Slaves, Masters,
and the Art of Authority in Plautine Comedy.
Published Reviews:
§Traill Bryn Mawr Classical Review 4*** (2001) no page
§Christenson Classical Review 52 (2002) 56-58
§Gamel American Journal of Philology 123 (2002) 297-301
§RochetteL’AntiquitéClassique 71 (2002) 317-318
§Sharrock Journal of Roman Studies 92 (2002) 231
§Stewart Journal of Ancient Civilizations 17 (2002) 136-139
Summary
Chapter I: The Crowded House (3-34)
Thesis:
1.In his comedies, Plautus blends Greek naturalistic comedy and Roman farcical comedy.
2.The coexistence of these two modes is the dynamic and self-conscious force behind his work.
- His work can also be compared to Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism.
- In Roman society masters have a need for rebellion in their own lives, as well as anxiety about the possible rebellion of slaves.
Double Vision:
- McCarthy explains why Plautus’ plays can be considered literary texts and not pseudo-plagiarized nonsense.
- Three characteristics of Plautine comedy:
a.stylization: This occurs when Plautus uses language for its formal properties just as much as its context.
b.secondariness: This refers to Plautus’ choice to write in reaction to an existing text rather than start fresh.
c.dialogism: This happens when Plautus juxtaposes comic modes to highlight the incommensurability of languages and worldviews.
- Both of these modes share the impulse for rebellion with farce having the slave play the hero.
Powerful Pleasures:
- Plautus offers these to all members of his audience.
- The struggles of his comedies appeal to Roman spectators because they also must contend daily, which shows the dynamic of rank in society.
- There is a difference in degree to which Plautine slaves accept their masters’ views of mastery.
a.The clever slave (servus callidus) appeals to his master’s view but in a sarcastic way that displays the subordination of all people.
b.The good slave (servus bonus) accepts his master’s orders and his place in life.
Art of Authority:
- There is a balance between dominating and being dominated in Plautine authority (auctoritas).
- McCarthy then discusses her reasons for choosing the plays that she did.
Chapter II: The Ties That Bind: Menaechmi
(35-76)
Menaechmi:
1.This play is a great balance between the elements of reconciliation and rebellion.
2.This play demonstrates that rebellion is not just for the downtrodden, because in it the paterfamilias is “liberated.”
~ That is an ironic twist because he is not in control of his own life, his subordinates are.
- The play starts out farcically, just like a senex amator play where one wants to be free of his spouse.
- However, once his twin brother is introduced, he brings in the naturalistic mode.
Rebellion Meets Reconciliation:
- McCarthy breaks the play down into four separate movements.
a.The first movement contains a farcical theme because of the paterfamilias, the Epidamnian brother (Act I).
b.The
second movement contains a naturalistic theme because of his twin brother
from
c.In the third movement the two modes become entangled and what follows is a hectic merry-go-round of mistaken identity and recriminations (Acts III, IV, & V.1-5).
d. In the fourth movement the Syracusan brother liberates the Epidamnian, and therefore the naturalistic perspective solved the problems of his farcical brother (Act V.6-9).
Cast of Characters:
- All of these characters are dependents but play important parts in the play.
a.Peniculus: This parasitus is a self-conscious cynic who reminds the audience and other characters of their comical stereotype.
b.Erotium: This meretrix is a greedy cynic who says what Menaechmus wants to hear to get what she wants from him.
c.the Matrona: She is the balance between the senex amator and the meretrix and is a giver and receiver of the household wealth.She punishes the senex amator who is only interested in her financially and not sexually.
d.Messenio: He represents the humane ideal of slavery because he is loyal to his master but not a blatant flatterer.He is cynical in favor of his master’s wishes which contrasts with the rebellious dependents.
Chapter III: Love’s Labors’s
Lost: Casina (77-121)
Casina:
- This play contains a blatantly inappropriate use of a farcical plot to tell a romantic story.
- Accordingly, Plautus makes three changes from the romantic paradigm.
1.This play substitutes the non-teleological structure of farce for the directed progress of romantic comedy.
2.In this play the functions and attributes of the character types become ambiguous.
3.In this play metatheater takes over as the dominant organizing motif of the play.
A Rake’s (Lack of) Progress:
- This play can be broken down into three movements.
1.The first movement shows Lysidamus’ power over his household in a sort of mystical, godlike sense of subjectivity (lines 89-228).
