Alexandrianism was among the trends that defined the formation of Roman literature across genres since the early decades of Roman literary history. This volume introduces a collection of original essays that contribute to a developing appreciation of the comedy of Plautus, the leading representative of Roman comedy, as a multi-faceted text that engages in a creative dialogue with various contemporary cultural and literary developments. The studies here, both individually and as parts of a longer, interactive discussion, offer a comprehensive examination of the first complete expression of the intellectual reception of Greek and Hellenistic literature and culture in Rome, and, at the same time, examine Plautus’ correspondence with the popularization of science and medicine, the Romanization of philosophy, and contemporary religious practices. As the first Latin poet whose work survives in extant form, Plautus is also examined here as a major literary figure who significantly influenced the development of Latin literature. This book will appeal to specialist scholars of Roman comedy, but also to graduate students working in the fields of classics and literary history. All long quotations of Greek and Latin are translated.

Uses embedded letters to illuminate two vexed questions, the origins of Plautine comedy and the mode of Plautus' translation.

Ancient Greek comedy relied primarily on its text and words for the fulfilment of its humorous effects and aesthetic goals. In the wake of a rich tradition of previous scholarship, this volume explores a variety of linguistic materials and stylistic artifices exploited by the Greek comic poets, from vocabulary and figures of speech (metaphors, similes, rhyme) to types of joke, obscenity, and the mechanisms of parody. Most of the chapters focus on Aristophanes and Old Comedy, which offers the richest arsenal of such techniques, but the less ploughed fields of Middle and New Comedy are also explored. Emphasis is placed on practical criticism and textual readings, on the examination of particular artifices of speech and the analysis of individual passages. The main purpose is to highlight the use of language for the achievement of the aesthetic, artistic, and intellectual purposes of ancient comedy, in particular for the generation of humour and comic effect, the delineation of characters, the transmission of ideological messages, and the construction of poetic meaning. The volume will be useful to scholars of ancient drama, linguists, students of humour, and scholars of Classical literature in general.

A rich and multi-faceted aspect of the Italian Renaissance, the comedy has been largely overlooked as a cultural force during the period. In Renaissance Comedy, editor Donald Beecher corrects this oversight with a collection of eleven comedies representative of the principal styles of writing that define the genre. Proceeding from early, 'erudite' imitations of Plautus and Terence to satires, sentimental plays of the middle years, and later, more experimental works, the development of Italian Renaissance comedy is here dissected in a fascinating and vivid light. This first of two volumes boasts five of the best-known plays of the period, each with its own historical and critical introduction. Also included is a general introduction by the editor, which discusses the features of Italian Renaissance comedy, as well as examines the stage histories of the plays and what little is known, in many cases, of the circumstances surrounding their original performances. The introduction raises questions concerning the nature of audiences, the festival occasions during which the plays were performed, and the academies which sponsored many of their creations. As a much-needed reappraisal of these comedic plays, Renaissance Comedy is an invaluable look at the performance history of the Renaissance and Italian culture in general.

This wide-ranging collection, consisting of 50 essays by leading international scholars in a variety of fields, provides an overview of the reception history of a major literary genre from Greco-Roman antiquity to the present day. Section I considers how the 5th- and 4th-century Athenian comic poets defined themselves and their plays, especially in relation to other major literary forms. It then moves on to the Roman world and to the reception of Greek comedy there in art and literature. Section II deals with the European reception of Greek and Roman comedy in the Medieval, Renaissance, and Early Modern periods, and with the European stage tradition of comic theater more generally. Section III treats the handling of Greco-Roman comedy in the modern world, with attention not just to literary translations and stage-productions, but to more modern media such as radio and film. The collection will be of interest to students of ancient comedy as well as to all those concerned with how literary and theatrical traditions are passed on from one time and place to another, and adapted to meet local conditions and concerns.

In this monograph, the author embarks on a captivating journey to shed fresh light on the togata, a mid-Republican theatrical genre which survives only in fragments. The book seeks to answer pressing questions surrounding the togata's significance in identity construction during the middle Republic from a literary and cultural perspective. Delving deep into the fragmentary textual remains of the togata, the book explores how the Roman elite fashioned their identity. The author challenges the notion of monolithic identity construction, and explores the diverse forms of identity within the togata, offering a new perspective on the subject. This study thus positions the togata as a vital source for discerning the characteristics and beliefs by which the Romans distinguished themselves and their culture from others. By examining how Romans perceived themselves, their ideas about different social groups, and their literary and cultural ties to earlier traditions, this book aims to transform our understanding of the togata's role in Roman drama.

