Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T00:18:28.343Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Encountering Plautus in the Renaissance: A HumanistDebate on Comedy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Richard F. Hardin
Richard F. Hardin*
Affiliation:
University Of Kansas
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Historians of comedy can profit from a study of the sixteenth-century debates regarding the merits of Plautus (ca. 254–184 BCE), most of whose works were unknown before the late fifteenth century. Early performances and editions led to contemporary theories regarding laughter, language, and morality, often in the context of a comparison with the plays of Terence (d. 159 BCE), who was sometimes viewed as superior by upper-class audiences. From the conflicting opinions of Andrea Navagero and Francesco Florido, to the neoclassical strictures of Daniel Heinsius, this study pursues learned opinion on Plautus as he became a principal author in the European canon. Plautus’s variances from Aristotelian and Horatian precepts created a lively and lasting ferment in discussions of comedy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 60 , Issue 3 , Fall 2007 , pp. 789 - 818
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 Renaissance Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I wish to acknowledge the helpful criticism of Professors Barbara Bowen, Janette Dillon, and Robert S. Miola, as well as assistance from the library staffs of The University of Kansas and Cambridge University. Parts of this article benefited from airing at meetings of the Central Renaissance Conference. Translations, other than published ones, are my own.

References

Accursius, Bonus. Dicta Plautina. Milan, [1478?].Google Scholar
Ariosto, Ludovico. The Comedies of Ariosto. Ed. and trans. Edmond Beame and Leonard Sbrocchi. Chicago, 1975.Google Scholar
Asolano, Francesco [Franciscus Asolanus]. “Prefatory Letter to Nicolaus Schomberg, Archbishop of Capua.” In Plautus, Comoediis XX, *ii–*iv. Venice, 1522.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Trans. Hélène Iswolsky. Cambridge, MA, 1968.Google Scholar
Barber, C. L. Shakespeare’s Festive Comedy .Princeton, 1959.Google Scholar
Beacham, Richard C. The Roman Theatre and Its Audience. Cambridge, MA, 1991.Google Scholar
Bergson, Henri. Laughter. Trans. Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell. London, 1921.Google Scholar
Kathleen A, Bishop. “The Influence of Plautus and Latin Elegiac Comedy on Chaucer’s Fabliaux.” Chaucer Review 35 (2001) : 294–317 .Google Scholar
Andrew, Calder. “Molière, Plautus, Terence, and Renaissance Theories of Comedy.” New Comparisons 3 (1987) : 19–32 .Google Scholar
Castelvetro, Lodovico. Poetica d’Aristotele vulgarizzata e sposta. Ed. Werther Romani. 2 vols. Bari, 1978.Google Scholar
Christopher, Celenza. “Creating Canons in Fifteenth-Century Ferrara: Angelo Decembrio’s De politia litteraria, 1.10.” Renaissance Quarterly 57, no. 1 (2004) : 43–98 .Google Scholar
Cerroni, M. “Gravina, Pietro.” In Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, ed. Alberto M. Ghisalberti, 58:770–72.Google Scholar
Chines, Loredano. La Parola degli antichi: Umanesimo emiliano tra scuola e poesia. Rome, 1998.Google Scholar
Delcourt, Marie. La Tradition des comiques anciens en France avant Molière. Paris, 1934.Google Scholar
Delcourt, Marie. Impartialité comique chez Molière. Paris, 1962.Google Scholar
Delcourt, Marie. Plaute et l’impartialité comique. Brussels, 1964.Google Scholar
