Menander Epitrepontes
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Menander 'Epitrepontes' (BICS Supplement 106)
Author: Menander (of Athens.)
language: en
Publisher: University of London Press
Release Date: 2009
Epitrrepontes, or 'The Arbitration', which Menander produced around 300 BC, tackles the modern-sounding subject of a broken marriage. Charisios has left his young wife Pamphile over a suspected infidelity and moved in with his neighbour to drown his sorrows in wine and women, specifically, a spirited harp-girl called Habrotonon. The irate father-in-law will not tolerate this waste of a good dowry and demands of his daughter that she divorce. Bravely she holds out against her father's tirades and remains loyal to her husband. A complex and masterly dramatic sequence ensures that by the end 'all's well that ends well' - and Menander has struck a blow for equality of the sexes, for understanding over arrogance and pride. A large portion of the Epitrepontes was recovered from oblivion in 1905. Since then new papyrus finds have continued to fill the gaps. This edition makes available to the reader all known papyri of the play, including the most recent. The commentary aims to explain the printed text, to place Menander's language in the context of Athenian dramatic art and rhetoric, and to appreciate his subtle insights into the psychology of his characters, from the huffy father-in-law Smikrines to the 'little people' of the comedy, the slaves, each with their private agenda.
Menander: Epitrepontes
Author: Alan H. Sommerstein
language: en
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Release Date: 2021-04-08
This book introduces readers who may have no previous knowledge of Menander's comedies to Epitrepontes (The Arbitration), arguably the most exquisitely crafted of his better-preserved plays. It explains what we know about the play, how we know it, and how far we can tentatively fill in the gaps in our knowledge. Sommerstein analyses the nature of the dramatic genre (Athenian New Comedy) to which Epitrepontes belongs. He assesses the plot and the characters, every one of whom makes an essential contribution to the uplifting outcome, and the social and ethical assumptions that dramatist and audience shared. As well as looking at the influences of earlier drama and of contemporary philosophical and popular thought, he considers the afterlife of Menandrian comedy in general and of Epitrepontes in particular, both in antiquity and in modern times, but also in the long period in between, when Menander was the great dramatist whose plays were thought to have been irrevocably lost.
Menander
Preface -- List of Illustrations -- 1. Menander the Athenian -- 2. Menander and New Comedy -- 3. What We Know About Epitrepontes , and How We Know It -- 4. What Happens in Epitrepontes -- 5. Rape, Marriage, Legitimacy, Citizenship and Child Exposure -- 6. Characters -- 7. Structural Patterns -- 8. Literary and Intellectual Background -- 9. The Next Twenty-Three Centuries -- Glossary -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.