Still funny after two thousand years, the Roman playwright Plautus
wrote around 200 B.C.E., a period when Rome was fighting neighbors
on all fronts, including North Africa and the Near East. These
three plays - originally written for a wartime audience of
refugees, POWs, soldiers and veterans, exiles, immigrants, people
newly enslaved in the wars, and citizens - tap into the mix of
fear, loathing, and curiosity with which cultures, particularly
Western and Eastern cultures, often view each other, always a
productive source of comedy. These current, accessible, and
accurate translations have replaced terms meaningful only to their
original audience, such as references to Roman gods, with a
hilarious, inspired sampling of American popular culture - from
songs to movie stars to slang. Matching the original Latin line for
line, this volume captures the full exuberance of Plautus's street
language, bursting with puns, learned allusions, ethnic slurs,
dirty jokes, and profanities, as it brings three rarely translated
works - "Weevil (Curculio)", "Iran Man (Persa)", and "Towelheads
(Poenulus)" - to a wide contemporary audience. Richlin's erudite
introduction sets these plays within the context of the long
history of East-West conflict and illuminates the role played by
comedy and performance in imperialism and colonialism. She has also
provided detailed and wide-ranging contextual introductions to the
individual plays, as well as extensive notes, which, together with
these superb and provocative translations, will bring Plautus alive
for a new generation of readers and actors.
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