Revisiting the Scene: Mirror Scenes in Greek and Roman Theater
Organizers: Vasileios Dimoglidis (University of Cincinnati), Christopher Gipson (Loyola Marymount University)
16th Celtic Conference in Classics
Tuesday 15 July – Friday 18 July 2025, University of Coimbra, Coimbra
In ancient Greek and Roman theater, scenes are often constructed to recall a previously presented scene, either verbally, visually, or both. These mirror scenes, as defined by Taplin 1977: 100-103 and Hourmouziades 1991: 171-173, are frequently used by playwrights to emphasize contrasts and developments within the narrative through their similarities. Mirror scenes can be identified within a single play or across multiple works by the same author (cf. Karamanou 2017: 33). In the latter case, the boundaries between mirror scenes, inter-/intra-textuality, and intervisuality can become blurred.
To discuss mirror scenes with some certainty, the two scenes must share thematic, verbal, visual, or metrical/musical similarities, thus ensuring their immediate recognition by the spectators. In these instances, the playwright controls the audience’s experience and reception. The discussion of mirror scenes depends on the assumption that an audience would be able to draw theatrical parallels, and performance is at the core of any discussion. Mirror scenes allow authors to subvert the spectators’ expectations set by the initial scene, contributing to dramatic suspense or irony. They may also resolve questions raised by the first scene, or create a sense of closure that invites the audience to appreciate the play’s structure. This panel will explore how mirror scenes in Greek and Roman theater are generated, realized, and the role of the audience, who is encouraged to reflect on the repetition and transformation of themes, characters, and events through these scenes. This panel will also address issues of stagecraft related to mirror scenes, with particular attention to how (inter)visuality and stage props contribute, if at all, to this mirroring.
Mirror scenes across a dramatic tetralogy can anticipate marked reversals, as it happens in Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers, where the murder of Aegisthus recalls Agamemnon’s death in the eponymous play. Artemis’ appearance at the end of Euripides’ Hippolytus recalls Aphrodite’s prologue rhesis through strong verbal parallels. In Aristophanes’ Frogs, Xanthias’ dialogue with Hades’ slave mirrors the play’s opening dialogue between Xanthias and Dionysus. Roman theater is also rife with such mirror scenes. For instance, in Plautus’ The Ghost, the second half of the play is constructed in such a way to mirror the first half (cf. Philippides 1999), while the double characters in the Amphitryon and the twins of the Two Menaechmuses generate networks of mirrored scenes, mirrored characters, and mirrored stage business. The prologue speech of Seneca’s Thyestes and its focus on such motifs as famine and thirst will be later evoked in the scene of Atreus’ gruesome banquet, emphasizing the cyclical nature of revenge and horror.
Through this panel, we plan to construct the poetics of mirror scenes by specifically disentangling both issues of production (how a case of mirroring is generated) and reception (how the audience is supposed to react and what is the audience’s role), and ultimately interpret the interpretive connotations lying behind these mirror scenes.
Scholars interested in mirror scenes in Greek and Roman Drama are invited to submit abstracts on topics related (but not limited) to:
- Mirror scenes, symmetries and reversals
- Intervisuality, intertextuality, and mirror scenes
- Comic echoes: repetition and reflection in Aristophanes
- Musical and metrical echoes in mirror scenes
- Mirror scenes and the audience’s horizon of expectations
- The use of space and stagecraft in mirror scenes
- Mirror scenes and the audience’s response(s)
- The function of mirror scenes in comic plot development
Works cited
Hourmouziades, N. (1991), Όροι και Μετασχηματισμοί στην Αρχαία Ελληνική Τραγωδία, Athens: Gnose.
Karamanou, I. (2017), Euripides, Alexandros. Introduction, Text and Commentary, Berlin and Boston: de Gruyter.
Philippides, K. (1999), “Contrasting houses, contrasting values: an interpretation of Mostellaria based on mirror scenes”, in B. Zimmerman (ed.), Griechisch–römische Komödie und Tragödie III. (Drama 8.), Stuttgart and Weimar: J.B. Metzler, 67-112.
Taplin, O. (1977), The Stagecraft of Aeschylus. The Dramatic Use of Exits and Entrances in Greek Tragedy, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Observations:
To submit an abstract, please complete duly the PROPOSAL TEMPLATE (found in https://www.uc.pt/cech/16-ccc/calls/call-for-papers/ ) and email it to the organizers of the panel before February 20, 2025. Abstracts should be up to 500 words, excluding the bibliography. Direct any questions to the organizers: Vasileios Dimoglidis (dimoglvs@mail.uc.edu ) and Christopher L. Gipson (christopher.gipson@lmu.edu ).
Each paper should last 20 minutes and be followed by 10 minutes of discussion. The panel organizers have planned to publish selected papers.
