file in progress - perennially

The study questions in this file will be updated throughout the semester from study questions used the last time this course was taught; that wasn't a Writing Intensive section, so it used a slightly different arrangement of material. If the days are off, it's because the questions haven't yet been checked against the current progress and interests of the class. Not that the old questions aren't still worth thinking about (most of them will probably continue to appear), just that you should double-check again later.

Study Questions

Monday 10 March

• Compare and contrast treatment of themes that seem to be emerging as characteristic patterns of Old and New Comedy:
  • sex and love: how much are physical pleasure and emotions related to one another by the play? where do they figure in relation to the characters' objectives?
  • naturalism and fantasy: how does the stylized illusion of theatrical performance evoke real-life concerns and relationships? when, how far, and in what direction does a play depart from the illusion of naturalism - and to what ends?
  • "private" or domestic concerns versus "public" and political concerns: how does a play engage with one or the other? how closely does a given play relate the two spheres - to what ends?
• What parameters do The Malcontent and The Woman from Samos suggest for the "marriage plot" of New Comedy? What elements are standard to the expectations of this form? How do individual plays vary them and play off expectations?
• Start listing conventional character-types of New Comedy. Be able to discuss specific examples and how they typify or vary expectations.
• How does the pre-plot device of the "festival pregnancy" relate to Athenian social customs and values?
• How do Demeas's choices, in his relationships with Moschion and with Chrysis, relate to Athenian social customs and values?

• Compare and contrast Nikeratos’s reactions in Act 4 to Demeas’s reactions to similar information in Act 3.
• How does Demeas explain the baby to Nikeratos?
• What is Moschion’s problem in Act 5? How is it resolved?

Wednesday 12 March

• Trace how the misunderstandings and deceptions of "The Woman from Samos" arise and are perpetuated. How does Menander show characters' personal histories affecting their emotions and interactions? How do good intentions lead into frustration (for the characters) and comedy (for the audience)?
• How do Demeas's references to "miracles" work to resolve Nikeratos's anger? What social values and what relationship to myth does Demeas imply?
• What is at stake in Act 5: why does Moschion feel he needs to take the stance he does, even against his own desires? Is he justified? How is his anger resolved, and what does this process show about the relationship of adoptive son and father?

• What cultural traditions influenced theatrical performance in the Roman world?
• In what setting (physical space and occasion) did Roman audiences see plays performed?
• What techniques does Plautus use in "Double Bind" to give background information and set up the action?
• What goals do the major characters of "Double Bind" seem to be pursuing? What forces oppose them?

Friday 14 March

• What peoples and what "sub-literary" forms influenced Roman theatrical performance? In what ways did they influence the Romans? Be able to identify key terms and the nature of the influence.
• How did Greek drama come to influence theatrical performance at Rome? Be able to identify key figures and the nature of the influence.
• In what context(s) - of physical space and occasion - was comedy performed at Rome? Compare and contrast to the context of Athenian performances of comedy.
• How does Plautus let his audience know in what ways the plot of "Double Bind" will pick up on typical expectations for New Comedy?
• In what ways does "Double Bind" appear to twist typical expectations for New Comedy?

• Trace the trajectory of Clueless I's objectives, through the course of "Double Bind". What goals does he pursue? What opposition does he have to overcome? What means does he use? How effective is he? What forces change his goals? How does the play signal the audience to sympathize with or against Clueless I?
• Trace the trajectory of Clueless II's objectives, through the course of "Double Bind" (same set of sub-questions). Is he a sympathetic character? Why or why not?
• Besides the doubled protagonists' objectives, what forces generate generate plot for "Double Bind"? How do standard motivations for the Parasite, the Aggrieved Wife, the Elderly Father, and the Expert in Abstruse Arts (in this case, Dr. Klyster) contribute to plot-generation? Where does Plautus seem to be playing off typical expectations for such characters?
• What other standard character-types play a role in "Double Bind"? Catalogue what they do.

Friday 17 March

• What types of deception and delusion operate in "Double Bind"? How are they generated, and how do they generate comedy?
• What characters' expectations for themselves are frustrated in "Double Bind"? Does the action of the play incline you to sympathize with them or with the forces that frustrate them? Why?
• How are the audience's expectations directed, from moment to moment, in "Double Bind"? How does the play do it? Does the play meet or depart from these expectations? How? What effects are generated by the play's interaction with the audience's expectations?

