CLST 283-WI: Classical Comedy and Satire
Spring Semester 2003
Dr. Jacqueline Long
file in progress - perennially |
The study questions in this file will be updated throughout the
semester from study questions used the last time this course was
taught; that wasn't a Writing Intensive section, so it used a
slightly different arrangement of material. If the days are off, it's
because the questions haven't yet been checked against the current
progress and interests of the class. Not that the old questions aren't
still worth thinking about (most of them will probably continue to
appear), just that you should double-check again later.
|
Study Questions
Just like the other file, these questions
suggest directions for you to pursue your
ideas about Classical comedy and satire. Questions about upcoming
readings generally flag issues that I expect will be important in class
discussions. But the questions do not merely summarize our
discussions (though summary can be a worthwhile kind of studying,
too), nor do they necessarily forecast exam questions very closely.
Rather, they invite you to develop interesting lines of thought.
One thing exams will ask you to do is to discuss specific
ideas about Greek and Roman humor and humorous literature in terms of
concrete evidence in our course material. Therefore
you will find it useful, as you think about even very wide-ranging
questions, to identify specific pieces of evidence in the material
we are covering that help demonstrate your observations and prove your
insights, and to be able to explain clearly just how those pieces of
evidence validate the conclusions you draw.
Monday 10 March
From today's class:
- Compare and contrast treatment of themes that seem to be emerging
as characteristic patterns of Old and New Comedy:
- sex and love: how much are physical pleasure and emotions
related to one another by the play? where do they figure in relation
to the characters' objectives?
- naturalism and fantasy: how does the stylized illusion of
theatrical performance evoke real-life concerns and relationships?
when, how far, and in what direction does a play depart from the
illusion of naturalism - and to what ends?
- "private" or domestic concerns versus "public" and political
concerns: how does a play engage with one or the other? how closely
does a given play relate the two spheres - to what ends?
- What parameters do The Malcontent and The Woman from
Samos suggest for the "marriage plot" of New Comedy? What elements
are standard to the expectations of this form? How do individual plays
vary them and play off expectations?
- Start listing conventional character-types of New Comedy. Be able
to discuss specific examples and how they typify or vary expectations.
- How does the pre-plot device of the "festival pregnancy" relate to
Athenian social customs and values?
- How do Demeas's choices, in his relationships with Moschion and
with Chrysis, relate to Athenian social customs and values?
For tonight's reading:
- Compare and contrast Nikeratos’s reactions in Act 4 to Demeas’s
reactions to similar information in Act 3.
- How does Demeas explain the baby to Nikeratos?
- What is Moschion’s problem in Act 5? How is it resolved?
Wednesday 12 March
From today's class:
- Trace how the misunderstandings and deceptions of "The Woman from
Samos" arise and are perpetuated. How does Menander show characters'
personal histories affecting their emotions and interactions? How do
good intentions lead into frustration (for the characters) and comedy
(for the audience)?
- How do Demeas's references to "miracles" work to resolve
Nikeratos's anger? What social values and what relationship to myth
does Demeas imply?
- What is at stake in Act 5: why does Moschion feel he needs to take
the stance he does, even against his own desires? Is he justified? How
is his anger resolved, and what does this process show about the
relationship of adoptive son and father?
For next week's reading:
- What cultural traditions influenced theatrical performance in the
Roman world?
- In what setting (physical space and occasion) did Roman audiences
see plays performed?
- What techniques does Plautus use in "Double Bind" to give
background information and set up the action?
- What goals do the major characters of "Double Bind" seem to be
pursuing? What forces oppose them?
Friday 14 March
From today's class:
- What peoples and what "sub-literary" forms influenced Roman
theatrical performance? In what ways did they influence the Romans? Be
able to identify key terms and the nature of the influence.
- How did Greek drama come to influence theatrical performance at
Rome? Be able to identify key figures and the nature of the influence.
- In what context(s) - of physical space and occasion - was comedy
performed at Rome? Compare and contrast to the context of Athenian
performances of comedy.
- How does Plautus let his audience know in what ways the plot of
"Double Bind" will pick up on typical expectations for New Comedy?
- In what ways does "Double Bind" appear to twist typical
expectations for New Comedy?
