As a result, the characters in Roman Comeddy were Greek and in a Greek setting.He continues by explaining that there are 3 kinds of characters in a comedy: the buffoon, the boaster, and the ironical character.It is befitting that Aristophanes uses these characters in his play Birds.In addition to these characters, Aristophanes uses the general character terms explained.
These include: protagonist, antagonist, blocking character, deuteragonist tritagonist, stock character and chorus. Also in Old Comedy, it is typical to have mythological and fantastical characters, such as gods and deities. Some other characters that are represented in Birds are: Goodhope as the deuteragonist; Hoopoe as the tritagonist and a blocking character. The additional characters do not necessarily fit the constrains of the labeled terms, but they provide useful insight into showing societal influences, as well as commentating on the political and topical issues of the time. Some elements included in Birds are the use of gods and divine beings, as well as a chorus that represented the various breeds of birds. The characters that were stereotyped were the men with typical careers of the time: priest, poet, prophet, meton, inspector and lawyer. Finally, another aspect of Old Comedy was the actors performing in the play wore masks that were distinct to their character. Therefore, it can be persumed that these masks helped asssociate specific types of charaacters to their audience. One such spect is the idea of the characters protrayed in comedies. Some diferences between New and Old Comedy are: the Chorus no longer contain a significant role in the play; new comedys characters were distinguished by three main categories: age, class and gender. Although the two are different, they do have similarities, one of which is the inclusion of a divine being. However, a different aspect of a New Comedy is the divine being only appears in the prologue. Similar to old Comedy, New Comedy also contains the 3 characters that Aristotle points out in Poetics. It can be argued whether or not Knemon represents the comedic hero in the play, but for these purposes, Sostratos is the comedic hero because he is the one who has to win the agon, or some sort of competition, to win the girl of his dreams. Gorgias also fits into the mix of things as both a blocking character and guide for the young Sostratos. Some of these characters in Old Cantankerous include: Pan as the divinity who speaks in the prologue, the chorus still performing in the play, and the use of similar stock characters previously mentioned. One difference between Old and New Comedy, particularly in Menander, was that Menander played with an audiences expectations. This applied to many aspects of comedy, but specifically for character, Menander would make the audience think that they knew everything about a certain character based on their masks, characteristics, and even the use of stock characters in general. He did this so that the audience did not get bored with the same set up of a play and not discover anything new or find any new type of character. Menander was an expert at this and used this ability to his advantage.
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