This is a particularly good time to be a student of Greek comedy. Not only do we have the full riches of PCG to draw upon, but the last few years have also seen the completion of Henderson and Storey's Loeb editions of fifth-century comedy (including the fragments), the appearance of several multi-authored collections including, notably, Rusten's Birth of Comedy, and the publication of several major new commentaries on Aristophanes and Menander, not to mention specialised monographs on Eupolis and Cratinus. We are now in a better position than ever before to undertake a synoptic reassessment of the Greek genre komoidia, and this is precisely what R.'s superb new collection sets out to provide.

The volume has two specific aims which make it particularly valuable, as the editor's general introduction explains. First, it ‘makes a serious and sustained effort to widen the scope of analysis beyond Aristophanes and Menander wherever possible’; and second, it takes a diachronic perspective, ‘look[ing] at the Greek comic tradition as a continuum, spanning the fifth and fourth centuries (and beyond)’. This sort of approach is a welcome corrective (or alternative) to traditional accounts of Greek comedy. At any rate, the labels ‘Old’, ‘Middle’ and ‘New’ have never completely seemed to fit the material to which they have been attached. Most of the contributors, in their different ways, implicitly question the meaning or value of such labels as they emphasise the continuities to be found in the work of different playwrights from very different periods. One essay in particular, K. Sidwell's survey of ‘Fourth-century Comedy before Menander’, even dismantles the entire basis on which the labels ‘Old’, ‘Middle’ and ‘New’ have conventionally been constructed, arguing that later scholars within antiquity misinterpreted or ignored an Aristotelian distinction between ‘satirical comedy’ and the ‘non-iambic comedy of plot’ (which co-existed as ‘two separate highways’ before the first type was regulated out of existence for political reasons). Several other contributions (e.g. Hunter, Nervegna, Wilson, von Steen) lay bare the contingent factors or historical processes by which komoidia came, inaccurately, to be regarded as synonymous with the work of Aristophanes or Menander (rather than Hermippus, Platon, Antiphanes, Eriphus or any of the others). ‘Lost’ authors and their work are restored to their rightful place, and the fragmentary material receives its fair share of attention, as does the archaeological and iconographic evidence (especially in E. Csapo's essay). There is a marked shift away from Athenocentrism, in that some of the essays try very hard to bring Epicharmus and the Sicilian dramatic tradition into the picture, despite the inevitable shortage of evidence (e.g. Bosher, Willi, Csapo). The overall impression created is of a multifarious, exuberant genre of entertainment, considerably more varied and interesting than the few surviving plays of Aristophanes and Menander might suggest. Furthermore, as D. Konstan's essay makes clear, comedy was never a fixed or monolithic form: it was a constantly adapting genre with ‘fuzzy’ boundaries, constructed in dialogue with other genres.

This Companion offers not just an introduction to comedy but a useful guide to the scholarship on comedy. Each contribution ends with an annotated list of further reading, but in many of the essays there is a distinct emphasis on the history of scholarship as well as a synthesis and critique of the views that various critics (in antiquity and in more recent times) have held. This emphasis is particularly helpful in the case of such topics as comic politics (Sommerstein), characterisation and character types (Ruffell), the ‘comic hero’ (Rosen) and the status of comedy as evidence for the historian (Lape and Moreno), where the abundance of secondary literature and the existence of widely conflicting views can often make it difficult for the beginner to feel fully in command of the subject. These essays, with their lucid and judicious discussions of the main scholarly debates, will be especially useful for students.

Nevertheless, the authors do not simply summarise or neatly package pre-existing material; they also add many new insights and original ideas. Indeed, most of the essays do significantly more than represent the current state of play or the prevailing orthodoxy (if one can use such a word at all when talking about the study of comedy). Often they are strikingly original or even deliberately controversial. I have already mentioned Sidwell's revolutionary approach to the problem of ‘Old’, ‘Middle’ and ‘New’; other novelties or fresh insights (to select just a few from many) include I. Ruffell's discussion of ‘dramatic shorthand’ (p. 162), a suggestive concept that could have wider application beyond the topic of his essay; A. Sommerstein's suggestion that comedy ‘began its official life as an instrument of left-wing politics’, perhaps under the direct influence of Themistocles (pp. 292–3); R. Rosen's defence and modification of Whitman's idea of the ‘comic hero’ (pp. 221–39); and M. Fontaine's characterisation of Plautus as a ‘Hellenistic’ author adapting Greek comedies as operatic entertainments for a relatively small, elite audience of educated philhellenes (pp. 406–22). Several of the discussions (e.g. Ruffell, Rosen, Hall, Wohl) engage with the influential work of Bakhtin, though in very different ways: I was particularly struck by E. Hall's anti-Bakhtinian reading of Athenian festivals (pp. 307–12), from which festivals emerge as a means of creating community and shaping mainstream opinion rather than as a carnivalesque subversion of authority.

But even when they are not advancing new lines of approach, the authors often point the way to fruitful areas for future research or topics that remain relatively unexplored. R., for instance, concludes his essay by pointing out, quite rightly, that ‘Greek comedy and religion’ is still a remarkably neglected subject; R. Hunter reminds us that ‘the proper history of the reception of comedy in antiquity’ has yet to be written; A. Willi suggests areas for further work in the area of comic language; and G. van Steen's ‘snapshots’ of the modern reception of comedy indicate that this is a field particularly ripe for development.

In other words, then, this volume is considerably more ambitious and authoritative than many so-called Companions. It immediately establishes itself as the standard work on Greek comedy, and it will be widely read and consulted by students and scholars alike. Every one of its 23 essays (which are too numerous to be summarised or even listed here) is extraordinarily well written and packed with ideas; a high percentage of them even contain evidence of a sense of humour (a rare bonus in this sort of publication). The volume provides admirably thorough, comprehensive coverage of the genre, despite a few slightly surprising omissions (such as comic parody and pastiche; the relationship between comedy and other literary forms, including literary criticism; the significance of food, drink and the symposium; animals and the natural world; and the music, metre and rhythm of comic performance). The editor expresses the modest hope that his book will ‘stimulate fruitful controversy and further research’ (p. 4), but I think it will do considerably more than that. It is one of the most interesting books on Greek drama to have appeared for many years, and it conveys a clearer sense of what komoidia was than any other introductory study of the genre.