Menander

Menander (c. 342–c. 291 BCE) was an Athenian dramatist and the undisputed master of New Comedy. The son of a wealthy Athenian and a pupil of the philosopher Theophrastus, Menander steered theatrical comedy away from political satire toward domestic domesticity, human psychology, and complex romantic intrigue.

Author of over a hundred plays, Menander introduced archetypal stock figures—the wily slave, the boasting soldier, the austere father, and the lovestruck youth—that were directly adapted by Roman playwrights Plautus and Terence, thereby shaping Western theatrical comedy through Molière and Shakespeare. His play Dyskolos ('The Grouch'), rediscovered on papyrus in 1952, represents the only complete surviving work of Greek New Comedy.