Not Another Greek Comedy: How Plautus's Characters Tease and Challenge the Audience in ‘The Brothers Menaechmus’ Sarah Khan College

Belonging to fabula palliatae, the argument of originality and contribution has arised in Plautine plays in many phases. Romanising Greek plays, Plautus didn’t merely just copy them, making slight changes here and there. In fact, he redefined Greek comedy and gave it his own creative and imaginative outlook, adding dialogues and monologues appealing to the Roman audience that contributed to the comic aspect of the plays. Using metatheatrical devices, he transformed Greek plays into something “barbaric”, as the prologist of Trinummus calls it. As we see in the prologue of ‘The Brothers Menaechmus’, even though the play has its Greek essence, Plautus shifts the audience’s expectations from Attica to Sicily, presenting an invitation to Southern Italy’s dramatic influences.

One of Plautus’ greatest works, ‘The Brothers Menaechmus’ features dramatic irony throughout. This forms a major part of the play’s comic tone. Plautus has made good use of rhetorical devices such as allusions, imagery, parallelism, paradox, and more. It presents sexual overtones as well as circumstantial comedy - elements existing in Greek Old Comedy and Greek New Comedy respectively. It consists of stock characters such as the matrona, meretrix, senex amator,...