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SOURCE: "The Character of Bacchis in Terence's Heautontimorumenos," in American Journal of Philology, Vol. 116, No. 2, Summer, 1995, pp. 221-34.
In the excerpt below, Knorr contends that the courtesan Bacchis in The Self-Tormentor "actually has a good core below the surface of a grabbing prostitute."
Most readers of Terence have viewed the hetaera Bacchis in Heautontimorumenos as a stereotypical wicked prostitute, a greedy, hardnosed businesswoman, in short, "Terence's only mercenary courtesan" [G. E. Duckworth, The Nature of Roman Comedy, 1952]. Yet at least one passage in the play, namely Bacchis' speech in lines 381-95, does not quite fit into this negative picture of her character. Scholars who have noticed this, most recently Lefèvre and Brothers, usually evaluate this alleged inconsistency in her portrayal as a dramaturgical flaw on the part of Terence. Moreover, they assume that the Roman playwright inserted this scene into the original Greek plot.
In this essay...
This section contains 3,582 words (approx. 12 pages at 300 words per page) |
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