Kenney_and_Clausen B.M.W.(eds.) - Get a Free Blog

DRAMA
hence they are more reliable than the features of surface style recognized by
Varro and used by him for the vindication of disputed plays. Mythological
identifications, typical nonce-formations, characteristic turns of phrase (cf.
p. 103), etc., are precisely those features which a careful reader will notice, and
which any competent imitator or forger would reproduce.
(ii) Plautus and his models. Plautus does not care whether we know the name
of an original or its author; we may be told either, neither, or both, and only in
one case (Alaion ' Big talker' = (Miles) gloriosus) is it certain that the information
comes from the original script. Only one or two have translation-titles
(Mercator = Emporos 'Merchant') and most are disguised. Five have -aria
titles, on a Naevian pattern. Three are named after leading slaves against New
Comedy practice: thus Epidicus, Pseudolus, Stichus are implicitly given the
status of an Ajax or Agamemnon. Several titles are jocosely misleading or even
perverse. Truculentus 'Grumpy' has nothing to do with the famous Dyskolos
of Menander; Trinummus 'Threepence' is a Thesauros 'Treasure'. The titles
of Menander, Philemon, and Diphilus fall into well-defined categories which
Plautus following Naevius plays with and explodes. Evidently the plays are to
stand in their own right. An important corollary for us is that knowledge of the
originals as such is irrelevant to the evaluation of Plautus, for he did not expect
it in his spectators; or rather, it would be, if we knew more about the precise
circumstances and presentation of Plautine comedy. As it is, we have hardly
any first-hand information, and the scholiastic tradition as regards historical
matters is the narrowest and feeblest attaching to any ancient dramatist. In the
circumstances we cannot afford to ignore the archaeology of the plays. By looking
into Plautus' workshop we may illuminate his assessment of his audience's
taste and discover terms appropriate for his dramatic criticism. For a most
disconcerting aspect of Plautus' drama is that instead of trying to reproduce or
emulate the special features of the New Comedy — economical and internally
consistent plot-construction, subtle characterization, irony, pathos — he utterly
subverts them. This is so pervasive and marked that it cannot be regarded as
mere negligence, but as the assertion of a comic style quite alien to the naturalism
of a Menander or a Terence and the consequent European tradition of the
Comedy of Manners.
Three plays are known for certain to be based on Menander (Cistellaria
' The casket comedy' = Synaristosai'Ladies at lunch', Stichus 'Sketch' = first
Adelphoi 'Brothers', Bacchides 'The Bacchis girls' = Dis exapaton 'The
double deceiver'). Two are from Philemon (Mercator = Emporos; Trinummus
= Thesauros) and three from Diphilus (Rudens 'The rope'; Casina
'Passion-flower' = Kleroumenoi 'The lot-takers'; Vidularia 'The hamper
comedy' = Schedia 'The raft' (?)). One is from Alexis (Poenulus 'The poor
96
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