Terence’s Eunuchus

Suetonius (Vita Terenti 3) asserts that Eunuchus was Terence’s most commercially successful play. While we cannot confirm this claim, Eunuchus (as all Terence’s plays) enjoyed continuous readership after performances of it ceased in antiquity, was often cited by ancient writers and grammarians, and received a commentary in the 4th century ce. While Eunuchus is not without its critics—some have found fault with its dramatic structure and the ethics of its finale, to say nothing of its unique (in New Comedy) foregrounding of violent rape—it has generated enormous interest in both medieval and modern cultures, including numerous commentaries and translations. Eunuch’s unusual deception-plot, that is, the impulsive Chaerea’s costuming as a eunuch to sexually overpower Pamphila, no doubt accounts for much of the attention the play has attracted. For scholars of gender and sexuality, Eunuch invites interrogation of Roman attitudes toward sexual violence, norms of masculinity, and constructions of gender, as well as of the sexually ambiguous figure of the eunuch in this dramatic and cultural context. Eunuch’s prologue has also captivated scholars of Roman comedy and literary history more generally, as it so clearly articulates recurring concerns of Terence’s characteristically metadramatic prologues: Terence’s adaptation of both his Greek and Latin sources, including charges of “contamination” and “plagiarism,” and the broader challenges of finding novelty within circumscribed comic tradition (for Terence’s “anxiety of influence” see esp. Eun. 35–43). Some scholarship has been conducted on linguistic differentiation among Eunuch’s characters, and it is hoped that burgeoning sociolinguistic work on Plautine Latin will continue to be extended to Terence. Recent criticism has largely focused on aspects of Eunuch’s performance, both on the micro-level of costumes, stage movements, and musicality, and more broadly on the play’s pervasive metatheatricality.

MOBILITY AND SEXUAL LABORERS IN MENANDER'S DIS EXAPATON AND PLAUTUS’ BACCHIDES

Greek new comedy is infused with characters on the move, whether they be mercenaries, traders, economic migrants, refugees, or the many and various victims of trafficking (slave and free). While it is unclear exactly how closely comic mobility tracks historical circumstances, mobility in and out of Athens was certainly more frequent in the later part of the fourth century. Witnessing free and enslaved others—both in comedy and in culture—forced to contend with the consequences of migration and displacement gave audience members new opportunities to perceive and respond to the newly relocated and the dispossessed, and to take a closer look at their own circumstances and perceptual processes. This study investigates the way comedy brings the precarities faced by female economic migrants into view, and what this reveals about gender, freedom, and cultural frames, using Menander's Dis Exapaton with Plautus’ Bacchides as test cases.

Tšcnhj eØr»mata. The Motif of Culinary Inventions in the Middle and New Comedy and Gastronomic Poetry

The purpose of this paper is to show how Middle and New comedy as well as gastronomic poetry authors use the protos heuretes-motif characteristic of literature undertaking heurematographic themes, to present the originality and innovation of the cook’s and parasite’s art.

Are You Being Sirred? Work in Progress, Nanette, Douglas, and the New Butch Middlebrow

Abby McEnany’s new comedy series Work in Progress (Showtime) and Hannah Gadsby’s recent standup specials Nanette and Douglas (Netflix) evoke “butch middlebrow,” a contemporary aesthetic and affective sensibility distinguished by the cozy reception it enjoys among straight, white, liberal viewers and critics. McEnany’s and Gadsby’s works have occasioned praise from cosmopolitan gatekeepers like the New York Times and the New Yorker for their self-aware brands of comedy rooted in unvarnished portrayals of butch trauma. Critics ritually insist on the implausibility of Gadsby’s and McEnany’s success, but the popularity of these queer creators’ offerings is not as unlikely as so often presumed. Indeed, the middlebrow butch’s alleged improbability does not render her cultural accolades improbable; it may even ensure them, allowing a new canon of butch respectability to emerge in the light shed by the beacons of aspirational culture.

El control político de la opinión pública en la España de los Austrias

En el marco de la legislación censoria de la España imperial pretendemos analizar, por una parte, el origen cultural y doctrinal del concepto sociológico de opinión pública en nuestro país, que hunde sus raíces en el absolutismo contrarreformista y fue adoptando una fisonomía reconocible en el seno de la sociedad española del Siglo de Oro, gracias a la contribución de nuestros tratadistas barrocos; y, por otra, la dimensión política y adoctrinadora de la Nueva Comedia y de la predicación religiosa, ya que constituyeron los más efectivos resortes propagandísticos de manipulación de masas impulsados desde el Poder en orden a conseguir la adhesión emocional y, por tanto, irracional del pueblo español al régimen monárquico-señorial de los Austrias.In the framework of the censorship legislation of imperial Spanish we pretend to analyze, on the one hand, the cultural and doctrinal origin of sociological concept of public opinion in our country, which has its roots in counter-reformist absolutism and was adopting a recognizable physiognomy within the spanish society of the Golden Age thanks to the contribution of our baroque writers; and, on the other, the political and indoctrinating dimension of the New Comedy and religious preaching, since they constituted the most effective propaganda springs of mass manipulation driven by the Power in order to achieve emotional accession and, therefore, irrational from the spanish people to the Hispanic monarchy.

Greek New Comic Fragments

The expression “Greek New Comedy” traditionally indicates a specific phase of Attic Comedy dated to the late 4th and 3rd centuries bce, although New Comedies continued to be written well into the Imperial period. New Comedies bring onto the stage fictional characters, domestic situations, and love-stories, and their plots tend to repeat common elements. Ancient sources identify over sixty New Comedy poets and consistently name three dramatists as the main representatives of this genre: Menander, Diphilus, and Philemon. Menander was born in 342/1 and died around 290 bce; the biographies of his two rivals are largely obscure but Philemon was reportedly older than Menander while Diphilus was one of Menander’s contemporaries. Unlike Menander, they were both born outside Athens. Two or three more authors were added to the list of the best New Comedy poets: Philippides, Apollodorus of Carystus, and Posidippus. New Comedy poets were generally more prolific than their 5th-century colleagues, but their plays are largely lost. Menander is the only author whose comedies survive thanks to a series of lucky papyrus findings in the 20th century: we have one complete comedy, Dyskolos, and substantial portions of several more. The dramas written by other New Comedy poets survive only in short fragments preserved by a few papyri and, most often, by ancient authors largely interested in linguistic peculiarities or moralizing excerpts. The standard collection of the fragments (F) of Greek Comedy and the testimonia (T) for Greek comic poets is Kassel and Austin 1983–2001 (Poetae Comici Graeci, cited under Editions and Translations), which is generally abbreviated as “K-A.” While surviving fragments are typically not very informative, an important source for our knowledge of Greek New Comedies is Roman Comedy. Roman poets adapted select plays into Latin, often disclosing the titles, the authors, and other details of their Greek models. Roman comedies give us indirect access to their now lost Greek originals.

Roman Comedy

This contribution provides an introduction to all varieties of ‘Roman comedy’, including primarily fabula palliata (‘new comedy’, as represented by Plautus and Terence) as well as fabula togata, fabula Atellana, mimus and pantomimus. It examines the major developments in the establishment of these dramatic genres, their main characteristics, the performance contexts for them in Republican Rome, and their reception. The presentation of the key facts is accompanied by a description of the influential turns and recent trends in scholarship on Roman comedy. The essay is designed for scholars, teachers and (graduate) students who have some familiarity with Roman literature and are looking for (further) orientation in the area of Roman comedy.