Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors x

Acknowledgement xv

Introduction: A 2020 Vision of Plautus 1
George Fredric Franko and Dorota Dutsch

1 The State of Roman Theater, c. 200 BCE 17
Timothy J. Moore

2 Plautus and Greek Drama 31
Sebastiana Nervegna

3 Stages and Stagecraft 47
Anne H. Groton

4 Actors and Audience 61
Isabella Tardin Cardoso

5 Nouo Modo Nouom Aliquid Inuentum: Plautine Priorities 77
David Christenson

6 Plays of Mistaken Identity 93
Costas Panayotakis

7 Plautus and the Marriage Plot 109
Sharon L. James

8 Stock Characters and Stereotypes 123
Shawn O’Bryhim

9 The Servus Callidus in Charge: Plays of Deception 135
Ferdinand Stürner

10 To Hell and Back: Comedy, Cult, and the House of the Meretrix 151
Catherine Connors

11 The Wife in Charge, the Husband Humiliated: Stock Characters in Evolution 165
Barbara K. Gold

12 Archetypal Character Studies: Masculinity and Power 179
Anne Feltovich

13 Plotting the Romance: Plautus’ Rudens, Cistellaria, and Poenulus 193
Stavros Frangoulidis

14 Tragicomedy and Paratragedy: Plautus’s Amphitruo, Captivi, and Rudens 207
Walter Stockert

15 The Language of Plautus 221
Peter Barrios‐Lech

16 Metatheater and Improvisation in Plautus 237
Christopher Bungard

17 Music and Meter in Plautus 251
T.H.M. Gellar‐Goad

18 Comic Technique in Plautus’s Asinaria and Casina 269
Martin T. Dinter

19 Plautus and the Topography of His World 287
Sophia Papaioannou

20 Warfare and Imperialism in and Around Plautus 301
Paul J. Burton

21 Religion in and Around Plautus 317
Seth A. Jeppesen

22 Gender and Sexuality in Plautus 331
Serena S. Witzke

23 Owners and Slaves in and Around Plautus 347
Amy Richlin

24 Slave Labor in Plautus 361
Roberta Stewart

25 Plautus and His Dramatic Successors in the Republican Period 379
Gesine Manuwald

26 Alii Rhetorica Tongent: Plautus and Public Speech 393
Emilia A. Barbiero

27 The Textual Tradition of Plautus 407
Rolando Ferri

28 The Medieval Reception of Plautus’s Aulularia: Querolus and Vitalis Blesensis 419
Antony Augoustakis

29 From Ferrara to Venice: Plautus in Vernacular and Early Italian Comedy (1486–1530) 429
Gianni Guastella

30 Plautus in Early Modern England 445
George Fredric Franko

31 Reception Today: Theater and Movies 461
Rodrigo T. Goncalves

32 Trends in Plautus Translation 473
James Tatum

Index 489

Index Locorum Plautinorum 495

About the Author

George Fredric Franko is Professor of Classical Studies at Hollins University, where he holds the Berry Professorship in Liberal Arts. He has published on a variety of topics and has directed productions of Plautus in Latin.

Dorota Dutsch is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She holds a PhD from McGill University. Her interests include Roman comedy, classical reception, and gender studies.