Ancient Greek Comedy
The Alexandrine grammarians, and most likely Aristophanes of Byzantium in particular, seem to have been the first to divide Greek comedy into what became the canonical three periods: Old Comedy (archaia), Middle Comedy (mese) and New Comedy (nea). These divisions appear to be largely arbitrary, and ancient comedy almost certainly developed constantly over the years.
Read more about Ancient Greek Comedy: Poets of Uncertain Date
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“Neither by night’s ancient fear,
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Pursed lips at the receiver,
Shall I fall to death’s feather.
By these I would not care to die,
Half convention and half lie.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“The poets were not alone in sanctioning myths, for long before the poets the states and the lawmakers had sanctioned them as a useful expedient.... They needed to control the people by superstitious fears, and these cannot be aroused without myths and marvels.”
—Strabo (c. 58 B.C.–c. 24 A.D., Greek geographer. Geographia, bk. 1, sct. 2, subsct. 8.
“Unless comedy touches me as well as amuses me, it leaves me with a sense of having wasted my evening. I go to the theatre to be moved to laughter, not to be tickled or bustled into it.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)