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Menander and the Birth of Domestic Drama
Mitch Brown
Wisconsin Studies in Classics imprint
“A well-argued, original discussion of the importance of offstage action in Menander’s plays. Detailed analysis and careful close readings show how Menander laid the foundations of later European drama with its ever-increasing focus on indoor, domestic action. An attentive and compelling contribution.”
—William Furley, editor of Menander “Misoumenos” or “The Hated Man”
A pioneering Greek dramatist and the creation of offstage universes
Although few of his plays exist in full today, the fourth-century BCE Greek dramatist Menander was known far and wide throughout antiquity. He was one of the first to locate his dramas in the common household, rather than the mythic world of gods and heroes, and is now recognized as one of the pioneering figures of ancient Greek “New Comedy.”
The design of the Greek stage was such that the interiors of houses were almost never shown, which posed difficulties for a playwright interested in staging the domestic lives of ordinary people. Here, Mitch Brown dissects how Menander responded to this challenge. As Brown demonstrates, Menander successfully conjured offstage action and even characters in the audiences’ imaginations; these offstage universes, Brown argues, are fundamental to understanding Menander’s dramaturgy and its reception in later centuries. Menander’s offstage methods and the new type of play (domestic drama) that he inaugurated directly influenced Western theater into the early modern period—and the impact of his innovations can still be seen indirectly today.
Mitch Brown is an assistant professor of classical studies at William & Mary.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Note on Texts
Introduction
Chapter 1: An Isolated House
Chapter 2: The Woman of the House
Chapter 3: Women in the Shadows
Chapter 4: Invisible Marriage in the Epitrepontes
Chapter 5: Fatherhood in Terence’s Self-Tormentor
Conclusion: Menander and the Renaissance
Notes
Works Cited
Index
Index Locorum
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Larger images
December 2024
224 pp. 6 x 9
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