This volume acknowledges the centrality of comic invective in a range of oratorical institutions (especially forensic and symbouleutic), and aspires to enhance the knowledge and understanding of how this technique is used in such con-texts of both Greek and Roman oratory. Despite the important scholarly work that has been done in discussing the patterns of using invective in Greek and Roman texts and contexts, there are still notable gaps in our knowledge of the issue. The introduction to, and the twelve chapters of, this volume address some understudied multi-genre and interdisciplinary topics: first, the ways in which comic invective in oratory draws on, or has implications for, comedy and other genres, or how these literary genres are influenced by oratorical theory and practice, and by contemporary socio-political circumstances, in articulating comic invective and targeting prominent individuals; second, how comic invective sustains relationships and promotes persuasion through unity and division; third, how it connects with sexuality, the human body and male/female physiology; fourth, what impact generic dichotomies, as, for example, public-private and defence-prosecution, may have upon using comic invective; and fifth, what the limitations in its use are, depending on the codes of honour and decency in ancient Greece and Rome.

This volume forms the second part of the three-volume commentary on the fragments of Diphilus, who belongs to the prominent triad of the poets of New Comedy alongside Menander and Philemon. The present volume comprises the text and an English translation of the fragments of twenty-two plays of Diphilus, followed by a full-scale (philological, thematic, literary, interpretative, historical) commentary that also yields insight into the reception of Diphilan comedy in Roman theatre. This in-depth study of the Diphilan techniques of verbal humour and performance aims at shedding light on the dramatist's distinctive place in the comic tradition, as well as showcasing a degree of variation in the overall image of the production of new comedy.

A collection of papers that introduces the notion of the technosoma (techno body) into discussions on the representations of the body in classical antiquity. By applying the category of the technosoma to the ‘natural’ body, this volume explicitly narrows down the discussion of the technical and the natural to the physiological body. In doing so, the present collection focuses on body technologies in the specific form of beautification and body enhancement techniques, as well as medical and surgical treatments. The volume elucidates two main points. Firstly, ancient techno bodies show that the categories of gender and sexuality are at the core of the intersection of the natural and the technical, and intersect with notions of race, age, speciesism, class and education, and dis/ability. Secondly, the collection argues that new body technologies have in fact a very ancient history that can help to address the challenges of contemporary technological innovation. To this end, the volume showcases the intersection of ‘natural’ bodies with technology, gender, sexuality and reproduction. On the one hand, techno bodies tend to align with normative ideas about gender, and sexuality. On the other hand, body modification and/or enhancement techniques work hand in hand with economic and political power and knowledge, thus they often produce techno bodies that are shaped according to individual needs, i.e. according to a certain lifestyle. Consequently, techno bodies threaten to alter traditional ideas of masculinity, femininity, male and female sexuality and beauty.

Exploring individual and collective formation of gender identities, this book contributes to current scholarly discourses by examining plays in the genre of 'erudite comedy' (commedia erudita), which was extremely popular among sixteenth-century Italians from the elite classes. Author Yael Manes investigates five erudite comedies-Ludovico Ariosto's I suppositi (1509), Niccolò Machiavelli's La Mandragola (1518) and Clizia (1525), Antonio Landi's Il commodo (1539), and Giovan Maria Cecchi's La stiava (1546)-to consider how erudite comedies functioned as ideological battlefields where the gender system of patriarchy was examined, negotiated, and critiqued. These plays reflect the patriarchal order of their elite social milieu, but they also offer a unique critical vantage point on the paradoxical formation of patriarchal masculinity. On the one hand, patriarchal ideology rejects the mother and forbids her as an object of desire; on the other hand, patriarchal male identity revolves around representations of motherhood. Ultimately, the comedies reflect the desire of the Italian Renaissance male elite for women who will provide children to their husbands but not actively assume the role of a mother. In sum, Manes reveals a wide cultural understanding that motherhood-as an activity that women undertake, not simply a relational position they occupy-challenges patriarchy because it bestows women with agency, power, and authority. Manes here recovers the complexity of Renaissance Italian discourse on gender and identity formation by approaching erudite comedies not only as mirrors of their audiences but also as vehicles for contemporary audiences' ideological, psychological, and emotional expressions.