PLAUTUS MENAECHMI YEAR HOW TO
Next Section The Brothers Menaechmus Summary Buy Study Guide How To Cite in MLA Format Osborne-Bartucca, Kristen. Plautus’ The Brothers Menaechmus influenced another of Shakespeare’s plays as well: Twelfth Night, which begins with a shipwreck that separates two twins from one another. Both plays begin with one of the twins searching for their brother in foreign lands where the people are deemed untrustworthy. He is married to a matrona dotata and enjoys a life of almost daily feasting with a courtesan (Erotium) and a parasite (Peniculus). Similarly to The Brothers Menaechmus, The Comedy of Errors is concerned with the story of two twin brothers separated in infancy by a shipwreck. 1 Leach 1969, 36 points out that Menaechmus of Epidamnus is doubly bound: to his wife and to his mist 1 Plautus’ Menaechmi revolves around the young Menaechmus I, abducted as a child from Tarentum and now leading a seemingly normal life in Epidmamnus. Shakespeare adapted The Brothers Menaechmus very closely in terms of events and timing in the plot.
In fact, Shakespeare’s play can easily be called an adaptation of Plautus’. Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors is heavily influenced by Plautus’ The Brothers Menaechmus.
Throughout the play, Messenio is running between Menaechmus of Syracuse and Menaechmus of Epidamnus, trying to fulfill their demands. Most prominent in The Brothers Menaechmus is the servus currens stock character, or the “running servant.” Menaechmus of Syracuse’s slave, Messenio, is the embodiment this stock character. While these stock characters existed before Plautus, Plautus redefined these tropes. Stock characters were prominent in both Greek and Roman comedies, and Plautus utilizes them in The Brothers Menaechmus. Each of these qualities is present in Plautus’ The Brothers Menaechmus, be it in the physical humor present or in the situational comedy that initiates the play then continues until the play’s end. Atellan farce included farcical skits involving crude humor, Greek Old Comedy involved sexual and scatological innuendo and jokes, and Greek New Comedy involved much situational humor. Plautus adapted Atellan farce, Greek Old Comedy, and Greek New Comedy. The term that refers to the adaptation of other works with an original twist is “contaminato,” a feature often utilized by Plautus. Plautus borrowed from and adapted qualities present in Greek and Roman plays preceding him.
Traditionally, Plautus’ plays were sung for the majority of their duration, rather than spoken. Plautus’ comedies are the earliest Latin works to have survived in their entirety, and as such, they heavily influenced many other playwrights-including Shakespeare. Plautus was a Roman comic playwright, living from approximately 254 BC to 184 BC, and The Brothers Menaechmus is frequently considered to be his greatest work.
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