Dillon, Janette. “Elizabethan Comedy.” In The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Comedy, ed. Alexander Leggatt, 47–63. Cambridge, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dolet, Étienne. “Stephani Doleti iudicium de comparatione Terenti & Plauti.” In Terence, Comoediae, a1v. Paris, 1552.Google Scholar
Donatus, Aelius. “On Comedy.” Trans. O. B. Hardison. In Medieval Literary Criticism, ed. O. B. Hardison, 45–49. New York, 1974.Google Scholar
Duckworth, George E. The Nature of Roman Comedy: A Study in Popular Entertainment. Princeton, 1952.Google Scholar
Echard, Laurence. Prefaces to Terence’s Comedies and Plautus’s Comedies. 1694. Ed. John Bernard. Los Angeles, 1968.Google Scholar
Elliott, Allison Goddard, trans. Seven Medieval Latin Comedies. New York, 1984.Google Scholar
Estienne, Henri [Henricus Stephanus]. “De Plauti Latinitate.” In Estienne, De Latinitate Falso Suspecta, 363–400. Paris, 1576.Google Scholar
Vittore, Fausto. “De comoedia libellus.” In Trattati (1970–74), 1 : 7–19 .Google Scholar
Florido, Francesco. Apologia in Marci Actii Plauti aliorumque poetarum et linguae Latinae calumniatores. Lyon, 1537.Google Scholar
Frye, Northrop. A Natural Perspective. New York, 1965.Google Scholar
Gebwiler, Hieronymus. “Preface.” In Plautus, Comoediae quinque, a7–a8. Strasbourg, 1514.Google Scholar
Greco, Aulo. L’istituzione del teatro comico nel rinascimento. Naples, 1976.Google Scholar
E. W, Handley. “Plautus and His Public: Some Thoughts on New Comedy in Latin.” Dionisio 46 (1975): 117–32 .Google Scholar
Heesakkers, Chris. Praecidanea Dousana. Amsterdam, 1976.Google Scholar
Heinsius, Daniel. On Plot in Tragedy. Trans. Paul Sellin and John McManmon. Northridge, 1971.Google Scholar
Heinsius, Daniel. Dissertatio ad Horatii de Plauto & Terentio Judicium. In Littératures classiques 27 (1996): 67–116.Google Scholar
Herrick, Marvin T. Comic Theory in the Sixteenth Century. Urbana, 1950.Google Scholar
[Quintus Horatius Flaccus], Horace. Ars Poetica, Epistulae, Sermones. In Satires and Epistles, ed. J. C. Rolfe. Boston, 1901.Google Scholar
Jonson, Ben. Timber or Discoveries. In Ben Jonson, ed. C. H. Herford, and Percy Simpson, 8:555–649. Oxford, 1925–52.Google Scholar
Kastan, David Scott. “All’s Well That Ends Well and the Limits of Comedy.” English Literary History 52 (1985): 575–89.Google Scholar
Kern, Edith. The Absolute Comic. New York, 1980.Google Scholar
Langer, Susanne. Feeling and Form. New York, 1953.Google Scholar
Leggatt, Alexander. English Stage Comedy 1490–1990. London, 1998.Google Scholar
Lipsius, Justus. “Epistle to Andrea Schott.” In Lipsius, Opera omnia quae ad criticam proprie spectant, 247–49. Antwerp, 1600.Google Scholar
David, McPherson. “Roman Comedy in Renaissance Education: The Moral Question.” Sixteenth Century Journal 12 (1981) : 19–30 .Google Scholar
Meres, Francis. Palladis Tamia. In Elizabethan Critical Essays, ed. G. Gregory Smith, 2:308–24. Oxford, 1904.Google Scholar
Meter, J. H. The Literary Theories of Daniel Heinsius. Assen, 1984.Google Scholar
Minturno, Antonio Sebastiano [Antonius Sebastianus Minturnus]. De Poeta. Venice, 1559.Google Scholar
Miola, Robert. Shakespeare and Classical Comedy: The Influence of Plautus and Terence. Oxford, 1990.Google Scholar
Navagero, Andrea [Francesco Asulano]. Preface to Terence, Comoediae sex, 5–7v. Brescia, 1565.Google Scholar
Navagero, Andrea [Francesco Asulano]. Opera Omnia. Ed. J. Antonius and C. Vulpius. Padua, 1718.Google Scholar
Nelson, T. G. A. Comedy: An Introduction to Comedy in Literature, Drama, and Cinema. Oxford, 1990.Google Scholar
Norland, Howard B. “The Role of Drama in Erasmus’s Literary Thought.” In Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Bononiensis, ed. Richard Schoeck, 549–57. Binghamton, 1985.Google Scholar
Pareus, Johann Philipp, ed. Comoediae. Frankfurt, 1610.Google Scholar