2.The second movement displays the reversal of the first movement through his wife Cleustrata.Specifically it shows that those in authority cannot effortlessly transcend the boundaries between subjects (Acts II.7 – IV.4).
3.The third movement does not have a usual resolution but a reversion to a new forced simplicity that merely ignores the issues raised in the central parts of the play (Act V).
Comic Husbands and Wives:
- In this play the paterfamilias is under attack.
- The play represents an attempt to reconcile the naturalistic authority of the paterfamilias with farcical authority of the slave and the romantic authority of the lover.
Chapter IV: A King of Wild Justice: Persa
(122-166)
Persa:
- This is a play which illuminates the tensions of public life.
- The main character Toxilus combines the types of young lover and clever slave into one character.
~This technique of blending two stereotypes into one differs from the other two previously discussed plays.
- Toxilus’ servile persona is grounded at the representational level of the play, at the metatheatrical level he looks like a freeborn adulescens in love.
~This inversion or seemingly a contradiction clearly affects the meaning of the play.
- In blending the two one would expect an unequivocal hero since lovers and slaves are usually heroic in comedy.However, due to implicit social assumptions about roles in society that is not the case.
Three Faces of Toxilus:
- These aspects of the movements define him in opposition to the slave we would expect him to be.
1.In the first movement he is the lover, which is revealed through standard comedic language, attitude, etc (Acts I & II).
2.In the second movement he is a defender of citizen integrity when he tricks the pimp, Dordalus (Acts III & IV).
3.In the third movement he acts as the master when he uses his own slave to mock the pimp (Act V).
~This is quite ironic and paradoxical that a slave would be transformed into a master’s role.
Limits of Farce:
- The main body of this play is a farcical rebellion that has been made to accommodate some of the key thematic elements of naturalistic comedy, specifically by honoring friendship and defending the integrity of the citizen community.
- This play embodies a confrontation between two dramatic modes (the farcical and the naturalistic) and two moral outlooks (one that preserves the ethical standards of real life and one that inverts them).
~Yet these two confrontations do no nearly align with one another, but instead fantastic comic forms are juxtaposed to naturalistic ethical content.
Chapter V: Truth is the Best Disguise: Captivi
(167-210)
Captivi:
- This play’s didactic tone and concern with the emotional and philosophical problem of identity mark a gulf between it and the rest of the corpus.
- The fundamental philosophical issue for the leading characters is the difficulty of maintaining fixed moral standards that are not conditioned by time or circumstance.
- This play is, above all, a philosophical play, interested in replacing the pessimism about consistent moral standards with a firm belief in essential moral character.
- The plot centers on the problem of a slave’s loyalty in relation to having two masters (although Tyndarus really is not even a slave to begin with which adds another twist).
The Theater of Truth:
- This play has a decided preference for naturalism over farce which is one of its important dramatic effects.
- It can be broken down into four separate movements.
1.The first movement contains the exposition of the plot through scenes which show Hegio as a perfect master who balances humanity with a realistic view of the world (Act I).
2.The second movement focuses on the disguise trick Tyndarus and Philocrates use to outfox Hegio: Tyndarus pretends to the master and Philocrates the slave (Act II & III).
3.The third movement is characterized by the guessing game which Ergasilus puts Hegio through when he discovers that Philocrates has made good on his promise to return his son (Act IV).
4.The fourth movement brings the expected resolution: Tyndarus’ true parentage is revealed, and Stalagmus is punished for his previous crime (Act V).
In Dialogue with Farce:
- With this play’s vision of an underlying order to human life, at least part of its dramatic force comes from its subtle handling of the farcical elements of Plautine comedy.
- Ergasilus and Hegio define an assault on farce that focuses on money and work.
- Irony works to support a moral vision and to gloss over lapses in social and literary logic.
1.There is irony on a philosophical level concerning the issues of identity and slavery.
2.There is also irony on a social level involving the audience and their views on morality and slavery.
3.Lastly, irony is found in the emphatic way the play combines the most characteristic elements of comedy as well as tragedy.
Conclusion: The Slave’s Image in the Master’s Mind (211-213)
- In the mid-Republic, slaves
lived in obscurity and servitude, and yet all of
- Slavery affects masters in that it puts them in the position of having constantly to create, defend, and shore up the illogical bases of their domination.
- The presence of women, aliens, and slaves is a constant reminder to the masters that they do not willingly participate in the institutions that constrain them.
- Masters are never just masters, but in a variety of ways they may be almost as subject to others’ wills as their slaves are subject to theirs.