Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Introduction to Roman Theatre - Coggle Diagram
Introduction to Roman Theatre
the most popular for of Roman drama were comedies that barrow heavily from Greek originals
the comedies of Menander and Atellan farce
These comedies are called
fabulae palliatae
outdoor urban setting
filled with stock characters
the adulescens
= hero
usualy in love with
Virgo
=the girl next door
but can't marry her because of her parentage
Meretrix
= prostitute
Senex
= father/ old man
could be mean and stern or a silly skirt chaser
servus
= Wily slave
Leno
=the pimp
Miles Gloriosus
= Bragging soldier
Parasite
=slave who sponges of his master
wives and maids appred too
stock characters got involed in stock plots
thwarted lovers
parent and child disagreements
mistaken identity
sometimes, direct address to the audiences like a
parabasis
usually ends in a happy ending for the lovers
most plays have greek settings and names
they are defiantly about modern Rome
Plautus and Terence
greatest practitioners of Roman theater and their plays survived
Terence
Plautus
born 254 BCE in Umbria
died in 184 BCE
legion says he work as a stage hand in his town, failed as a merchant, then moved to Rome to write plays
130 plays are attributied to him
many people tryed to past off there work as his
20 plays are his and they have survied
his plays are comedies about middle class people and their slaves
can describe them as musical as half of the play was song
lot liek RL with more songs, prostitutes, and twins
renisont playwrights loved his work
The Menaechim
begins with a prologue
there is a merchant from Syracuse who had two identical twin sons
he took one son to Epidamnus were he was kidnapped and the merchant died of a broken heart
both boys get called Menaechmus
years later Syracuse M comel looking for Epidamnus M
Epiadamnus M is in love with a prostitues named
Erotium(meaning sexy)
he keeps giving her all of his wife stuff making the wife mad
EM and his parasite servant got visit Erotium
EM gives Erotium his wife's dress and telles her to get ready for a feast
SM comes and is mistaken for EM and eats the feast
Erotium gives the dress to SM and he takes it to the talor
1 more item...
EM's wife ask Em why he keeps giving all her stuff away
he tries to get it back but Erotium says she just gave it to him
1 more item...
Terence
posible 1st playwrite of color
borne late 180s or early 190s BCE in Africa at Carthage
a slave owned by a Roman senator
he was educated and then freed him
went to Rome to get into theater
Terence read his play and the poet liked it
he wrote 6 plays
barrowed heavily from Menander
wanted to travel to write better play but died at sea
Terence Comedies
less drowdy
deeper ironies
characters are saner
constructions are studier
fewer dirty jokes
some really elegant Latin
women aren't treated that bad
Seneca Jr.
born in Lucius Annaeus in 4 BCE
when Seneca we young his dad was moved to rome to study stoic philosophy
grew up to be a big deal in rhetoric and kept getting into trouble with the emperors
almost exicuted by Senea, banished by claudius, his wife brought him back as tutor for Nero who keep Seneca as a councillor, but later Nero ordered him to kill him self
wrote plays that were revisions of classic greek works and were all tragedies
the Apocalocyntosis, is a satire about the emperor Claudius
might not have writen
Roman tragedies based on Greek subjects are known as
"Fabule Crepidatae"
Seneca's are the only ones that survived
had the 5 act structure
were very gory and the god's did always help
possibly were closets drama