Space, Gender, and Power in the Plays of Plautus and Terence

This dissertation establishes a typology for those spaces that are as familiar and fundamental to the fictional world of fabula palliata (Roman comedy) as its plots and characters. I have organized these spaces into six categories: onstage, interior, proximate, predatory, distant, and invented. Onstage space is the space of the performance in front of the scaena and on the street of the characters’ neighborhood. The remaining spaces are off stage. Interior space is the space behind the doors of the scaena, usually the houses of the characters, but sometimes a temple or other building. Proximate space represents those spaces that are just off stage and accessible to characters throughout the course of a play, such as the countryside, port, or forum. Predatory space is where rape happens, often referenced as vaguely away from characters’ homes. Distant space represents those other places, usually cities, that characters are from or have visited, but which usually require travel overseas and are not visited during the course of the play. Invented space is created when characters engage in deception or imagination, making an unreal space that is unseen by both the characters and audience.The dissertation is divided into five chapters. In Chapter 1, I develop my typology and establish terms for the types of spaces I will use in my analysis. Chapter 2 explores onstage space and its influence on malitia (cleverness) through Plautus’ Epidicus, Persa, Miles Gloriosus, and Terence’s Andria. Chapter 3 examines how Plautus and Terence establish the interior as a space of women’s power in Plautus’ Casina, Truculentus, and Terence’s Hecyra. In Chapter 4, I analyze proximate (Plautus’ Rudens, Mercator, Poenulus, Terence’s Hecyra), predatory (Plautus’ Aulularia, Terence’s Adelphoe), and distant space (Rudens, Terence’s Phormio) to show that the playwrights create tension between male and female mobility. In Chapter 5, I provide a detailed case study of Eunuchus to emphasize the importance of each space leading up to Chaerea’s rape in Thais’ house. In the conclusion, I turn briefly to invented space and its implications for metageneric studies.