Table of Contents

1.: Verba Perplexabilia
2.: Parapraxis and Parechesis
3.: Equivocation and Other Ambiguities
4.: Innuendo and the Audience
5.: Double Entendre
6.: Conclusion
A Pundex
Index Locorum
General Index

About the Author

Michael Fontaine is Assistant Professor of Classics, Cornell University.

Reviews

"Every reader of this work will find out for himself what to accept, what to doubt and what to refuse. But all the scholars who are interested in Plautine comedy should read this innovative book." --Ancient History Bulletin Online Reviews
"a bold approach that seeks to unlock the puzzle of all these passages with a unified explanation that calls for a radical reappraisal of Plautine comedy." --Greece and Rome
"This is a superb study of Plautine verbal play, both in its originality and in its far-reaching implications for Plautus' dramatic art. Anyone interested in exploring the complex adaptation, and especially at this critical juncture in the process, will learn much from Fontaine's pellucidly argued, refreshingly jargon-free, and richly indexed study of Plautus' funny words." --New England Classical Journal
"Funny Words in Plautus is an accessible, densely argued work that will inspire future commentators at more than one point to rethink whatever Plautine text is the target of their labors. It's also a deft and engaging work of literary criticism, teaching its readers how much can be achieved by engaging in the kind of discursive philological and theoretical arguments that Michael Fontaine handles so well." --Bryn Mawr Classical Review
"...even if one is not persuaded that every single of the puns F. disentangles for us is more than a coincidence, his book is beyond doubt an important contribution to Plautine scholarship. F.'s imaginative use of philology and textual criticism and his insistence that we rethink our assumptions about Plautine theater make for a most thought-provoking book. I strongly recommend it to anyone seriously interested in Roman comedy." -- Eos