For tonight's reading:
- Trace the trajectory of Clueless I's objectives, through the course
of "Double Bind". What goals does he pursue? What opposition does
he have to overcome? What means does he use? How effective is he? What
forces change his goals? How does the play signal the audience to
sympathize with or against Clueless I?
- Trace the trajectory of Clueless II's objectives, through the
course of "Double Bind" (same set of sub-questions). Is he a
sympathetic character? Why or why not?
- Besides the doubled protagonists' objectives, what forces generate
generate plot for "Double Bind"? How do standard motivations for
the Parasite, the Aggrieved Wife, the Elderly Father, and the Expert
in Abstruse Arts (in this case, Dr. Klyster) contribute to
plot-generation? Where does Plautus seem to be playing off typical
expectations for such characters?
- What other standard character-types play a role in "Double
Bind"? Catalogue what they do.
Friday 17 March
From today's class:
- What types of deception and delusion operate in "Double Bind"?
How are they generated, and how do they generate comedy?
- What characters' expectations for themselves are frustrated in
"Double Bind"? Does the action of the play incline you to
sympathize with them or with the forces that frustrate them? Why?
- How are the audience's expectations directed, from moment to
moment, in "Double Bind"? How does the play do it? Does the play
meet or depart from these expectations? How? What effects are generated
by the play's interaction with the audience's expectations?
For tonight's reading:
- How do the opening scenes of "Major Blowhard" serve to
introduce the play? Is there a "prologue"? Where? What qualities are
you using to define the concept "prologue"?
- Which major characters have objectives that drive the plot of
"Major Blowhard"? What are the objectives? How does the play enable the
audience to identify the objectives? What expectations are raised for
the audience? Which characters do the most deliberately to drive
the plot?
- What forces oppose the plot-driving objectives of "Major Blowhard"?
How are they generated?
Wednesday 19 March
From today's class:
- Dexter's prologue tells the audience that Plautus created his play,
"Major Blowhard," by adapting a Greek play called Alazon, "The
Boaster." What characteristics define the Major as an alazon?
How does Plautus present them to the audience?
- Besides embodying the characteristics of an alazon, how does
the Major function in the dynamics of the play named after him? How
do his character and objectives relate to the progress of the action?
- Compare and contrast the social power each character's status
would, in real life, mean he or she was likely to have, with the power
he or she exerts to generate comic action and control the course of
the action of the play: how does the comic fiction construct social
relations as an inversion of real life?
- What moral values support the action of "Major Blowhard" - what
considerations motivate the audience to sympathize with one character
or another?
For tonight's reading:
- How do the Major's character and predilections contribute to his
comeuppance?
- What characters contribute to the plot against the Major? How do
the participants pick up on conventional social expectations and/or
typical character-types and scenarios of New Comedy in order to entrap
the Major?
- In what ways is the Major's position reversed at the end of "Major
Blowhard"?
Friday 21 March
From today's class:
- What imagery characterizes Dexter as a Clever Slave? What other
character(s) does this imagery encourage the audience to compare him
with? How does this comparison contribute to understanding the plot of
"Major Blowhard" as a competition between Immovable Object and
Irresistible Force?
- What sorts of "doubling" are presented within the plot of "Major
Blowhard"? How do the doublets, be they parallel characters,
situations, or themes, or elements that reverse one another in some
sense, pair up ideas for the audience to consider in relationship to
one another? What themes do the doublets encourage the audience to
think about in assessing the play?
- Why is deflation of an alazon funny? How are the audience's
sympathies engaged - what values does such a plot structure in comedy
reinforce?
For tonight's reading:
- Who speaks the Prologue to Terence's "Mother-in-Law"? What
connection does he have with the play? What types of information does
he present?
- Who are Philotis and Syra? What perspective do they bring to
"Mother-in-Law" on the play's background of recent developments in the
characters' relationships with one another?
- What sort of a character is Parmeno? What expectations for his
place in the play are raised by his first scene? Are these expectations
fulfilled?
Monday 24 March
From today's class:
- Besides the specific history of performance of "Mother-in-Law",
what can we learn about the production of plays at Rome from the
prologue of "Mother-in-Law"? What dramatic purposes does it serve for
Terence to present this type of information to the audience, in
this way? Explain. Consider to what extent other comedies we have
read (Old and New) do any similar things with the way they present
plays to audiences.
