THE MENEACHMEUS AS A MIXTURE OF OLD AND NEW COMEDY

Comedy was a popular theatrical style in ancient Greek literature and was imitated and adapted by the Roman playwrights with small changes. In Ancient Greek, comedy as a literary genre is split into three categories based on the time periods in which it differs: Old Comedy, Middle Comedy and New Comedy. Old comedy (480-430 B.C.) is characterized with political freedom and intellectual vitality while middle comedy (405-336 B.C.) is characterized with a little politics or poetics as a result of Athens' financial ruin in 404 B.C. As for the new comedy, it is characterized with romantic love, marriage, stereotypes, and misunderstandings. Plautus’ The Meneachemus which is considered as a surviving manuscript of New Comedy provides data concerning the qualities of the genre. Therefore, this paper aims to study The Meneachemus in terms of reflecting the features of new comedy.