Inorganic Rôles in Roman Comedy
Inorganic Rôles in Roman Comedy
复制标题
罗马喜剧中的无机角色
DOI:
10.1086/360292
复制
发表时间:
1920
影响因子:
1
通讯作者:
Henry W. Prescott
中科院分区:
文献类型:
--
作者:
Henry W. Prescott
In introductory studies I have endeavored to apply a mild corrective to the views of Leo and his followers who, believing that Euripidean tragedy seriously affected the form and content of Hellenistic comedy, have been led by their opinion to differentiate as Roman many inartistic features of Latin comedy.' Among the inartistic features often selected by modern students of Roman plays to strengthen theories of contamination, or of Roman workmanship in general, are characters in the plays that seem to be loosely or mechanically attached to the action. So, for example, the roles of Ergasilus in the Captivi, of Lurcio in the Miles, of Syncerastus in the Poenulus, of Callipho and Charinus in the Pseudolus, of Gripus in the Rudens, of Gelasimus in the Stichus, have been used to confirm notions that these plays either include inlays of Roman material or are weakened in structure by poor dovetailing of material from two or more Greek plays. In my own opinion the method of segregating inartistic features in a given play as proof of Roman intervention is distinctly dangerous. Any inartistic feature may be the common property of all or many plays, not the peculiar possession of one or several comedies, and we may not safely estimate the value, for purposes of proving Roman craftsmanship, of a single inartistic feature in a given play until we have considered in the large the manifestation in all the twentysix Roman plays of that special feature. In this paper, therefore, I undertake a synthetic study of inorganic roles. Constant comparison with Greek tragedy, though necessarily brief and sketchy, will indicate the relation to each other of the two dramatic types. If the results do not by any means settle the historical problems involved in a consideration of the precise extent and nature of Roman contribution, they may at least provide a convenient summary of one interesting aspect of dramatic technique. 1 Cf. Class. Phil., XI, 125 ff.; XII, 405 ff.; XIII, 113 ff.; XIV, 108 ff.; and P. E. Sonnenburg, Woch. f. kl. Phil., XXXIV (1917), 623 ff.; Schwering, N. Jahrbb., XXXVII (1916), 167 ff. [CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY XV, July, 1920] 245