Eunuchus of Terence: study and translation

Author(s)

Nahim Santos Carvalho Silva

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2010-02-26

Examining board members

Zelia Ladeira Veras de Almeida Cardoso; Isabella Tardin Cardoso; Adriane da Silva Duarte

• Advisor: Zelia Ladeira Veras de Almeida Cardoso

Abstract

The present dissertation includes both a translation of Terence\'s play The Eunuch and a study on it. The play is Terence\'s fourth comedy and was staged in 161 BC, in Rome, during the Ludi Megalenses. The study has been divided into three parts: the context of the play, its structure and the ethos of the characters. Regarding the context, we considered the genre question, staging and stagecraft, latin theatre origins and the author\'s literary biography. The analysis of the structure has two parts, according to the division of the play itself into a prologue and the plot. Terence\'s prologues are peculiar in their aptness for literary polemics. The plot is organized on two main axes: line suspension and double intrigue. The characters\' ethe are the main target of this study. Six characters have been chosen for the analysis: Thais, Pythias, Pamphila, Phaedria, Chaerea, Parmeno. We approached the concept of ethos in two ways for this analysis: first, within aristotelian thought, and the way it unfolds in both the Rhetoric and the Poetics; second, within the French Discourse Analysis, following a development by Dominique Maingueneau, as he recovered, via his pragmatics, the rhetorical concept of ethos. (AU)