• How do the opening scenes of "Major Blowhard" serve to introduce the play? Is there a "prologue"? Where? What qualities are you using to define the concept "prologue"?
• Which major characters have objectives that drive the plot of "Major Blowhard"? What are the objectives? How does the play enable the audience to identify the objectives? What expectations are raised for the audience? Which characters do the most deliberately to drive the plot?
• What forces oppose the plot-driving objectives of "Major Blowhard"? How are they generated?

Wednesday 19 March

• Dexter's prologue tells the audience that Plautus created his play, "Major Blowhard," by adapting a Greek play called Alazon, "The Boaster." What characteristics define the Major as an alazon? How does Plautus present them to the audience?
• Besides embodying the characteristics of an alazon, how does the Major function in the dynamics of the play named after him? How do his character and objectives relate to the progress of the action?
• Compare and contrast the social power each character's status would, in real life, mean he or she was likely to have, with the power he or she exerts to generate comic action and control the course of the action of the play: how does the comic fiction construct social relations as an inversion of real life?
• What moral values support the action of "Major Blowhard" - what considerations motivate the audience to sympathize with one character or another?

• How do the Major's character and predilections contribute to his comeuppance?
• What characters contribute to the plot against the Major? How do the participants pick up on conventional social expectations and/or typical character-types and scenarios of New Comedy in order to entrap the Major?
• In what ways is the Major's position reversed at the end of "Major Blowhard"?

Friday 21 March

• What imagery characterizes Dexter as a Clever Slave? What other character(s) does this imagery encourage the audience to compare him with? How does this comparison contribute to understanding the plot of "Major Blowhard" as a competition between Immovable Object and Irresistible Force?
• What sorts of "doubling" are presented within the plot of "Major Blowhard"? How do the doublets, be they parallel characters, situations, or themes, or elements that reverse one another in some sense, pair up ideas for the audience to consider in relationship to one another? What themes do the doublets encourage the audience to think about in assessing the play?
• Why is deflation of an alazon funny? How are the audience's sympathies engaged - what values does such a plot structure in comedy reinforce?

• Who speaks the Prologue to Terence's "Mother-in-Law"? What connection does he have with the play? What types of information does he present?
• Who are Philotis and Syra? What perspective do they bring to "Mother-in-Law" on the play's background of recent developments in the characters' relationships with one another?
• What sort of a character is Parmeno? What expectations for his place in the play are raised by his first scene? Are these expectations fulfilled?

Monday 24 March

• Besides the specific history of performance of "Mother-in-Law", what can we learn about the production of plays at Rome from the prologue of "Mother-in-Law"? What dramatic purposes does it serve for Terence to present this type of information to the audience, in this way? Explain. Consider to what extent other comedies we have read (Old and New) do any similar things with the way they present plays to audiences.
• If the prologue doesn't preview plot, how does the audience find out background about the action they are seeing in "Mother-in-Law"? What information can the audience draw on (accessible or not-accessible to the characters) to form expectations about the plot? Compare the audience's relationship with information in "Mother-in-Law" to other plays we have read.
• Compare and contrast the audience's relationship with information in "Mother-in-Law" to the characters' relationships with information: how much do the characters understand about what is going on, as it goes on? Compare and contrast to other plays we have read.

• Trace the course of Pamphilus’s emotions toward Bacchis, toward Philumena, and toward his parents, in the prehistory and in the action of "Mother-in-Law". What impulses make him change?
• What considerations govern Myrrina’s actions? What considerations govern Sostrata’s actions? Do they embody any common consciousness by virtue of being wives? mothers?
• How is the crisis resolved: what mechanism is involved? On what assumptions does it depend for plausibility?

Wednesday 26 March

• What stereotypes (comic and/or Greek and Roman more generally) appear as the bases of characters' inferences about what is going on in "Mother-in-Law"? How well does the action of the play prove to support those stereotypes? Be able to identify individual stereotypes or presuppositions in the play, to point to characters in other plays who embody the stereotypes, and to explain how the action does or does not support the conclusions the stereotyping suggests.
• What social values and presuppositions are embedded in Pamphilus's rejection of Philumena, when he learns that she had been raped? What alternative views are presented in the play (think especially about Myrrina and about Pamphilus's own past history)?
  • Analyze why Pamphilus reacts the way he does. Compare and contrast why modern attitudes to comparable situations would be different - what presuppositions would we make, and why? - in order to come to terms with what Pamphilus's problem is (not necessarily to come to believe it's legitimate).
  • How does the fact that the characters in "Mother-in-Law" consider only what they do in relationship to Philumena's rape compare to other emphases and de-emphases of themes and perspectives in New Comedy?

• Remember the Writing Assigment: your first best efforts are due as of first thing next class meeting, for collaborative Peer Review.

Friday 28 March

Continue to think about your paper and about the papers you have helped peer-review.