- If the prologue doesn't preview plot, how does the audience find
out background about the action they are seeing in "Mother-in-Law"?
What information can the audience draw on (accessible or not-accessible
to the characters) to form expectations about the plot? Compare the
audience's relationship with information in "Mother-in-Law" to other
plays we have read.
- Compare and contrast the audience's relationship with information
in "Mother-in-Law" to the characters' relationships with information:
how much do the characters understand about what is going on, as it
goes on? Compare and contrast to other plays we have read.
For tonight's reading:
- Trace the course of Pamphilus’s emotions toward Bacchis, toward
Philumena, and toward his parents, in the prehistory and in the action
of "Mother-in-Law". What impulses make him change?
- What considerations govern Myrrina’s actions? What considerations
govern Sostrata’s actions? Do they embody any common consciousness by
virtue of being wives? mothers?
- How is the crisis resolved: what mechanism is involved? On what
assumptions does it depend for plausibility?
Remember Writing Assignment
3 for this Friday!
Wednesday 26 March
From today's class:
- What stereotypes (comic and/or Greek and Roman more generally)
appear as the bases of characters' inferences about what is going on
in "Mother-in-Law"? How well does the action of the play prove to
support those stereotypes? Be able to identify individual stereotypes
or presuppositions in the play, to point to characters in other plays
who embody the stereotypes, and to explain how the action does or does
not support the conclusions the stereotyping suggests.
- What social values and presuppositions are embedded in Pamphilus's
rejection of Philumena, when he learns that she had been raped? What
alternative views are presented in the play (think especially about
Myrrina and about Pamphilus's own past history)?
- Analyze why Pamphilus reacts the way he does. Compare and
contrast why modern attitudes to comparable situations would be different
- what presuppositions would we make, and why? - in order to come to
terms with what Pamphilus's problem is (not necessarily to come to
believe it's legitimate).
- How does the fact that the characters in "Mother-in-Law" consider
only what they do in relationship to Philumena's rape compare to other
emphases and de-emphases of themes and perspectives in New Comedy?
For tonight's reading:
Write well!
Friday 28 March
From today's class:
Continue to think about your paper and about the papers you have
helped peer-review.
- Did other papers point to evidence you hadn't thought about, or
suggest reasoning you hadn't considered? Think about them now. Has
reading these papers changed the way you think about your own
arguments - either by persuading you of things you hadn't believed
before, or by challenging you to develop your arguments about why
what you believe understands better what Terence (or Plautus) is doing?
Make notes of ways you can strengthen your evidence, arguments, and
conclusions when you revise your paper.
- Did other papers suggest ways you can improve the way you express
your arguments - either by demonstrating good techniques of writing, or
by challenging you to think of improvements you can also make on your
own writing? Make notes of ways you can strengthen and polish your
expression when you revise your paper, so that it will work more
effectively.
For tonight's reading:
- What problems does the prologue of "The Brothers" claim that
Terence is facing with this play? Why would the objections being made
to the play be things an ancient critic might object to?
- What common character-types of New Comedy does "The Brothers" put
on view? How are they connected to one another, by family or by
interest?
- What crisis first appears to be generating the action of "The
Brothers"? Trace how this crisis is developed in the play. Then what
other problems appear?
Monday 31 March
From today's class:
- How does Terence answer the charges critics have allegedly made
against him and "The Brothers"? What does the term contaminatio
mean in the context of Roman adaptations of Greek New Comedy? What
advantages does Terence seek by publicizing criticisms of his play
(contaminatio and other charges) to his audience?
- What parallels and oppositions between characters and philosophies
does "The Brothers" set up in its opening scenes? On what issue does
the play centrally focus? How is the audience's attention directed to
this theme - or, temporarily, away from it?
- How does the scene Terence incorporated from
Synapothneskontes (Berg translates the title, "Mort à trois,"
for something like the "foreign" flavor the Greek would have in Latin:
it literally means "Those Who Die Together") fit in to Terence's main
play? In what light does this action cast Aeschinus's character and
Micio's philosophy of childrearing?
- What other developments affect the audience's assessment of
Aeschinus as a test-case for Micio's theories, as the play progresses?
How and why is the audience led to modify its earlier views?
