After reading through Norma Miller's collection of Menander's plays I feel like I need to brush up my Shakespeare.
Both of these authors' plays are still relevant, in spite of time. But both also have elements that seem odd or even uncomfortable to us.
Shakespeare has his tween-age weddings and near cast-wide die offs. Menander has a whole other culture's references (are cooks still stereotyped as thieves?), and quite a bit of casual rape.
That is, rapes are central to quite a few of his plots, and more often than not the raped woman ends up marrying her rapist. But she does so silently - neither she nor the society within the plays comment. If anything, this scenario is practicallly presented as the norm. It's as if it were an ordinary way for people to wind up married. That makes it especially disconcerting.
That's what makes me curious about Shakespeare's plays. They were written hundreds rather than thousands of years ago, but Elizabethan culture is quite different from our own. Surely, Shakespeare's plays have something of their own that makes us truly uncomfortable.
As per this specific collection of Menander's works, it was definitely made with specialists in mind. Miller constantly references scholarly works, and subjects the odd part or two of a play to a general cultural/histotical analysis. She clearly put this collection together for those who already know Menander, but if you just want to read his plays then using this book is a fine way to do so.
No comments:
Post a Comment