Etymologies: getting th the root of it -- The song of the "K*omos" -- the lyre and the phallus -- Aristophanes: the one and only? -- Failure and success -- The "Birds": the uncensored fantasy -- Requiem for a genre? -- the comic catastophe -- O Menander! O Life! -- Plautus makes an entrance -- A Plautine problem play -- Terence: the African connection -- The mother-in-law of modern comedy -- Marlowe: "Schande" and "Freude" -- Shakespeare: errors and "Er*os" -- "Twelfth Night": dark clouds of Illyria -- Molière: the class of '68 -- The fox, the fops, and the factotum -- Comedy explodes -- Beckette: the death of comedy.