For tonight's reading:
- What do Micio and Demea each want for their sons and for their
relationships with their sons?
- What do Aeschinus and Ctesipho each want? What conventional
plot-line of New Comedy does each brother follow? How do the two
plot-lines intersect?
- Why does Demea reverse tack near the end of "The Brothers"? How
deep a change in his views does his change of tactics reflect?
- What happens to Micio near the end of "The Brothers"? How do these
changes relate to his philosophy, as expressed earlier in the play?
Study Guide for Exam 2 - coming up Friday!
Wednesday 2 April
From today's class:
- What assumptions about the maturation of male erotic choices does
"The Brothers" support? Compare and contrast to other plays of New
Comedy: does a broad psychological theory inform its characteristic
plot-trajectories? Be able to discuss specific passages and how they
suggest relevant ideas.
- What assumptions about marriage and relationships between men and
women does "The Brothers" support? Compare and contrast to other plays
of New Comedy: does a broad psychological theory inform its
characteristic relationships and plot-trajectories? Be able to discuss
specific passages and how they suggest relevant ideas.
- How does "The Brothers" resolve the tension between Micio and
Demea, and the theories of child-rearing they each represent? How does
the play present the idea that a given theory has certain strengths
and certain weaknesses? How does it suggest that the theories can or
should be modified? Discuss by analyzing specific passages.
For Friday - Exam II on New Comedy at Athens and Rome:
- Review our readings and your class notes in light of the study
questions from individual days (this file, above, and
Study Questions file 1), and the general
Study Guide for this exam: what are some of
the most important issues in Greek and Roman New Comedy? What do the
plays tell us about these issues? Do you still agree with the
conclusions we drew in class meetings? Why or why not? What evidence
supports your interpretations now?
- Be prepared to cite specific, concrete details from the individual
plays in order to support the conclusions you now draw.
- Be prepared to explain logically and specifically how this
evidence supports your arguments.
- Bring a couple of clear-writing pens or pencils, so you will have
backup. I will supply blue books.
- Good luck!
Friday 4 April
From today's class:
- CONGRATULATIONS! You have completed the second examination.
- Keep thinking about the exam questions: in an even-more-perfect
world, what more could you say about these topics?
For tonight's reading:
Roman formal verse satire, the type of poems we will be reading
for the rest of the semester, wasn’t performed on stage like comedy,
but it can be interesting to think about the poems as something like
comic monologues in the voice of characters with whom the author
partially identifies himself. Think both about what he is saying
within each poem, and about the character he is creating for himself as
he speaks. How does the character relate to the main topic of the
individual poem? How much does the character carry over from poem to
poem? In particular, in Horace, Satires 1.1, 2, 3, and 4:
- What sort of a person does Horace portray himself as being? In
what types of activity does he take an interest?
- What is his relationship like with Maecenas, his patron?
- With what other characters are Horace and Maecenas concerned? How
closely? What is their relationship like?
- What principles for satire-writing does Horace espouse in
Satire 1.4? What type of poet does he claim to be? How do
the principles he says he values compare with what he does
in Satires 1.1, 2, and 3?
- How well does what you know about Aristophanes and Old Comedy
compare with what Horace claims Cratinus, Eupolis, and Aristophanes
said in their plays? Think of specific examples.
- How well does what you know about New Comedy compare with the
interests and themes Horace claims for his satires?
- How does Horace characterize his predecessor Lucilius?
Monday 7 April
From today's class:
- How do themes of satisfaction with life, moderation, and
friendship relate with one another in Horace, Satires 1.1, 2,
and 3? How does Satire 1.4 pick up on these themes to make a
statement about satire as a genre?
- What expectations about satire does Horace expect, or try to
instill, in his audience? How does he define his own satire against
these expectations?
- In what ways do Horace's satires do something comparable to
Old Comedy? in what ways do Horace’s satires do something comparable to
New Comedy? Consider both what Horace says
he's doing and what we observe these literary
forms to entail.
- In what ways do Horace's satires do something comparable to
Lucilius? Consider both what Horace says
he's doing and what we observe Horatian
satire and Lucilian satire to entail.
- What did the ancient Romans understand "a satire", as a particular
type of poem, to be? Relevant issues include verse-form and the
etymology of the name of the genre, as well as the poems' typical
content and tone.
