| Week 1 |
Aristophanes and Old Comedy |
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Background Reading:
Ian Storey, "General Introduction," in Aristophanes I, Trans. Peter Meineck;
J. Boardman, et al., Oxford History of the Classical World, 124-145 (on reserve)
Sallie Goetsch, Introduction to Greek Stagecraft (Didaskalia) features an interactive mask model and a 3D reconstruction of the Theater of Dionysos |
| Day 1 |
Introduction to Greek History in the 5th century BCE
Introduction to the Athenian Theater |
| Day 2 |
Utopian Fantasy: Aristophanes' Birds (414 BCE)
PM: Doing research on ancient and modern comedy (Jen Rouse); Building webpages (Holly Martin Huffman) Cole Library 212 |
| Day 3 |
Satirizing the Ivory Tower: Aristophanes' Clouds (423 BCE)
PM: Charlie Chaplin in The Immigrant, The Count, Easy Street (1916)
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| Day 4 |
Aristophanes, Charlie Chaplin, and the Comic Hero
Comedy term definition and example due at 9:00 a.m.
PM: paper conferences; please bring a hard copy of your paper to the conference
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| Day 5 |
Women in Charge: Aristophanes' Lysistrata (411 BCE)
First paper due at 5 p.m.
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| Week 2 |
Menander and Greek New Comedy |
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Background Reading:
J.J. Pollitt, Art in the Hellenistic Age, 1-16 (on reserve).
Sander Goldberg, The Making of Menander's Comedy, 1-28 (on reserve) |
| Day 6 |
AM: Mae West in Goin' to Town (1935)
PM:
Gender Bending: Lysistrata and Mae West
Aspects of Comedy, Part 1, due at 9:00 p.m.
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| Day 7 |
AM: The Setting of New Comedy: Menander's Dyskolos (Old Cantankerous) (316 BCE)
PM: Dyskolos cont.
Comedy Terms Jeopardy
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| Day 8 |
The Characters of New Comedy: Menander's Perikeiromene (The Rape of the Locks) (314-13 BCE?)
PM: Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934), starring Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable
Critique of another group's website, due at 5:00 p.m.
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| Day 9 |
Menander's Samia (c. 315-309 BCE)
A New Vision of Love: Hellenistic New Comedy and Hollywood Screwball Comedy
PM: paper conferences
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| Day 10 |
Theorizing Comedy: Aristotle's Poetics (died 323 BCE)
Paper 2 due at 5 p.m.
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| Week 3 |
New Comedy in Rome: Plautus and Terence |
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Background Reading:
J. Boardman, et al., Oxford History of the Classical World, 417-437 (on reserve)
Deena Berg and Douglass Parker, "General Introduction," in Plautus and Terence, Five Comedies
John Porter, Roman New Comedy (University of Saskatchewan) |
| Day 11 |
Heroic Badness and the Clever Slave: Plautus' Persa (Iran Man) (190s BCE)
PM: Sam Wood's A Night at the Opera (1935), starring Groucho, Chico, and Harpo Marx, Kitty Carlisle, and Allan Jones
Aspects of Comedy, Part 2, due at 9:00 p.m.
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| Day 12 |
Puns, Jokes, and anarchistic comedy: Plautus and the Marx Brothers |
| Day 13 |
Loving the Exotic: Plautus' Poenulus (Towelheads) (190's BCE?)
PM: David Butler's Road to Morocco (1942), starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour
Critique of another group's website, due at 5:00 p.m.
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| Day 14 |
Comic Patterns in Poenulus and Road to Morocco |
| Day 15 |
A Tale of Two Brothers: Terence's Adelphoe (The Brothers) (160 BCE)
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| Week 4 |
New Comedy in Rome and Hollywood |
| Day 16 |
Rescuing a flop: Terence's Hecyra (The Mother-in-Law) (160 BCE)
PM: Comedy, Melodrama, and Gender: Norman Jewison's Moonstruck (1987), starring Cher, Nicholas Cage, and Olympia Dukakis |
| Day 17 |
Rewriting women in Romantic comedy: Hecyra and Moonstruck |
| Day 18 |
Aspects of Comedy: wrap-up discussion and presentation of websites |
