Menander, an ancient Greek playwright, was an influential playwright of his time, focusing his plays on what critics call "New Comedy." Menander wrote over 100 plays only eight of which won awards at the Athenian dramatic festivals. Menander had a fairly clever style when writing his New comedic plays but most of his works were lost in the middles ages. This paper will review his only work that remains in its entirety, Dyskolos, or more commonly know as "The Grouch." Before getting into the play itself it is important to understand the differences between New Comedy and Old comedy in Ancient Greece. The leading playwright of old Comedy was Aristophanes and in Old comedy the principal role was played by the chorus, it had flexible casts and the main point of the plays were to poke fun at contemporary society, politics, and culture. With the rise of new comedy the importance of the chorus diminished and often involved stock characters. It is used to relate to portray the average citizen. "New Comedy accurately reflects the disillusioned spirit and moral ambiguity of the bourgeois class of this period" (Encyclopedia Britannica). The new comedic play, "Dyskolos," is in essence about a young gentlemen's quest to marry a girl in which he has fallen in love with but the road block in him getting his girl is the father of the girl. In the prologue, the God, Pan, is setting the scene in Attike, a territory in Athens. Pan tells the story of Knemon a grumpy old man and how he forced his wife and stepson to leave him. He has possessed a young wealthy man, Sostratos to fall in love, with a young girl. The father of the young girl is Knemon. .
Plot Synopsis.
In the beginning, Sostratos sends one of his slaves to conduct business on the farm of Knemon and soon after this business, Sostratos sees Knemon's daughter and assists her in bringing water back to the father. Sostratos and the girl fall in love almost instantly but the girl knows her father will not allow just anyone to take her hand in marriage.