- How did satire, as a literary form, develop at Rome before Horace?
Who are the major figures in the history of satire, and what did they
each contribute?
For tonight's reading:
- Identify a central topic or two in each of Horace’s Satires
in Book 1. How does Horace approach his topics?
- What themes of social relations stretch through Horace’s first
book of Satires? Identify specific passages in different poems.
Does his point of view on each of these questions appear to remain
reasonably consistent, or does he shift ground as he goes along?
- What sort of character does Horace create for himself in his
Satires? What techniques of character-portrayal does he employ?
Remember the Writing Assigment!
Wednesday 9 April
From today's class:
- How do Horace’s "story-satires" of the Journey to Brundisium
(1.5), his autobiography in 1.6, and The Bore (1.9), round out the
portrait of himself as satirist that he paints discursively in
Satires 1.1-4?
- Who is Horace, as a character portrayed within Satires,
Book I?
- How does the character of Horace relate to Horace's moral themes
and other concerns as a poet writing satires?
- How do the satires of Brutus and the Joke on "King" (1.7) and
Priapus (1.8) compare and contrast with the satires in which Horace
figures in his own satirical persona?
- How does what Horace says about satire in Satire 1.10
compare and contrast with what he says in Satire 1.4? with what
he does in other satires?
For tonight's reading:
- What different techniques does Horace use in satires of Book 2,
compared to the satires of Book 1? What does he continue to do that is
similar?
- What are the central concerns discussed in Satires 2.1, 4, 5,
6, 8? Are these concerns discussed directly? What concerns also are
important for assessing the satires, besides the concerns that
explicitly are discussed? What characters do the discussing (or acting
out, or whatever), and how do they relate to Horace?
Remember the Writing Assigment!
Friday 11 April
From today's class:
- Compare and contrast the views Horace takes on writing satire in
the introductory poem to his second satire-book, to the views he
expressed in Satires 1.4 and 1.10. Has he modified his approach,
in theory?
- How does the multiplicity of voices -different characters putting
forward different views- in Horace's second satire-book contribute to
his project as a satirist? What goals can we identify for Horace's
satire, and how do these many speakers contribute?
- How can a reader assess whether the character in a Horatian
satire who puts forward a particular view is being portrayed as
authoritative or flawed (or both)? What criteria should we consider in
assessing Horace's speakers?
- Compare and contrast Nasidienus Rufus's dinner-party in
Satire 2.8 to the dinners at the Sabine Farm Horace recalls in
Satire 2.6, and to other passages where Horace mentions ideas
relevant to food and to conviviality. What does Nasidienus's
dinner-party show us? What ending does this poem give to
Horace's book?
For tonight's reading:
Write well!
Monday 14 April
From today's class:
Continue to think about your paper and about the papers you have
helped peer-review.
- Did other papers point to evidence you hadn't thought about, or
suggest reasoning you hadn't considered? Think about them now. Has
reading these papers changed the way you think about your own
arguments - either by persuading you of things you hadn't believed
before, or by challenging you to develop your arguments about why
what you believe understands better what Horace is doing?
Make notes of ways you can strengthen your evidence, arguments, and
conclusions when you revise your paper.
- Did other papers suggest ways you can improve the way you express
your arguments - either by demonstrating good techniques of writing, or
by challenging you to think of improvements you can also make on your
own writing? Make notes of ways you can strengthen and polish your
expression when you revise your paper, so that it will work more
effectively.
For tonight's reading:
- How does Juvenal characterize what he is doing in his
Satires? Where does Satire 1 claim he gets his
inspiration to write? How well does Satire 2 bear out this
claim?
- What aspects of his predecessors’ writings does Juvenal emphasize
and set his own work against? How does what he says about them compare
with what Horace says about the traditions of formal verse satire, and
does himself?
- Compare and contrast the way Juvenal treats sexual themes in
Satire 2 to the way(s) Horace treats sexual
themes in his satires. What other themes are also important in
Juvenal, Satire 2?
Wednesday 16 April
From today's class:
- Compare and contrast the ways Horace and Juvenal open their books.
What concerns, what approach, and what personality do they each
signal? Explain how specific lines work to give the impressions they
do. How does Juvenal compare to Horace
- in his level and style of engagement with the "real world"?
