The placement of word shapes in the Iambo-Trochaic Verse of Plautus and Terence: A Unified Field Theory of Theatrical Composition

This presentation reports the collated data of a newly completed survey of the prosodic shapes of all the words in all the iambic trimeters and trochaic tretrameters in all the complete plays of Plautus and Terence. These data reveal, quantitatively and qualitatively, the extent to which meter served as a promotional agent not only of word selection but of clause building in palliate composition.

Based on observations derived from the texts of Plautus (de Melo, 2011-13) and Terence (Barsby, 2001), we can uncover a unified, comprehensive method of theatrical composition heavily dependent upon the placement of words with favored prosodic-shapes appearing in high frequency at specific loci in iambo-trochaic verse. Though working a generation apart, the two playwrights were generating the same rhythmic patterns at the same loci of their verse; this argues for a traditional method of composition into which the playwright became a trained adept. Constituent rhythmic units (that build up to complete verse) manifest as key indications of a system privileging text transmission via aural/oral rehearsal and performance.

I will limit my presentation to the frequency with which Plautus and Terence placed words at the arsis positions in their senarii and septenarii so as to align word accent with arsis to produce ictus. Rates of ictus production, as well the shapes of words producing that rhythmic pulse, reveal that the playwrights constructed highly favored rhythmic shapes at analogous loci in their iambs and trochees. Each section of the verse sought placement of differing word-shapes and produced rhythmic effects which varied based on syntax units.

I will also demonstrate via use of this ictus data that word-shape selection did not occur as a series of isolated compositional choices (as would happen were the playwright writing a script on paper). Rather, word-shapes were packaged in bundles that combined syntax length and rhythmic shape. By demonstrating the distinctive rhythmic patterns of syntax units that fill the B₆-D₁₂ and D₈-D₁₂ segments of the senarii and septenarii of republican comedy (Smith, 2022), we can analyze the interplay of syntax measures and their rhythmic signatures. Playwrights composed in unified units of sound and sense. Challenging some current models of the role of music in trochaic verse composition (Moore, 2012; Deufert, 2014), these rhythmic patterns, which manifest identically in the septenarii and senarii of the two playwrights, give us strong indication of the highly limited influence of musical accompaniment (at least upon the composition) of stichic trochaic verse.

This model of composition suits a theatrical milieu in which (illiterate slave) actors needed to memorize and master, script-free, lines with sound-shapes that reinforced syntax and meaning. Metrical constraints, the exigencies of syntax (particularly the placement of particles, conjunctions, and function words), and a reliance on a focused palette of modular measures which broke syntax and rhythm at articulated loci in the verse all amounted to a comprehensive and unified system of theatrical composition. Playwrights necessarily practiced a craft which pre-existed and guided their participation in the tradition.