Seminar - Forum Antiquum Leiden - Merlijn Breunesse

Merlijn Breunesse (Leiden) - Taking charge: Metalepsis and creative power in Plautus' comedies

Abstract: This talk will be about the relationship between fiction and reality in the comedies of the 3^rd and 2^nd centuries bce playwright Plautus. Plautus is well-known for employing various types of non-illusory and metatheatrical structures (e.g., monologues and asides addressed to the spectators and characters’ awareness of their own theatrical existence) in his comedies, which bring the fictional world represented on stage into contact with reality. Approaching the contact between these worlds through the lens of representational logic, and also considering the nature of representational boundaries in the dramatic medium, I will identify and discuss a number of scenes from Plautus’ plays that are metaleptic, i.e., that cause a counterlogical form of contact between the inside and the outside of the representation (cf. Genette 1972). I will argue that the metaleptic breaking of the hierarchical boundary separating fiction from reality in these scenes highlights issues of creative power in Plautus’ comedies.

The speaker : Merlijn does not need an introduction, as she is a dear colleague of our department at the moment. Her research focuses on cognitive, narratological and linguistic approaches to Latin literature, especially the comedies of Plautus. She is currently interested in the ideas about fictionality and poetic creativity presented in these comedies, as well as the original Roman spectators' experience of the fictional storyworlds created in them.