- in how he defines satire by reference to his predecessors?
- in how he relates his satire to other verbal endeavor: contemporary
poetry other than satire, rhetoric and education, literature defining
Roman heritage?
- Compare and contrast ancient Roman patterns of thinking about
sexual activity with modern American patterns: what model does each
group tend to presume defines what is "normal" or "good"? What patterns
of thinking does applying such a model tend to create? How, therefore,
does Juvenal connect deviant sexuality with hypocrisy? What further
connections does he draw? What critique of Roman national character
does his Satire 2 make, and how? Explain how Juvenal links the
ideas together.
For tonight's reading:
- What problems does Umbricius identify with life in Rome? How
closely do his views resemble the views of the character "Juvenal",
both in Satire 3 and in Satire 1?
- Who is Juvenal’s Crispinus? What problems does he represent?
- Apart from having a big fish to debate about, what does Juvenal’s
Satire 4 make Domitian’s court look like? How does the court
reflect upon the emperor at its center?
Have a terrific Easter break!
BACK to CLST 283-WI Schedule of
Readings and Assignments
Wednesday 25 April
From today's class:
- To what extent does Juvenal present Umbricius, in Satire 3,
as reliable or unreliable in his assessment of contemporary society in
Rome? Explain why, referring to specific passages in the text.
- What affinities do Umbricius and the things he says have with
the character Juvenal presents of himself as a satirist in other
Satires, and the things he says? (Does Juvenal present himself
as a "reliable witness"? Why or why not?)
- How consistent are Umbricius's plans with his complaints about
Rome: to what extent does his reaction help to solve his problems?
- What differences does Umbricius underline between himself and
Juvenal in Satire 3? How do they relate to Juvenal's mission as
a satirist?
- Why should Juvenal present less-than-totally reliable witnesses
for his arguments in his Satires (3 and others)? How does the
speaker, despite himself, add irony to his complaints? How do the
ironies add complexity to Juvenal's points?
- What qualities do Crispinus and Domitian share, as Juvenal portrays
them in the two halves of Satire 4? Other than the presence of
big fishes, what ties the two halves of the satire together? How does
Juvenal connect personal-moral and political satire?
- How do the characters of Domitian's councillors, as Juvenal
portrays them, reflect social ills spreading out from the character of
the emperor?
For tonight's reading:
- What does Juvenal’s Satire 7 say about the position of
literature and education in society? Compare and contrast to the
things he says about literature in other satires, especially 1. Does
Juvenal’s view seem to have shifted? (Remember, Satires 1-5
belong to Book I, 7-9 are Book III, published approximately 10 years
later.)
- Compare and contrast Juvenal’s Satire 10 to Persius’s
Satire 2, on a similar theme. What criticisms and
recommendations are different [substance]? With how similar or how
different techniques do the two poets construct their satires [style]?
Friday 27 April
From today's class:
- What aspects of Roman formal verse satire, as a literary form,
most closely resemble comedy? How can techniques of interpreting
comedy be applied to satire?
- In what respects does Roman formal verse satire most differ from
comedy? What additional techniques are necessary to understand our
satirists' works?
- How does Juvenal's Satire 7 contrast what people would like
to believe they believe about literature and education, to what their
actions suggest they value? How does this critique compare to the
attitudes Juvenal set forth in Book I?
- How does Juvenal organize Satire 10? How does he make his
argument vivid as he rounds off individual sections? In what ways are
his techniques for presenting his argument in this satire similar to
what he used in his earlier satires?
For the final exam:
- Review our readings and your class notes in light of the study
questions from individual days (this file, above, and
Study Questions file 1), and the general
Study Guide for satire and the final exam:
what are some of
the most important issues in Roman formal verse satire? What do the
individual satires we have read tell us about these issues? Do you
still agree with the
conclusions we drew in class meetings? Why or why not? What evidence
supports your interpretations now?
- Be prepared to cite specific, concrete details from the individual
satires in order to support the conclusions you now draw.
- Be prepared to explain logically and specifically how this
evidence supports your arguments.
- Bring a couple of clear-writing pens or pencils, so you will have
backup. I will supply blue books.
- Good luck!
This file last updated 16 April 2003 by
jlong1@orion.it.luc.edu.
http://www.luc.edu/depts/classics/