A Commentary on Plautus' Curculio
The first commentary on Plautus’ Curculio in over forty years
Description
Lively and critically aware, T. H. M. Gellar-Goad’s A Commentary on Plautus’ Curculio is the new reference text on the play. Curculio follows the efforts of the title character to trick a sex-trafficker into handing over an enslaved woman to the young man infatuated with her instead of to the soldier who’s paid for her—and will turn out to be her long-lost brother. As Plautus’ shortest comedy, Curculio has proven to be a desirable text for university performances. The play exemplifies Plautus’ style, with a blend of erotic, deception, and recognition plotlines, plus a wide range of archetypal characters. Gellar-Goad’s commentary is the complete package, with introductions to themes, content, humor, meter, and syntax; notes on matters of performance, interpretation, and social history; and a text with aids to scansion and clarifying stage directions.
This up-to-date, authoritative commentary on the play will prove useful to directors and actors and will readily introduce students to the joys of Roman comedy.
T. H. M. Gellar-Goad is Professor of Classics and Denton Fellow at Wake Forest University. He writes books.
Reviews
“Gellar-Goad’s commentary is markedly superior to previous commentaries on Curculio, both regarding the multifaceted character of the information offered and the depth of the analysis. The notes and the associated materials will be very helpful alike to an undergraduate audience and to graduate students who approach a play by Plautus for the first time. This will soon be the reference commentary on the Curculio.”
- Sophia Papaioannou, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
“The text vibrates with energy and stands a good chance of becoming a favorite with students reading Plautus. The author’s enthusiasm for comedy is simply contagious.”
- Dorota Dutsch, University of California, Santa Barbara