The Venetian Twins- Old vs. New Comedy

            At the very beginning of Mr. Frye’s spiel, he informs us about the two different kinds of comedy (Old and New) and then goes on to talk about New Comedy. He says, “the action of New Comedy tends to become probable rather than fantastic, and it moves toward realism and away from myth and romance”. After reading this quote, it is easy to use it to contrast characteristics of an Aristophanes Old Comedy and a Goldoni New Comedy.

            The way comedies change over time seems to go along with personal preferences and values of society at that time. While I am not a historian, I can certainly make an educated guess and say that Old Comedy died when the Renaissance period started to come about. This is because people started to become more free-thinking and realistic, which is how New Comedy is described above.

            How is that exemplified in the plays? Well first look at the events of Lysistrata. There were women beating up men with household supplies, and men stumbling around suffering from a certain “condition” and defiantly showing it off when they felt inclined. To me, that definitely seems much more fantastic than probable. Now if you fast forward to The Venetian Twins, a completely different attitude can be gleaned. These characters are majorly flawed and don’t do much to hide it. Greed, lust, deception; you name it and one character probably exemplifies it. But this makes the characters more realistic and less romantic. Another important thing to not miss is that there are many misunderstandings between men and women, which is again more realistic.