• Did other papers point to evidence you hadn't thought about, or suggest reasoning you hadn't considered? Think about them now. Has reading these papers changed the way you think about your own arguments - either by persuading you of things you hadn't believed before, or by challenging you to develop your arguments about why what you believe understands better what Terence (or Plautus) is doing? Make notes of ways you can strengthen your evidence, arguments, and conclusions when you revise your paper.
• Did other papers suggest ways you can improve the way you express your arguments - either by demonstrating good techniques of writing, or by challenging you to think of improvements you can also make on your own writing? Make notes of ways you can strengthen and polish your expression when you revise your paper, so that it will work more effectively.

• What problems does the prologue of "The Brothers" claim that Terence is facing with this play? Why would the objections being made to the play be things an ancient critic might object to?
• What common character-types of New Comedy does "The Brothers" put on view? How are they connected to one another, by family or by interest?
• What crisis first appears to be generating the action of "The Brothers"? Trace how this crisis is developed in the play. Then what other problems appear?

Monday 31 March

• How does Terence answer the charges critics have allegedly made against him and "The Brothers"? What does the term contaminatio mean in the context of Roman adaptations of Greek New Comedy? What advantages does Terence seek by publicizing criticisms of his play (contaminatio and other charges) to his audience?
• What parallels and oppositions between characters and philosophies does "The Brothers" set up in its opening scenes? On what issue does the play centrally focus? How is the audience's attention directed to this theme - or, temporarily, away from it?
• How does the scene Terence incorporated from Synapothneskontes (Berg translates the title, "Mort à trois," for something like the "foreign" flavor the Greek would have in Latin: it literally means "Those Who Die Together") fit in to Terence's main play? In what light does this action cast Aeschinus's character and Micio's philosophy of childrearing?
• What other developments affect the audience's assessment of Aeschinus as a test-case for Micio's theories, as the play progresses? How and why is the audience led to modify its earlier views?

• What do Micio and Demea each want for their sons and for their relationships with their sons?
• What do Aeschinus and Ctesipho each want? What conventional plot-line of New Comedy does each brother follow? How do the two plot-lines intersect?
• Why does Demea reverse tack near the end of "The Brothers"? How deep a change in his views does his change of tactics reflect?
• What happens to Micio near the end of "The Brothers"? How do these changes relate to his philosophy, as expressed earlier in the play?

Wednesday 2 April

• What assumptions about the maturation of male erotic choices does "The Brothers" support? Compare and contrast to other plays of New Comedy: does a broad psychological theory inform its characteristic plot-trajectories? Be able to discuss specific passages and how they suggest relevant ideas.
• What assumptions about marriage and relationships between men and women does "The Brothers" support? Compare and contrast to other plays of New Comedy: does a broad psychological theory inform its characteristic relationships and plot-trajectories? Be able to discuss specific passages and how they suggest relevant ideas.
• How does "The Brothers" resolve the tension between Micio and Demea, and the theories of child-rearing they each represent? How does the play present the idea that a given theory has certain strengths and certain weaknesses? How does it suggest that the theories can or should be modified? Discuss by analyzing specific passages.

• Review our readings and your class notes in light of the study questions from individual days (this file, above, and Study Questions file 1), and the general Study Guide for this exam: what are some of the most important issues in Greek and Roman New Comedy? What do the plays tell us about these issues? Do you still agree with the conclusions we drew in class meetings? Why or why not? What evidence supports your interpretations now?
• Be prepared to cite specific, concrete details from the individual plays in order to support the conclusions you now draw.
• Be prepared to explain logically and specifically how this evidence supports your arguments.
• Bring a couple of clear-writing pens or pencils, so you will have backup. I will supply blue books.
• Good luck!

Friday 4 April

• CONGRATULATIONS! You have completed the second examination.
• Keep thinking about the exam questions: in an even-more-perfect world, what more could you say about these topics?

Roman formal verse satire, the type of poems we will be reading for the rest of the semester, wasn’t performed on stage like comedy, but it can be interesting to think about the poems as something like comic monologues in the voice of characters with whom the author partially identifies himself. Think both about what he is saying within each poem, and about the character he is creating for himself as he speaks. How does the character relate to the main topic of the individual poem? How much does the character carry over from poem to poem? In particular, in Horace, Satires 1.1, 2, 3, and 4:

• What sort of a person does Horace portray himself as being? In what types of activity does he take an interest?
• What is his relationship like with Maecenas, his patron?
• With what other characters are Horace and Maecenas concerned? How closely? What is their relationship like?
• What principles for satire-writing does Horace espouse in Satire 1.4? What type of poet does he claim to be? How do the principles he says he values compare with what he does in Satires 1.1, 2, and 3?
  • How well does what you know about Aristophanes and Old Comedy compare with what Horace claims Cratinus, Eupolis, and Aristophanes said in their plays? Think of specific examples.
  • How well does what you know about New Comedy compare with the interests and themes Horace claims for his satires?
  • How does Horace characterize his predecessor Lucilius?

