Reproducing Athens : Menander's comedy, democratic culture, and the Hellenistic city / Susan Lape.

Includes bibliographies and index.

Narratives of resistance and romance : democracy and comedy in the early Hellenistic Period -- Reproducing democracy in oligarchic and autocratic Athens -- Making citizens in comedy and court -- The ethics of democracy in Menander's Dyskolos -- The politics of sexuality in drama in Democratic Athens : the case of Menander's Samia -- The Mercenary romance : gender and civic education in the Perikeiromenē and Misoumenos -- Trials of masculinity in democratic discourse and Menander's Sikyōnioi.

Reproducing Athens examines the role of romantic comedy, particularly the plays of Menander, in defending democratic culture and transnational polis culture against various threats during the initial and most fraught period of the Hellenistic Era. Menander's romantic comedies--which focus on ordinary citizens who marry for love--are most often thought of as entertainments devoid of political content. Against the view, Susan Lape argues that Menander's comedies are explicitly political. His nationalistic comedies regularly conclude by performing the laws of democratic citizen marriage, thereby promising the generation of new citizens. His transnational comedies, on the other hand, defend polis life against the impinging Hellenistic kingdoms, either by transforming their representatives into proper citizen-husbands or by rendering them ridiculous, romantic losers who pose no real threat to citizen or city. --From publisher's description.

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