{"product_id":"plautus-cistellaria","title":"Plautus: Cistellaria","description":"This volume is the first book-length introduction to Plautus’ Cistellaria (The Jewelry Box), offering an incisive overview for both students and scholars coming to it for the first time. This play is a story of young lovers defying social norms and disapproving parents in order to be together, featuring a memorable cast of characters and moments of both high humor and drama. This classic mistaken-identity plot includes witty interchanges and a lively conflict of values and ideals.   Drawing on performance and cultural studies, gender and sexuality, and philology and intertextuality, Ariana Traill combines a lucid exploration of Cistellaria's setting, characters, plot and themes, with detailed analyses of its literary and socio-cultural contexts. Readers are able to appreciate the play both as a literary artifact, with its attendant issues of generic conventions and variations, and language and imagery, and as a performance script written for a rich tradition of acting, singing and stage movement at Rome, with its conventional costumes, masks and venues. With its majority female line-up (seven of the twelve roles are female), Cistellaria offers an unusual focus on women’s thoughts and feelings as they struggle for their economic and social existence, making it a fascinating source for the study of women and gender in ancient Rome. The play continues to cast a shadow in the western dramatic tradition through its history of reception and adaptation.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57503669617013,"sku":"9781350241794","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781350241794.jpg?v=1786867379","url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/plautus-cistellaria","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}