knowledge of who Achilles was to understand this reference since Achilles has absolutely no part in this film Old Comedy uses such Gwendolyn Quintana Old and New Comedy Descendants 01187235 examples of socially accepted people to acknowledge by example to commonly familiarize the audience with the situation at hand From Old Comedy arose New Comedy at the end of the 4th century One of the characteristics of New Comedy is that it is commonly built around stereotypical stock characters such as the parasite the grumpy old man or helpless love stricken young men One example of a stock character in The Brothers Menaechmus is Peniculus the food deprived parasite and friend of the protagonist In this play Peniculus is always in for a free meal and seemingly has nothing better than to tag along with his friend Menaechmus to get just that Just show me the leftovers and I ll