Rogue Slave: Depictions of slaves in the works Plautus

Given that New Comedy draws its characters and plots from everyday life, there is a mistaken assumption that this genre offers a true reflection of the society from which it takes its models. Such thinking contains numerous errors, leading any researcher who adopts this line of argument to accept a set of representations as truth. This study challenges this view, focusing our discussion on three plays by one of the most important authors of the New Comedy, Plautus, a Roman playwright who lived at the turn of the 3rd to the 2nd century BC and who greatly influenced modern theatre through his creation of characteristically personal 'types'. To explore the subject further, we focus on the character of the cunning slave, one of several types found in New Comedy. This character is essential for drawing a comparison between the 'real' slave and the slave in Plautus's theatre. This book seeks to enrich academic research on these subjects, particularly research focused on Plautus's play Epidicus.

Pagina's: 60, Paperback, Our Knowledge Publishing