The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy marks the first comprehensive introduction to and reference work for the unified study of ancient comedy. From its birth in Greece to its end in Rome, from its Hellenistic to its Imperial receptions, no topic is neglected. The 41 essays offer cutting-edge guides through comedy's immense terrain.

Introduction. Ancient Comedy: The Longue Durée Part One: Greek Comedy I. Beginnings 1. In Search of the Essence of Old Comedy: From Aristotle's Poetics to Zielinksi, Cornford and Beyond (Jeffrey Rusten) 2. Performing Comedy in the Fifth through Early Third Centuries (Eric Csapo) 3. Dionysiac Festivals in Athens and the Financing of Comic Performances: Choregia and Democracy (Andronike Makres) II. The Greek Comedians and their Plays 4. The First Poets of Old Comedy (Ian Storey) 5. The Last Laugh: Eupolis, Strattis, and Plato against Aristophanes (Mario Telò) 6. Aristophanes (Bernard Zimmermann) 7. Comedy in the Fourth Century I: Mythological Burlesques (Ioannis M. Konstantakos) 8. Comedy in the Fourth Century II: Politics and Domesticity (Jeffrey Henderson) 9. Comedy in the Late Fourth and Early Third Centuries BCE (Adele C. Scafuro) 10. Menander (Adele C. Scafuro) 11. Reconstructing Menander (Alain Blanchard) 12. Crossing Genres: Comedy, Tragedy, and Satyr Play (Johanna Hanink) 13. Crossing Conceptual Worlds: Greek Comedy and Philosophy (David Konstan) III. Attic Comedy and Society 14. The Politics of Comic Athens (David Rosenbloom) 15. Law and Greek Comedy (Emiliano J. Buis) 16. Religion and the Gods in Greek Comedy (Scott Scullion) IV. The Diffusion of Comedy in the Hellenistic World 17. The Diffusion of Comedy from the Age of Alexander to the Beginning of the Roman Empire (Brigitte Le Guen) 18. Hellenistic Mime and its Reception in Rome (Costas Panayotakis) Part Two: Roman Comedy I. Beginnings 19. The Beginnings of Roman Comedy (Peter Brown) 20. Festivals, Producers, Theatrical Spaces, and Records (George Fredric Franko) 21. Plautus between Greek Comedy and Atellan Farce: Assessments and Reassessments (Antonis K. Petrides) II. The Roman Comedians and their Plays 22. Plautus' Dramatic Predecessors and Contemporaries in Rome (Wolfgang David Cirilo De Melo) 23. Plautus and Terence in Performance (Erica M. Bexley) 24. Metrics and Music (Marcus Deufert) 25. Prologue(s) and Prologi (Boris Dunsch) 26. Between Two Paradigms: Plautus (Michael Fontaine) 27. The Terentian Reformation: From Menander to Alexandria (Michael Fontaine) 28. The Language of the Palliata (Evangelos Karakasis) 29. Tragedy, Para-tragedy and Roman Comedy (Gesine Manuwald) III. Roman Comedy and Society 30. Roman Comedy and the Social Scene (Erich Gruen) 31. Law and Roman Comedy (Jan Felix Gaertner) 32. Religion in Roman Comedy (Boris Dunsch) Part Three: Transmission and Ancient Reception 33. 'Introduction' to Aristophanea (Nigel Wilson) 34. Later Greek Comedy in Later Antiquity (Heinz-Günther Nesselrath) 35. The Rebirth of a Codex: Virtual Work on the Ambrosian Palimpsest of Plautus (Walter Stockert) 36. The Transmission of Terence (Benjamin Victor) 37. Graphic Comedy: Menandrian Mosaics and Terentian Miniatures (Sebastiana Nervegna) 38. Greek Comedy, the Novel, and Epistolography (Regina Höschele) 39. Roman Comedy in the Second Sophistic (Regine May) 40. The Reception of Plautus in Antiquity (Rolando Ferri) 41. Aelius Donatus and His Commentary on Terence's Comedies (Chrysanthi Demetriou) Appendices 1. New Texts: Greek Comic Papyri 1973-2012 (Eftychia Bathrellou) 2. Post-Menandrian Comic Poets: An Overview of the Evidence and a Checklist (Ben Millis)

"This is a massive tome which is not a page too long. The editors' breadth of vision is engrossing and exhilarating, yet they have also taken great pains to allow readers to pursue their own detailed lines of inquiry. For any school or other library it represents a small investment which will offer a disproportionate return." -- Christopher Tanfield, Classics for All

Selling point: Covers all of ancient comedy--both Greek and Roman--in equal detail in a single volume Selling point: Situates comedy synchronically in its social, intellectual, and artistic environment Selling point: Offers new discussions of the ancient reception of comedy, including lesser read Greek and Roman authors of the second sophistic and of late antiquity

Michael Fontaine is Associate Professor of Classics and Associate Dean of the Faculty at Cornell University. He has published widely on Latin literature, especially Roman Comedy, and is the author of Funny Words in Plautine Comedy (Oxford University Press, 2010). He is now finishing an edition and translation of Joannes Burmeister's Neo-Latin Aulularia and fragmentary Mater-Virgo to appear in 2014. Adele C. Scafuro is Professor of Classics at Brown University and a frequent visitor to the American School of Classical Studies at Athens where she served as Visitng Whitehead Professor in 2004-05. She has published numerous essays on Greek law, epigraphy, and drama, and is the author of The Forensic Stage. Settling Disputes in Graeco-Roman New Comedy (CUP 1997) and most recently, a translation, Demosthenes. Speeches 39-49 (U. of Texas, 2011). She co-edits (with John Bodel) Brill Studies in Greek and Roman Epigraphy.

Selling point: Covers all of ancient comedy--both Greek and Roman--in equal detail in a single volume Selling point: Situates comedy synchronically in its social, intellectual, and artistic environment Selling point: Offers new discussions of the ancient reception of comedy, including lesser read Greek and Roman authors of the second sophistic and of late antiquity