UW Press: Women in Roman Republican Drama

Women in Roman Republican Drama
Edited by Dorota Dutsch, Sharon L. James, and David Konstan

Wisconsin Studies in Classics
Patricia A. Rosenmeyer, Laura McClure, and Mark Stansbury-O’Donnell, Series Editors

A fresh and wide-ranging look at gender in Roman tragedies and comedies

Latin plays were written for audiences whose gender perspectives and expectations were shaped by life in Rome, and the crowds watching the plays included both female citizens and female slaves. Relationships between men and women, ideas of masculinity and femininity, the stock characters of dowered wife and of prostitute—all of these are frequently staged in Roman tragedies and comedies. This is the first book to confront directly the role of women in Roman Republican plays of all genres, as well as to examine the role of gender in the influence of this tradition on later dramatists from Shakespeare to Sondheim.

Dorota Dutsch is an associate professor of classics at University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of Feminine Discourse in Roman Comedy.

Sharon L. James is an associate professor of classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The author of Learned Girls and Male Persuasion, she also has a YouTube channel of scenes from Roman dramas.

David Konstan is a professor of classics at New York University and the author of many books, including Roman Comedy and Greek Comedy and Ideology.

Contributors: Valeria Cinaglia and David Konstan, Dorota Dutsch, Elaine Fantham, Anne Feltovich, Rodrigo T. Gonçalves, Sharon L. James, Gesine Manuwald, Timothy Moore, Amy Richlin, Ariana Traill, and Jarrett Welsh

“An indispensable resource for students of Roman drama and also important for those in theater and drama and women’s studies. Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above.”
—Choice

“An outstanding collection of essays, illuminating how female slaves and citizens were centre stage in Roman Republican drama, and it will serve as an invaluable resource for students and teachers of Roman drama.”
—The Classical Review

“This is an important and much-needed study that weaves together new trends in understanding gender roles in Roman Republican drama. It offers new theoretical insights for performance and theater studies and presents an impressive spectrum of topics that will guide any scholar and student of Roman theater and anyone interested in the literary representations and lives of women in antiquity.”
—Andromache Karanika, University of California, Irvine

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