The cultural environment that produced Athenian New Comedy expected literature and in particular drama to be fundamentally didactic and to ‘make people better.’ The comedy of Menander applies a sort of Socratic dialectic method which functions subconsciously and emotionally on the spectator in such a way as to provoke him to reexamine his preconceptions and to provide him with a freedom to conceive on his own a renewed flexibility of thought and sense of freedom. Fundamental to his optimism is the belief that all persons are capable of change for the better, a belief reflected in the Menandrean conception of tuche. Menander’s comedies are entertaining, but the more one reads him, the more one senses that something is escaping us: the real reasons for which he wrote them. It is the contention of this study that Menander attempted the experiment of writing comedy that is not only didactic but beneficial, that, in a fashion similar to the cathartic function of tragedy, attempted to provoke and to develop his audience, teaching to cope with changing situations while remaining socially integrated and emotionally responsive, qualities summed up in the menandrean slogan khrestos. There are two reasons why an approach to Menander from the point of view of the effect on the audience has great interest. Examination of the sources on the cultural environment of New Comedy provide ample reason to believe that among the Peripatetic philosophers, who we have reason to believe were an influence on Menander, comedy was believed capable of exerting a positive effect on the spectator, using hyponoia, ‘suggestion,’ Aristotle’s term for the function of Middle Comedy, among a number of other specific techniques mentioned by Aristotle and Gorgias. There is some evidence that the peripatetic tradition termed this positive effect of comedy “catharsis.” Moreover, the development of the beneficial effects of comedy reflects the preoccupation of Menander’s contemporaries with the teachability of virtue (arete). If virtue be defined as an individual’s predisposition to learn, ability to reflect, and willingness to adapt stable moral values to changing situations for the common benefit, Menander’s comedy does appear to attempt to teach virtue. Thus an examination of New Comedy as a teaching tool for virtue sheds light on both the historical purpose of literature and on its practical potential as a means of making people better. The edifying potential of the theater derives from two elements: theatrical technique and thematic technique. The theatrical techniques involve the organization and rhythm of the plot structure: the pace of the action, surprise elements, dilemmas that are only half resolved, contrasts within elements of a given character, suggestive themes, verbal connections, the creation of apophegms etc. In general the function of these techniques, which recur repeatedly and with great variety in Menander’s works, is first to orient, and then to disorient, the audience, leaving it to the spectators to reorganize and resolve contrasts and then to generalize, first at the level of the dramatic action, subsequently at the ‘real world’ level. Thus on one level Menander trains his viewers to correlate, generalize and resolve disparate moral dilemmas (thinking for themselves), while on another level the structure of his motifs provides a model for a reorganization of their preconceptions and moral priorities. Interestingly, the theatre conditions at the Greater Dionysia festival have much in common with an effective educational setting. An examination of the history of the festival suggests that the public’s education and integration formed part of its purpose from the beginning. .........................................................................................................................................................
Στο πνευματικό περιβάλλον του Μενάνδρου η λογοτεχνία εθεωρείτο αυτομάτως διδακτική. Η μενάνδρεια κωμωδία εφαρμόζει ένα είδος μαιευτικής μεθόδου που ασκεί υποσυνείδητα και συναισθηματικά τον θεατή ώστε να του αφαιρεί τις προκαταλήψεις και να του δίνει την ελευθερία να σχηματίσει μόνος του, με ευελιξία της σκέψης, μια ανανεωμένη αντίληψη της «φιλανθρωπίας».
Εθνικό Κέντρο Τεκμηρίωσης και Ηλεκτρονικού Περιεχομένου (ΕΚΤ)
