Repertoire of characters in Roman comedy: new classification approaches

Vol.19,No.2(2014)

Šárka Hurbánková

Stable URL (handle):
http://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/131945

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Abstract
What is Roman comedy? Which ancient theatre forms can be included under this term? How to classify the characters of palliatae, togatae, atellanae and mimi, having mostly complete texts of Plautus's and Terence's palliatae available on the one hand, and palliatae, togatae, atellanae and mimi preserved only fragmentally on the other? This study presents a method of classifying a repertoire of characters in Roman comedy which I used in my dissertation. Complete texts were analyzed in terms of contrasts and correspondences, allowing me to determine the correspondences and similarities not only among dramatic characters or types separately in Plautus's and separately in Terence's comedies, but also point out certain correspondences and similarities in the entire historical corpus of texts mapping a specific period or genre. Therefore, I determined structural functions of individual types and their roles in the corpus of texts, which, at the same time, provided me with a summary of typical traits of various types of characters, manifested in antagonism or cooperation with other types of characters. I compared this set of "words-signs" with words describing the characters from fragments, using clear arrangement into contingency tables. Due to this comparison and other partial findings enabled by this method and tools used, it was possible to describe, at least partially, not only a repertoire of characters of individual comic forms, but also compare them with each other and determine how the "dramatis personae" of Roman comedy changed diachronically.

Keywords:
Roman comedy; atellana; palliata; togata; mimus; repertoire of characters; contrasts and correspondences; Ancient theatre; structural functions; comic situation; type and typification; stock characters; personae oscae; qui pro quo; disguise; dramatis personae

Pages:
3–15
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