Plautus: Mostellaria

Cover
Halftitle page
Series page
Title page
Copyright page
Contents
Preface
Playbill
	Summary and Highlights
	Character Names and Meanings
	Synopsis and Arcs
1 Why Plautus? Why Mostellaria?
	Ghostly Greek Comic Ancestors
	Ghastly Roman Renovations?
	Translation, the Odyssey, and Versatile Plautus
2 Foundations and Frames
	Venue and Date
	Roman Slavery
	The Traffic in Women
	Expenses of Monstrous Scale
	Rural Roman Conservatism and Urban Greek Liberality
	Paratheatrical Performances and the Roman Forum
	Ghosts, Haunted Houses, and Superstition
3 Staging Mostellaria
	The Roman Scaena
	Masks, Characterization, and Actors
	Costumes and Props
	Embedded Stage Directions
	Monologues, Asides, and Eavesdropping
	Metatheater
	Improvisation
	Meter
	Farce and Low Resolution
4 Afterlife and Ghost Lights
	The Postmortem Scripts
	Three Early Modern English Reincarnations
	A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
	Tranio Trickster
Appendix 1: Pliny’s “Haunted House” (Letter 7.27.5–11)
Appendix 2: A Doubling Chart
Appendix 3: Character Line Counts
Appendix 4: A Selective Chronology
Notes
Editions and English Translations
Works Cited
Index