What's in a Name? Through Comic Titles to Caecilius Statius

Datos Bibliográficos

ID10986966
AutoresEmilia A Barbiero (New York University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2024
Volumen114
Páginas1-25
Fecha de publicación2024-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Journal of Roman Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0075-4358 • E-ISSN: 1753-528X
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0075435824000285
OpenAlexW4404152762
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas36

This article takes a novel approach to fragmentary Roman comic playwright Caecilius Statius by exploring the titles attested for his comedies. Informed by Genette's theory on the title qua paratext, it argues that titles are distinct artifacts of Caecilius’ dramatic production designed to circulate without the texts they label and, consequently, it treats them as legitimate objects of interpretation in and of themselves. Analysis of ten titles in both Greek and Latin reveals that Caecilius Statius’ titles are polysemous, bilingual and profoundly meaningful in their engagement with the genre of New Comedy and with translation as a social and cultural phenomenon of middle republican Rome. But given that the titles of Roman comedy are largely uninvestigated by scholarship, this piece begins by arguing for their author -ity, setting forth the evidence for comic titles’ origins, function and transmission. In so doing, it demonstrates the palliata 's textuality and challenges the communis opinio regarding comic scripts’ passage from stage to page. A Supplementary Appendix available online ( 10.1017/S0075435824000285 ) presents the evidence for the titles of Caecilius’ plays

Art · Comedy · Comics · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Literature · Paratext · Political science · Scholarship · Scripting language · Textuality · Classical Antiquity Studies · Computer Science · Historical and Literary Studies · History · Law · Organic Chemistry Synthesis Methods · Philosophy