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Auricula Meretricula | |||
1989 • 0-941051-35-8 • paper • 58 pages • 8 ½ x 11 • $12.95 An original play, introducing Roman Comedy and Latin Love Elegy. | About the Author | Table of Contents | Introduction | Reviews | | |||
Description This play is a unique text for students in their first semester of Latin. Each scene uses new forms and vocabulary, thus reinforcing the students’ grasp of grammar by placing it in a living context. At the same time it provides an enticing introduction to Roman comedy and elegy. First published in 1981, Auricula was greeted with enthusiasm by students and teachers, and is currently used in many classics departments in the US and elsewhere. This substantially revised edition includes new scenes and characters while reducing the overall quantity of unfamiliar vocabulary. For introductory Latin courses, to accompany all the major texts. Originally Auricula Meretricula was written as a companion to Wheelock; to provide a dramatic addition to the course, allowing students to read, speak and act out Latin comedy, with a vocabulary that matched that found in the second half of the first year Latin course for most books.
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Ruby Blondell is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Washington, Seattle. She is the author of "Helping Friends and Harming Enemies: A Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics" (Cambridge 1989) and of articles on Greek literature and philosophy.
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Introduction I: In which Auricula, our heroine, explains to Ballio, her pimp, that she loves a penniless poet; Ballio is not amused. II: In which Auricula laments her fate; her lover, Marcus, tries to console her by protestations of true love. III: In which Ballio rudely interrupts the lovers; Pseudolus, Marcus' slave, tries to intimidate the pimp, but he remains unperturbed. IV: In which Pseudolus, after promising to save his hapless master, turns in despair to Dolia, his girlfriend; Dolia takes charge. V: In which Laurina, a woman of the world, explains to Auricula that true love does not pay, and expounds her own philosophy. VI: In which Pugnax, a soldier, comes to claim Auricula; Edax, a parasite, explains his profession and puts it into practice. VII: In which Dolia, through an ingenious stratagem, ensnares the soldier and smooths the path of true love. VIII: In which Silex, the father of Marcus, announces his son's impending marriage; Marcus protests that he loves another, but to no avail. IX: In which Malacus, a rich old man, visits the brothel and makes a surprising discovery. X: In which a drunken Malacus consoles Ballio for his financial losses by inviting him to a feast. Allusions to Ancient Works Vocabulary
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Auricula is now twelve years old. She has come far since the days when, as teaching assistants at the University of California at Berkeley, we first sketched out a few scenes to delight and instruct our first-year Latin students. Those scenes resulted from the need we both felt for some easy yet lively reading material to supplement the textbook during the first few months. In these early stages, ignorance of the subjunctive and other syntactic complexities is usually a barrier to tackling passages of “real” Latin. Moreover the study of elementary grammar can be dry and bewildering for the beginning student. We therefore aimed to provide simple connected reading which was also entertaining, could easily be performed by the students, and provided a foretaste of Roman comedy and love elegy. This play was the eventual outcome. Although it is loosely based on themes and quotations from ancient authors, it is dependent on none, and soon took on a life of its own. We are, of course, most indebted to Plautus and Terence, but have also exploited the natural relationship of love elegy to comedy, and in general plagiarized freely as we thought fit. For those who are curious about our sources, there is a list of the more explicit allusions to ancient authors at the back of the book. The pictures were inspired by medieval miniatures illustrating the mss. of Terence, which may be found in L.W. Jones and C.R. Morey, The Miniatures of the Manuscripts of Terence Prior to the Thirteenth Century (2 volumes, Princeton 1930-31). They were drawn especially for this new edition by Annette LeBlanc Cate. Auricula was an instant hit with our students and fellow teaching assistants. We therefore decided to bring her to a wider audience, which we succeeded in doing with the help of a Grant for the Improvement of Teaching from the Committee on Teaching at the University of California at Berkeley. Response to the publication of the first edition in 1981 was enthusiastic, and garnered Auricula a gratifying number of admirers. Our readers also offered several of suggestions and helpful comments, which inspired us to