"Plautus' Mostellaria is one of ancient Rome's most breezy and amusing comedies. The plot is ridiculously simple: when a father returns home after three years abroad, a clever slave named Tranio devises deceptions to conceal that the son has squandered a fortune on parties with his friends and purchasing his beloved courtesan. Tranio convinces the gullible father that his house is haunted, that his son has purchased the neighbor's house, and that he must repay a moneylender. Plautus animates this skeletal plot with farcical ...
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"Plautus' Mostellaria is one of ancient Rome's most breezy and amusing comedies. The plot is ridiculously simple: when a father returns home after three years abroad, a clever slave named Tranio devises deceptions to conceal that the son has squandered a fortune on parties with his friends and purchasing his beloved courtesan. Tranio convinces the gullible father that his house is haunted, that his son has purchased the neighbor's house, and that he must repay a moneylender. Plautus animates this skeletal plot with farcical scenes of Tranio's slapstick abuse of a rustic slave, the young lover's maudlin song lamenting his debauchery, a women's grooming scene (played by male actors), a drunken party, a flustered moneylender, spirited slaves rebuffing the father, and Tranio simultaneously hoodwinking father and neighbor. This is the first book to offer an in-depth study of Mostellaria in its literary and historical contexts, and aims to help readers appraise the script as both cultural document and performed comedy. As a cultural document, the play a range of Roman preoccupations - from male ideologies of the acquisition, use and abuse of property, relations between owners and enslaved persons, and the traffic in women, to tensions between city and country, the appropriation and adaptation of Greek culture, and the specters of ancestry and surveillance - while as a performed comedy, it celebrates the power of creativity, improvisation and metatheater. In Mostellaria's farce, sleek simplicity replaces complexity as Plautus aggrandizes his comic hero by stripping plot to the minimum and leaving Tranio to operate alone with no resources other than his quick wit. The enduring appeal of the genre is explored in a chapter on Mostellaria's reception, which reveals modernity's continuing fascination with farce and shifting engagement with Roman culture"--
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Add this copy of Plautus: Mostellaria to cart. $34.00, new condition, Sold by Books2anywhere rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Fairford, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2023 by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK).
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Add this copy of Plautus: Mostellaria to cart. $103.87, new condition, Sold by Books2anywhere rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Fairford, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2022 by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK).
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PLEASE NOTE, WE DO NOT SHIP TO DENMARK. New Book. Shipped from UK in 4 to 14 days. Established seller since 2000. Please note we cannot offer an expedited shipping service from the UK.
Add this copy of Plautus: Mostellaria to cart. $37.39, new condition, Sold by Paperbackshop International rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Fairford, GLOS, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2023 by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK).
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PLEASE NOTE, WE DO NOT SHIP TO DENMARK. New Book. Shipped from UK in 4 to 14 days. Established seller since 2000. Please note we cannot offer an expedited shipping service from the UK.
Add this copy of Plautus: Mostellaria to cart. $114.07, new condition, Sold by Paperbackshop International rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Fairford, GLOS, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2022 by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK).
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PLEASE NOTE, WE DO NOT SHIP TO DENMARK. New Book. Shipped from UK in 4 to 14 days. Established seller since 2000. Please note we cannot offer an expedited shipping service from the UK.
Add this copy of Plautus: Mostellaria to cart. $122.22, new condition, Sold by Booksplease rated 3.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Southport, MERSEYSIDE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2022 by Bloomsbury Academic.
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Add this copy of Plautus: Mostellaria to cart. $116.36, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2022 by Bloomsbury Academic.
