Abstract This book offers an overview of key themes in the interpretation of the plays of Plautus. It explores the connections between deception, desire, slavery, genre, and audience. It attempts to offer an account of the mechanisms of Plautus’ humour and the uncomfortable origins of laughter. These dramas do not just play to but also work on the audience. The whole corpus of Plautine plays is examined with longer accounts of selected dramas and choice scenes. An emphasis on methodological and theoretical questions is maintained throughout. Particular attention is paid to the psychic life of humour and its relationship to questions of social power.
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