Monday 7 April

• How do themes of satisfaction with life, moderation, and friendship relate with one another in Horace, Satires 1.1, 2, and 3? How does Satire 1.4 pick up on these themes to make a statement about satire as a genre?
• What expectations about satire does Horace expect, or try to instill, in his audience? How does he define his own satire against these expectations?
  • In what ways do Horace's satires do something comparable to Old Comedy? in what ways do Horace’s satires do something comparable to New Comedy? Consider both what Horace says he's doing and what we observe these literary forms to entail.
  • In what ways do Horace's satires do something comparable to Lucilius? Consider both what Horace says he's doing and what we observe Horatian satire and Lucilian satire to entail.
• What did the ancient Romans understand "a satire", as a particular type of poem, to be? Relevant issues include verse-form and the etymology of the name of the genre, as well as the poems' typical content and tone.
• How did satire, as a literary form, develop at Rome before Horace? Who are the major figures in the history of satire, and what did they each contribute?

• Identify a central topic or two in each of Horace’s Satires in Book 1. How does Horace approach his topics?
• What themes of social relations stretch through Horace’s first book of Satires? Identify specific passages in different poems. Does his point of view on each of these questions appear to remain reasonably consistent, or does he shift ground as he goes along?
• What sort of character does Horace create for himself in his Satires? What techniques of character-portrayal does he employ?

Wednesday 9 April

• How do Horace’s "story-satires" of the Journey to Brundisium (1.5), his autobiography in 1.6, and The Bore (1.9), round out the portrait of himself as satirist that he paints discursively in Satires 1.1-4?
  • Who is Horace, as a character portrayed within Satires, Book I?
  • How does the character of Horace relate to Horace's moral themes and other concerns as a poet writing satires?
• How do the satires of Brutus and the Joke on "King" (1.7) and Priapus (1.8) compare and contrast with the satires in which Horace figures in his own satirical persona?
• How does what Horace says about satire in Satire 1.10 compare and contrast with what he says in Satire 1.4? with what he does in other satires?

• What different techniques does Horace use in satires of Book 2, compared to the satires of Book 1? What does he continue to do that is similar?
• What are the central concerns discussed in Satires 2.1, 4, 5, 6, 8? Are these concerns discussed directly? What concerns also are important for assessing the satires, besides the concerns that explicitly are discussed? What characters do the discussing (or acting out, or whatever), and how do they relate to Horace?

Friday 11 April

• Compare and contrast the views Horace takes on writing satire in the introductory poem to his second satire-book, to the views he expressed in Satires 1.4 and 1.10. Has he modified his approach, in theory?
• How does the multiplicity of voices -different characters putting forward different views- in Horace's second satire-book contribute to his project as a satirist? What goals can we identify for Horace's satire, and how do these many speakers contribute?
• How can a reader assess whether the character in a Horatian satire who puts forward a particular view is being portrayed as authoritative or flawed (or both)? What criteria should we consider in assessing Horace's speakers?
• Compare and contrast Nasidienus Rufus's dinner-party in Satire 2.8 to the dinners at the Sabine Farm Horace recalls in Satire 2.6, and to other passages where Horace mentions ideas relevant to food and to conviviality. What does Nasidienus's dinner-party show us? What ending does this poem give to Horace's book?

• Remember the Writing Assigment: your first best efforts are due as of first thing next class meeting, for collaborative Peer Review.

Monday 14 April

Continue to think about your paper and about the papers you have helped peer-review.

• Did other papers point to evidence you hadn't thought about, or suggest reasoning you hadn't considered? Think about them now. Has reading these papers changed the way you think about your own arguments - either by persuading you of things you hadn't believed before, or by challenging you to develop your arguments about why what you believe understands better what Horace is doing? Make notes of ways you can strengthen your evidence, arguments, and conclusions when you revise your paper.
• Did other papers suggest ways you can improve the way you express your arguments - either by demonstrating good techniques of writing, or by challenging you to think of improvements you can also make on your own writing? Make notes of ways you can strengthen and polish your expression when you revise your paper, so that it will work more effectively.

