In this volume William S. Anderson sets Plautus, who wrote Rome's earliest surviving poetry, in his rightful place among the Greek and Roman writers of what we know as New Comedy (fourth to second centuries).
Anderson begins by defining major innovations that Plautus made on inherited Greek New Comedy (Menander, Philemon, and Diphilus), transforming it from romantic domestic drama to a celebration of rollicking family anarchy. He shows how Plautus diminished the traditional importance of love and replaced it with a new major theme: 'heroic badness,' especially embodied in the rogue slave (ancestor of the impudent servant, valet, or maid). Anderson then examines the unique verbal texture of Plautus' drama and demonstrates his revolt against realism, his drive to have his characters defy everyday circumstances and pit their intrepid linguistic wit against social order, their Roman extravagant impudence against Greek self-control. Finally, Anderson explores the special form of metatheatre that we admire in Plautus, by which he undermines the assumptions of his Greek models' and replaces them with a new, confident Roman comedy.
Authors
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 872/.01
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 20
- General Note
- Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- Geographic Area Code
- e------
- ISBN
- 9781442671171 9780802079411
- LCCN
- PA6585
- LCCN Item number
- A53 1996eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaQMG
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (x, 184 p.)
- Published in
- Canada
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)slc00215959 (OCoLC)431554549 (CaOOCEL)420771
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Title proper/short title
- Plautus' Roman comedy
- Transcribing agency
- CaQMG
Table of Contents
- CONTENTS 6
- FOREWORD 8
- PREFACE 10
- 1 Plautus and the Deconstruction of Menander 14
- 2 si amicus Diphilo aut Philemoni es: Plautus' Exploitation of Other Writers and Features of the Greek Comic Tradition 41
- 3 Plautus' Plotting: The Lover Upstaged 71
- 4 Heroic Badness (malitia): Plautus' Characters and Themes 99
- 5 Words, Numbers, Movement: Plautus' Mastery of Comic Language, Metre, and Staging 118
- 6 Plautus and His Audience: The Roman Connection 144
- NOTES 164
- BIBLIOGRAPHY 182
- INDEX 190
- A 190
- B 190
- C 191
- D 191
- E 191
- F 192
- G 192
- H 192
- I 192
- K 192
- L 192
- M 193
- N 193
- O 193
- P 193
- R 194
- S 194
- T 195
- U 195
- V 195
- W 195
