The Dramatic Values in Plautus | Page 2

familiarly directed at the
audience, while every once in so often a slave, desperately bent on
finding someone actually under his nose, careens wildly cross the stage
or rouses the echoes by unmerciful battering of doors, meanwhile
unburdening himself of lengthy solo tirades with great gusto;[2] and all
this dished up with a sauce of humor often too racy and piquant for our
delicate twentieth-century palate, which has acquired a refined taste for
suggestive innuendo, but never relishes calling a spade by its own
name.
If we have sought an explanation of our poet's gentle foibles in the
commentaries to our college texts, we have assuredly been
disappointed. Even to the seminarian in Plautus little satisfaction has
been vouchsafed. We are often greeted by the enthusiastic comments of
German critics, which run riot in elaborate analyses of plot and
character and inform us that we are reading Meisterwerke of comic
drama.[3] Our perplexity has perhaps become focused upon two
leading questions; first: "What manner of drama is this after all? Is it
comedy, farce, opera bouffe or mere extravaganza?" Second: "How
was it done? What was the technique of acting employed to represent in
particular the peculiarly extravagant scenes?"[4]

There is an interesting contrast between the published editions of
Plautus and Bernard Shaw. Shaw's plays we find interlaced with an
elaborate network of stage direction that enables us to visualize the
movements of the characters even to extreme minutiae. In the text of
Plautus we find nothing but the dialogue, and in the college editions
only such editorially-inserted "stage-business" as is fairly evident from
the spoken lines. The answer then to our second question: "How was it
done?", at least does not lie on the surface of the text.
For an adequate answer to both our questions the following elements
are necessary; first: a digest of Plautine criticism; second: a résumé of
the evidence as to original performances of the plays, including a
consideration of the audience, the actors and of the gestures and
stage-business employed by the latter; third: a critical analysis of the
plays themselves, with a view to cataloguing Plautus' dramatic methods.
We hope by these means to obtain a conclusive reply to both our
leading questions.

§1. Critics of Plautus
Plautine criticism has displayed many different angles. As in most
things, time helps resolve the discrepancies. The general impression
gleaned from a survey of the field is that in earlier times
over-appreciation was the rule, which has gradually simmered down,
with occasional outpourings of denunciation, to a healthier norm of
estimation.
Even in antiquity the wiseacres took our royal buffoon too seriously.
Stylistically he was translated to the skies. [Sidenote: Cicero] Cicero[5]
imputes to him "iocandi genus, ... elegans, urbanum, ingeniosum,
facetum." [Sidenote: Aelius Stilo] Quintilian[6] quotes: "Licet Varro
Musas Aelii Stilonis sententia Plautino dicat sermone locuturas fuisse,
si latine loqui vellent." [Sidenote: Gellius] The paean is further swelled
by Gellius, who variously refers to our hero as "homo linguae atque
elegantiae in verbis Latinae princeps,"[7] and "verborum Latinorum
elegantissimus,"[8] and "linguae Latinae decus."[9] [Sidenote: Horace]

If our poet is scored by Horace[10] it is probably due rather to Horace's
affectation of contempt for the early poets than to his true convictions;
or we may ascribe it to the sophisticated metricist's failure to realize the
existence of a "Metrica Musa Pedestris." As Duff says (A Literary
History of Rome, p. 197), "The scansion of Plautus was less understood
in Cicero's day than that of Chaucer was in Johnson's." (Cf. Cic. Or. 55.
184.)
[Sidenote: Euanthius] We have somewhat of a reaction, too, against the
earlier chorus of praise in the commentary of Euanthius,[11] who
condemns Plautus' persistent use of direct address of the audience. If it
is true, as Donatus[12] says later: "Comoediam esse Cicero ait
imitationem vitae, speculum consuetudinis, imaginem veritatis," we
find it hard to understand Cicero's enthusiatic praise of Plautus, as we
hope to show that he is very far from measuring up to any such comic
ideal as that laid down by Cicero himself.
But of course these ancient critiques have no appreciable bearing on
our argument and we cite them rather for historical interest and
retrospect.[13] [Sidenote: Festus] [Sidenote: Brix] While Festus[14]
makes a painful effort to explain the location of the mythical "Portus
Persicus" mentioned in the Amph.,[15] Brix[16] in modern times shows
that there is no historical ground for the elaborate mythical genealogy
in Men. 409 ff. We contend that "Portus Persicus" is pure fiction, as our
novelists refer fondly to "Zenda" or "Graustark," while the Men.
passage is a patent burlesque of the tragic style.[17]
[Sidenote: Becker] On the threshold of what we may term modern
criticism of Plautus we find W.A. Becker, in 1837, writing a book: "De
Comicis Romanorum Fabulis Maxime Plautinis Quaestiones." Herein,
after deploring the