What Are You Laughing At? An Analysis of Humor in Terence's Eunuchus
Schott, Henry John
Schott, Henry John
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Text, Honors papers, Greek and Roman Studies, Department of
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Abstract
This paper seeks to show how Terence crafted humor in the Eunuchus and how similar the mechanisms are between ancient and modern joke-telling. I focus on four consecutive scenes starting with Act 2 scene 1 to explore the roles of the main slave characters, Parmeno and Gnatho, as well as their relationships to their masters. Additionally, I draw reference to modern scholarship on humor, most notably from Raskin and Attardo's General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH). I also explore the construction of a joke and different readings of the original text which can alter the reception of the joke. I conclude by showing that Terence used many of the same tropes and styles of humor that modern comedians still employ. In this exercise, I hope to open the door for modern adaptations of Terence to be produced alongside other great hits from antiquity by Plautus and the Greek tragedians