celebration of the hero's victory often concludes in a sexual conquest and sometimes it takes the form of a wedding, thus providing the action with a joyous sense of closure. Later influence/parallels Horace claimed a formative role for the Old Comedy in the making of Roman satire. The Old Comedy subsequently influenced later European writers such as Ben Jonson, Racine, and Goethe. Also, François Rabelais, Miguel de Cervantes, Jonathan Swift, and Voltaire may have derived elements from it. 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. 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." See also Comic opera Crates (comic poet) Onomasti komodein References Further reading Barrett, David and Alan Sommerstein (eds)(2003) The Birds and Other plays Penguin Classics Mastromarco, Giuseppe (1994) Introduzione a Aristofane (Sesta edizione: Roma-Bari 2004). Dobrov, Gregory W., ed. 1995. Beyond Aristophanes: Transition and Diversity in Greek Comedy. American Classical Studies 38. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Ehrenberg, Victor. 1962. The People of Aristophanes: A Sociology of Old Attic Comedy. 3d ed. New York: Schocken. Harvey, David, and John Wilkins, eds. 2000. The Rivals of Aristophanes: Studies in Athenian Old Comedy. London: Duckworth and the Classical Press of Wales. Henderson, Jeffrey. 1993. Problems in Greek Literary History: The Case of Aristophanes’ Clouds. In Nomodeiktes: Greek Studies in Honor of Martin Ostwald. Edited by Ralph M. Rosen and Joseph Farrell, 591–601. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press. Rosen, Ralph M. 2015. “Aischrology in Old Comedy and the Question of ‘Ritual Obscenity’” In Ancient Obscenities: Their Nature and Use in the Ancient Greek and Roman Worlds. Edited by Dutsch, D. and A. Suter, 71-90. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Rosen, Ralph M. 1988. Old Comedy and the Iambographic Tradition. American