In the

theatre of ancient Greece Ancient Greek theatre was a theatrical culture that flourished in ancient Greece from 700 BC. The city-state of Athens, which became a significant cultural, political, and religious place during this period, was its centre, where the theatre was ...

, the ''eirōn'' ( grc, εἴρων) "dissembler" was one of various

stock characters A stock character, also known as a character archetype, is a fictional character in a work of art such as a novel, play, or a film whom audiences recognize from frequent recurrences in a particular literary tradition. There is a wide range of st ...

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

.Carlson (1993, 23) and Janko (1987, 45, 170). The usually succeeded by bringing down his braggart opponent (the "boaster") by understating his own abilities.Frye (1957, 172).

History

The developed in

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Old Comedy Old Comedy (''archaia'') is the first period of the ancient Greek comedy, according to the canonical division by the Alexandrian grammarians.Mastromarco (1994) p.12 The most important Old Comic playwright is Aristophanes – whose works, with the ...

and can be found in many of

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion ( la, Cydathenaeum), was a comic playwright or comedy-writer of ancient Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his for ...

' plays. For example, in ''

The Frogs ''The Frogs'' ( grc-gre, Βάτραχοι, Bátrakhoi, Frogs; la, Ranae, often abbreviated ''Ran.'' or ''Ra.'') is a comedy written by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed at the Lenaia, one of the Festivals of Dionysus in ...

'', after the God

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; grc, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre. The Roma ...

claims to have sunk 12 or 13 enemy ships with

Cleisthenes (son of Sibyrtius) Cleisthenes ( ; grc-gre, Κλεισθένης), also Clisthenes or Kleisthenes, was a prominent Athenian delegate ('' theoros'') during the Peloponnesian War (431 BC). The comedian Aristophanes used him frequently as the butt of jokes and as a ch ...

, his slave Xanthias says "Then I woke up." The philosopher

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...

mentions the in his '' Nicomachean Ethics'', where he says: "in the form of understatement, self-deprecation, and its possessor the self-deprecator" (1108a12).'ἡ δ' ἐπὶ τὸ ἔλαττον εἰρωνεία καὶ εἴρων (1108a12, emphasis added); Perseus Digital Library (2006)
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
In this passage, Aristotle establishes the ''eirōn'' as one of the main characters of comedy, along with the .

Irony

The modern term irony is derived from the of the classical Greek theatre. Irony entails opposition (not mere difference) between the actual meaning and the apparent meaning of something.Dictionary.com (2006)
Irony
/ref>

References

Sources

* Abrams, M. H., ed. 1993. ''A Glossary of Literary Terms.'' 6th ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College. * Carlson, Marvin. 1993. ''Theories of the Theatre: A Historical and Critical Survey from the Greeks to the Present.'' Expanded ed. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. . * Frye, Northrop. 1957. ''Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays''. London: Penguin, 1990. . * Janko, Richard, trans. 1987. ''Poetics with Tractatus Coislinianus, Reconstruction of Poetics II and the Fragments of the On Poets.'' By

. Cambridge: Hackett. {{ISBN, 0-87220-033-7.

External links

Character Functions
according to

Northrop Frye Herman Northrop Frye (July 14, 1912 – January 23, 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century. Frye gained international fame with his first book, '' Fearful Symm ...

Ancient Greek theatre Male characters in theatre Stock characters in ancient Greek comedy

History

Irony

See also

References

Sources

External links