The pervasive and unrestrained use of obscenity has long been acknowledged as a major feature of fifth-century Attic Comedy; no other Western art form relies so

Unmistakable by virtue of his exaggerated phallus, Priapus--one of Rome's minor fertility gods--inspired a host of epigrammatic poems that offer one of the best

This accessible introduction to the work of one of the world's greatest comic writers tackles key questions posed by Aristophanes' plays, such as staging, humou

George Eliot wrote that "man cannot do without the make-believe of a beginning." Beginnings, it turns out, can be quite unusual, complex, and deceptive. The fir