produce this revised edition. Some teachers, for example, thought the play was burdened with an excessive amount of unfamiliar vocabulary. We have therefore tried in the new edition to trim away many unnecessary words, without sacrificing the spirit of the original. Even with the addition of an extra scene, the number of facing-page vocabulary items has now been reduced by about 10% Though the vocabulary is still broader than that of the average textbook, most of the words are either basic Latin or else transparent in meaning (e.g. fraudulentus, tempestas, avaritia). The format, with new entries facing each scene, enables students to prepare the scenes with ease or read them at sight. The second and most significant change has been an alteration of the plot to accommodate two new characters, a male and a female slave. The absence of a crafty slave from the original Auricula was a significant defect, which we have remedied by providing two of them. At the same time this enabled us to add another strong female role. All the characters, both male and female, still embody the conventions and stereotypes of Roman drama and Latin literature generally. (A partial exception to this is the role of Auricula herself, since the marriageable virgin of Roman comedy does not normally have a speaking role. But the virginal heroines of the ancient novel do play an active part in resolving the plot.) The gender stereotypes are sometimes disturbing to students, but the play can provide an avenue to the fruitful discussion of such issues, which will inevitably emerge in the later study of Latin literature. The play consists of ten scenes of gradually increasing difficulty, roughly corresponding to the material usually covered in the first few months of a first-year college Latin course. Grammatical constructions are introduced in the order in which they appear in Wheelock’s Latin Grammar, by F.M. Wheelock (4th Edition Revised: New York 1992). The play stops at Chapter 24, just before the introduction of indirect discourse and the subjunctive—the hurdles most likely to bar the way to reading “real” Latin. The vocabulary lists facing each scene contain words not yet encountered in Wheelock, but for students using a different textbook, there is a complete vocabulary at the back of the book. Auricula was first written to accompany Wheelock, but has since been used successfully, by ourselves and others, with many different textbooks (including Jenney, Moreland and Fleischer, and Michigan’s Latin for Charting), and in no way requires the use of Wheelock. We suggest that students prepare each scene at home. Alternatively, the play may be read at sight, or parts may be assigned to individual students in advance. They can take parts in class, first translating and then reading or acting them out in Latin. Dramatic reading is especially recommended because it provides an opportunity for the display of talents other than philological, keeps students aware of the fact that Latin was a spoken language, and helps to create a lively cooperative class atmosphere. Teachers may supply background information on Roman comedy at their own discretion. Students usually appreciate a brief introduction to the conventional themes and characters of New Comedy, of which the play provides a fairly typical sample. (A short bibliography will be found at the end of this introduction.) When the whole play has been read scene by scene, we strongly recommend a complete performance. All that is needed by way of set is some indication of two doors (for the houses of Ballio and Malacus) and one or more entry–ways for the arrival of Pugnax and Marcus (from the city) and Silex (from the country). In our days at Berkeley we produced the play alfresco several times during the intensive summer Latin Workshop, where it provided much-needed comic relief. We have seen or heard about numerous other successful performances, ranging from impromptu dramatic readings to polished public productions complete with elaborate costumes and sets. Actors have likewise varied from twelve-year-old children to college drama majors.
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“The book is excellent, stimulating, lively and probably the best elementary reader I’ve seen for communicating something of how Latin was probably spoken. …[It] is extremely well planned, very sensibly graded in the rising degree of difficulty from one chapter to the next, and all in all the ideal companion to Wheelock.” -- Michael Dewar, University of Calgary
-- John Herington, Yale University “Very clever but easy to read and offers lots to talk about on those days when there are a few extra minutes of class time.” -- Catherine Connors, University of Washington “It is the best remedy I know for the ‘worthiness’ (and choppiness) of Wheelock’s sententiae and… a happy edition to the classroom.” -- Stefanie Kennell, Memorial University of Newfoundland
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Auricula Meretricula 2/e
