The Dramatic Values in Plautus

Dramatic Values in Plautus, by
Wilton Wallace Blancke

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Title: The Dramatic Values in Plautus
Author: Wilton Wallace Blancke
Release Date: August 12, 2006 [EBook #9970]
Language: English
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University of Pennsylvania
The Dramatic Values in Plautus
By

Wilton Wallace Blancké, A.M., Ph.D. Professor of Latin in the Central
High School of Philadelphia
A Thesis
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
1918

Foreword

This dissertation was written in 1916, before the entrance of the United
States into The War, and was presented to the Faculty of the University
of Pennsylvania as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Its
publication at this time needs no apology, for it will find its only public
in the circumscribed circle of professional scholars. They at least will
understand that scholarship knows no nationality. But in the fear that
this may fall under the eye of that larger public, whose interests are,
properly enough, not scholastic, a word of explanation may prove a
safeguard.
The Germans have long been recognized as the hewers of wood and
drawers of water of the intellectual world. For the results of the
drudgery of minute research and laborious compilation, the scholar
must perforce seek German sources. The copious citation of German
authorities in this work is, then, the outcome of that necessity. I have,
however, given due credit to German criticism, when it is sound. The
French are, generically, vastly superior in the art of finely balanced
critical estimation.
My sincere thanks are due in particular to the Harrison Foundation of
the University for the many advantages I have received therefrom, to
Professors John C. Rolfe and Walton B. McDaniel, who have been both
teachers and friends to me, and to my good comrades and colleagues,

Francis H. Lee and Horace T. Boileau, for their aid in editing this
essay.
Wilton Wallace Blancké. 1918.

Part 1
A Résumé of the Criticism and of the Evidence Relating to the Acting
of Plautus

Introduction

This investigation was prompted by the abiding conviction that Plautus
as a dramatic artist has been from time immemorial misunderstood. In
his progress through the ages he has been like a merry clown rollicking
amongst people with a hearty invitation to laughter, and has been
rewarded by commendation for his services to morality and
condemnation for his buffoonery. The majority of Plautine critics have
evinced too serious an attitude of mind in dealing with a comic poet.
However portentous and profound his scholarship, no one deficient in a
sense of humor should venture to approach a comic poet in a spirit of
criticism. For criticism means appreciation.
Furthermore, the various estimates of our poet's worth have been as
diversified as they have been in the main unfair. Alternately lauded as a
master dramatic craftsman and vilified as a scurrilous purveyor of
unsavory humor, he has been buffeted from the top to the bottom of the
dramatic scale. More recent writers have been approaching a saner
evaluation of his true worth, but never, we believe, has his real position
in that dramatic scale been definitely and finally fixed; because
heretofore no attempt has been made at a complete analysis of his
dramatic, particularly his comic, methods. It is the aim of the present
dissertation to accomplish this.

I doubt not that from the inception of our acquaintance with the pages
of Plautus we have all passed through a similar experience. In the
beginning we have been vastly diverted by the quips and cranks and
merry wiles of the knavish slave, the plaints of love-lorn youth, the
impotent rage of the baffled pander, the fruitless growlings of the
hungry parasite's belly. We have been amused, perhaps astonished, on
further reading, at meeting our new-found friends in other plays,
clothed in different names to be sure and supplied in part with a fresh
stock of jests, but still engaged in the frustration of villainous panders,
the cheating of harsh fathers, until all ends with virtue triumphant in the
establishment of the undoubted respectability of a hitherto somewhat
dubious female character.[1]
Our astonishment waxes as we observe further the close
correspondence of dialogue, situation and dramatic machinery. We are
bewildered by the innumerable asides of hidden eavesdroppers, the
inevitable recurrence of soliloquy and speech