Miles Gloriosus / Edition 1

by Plautus, Mason Hammond, Arthur M. Mack, Walter Moskalew

Overview

Miles Gloriosus or “Braggart Warrior” is one of the best-known and liveliest Roman comedies. It shows Plautus at his ablest in ingenious plot construction, vivid characterization, fast-moving action, and humorous dialogue.

This edition of the Latin text is fully and very helpfully annotated. The substantial introduction considers the antecedents of Plautus’s drama in Greek New Comedy and in Italic farce, his mixture of Greek and Roman both in language and in the life portrayed, and his stagecraft, language, and meter.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674574373
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	03/25/1997
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	988,262
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Mason Hammond was Pope Professor of Latin Language and Literature, Harvard University.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

GREEK DRAMA

Greek Tragedy

Origins (Attic and Dorian) of Comedy

Old, Middle, and New Attic Comedy

ROMAN DRAMA

Native Italic drama

Earliest Latin writers of drama

Plautus' life

Plautus' plays: dates, Greek tone, contaminatio

Roman drama after Plautus

Later influence of Roman comedy

STAGE AND PRODUCTION

Greek theaters

Roman theaters and stage setting

Production: occasions, actors, costumes, music (cantica and diuerbia), instruments

Act and scene divisions, didascaliae, argumenta, prologues

The Miles: date, Greek original, plot, unified by Palaestrio, moralizing passages, entrances and exits, Roman allusions, later influence

METERS

Rhythm, ictus and accent, length of syllables, metrical substitution, metrical feet, caesura and diaeresis

Trochaic septenarius

Iambic senarius and septenarius

Anapaestic septenarius

Index of meters

LANGUAGE

General

Prosody: accent and ictus, elision, prodelision of es and est, crasis, hiatus, synizesis, iambic shortening, suppression of final -ĕ, final -s need not make position, shift of ictus on the same forms

Words borrowed from Greek

Poetic devices: alliteration, assonance, wordplay, metaphors

Constructions: genitives, parataxis, parenthetical words, directional adverbs in -ō, fui for sum in perfect passive

Stem variations: -ö- for -ë-, -ei- for -1-, -1for 4-, -ü- for 4-, -cl-/-pl- for -eul-/-pul-, -ös and -óm for -as and -urn, deuces and cassabant, ap-/op- for ab-lob-

Case forms of declensions: mers and lacte, -at for -ae, -urn for -orum, -din the ablative and accusative

Pronouns: intensive endings, forms of is, quis feminine, qui ablative and adverb, demonstratives with -ce, ecce, ecquis

Verb stems: contracted perfects, -ss- in perfect, -s- in future and perfect, aio,fio

Verbal endings: -ier in passive infinitive, -ibo in future, dic, due, fac, and fer, cëdó, -i- in perfect. c-cm. Forms of sum.

TEXT

Manuscripts and text of Plautus

Editions on which this edition is based

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SUGGESTIONS

Bibliography

General

Translations

Theater

New Comedy

Roman comedy

Plautine chronology

Plautus' originality

Dramatic technique

Language

Meter

Manuscripts

Later influence

TEXT AND NOTES

Editorial Reviews

A fine edition of the Miles Gloriosus… Especially useful for the student.

Classical Bulletin

Thanks to the editors, undergraduates will now have accessible a thoroughly helpful and interesting commentary.

Journal of Roman Studies

At last we have an excellent edition for college students of Plautus’s Miles with notes in English… Its virtues are many… The Miles [will be] a joy to read and teach.

Classical World