SOURCE: Lesky, Albin. “Political Comedy.” In A History of Greek Literature, translated by James Willis and Cornelis de Heer, pp. 417-21. London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1966.

In the following excerpt, originally published in German in 1963, Lesky examines the subject matter and polemics of several of Cratinus's plays.

If we were asked whether the Attic genius was most fully and characteristically shown in Sophocles or in Aristophanes, we should have to reply ‘In both’. Either by himself is only half the picture: to see it whole we must view together the sublime poetry of human suffering and the colourful extravagance of a comic invention which has never known a rival.

In an earlier chapter we discussed various popular usages, the Attic carnival and several other nuclei of primitive comedy in the attempt to trace at least the outlines of this rather complex picture. All these primitive elements are taken up...