Friday, November 04, 2022
A Worrying Trend
W.D.C de Melo, review of Catherine Tracy, Epidicus by Plautus: an annotated Latin text, with a prose translation (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2021), in Bryn Mawr Classical Review (BMCR 2022.11.06):
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Tracy's introduction is representative of a worrying modern trend: an old topic—here Plautine comedy—is rehashed, but without meaningful—even introductory—treatments of technical elements, of broader questions concerning Roman comedy, or of important scholarly trends in approaching this play. In their stead we find diatribes about the evils of antiquity.
[....]
[O]utrage is a poor substitute for scholarly discussion. It is remarkable how oppression and victimhood are treated as articles of faith, without any nuance.
