Roman Laughter is the first book in English on Plautus alone and the first study of the theatrical art of Rome’s most popular playwright. One of the central questions Erich Segal pursues is the reason for the unparalleled contemporary appeal of Plautus’ comedies. He argues that the essence of Plautus’ art lies in his farcical inversion of the values and decorum of everyday Roman society. “Laughter is an affirmation of shared values.”
‘A generation on, the influence of Roman Laughter is greater than ever; it remains the key work in English on its author. Segal redefined the critical agenda by showing that the comedies of Plautus – the earliest Latin literature to survive intact, and the purest surviving artefacts of Roman popular culture – were no mere brutish derivatives of elegant Greek bourgeois comedy, but muscular works of mass entertainment that unlaced the authoritarian obsessions of Roman society in the time of Hannibal.’
Roman Laughter: The Comedy of Plautus had revolutionized the study of ancient comedy by showing how the popular entertainment of ancient Rome might open windows into the Roman mind that the writings of the elite kept shuttered.’ From TLS Review: Nick Lowe