French Literature Reviews - 2026

Agrégation 2008: The Comedy of Menander. Politics, Ethics, Aesthetics
Theatre and Performance

(On the 2008 Agrégation Syllabus)

Alain Blanchard

The Comedy of Menander: Politics, Ethics, Aesthetics

Sorbonne University Press

Coll. "Hellenica"

Paris 2007

Isbn : 978-2-84050-524-2

173 pp., €18.

Publisher's Description:

The fruit of many years of teaching and research, this work offers an overview of our current knowledge of one of Ancient Greece's most important authors: the comic poet Menander, whose influence on classical European drama was considerable, not least through the medium of Terence.
For Menander was long a hidden source. His disappearance at the end of antiquity remains one of the great paradoxes of literary history, an enigma this book attempts to explain. The modern rediscovery of the poet through papyri—partial yet significant—does more than just offer the pleasure of reading or staging hitherto lost works; it also provides a deeper understanding of the very essence of classicism.
According to a well-founded tradition, Menander was trained within the Peripatetic School. His comedies represent the practical application of the School's aesthetic principles and, conversely, shed light on certain theoretical texts by Aristotle and Theophrastus. Another major breakthrough claimed here is a better understanding of the political and ethical scope of Menander's drama.

Alain Blanchard is also the author of the only complete French translation of Menander (published by Le Livre de Poche), a second revised and expanded edition of which is being published simultaneously.

Table of Contents:

THE POLITICAL DIMENSION
A Political Interpretation of the Dyskolos Education and Politics Comparing Aristophanes and Menander The Tragic Model: Menander and Euripides The Role of Love in Menander's Drama The Slave's Stratagems
THE ETHICAL DIMENSION
Menander and Philemon: The Ethical Stakes of a Rivalry Menander and Aristotle The Moral End of Comedy
THE AESTHETIC DIMENSION
The Unities of Place and Time The Unity of Action Unity and Diversity: The Five Acts

Agrégation 2008: The new comparative literature topic is entitled "Misanthropy in the Theatre" (Menander, Shakespeare, Molière, Hofmannsthal)

Menander occupies a significant place in the history of classical drama, bridging the transition from older traditions to later forms of European comedy. His works, once largely lost at the end of antiquity, have been gradually recovered through papyrus discoveries that continue to reshape our understanding of ancient theatrical practice. Within the broader context of Hellenistic literature, the recovery of these texts allows scholars to examine how comic drama intersected with contemporary philosophical currents, particularly the teachings associated with the Peripatetic School. Alain Blanchard examines these historical dimensions by drawing on years of teaching and research into the transmission and reception of the plays, offering an overview of our current knowledge of the author.

Readers interested in classical Greek literature, theatrical history, and the reception of antiquity may find this study a relevant resource. The discussion connects the formal structures of the comedies with broader intellectual traditions, including the theoretical texts of Aristotle and Theophrastus. By comparing Menander with other dramatists like Euripides and Aristophanes, the text situates the work within its wider cultural and literary landscape, addressing the political, ethical, and aesthetic dimensions of the comedies.