MENANDER

Menander is the most famous writer of what is described as Athenian nwew comedy.Unlike the classical writers who wrote mythical pots or political comentry,Mender was a social writer..He chose aspects of daily life as topics for his plays with happy endings and themes. Menander wrote about stern fathers, young lovers, crafty slaves,and other people who were part of social fabric of the social fabric of Greece in those days.The every day life of his countrymen,as well as the manners and characteristics of ordinary people were at the heart of his stories.His characters spoke in the contemporary dialect,and concerned themselves not with the great myths of the past ,but rather,with the everyday affairs of the people of Athens. By the end of his career ,Menander had written more than 100 plays and had won 8 victories at Athenian dramatic festivals.Menander's plays were held in high esteem in the literature of western Europe for over 800 years.At some point ,however ,his manuscripts were lost or destroyed and what we now know of the poet is based primarily on ancient reports,a few manuscripts which have been recovered in the last 100 years, and adaptations by the Roman playwrights.