Alazon
Alazṓn (
Miles Gloriosus
Miles Gloriosus (literally, "braggart-soldier", in
Literary instances
In the play Miles Gloriosus ("Boastful Soldier") by Plautus, the term applies to the main character Pyrgopolynices. This foolish Miles Gloriosus brags openly and often about his supposed greatness, while the rest of the characters feign their admiration and secretly plot against him. Heavily borrowing from Plautus, the Stephen Sondheim-Burt Shevelove-Larry Gelbart musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum features a warrior named Miles Gloriosus.
An example in Terence of the alazon character is Thraso in the Eunuchus. Like Pyrgopolinices in the Miles Gloriosus, Thraso is attended by a flatterer or parasite who follows him round and attends to his wishes. Like Pyrgopolinices, Thraso is wealthy and is a rival of the young man in the story for the love of a courtesan.
Baron Munchausen is a braggart soldier.
In Commedia dell'arte, the figure of Il Capitano is a miles gloriosus.[5]
In the novel, "A Confederacy of Dunces", the main character, Ignatius J. Reilly, believes himself to be better than everyone because of his apathy towards modern society and his Medievalist views.
Other media
In music, the title role of
In the PC game The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, there is a non-playable character named Miles Gloriosus, willing to brag about his accomplishments as soldier.
Senex iratus
The senex iratus or heavy father figure is a comic
His usual function is to impede the love of the
Pantalone in Commedia dell'arte acts as a senex iratus.
In his Anatomy of Criticism, Northrop Frye considered all blocking humors in comedy to be variations on the basic function of the senex iratus.
See also
References
- ^ Carlson (1993, 23) and Janko (1987, 45, 170).
- ISBN 0-691-01298-9.
alazon, which means imposter, someone who pretends or tries to be something more than he is. The most popular types of alazon are the miles gloriosus and the learned crank or obsessed philosopher.
- ISBN 0-14-012480-2.
- ^ Victor L. Cahn, Shakespeare the Playwright: A Companion to the Complete Tragedies, Histories, Comedies, and Romances, Praeger, Westport, 1996. p.468.
- ISBN 0-415-04770-6.
Further reading
- Carlson, Marvin. 1993. Theories of the Theatre: A Historical and Critical Survey from the Greeks to the Present. Expanded. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-8154-3.
- Janko, Richard, trans. 1987. Poetics with Tractatus Coislinianus, Reconstruction of Poetics II and the Fragments of the On Poets. By ISBN 0-87220-033-7.
External links
- Character Functions Archived 2009-03-18 at the Wayback Machine