Feminine Discourse in Roman Comedy
On Echoes and Voices
ISBN13: 9780199533381ISBN10: 0199533385
Hardback,
320 pages
Aug 2008,
In Stock
Price:
$125.00 (06)See more from the series
Description
As literature written in Latin has almost no female authors, we are dependent on male writers for some understanding of the way women would have spoken. Plautus (3rd to 2nd century BCE) and Terence (2nd century BCE) consistently write particular linguistic features into the lines spoken by their female characters: endearments, soft speech, and incoherent focus on numerous small problems. Dorota M. Dutsch describes the construction of this feminine idiom and asks whether it should be considered as evidence of how Roman women actually spoke.Features
- A pioneering study that applies modern discourse analysis to male and female speech in Roman comedy
- Links gender differentiation in drama with Greek and Roman assumptions about gender in other spheres
About the Author(s)
Dorota M. Dutsch is Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics, University of California, Santa Barbara.