Holt N, Parker. “Plautus vs. Terence: Audience and Popularity Re-Examined.” American Journal of Philology 117 (1996) : 585–617 .Google Scholar
Petrarch. Rerum familiarum libri. Trans. Aldo Bernardo. 8 vols. Albany, 1975.Google Scholar
Pignatti, F. “Florido, Francesco.” In Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 48: 343–44. Rome, 1997.Google Scholar
Bernardo, Pino da Caglia. “Breve considerazione intorno al componimento de la comedia de’ nostri tempi.” In Trattati (1970–74), 2 : 629–49 .Google Scholar
Plautus [Titus Maccius]. Comoediae. Ed. W. M. Lindsay. 2 vols. Oxford, 1904–05.Google Scholar
[Marcus Fabius Quintilianus], Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria. Ed. and trans. H. E. Butler. Loeb Classical Library. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA, 1966.Google Scholar
Raimondi, Ezio. Codro e l’umanesimo a Bologna. Bologna, 1950.Google Scholar
Rapin, René. Reflections on Aristotle’s Treatise of Poesie. 1674. In The Whole Critical Works, trans. Basil Kennet, 2: 107–244. London, 1716.Google Scholar
Bartolomeo, Ricci. “De Imitatione.” In Trattati (1970–74), 1 : 418–49 .Google Scholar
Riehle, Wolfgang. Shakespeare, Plautus and the Humanist Tradition. Cambridge, 1990.Google Scholar
Francesco, Robortello. (Francisus Robortellus). “Explicatio eorum omnium quae ad comoediae artificium pertinent.” In Trattati (1970–74), 1 : 517–29 .Google Scholar
Remigio, Sabbadini. “Vita e opere di Francesco Florido Sabino.” Giornale storico della letteratura Italiana 8 (1886) : 333–63 .Google Scholar
Salingar, Leo. Shakespeare and the Traditions of Comedy. Cambridge, 1974.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sambuco, Giovanni [Ioannes Sambucus], ed. Comici Omnium. Comoediae Viginti. Basel, 1568.Google Scholar
Scaliger, Julius Caesar. Poetices libri septem. 1561. Ed. August Buck. Facsimile reprint, Stuttgart, 1964.Google Scholar
Schlegel, August Wilhelm. Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature. Trans. John Black. London, 1883.Google Scholar
Segal, Erich. The Death of Comedy. Cambridge, MA, 2001.Google Scholar
Sellin, Paul R. Daniel Heinsius and Stuart England. Leiden, 1968.Google Scholar
Sidney, Sir Philip. An Apology for Poetry. Ed. Forrest G. Robinson. Indianapolis, 1970.Google Scholar
Stärk, Ekkehard. “Camerarius’ Plautus.” In Joachim Camerarius, ed. Rainer Kössling and Günter Wartenberg, 235–48. Tübingen, 2003.Google Scholar
(Publius Terentius Afer), Terentius. The Comedies of Terence. Ed. Sidney Ashmore. New York, 1908.Google Scholar
Thellung de Courtelary, Sofia. “Les pièces latines de Jean Rotrou: Un example de comique baroque”. Revue de littérature comparée 250 (1990): 371–83.Google Scholar
Trattati di poetica e retorica del Cinquecento. Ed. Bernard Weinberg. 4 vols. Bari, 1970–74.Google Scholar
Trissino, G. G. “La Poetica.” In Trattati (1970–74), 1:21–158; 2:7–90.Google Scholar
Tuohy, Thomas. Herculean Ferrara: Ercole d’Este, 1471–1505, and the Invention of a Ducal Capital. Cambridge, 1996.Google Scholar
Uberti, Maria Luisa, ed. Il Menechini di Plauto: Volgarizzamenti rinascimentali. Ravenna, 1985.Google Scholar
Van der Poel, Marc. “Lipsius as a Defender of Plautus.” In Justus Lipsius Europae Lumen et Columen, ed. G. Tournoy et al., 179–85. Leuven, 1999.Google Scholar
Weinberg, Bernard. Critical Prefaces of the French Renaissance. Evanston, 1950.Google Scholar
Weinberg, Bernard. History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance. 2 vols. Chicago, 1961.Google Scholar
Williamson, Hanneke. Review of Anglo-Saxon Gestures and the Roman Stage, by C. R. Dowdell. Review of English Studies 52 (2001): 103–05.Google Scholar
Wright, F. A., trans. Three Plays of Plautus. London, [1925].Google Scholar