Pasolini, Coppola e Lucilio: per una ἀρχαιολογία del Vantone

This paper is an introduction to The Vantone, i.e. Pasolini’s translation of Plautus’ Miles gloriosus into Roman dialect: firstly, by means of archival research, I will reconstruct the «educazione puritana» that Pasolini recalled and asserted against the attacks of critics (in other words, his classical education: embodied by Carlo Gallavotti and Goffredo Coppola); secondly, both by considering the link between Lucilius and Plautus discussed during Coppola’s academic course (Bologna University, 1940-1941) and in light of the following echoes of Lucilius in Pasolini’s prose works and poems (more and less coeval with the translation of Plautus’ play), The Vantone will be read as an oeuvre simultaneously creative and reliable, as well as touching the Menippean tradition – which has already been studied by two experts on Pasolini, but without any mention of this biting translation for the stage.