• How does Juvenal characterize what he is doing in his Satires? Where does Satire 1 claim he gets his inspiration to write? How well does Satire 2 bear out this claim?
• What aspects of his predecessors’ writings does Juvenal emphasize and set his own work against? How does what he says about them compare with what Horace says about the traditions of formal verse satire, and does himself?
• Compare and contrast the way Juvenal treats sexual themes in Satire 2 to the way(s) Horace treats sexual themes in his satires. What other themes are also important in Juvenal, Satire 2?

Wednesday 16 April

• Compare and contrast the ways Horace and Juvenal open their books. What concerns, what approach, and what personality do they each signal? Explain how specific lines work to give the impressions they do. How does Juvenal compare to Horace
  • in his level and style of engagement with the "real world"?
  • in how he defines satire by reference to his predecessors?
  • in how he relates his satire to other verbal endeavor: contemporary poetry other than satire, rhetoric and education, literature defining Roman heritage?
• Compare and contrast ancient Roman patterns of thinking about sexual activity with modern American patterns: what model does each group tend to presume defines what is "normal" or "good"? What patterns of thinking does applying such a model tend to create? How, therefore, does Juvenal connect deviant sexuality with hypocrisy? What further connections does he draw? What critique of Roman national character does his Satire 2 make, and how? Explain how Juvenal links the ideas together.

• What problems does Umbricius identify with life in Rome? How closely do his views resemble the views of the character "Juvenal", both in Satire 3 and in Satire 1?
• Who is Juvenal’s Crispinus? What problems does he represent?
• Apart from having a big fish to debate about, what does Juvenal’s Satire 4 make Domitian’s court look like? How does the court reflect upon the emperor at its center?

Wednesday 25 April

• To what extent does Juvenal present Umbricius, in Satire 3, as reliable or unreliable in his assessment of contemporary society in Rome? Explain why, referring to specific passages in the text.
  • What affinities do Umbricius and the things he says have with the character Juvenal presents of himself as a satirist in other Satires, and the things he says? (Does Juvenal present himself as a "reliable witness"? Why or why not?)
  • How consistent are Umbricius's plans with his complaints about Rome: to what extent does his reaction help to solve his problems?
  • What differences does Umbricius underline between himself and Juvenal in Satire 3? How do they relate to Juvenal's mission as a satirist?
  • Why should Juvenal present less-than-totally reliable witnesses for his arguments in his Satires (3 and others)? How does the speaker, despite himself, add irony to his complaints? How do the ironies add complexity to Juvenal's points?
• What qualities do Crispinus and Domitian share, as Juvenal portrays them in the two halves of Satire 4? Other than the presence of big fishes, what ties the two halves of the satire together? How does Juvenal connect personal-moral and political satire?
• How do the characters of Domitian's councillors, as Juvenal portrays them, reflect social ills spreading out from the character of the emperor?

• What does Juvenal’s Satire 7 say about the position of literature and education in society? Compare and contrast to the things he says about literature in other satires, especially 1. Does Juvenal’s view seem to have shifted? (Remember, Satires 1-5 belong to Book I, 7-9 are Book III, published approximately 10 years later.)
• Compare and contrast Juvenal’s Satire 10 to Persius’s Satire 2, on a similar theme. What criticisms and recommendations are different [substance]? With how similar or how different techniques do the two poets construct their satires [style]?

Friday 27 April

• What aspects of Roman formal verse satire, as a literary form, most closely resemble comedy? How can techniques of interpreting comedy be applied to satire?
• In what respects does Roman formal verse satire most differ from comedy? What additional techniques are necessary to understand our satirists' works?
• How does Juvenal's Satire 7 contrast what people would like to believe they believe about literature and education, to what their actions suggest they value? How does this critique compare to the attitudes Juvenal set forth in Book I?
• How does Juvenal organize Satire 10? How does he make his argument vivid as he rounds off individual sections? In what ways are his techniques for presenting his argument in this satire similar to what he used in his earlier satires?

• Review our readings and your class notes in light of the study questions from individual days (this file, above, and Study Questions file 1), and the general Study Guide for satire and the final exam: what are some of the most important issues in Roman formal verse satire? What do the individual satires we have read tell us about these issues? Do you still agree with the conclusions we drew in class meetings? Why or why not? What evidence supports your interpretations now?
• Be prepared to cite specific, concrete details from the individual satires in order to support the conclusions you now draw.
• Be prepared to explain logically and specifically how this evidence supports your arguments.
• Bring a couple of clear-writing pens or pencils, so you will have backup. I will supply blue books.
• Good luck!

This file last updated 16 April 2003 by jlong1@orion.it.luc.edu.
http://www.luc.edu/depts/classics/