Editing Old Comedy (section)

==Later influence/parallels==
[[Horace]] claimed a formative role for the Old Comedy in the making of [[Roman satirists|Roman satire]].<ref>A Palmer ed., ''The Satires of Horace'' (London 1920) p. 18 and p. 156</ref>

The Old Comedy subsequently influenced later European writers such as [[Ben Jonson]], [[Jean Racine|Racine]], and [[Goethe]].<ref>S Halliwell, ''Aristophanes: Birds and other plays'' (Oxford 1998) p. lx</ref> Also, [[François Rabelais]], [[Miguel de Cervantes]], [[Jonathan Swift]], and [[Voltaire]] may have derived elements from it.{{Citation needed|date=June 2011}} Western writers took particular inspiration from Aristophanes' disguising of political attacks as buffoonery. Old Comedy displays similarities to modern-day political satires such as ''[[Dr. Strangelove]]'' (1964) and the televised buffoonery of [[Monty Python]] and ''[[Saturday Night Live]]''.<ref name="Lerer">Seth Lerer, ''Comedy through the Ages'' (recorded lecture series), Springfield, Virginia: The Teaching Company, 2000.</ref>

[[George Bernard Shaw]] was profoundly influenced by Aristophanian comedy-writing. According to Robert R. Speckhard, "like Shaw, Aristophanes wrote comedies of ideas, and, though one finds no evidence that Shaw is indebted to Aristophanes, it is clear that in facing much the same dramatic problem that Aristophanes faced, Shaw came up with much the same solution. Because the comic  machinery is easier to spot in Aristophanes (where there is no attempt, as in Shaw, to disguise it with any surface realism), what Aristophanes has done becomes a helpful point of reference from which to study what Shaw has done."<ref>Shaw and Aristophanes: How the Comedy of Ideas Works, Robert R. Skeckhard, 1965,  Penn State University Press, p. 2.</ref>