Charles Mendelson

Studies in the Word-Play of Plautus Charles Mendelson

From the INTRODUCTION. Word-play has long been recognized as one of Plautus' principal methods for arousing laughter, and every commentator has been at more or less pains to point out the passages in which this device is used. Just how much effect word-plays have in making Plautus what he is cannot be determined until the subject of Plautine humor is given a thorough investigation, and the various methods for arousing laughter are carefully analyzed and compared. It requires, however, only a casual reading of our author to learn that here, as in the case of Shakespeare, we have to do with a writer who does not use word-plays occasionally, but constantly, and relies to a great extent on this form of the comic. A recent editor of the Mostellaria exaggerates but slightly when he says that Plautus is ""copious in quip and pun until quip and pun grow wearisome.""...