Description
This volume is the first book-length introduction to Plautus' Cistellaria (The Jewelry Box), offering an incisive overview for both students and scholars coming to it for the first time. This play is a story of young lovers defying social norms and disapproving parents in order to be together, featuring a memorable cast of characters and moments of both high humor and drama. This classic mistaken-identity plot includes witty interchanges and a lively conflict of values and ideals.
Drawing on performance and cultural studies, gender and sexuality, and philology and intertextuality, Ariana Traill combines a lucid exploration of Cistellaria's setting, characters, plot and themes, with detailed analyses of its literary and socio-cultural contexts. Readers are able to appreciate the play both as a literary artifact, with its attendant issues of generic conventions and variations, and language and imagery, and as a performance script written for a rich tradition of acting, singing and stage movement at Rome, with its conventional costumes, masks and venues. With its majority female line-up (seven of the twelve roles are female), Cistellaria offers an unusual focus on women's thoughts and feelings as they struggle for their economic and social existence, making it a fascinating source for the study of women and gender in ancient Rome. The play continues to cast a shadow in the western dramatic tradition through its history of reception and adaptation.
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Table of Contents
2. The People of Cistellaria
3. Performance and Genre
4. The Afterlife of Cistellaria
Appendix 1: State of Preservation
Appendix 2: Metrics
Works Cited
Further Reading
Index
Product details
| Published | 04 Sep 2025 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 176 |
| ISBN | 9781350241817 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 3 bw illus |
| Series | Bloomsbury Ancient Comedy Companions |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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