SOURCE: "Roman Imitators: Plautus and Terence" in Masters of Dramatic Comedy and Their Social Themes, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1939, pp. 49-78.

Perry was an American educator and author. In the following excerpt, he examines the themes of Terence's plays in the context of Roman comedy, concluding that he refined the plots and characters that he borrowed from other playwrights to make them more serious and more humane.

Terence is much more like Menander than Plautus is, four of his six plays being based on works by Menander and all of his dramas giving the effect of imitation more than of creative vitality. Unlike Plautus, he had no hesitancy in wringing every possible tear from Menander's situation of the long-lost child. He makes use of it in all but one of his comedies. Plautus is at bottom concerned with the humorous complications that get in the way of...