Excerpt from Repetition of Thought in Plautus: A Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of Yale University in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

In considering repetitions we must distinguish between the dialogue and the monologues. In the cantica we have only the speaker to consider but in the dialogue we must consider both the speaker and the listener, that is, the repetition must be viewed psychologically from the view point of the speaker as well as from that of the listener. It is obvious that the speaker's chief aim in repeating a thought may be to clarify that thought for the benefit of the listener. But it is not enough to say that this is the sole end of a repetition - to produce intensity, emphasis, and distinctness Of expression. These may be the chief and obvious results but the important things to consider are the means by which these results are produced. The speaker does not desire merely to repeat his thought in the same words but to vary the form and wording. By these means he may impress the thought still more strongly on the listener but the desire in his own mind is for variety. If he has expressed a thought negatively, he mav feel the desire to express it affirmatively or vice versa. Again he may have expressed one thought, then changed to another, yet, feeling the importance of the first, he may go back to that and then finally may repeat the se'cond statement. It is possible, then, to group the cases of rep etition into classes, more or less clearly differentiated, some Simple, others more complicated, and thus to Show the relation that these repetitions have to the general subject of the style of Plautus.

The most common and obvious class is that in which there is an almost exact repetition Of a thought. But even here there is considerable vari ation. There is first that class in which a thought is repeated by a speaker without any interruption from another speaker. Within this class there are two distinct divisions. The one is characterized by the fact that thev'

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