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Plautus: Pseudolus

David Christenson author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:9th Jul '20

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Plautus: Pseudolus cover

This new commentary on Pseudolus provides an excellent introduction to current trends and advances in the study of Roman comedy.

This edition is designed to facilitate reading of Pseudolus, one of Plautus' most innovative and delightful plays and a lens into Roman slave society. It assumes no specialised knowledge of early Latin, Plautus' social-historical milieu, or ancient comedy and provides students with all the help needed to understand the Latin.Pseudolus of all Plautus' comedies most fully reveals its author's metapoetics. As its eponymous clever slave telegraphs his every move to spectators, Pseudolus highlights the aesthetic, social, and performative priorities of Plautine comedy: brilliant linguistic play, creative appropriation of comic tradition, interrogation of convention and social norms, the projection of an air of improvisation and a fresh comic universe, and exploration of dramatic mimesis itself. The extensive Introduction analyses Plautus' delightful comedy as a stage-performance, the comic playwright's translation and adaptation practices, his innovative deployment of language and metrical and musical virtuosity, as well as the play's transmission and reception. In addition to detailed elucidation of the Latin text, the Commentary examines Pseudolus as a lens into Roman slave society at the time of its debut at the Megalensian festival of 191 BCE. The edition engages throughout with current criticism and issues of interest to both students and scholars.

'Christenson's commentary is a real achievement, and probably the best commentary on Pseudolus that we have … I recommend this commentary very highly.' Wolfgang D.C. De Melo, Resenas Reviews

ISBN: 9780521766241

Dimensions: 222mm x 144mm x 25mm

Weight: 590g

414 pages