The Paradox of the Misanthrope

Abstract

literary historian can best illustrate what is meant by this formula by tracing changes in the presentation and interpretation of moral character types. No matter how timeless these characters may seem in comedy and moral reflection, they have not always been a part of Western tradition. They first appear at a later stage of Greek literature, in the new comedy of Menander, after Theophrastus had drawn up the first characterology based on observation of everyday life.' With the appearance of Theophrastus' work, European comedy acquired a basic repertory of character types that lived on in the oral tradition of socalled mimology (short, crude scenes of popular farce), surviving the interruption of the Christian era in which they were excluded from the canon of the representable. Christian literature in the Middle Ages founded its official canon of characters on the ancient animal fables and