Lingulacae women: mulieres plautinae, their gender and discourse

Author(s)

Carol Martins da Rocha

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem
• Defense date: 2015-04-24

Examining board members

Isabella Tardin Cardoso; Adriane da Silva Duarte; Jay David Konstan; José Eduardo dos Santos Lohner; Robson Tadeu Cesila

• Advisor: Isabella Tardin Cardoso

Abstract

The present study has as its main focus the discourse by and about women in Plautus' comedies. In agreement with recent studies about fabula palliata, the goal is not an immediate portrait of women in Ancient Greek or Roman societies. Contemporary gender studies point to the importance of considering representations of the feminine as something that is not biologically determined, but constructed in its relations (with the other gender, with the context) and reversible. The appreciation of such aspects in Plautus highlights the poetic and dramatic effects in the construction of the feminine in the context of the playwright's drama. More specifically, passages of selected plays (Aulularia, Bacchides, Casina, Menaechmi, Mercator and Miles Gloriosus) will be analyzed in this study under two modes of the representation of the relation between genders in Plautus: on one hand, the characterization of women within the frame of marriage represented in the palliata; on the other hand, the use of images related to animals to characterize feminine or masculine. Under the point of view of marriage, the uxor dotata stock character-type is evaluated, observing both its representation as a caricature and the subtleties of composition in each Plautine comedy under scrutiny. Furthermore, within the selected plays, a feminine bestiary is put in evidence, which seems, albeit varied, coherent in the aspects through which it pictures women (both matrons and prostitutes) in Plautus (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 10/20403-4 - Linguaculae women: mulieres plautinae, their gender and discourse
• Grantee: Carol Martins da Rocha
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate