Ancient and modern linguistic approaches to the history of Attic comedy

Book section : Chapter

The following contribution explores three different ways in which linguistic analyses can potentially contribute to a better understanding of the history of Greek theatre in general, and of Attic comedy in particular; for each of them, ancient precedents are adduced. “Linguistic archaeology” starts from Greek theatre terminology and asks what semantically elusive lexemes such as κωμῳδία can tell us about generic origins; “linguistic profiling” focuses on the macroscopic make-up of a given genre’s register; and “linguistic anatomy” investigates the lexical and grammatical detail of the texts, both fragmentary and complete, in order to assist in establishing approximate chronologies where needed. Finally, a brief appendix considers the background to Aristotle’s remark in the Poetics according to which the “Dorians” made use of a linguistic argument when they laid claim to tragedy as well as comedy.

Authors: Willi, A

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Host title: Chronology and History of the Attic Theatre: Origins, Fifth Century, Fourth-Century (and Later) Reception
• Pages: 195-216
• Series: Trends in Classics - Supplementary Volumes
• Series number: 179
• Place of publication: Berlin / Boston
• Publication date: 2025-05-19
• Edition: 1
• DOI: 10.1515/9783111621937-010
• ISSN: 1868-4785
• EISBN: 9783111621937
• ISBN-10: 3111621383
• ISBN-13: 9783111621388
• Language: English
• Subtype: Chapter