Adelphoe Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Dana F. Sutton

Critical Essay by Dana F. Sutton

SOURCE: "Terence" in Ancient Comedy: The War of the Generations, Twayne Publishers, 1993, pp. 109-22.

In the essay below, Sutton discusses Terence's use of realism in The Brothers, concluding that his plays were unpopular because "at their very heart is a philosophy of life that is incompatible with the innate outlook of ancient comedy."

Terence is a comic poet rather neglected in our times. The amount of criticism and scholarship devoted to him is not especially great or penetrating. Even more symptomatic is the fact much modern criticism regards Plautus and Roman Comedy as nearly synonymous, with Terence shoved firmly into the background on the occasions when he is considered at all. Reasons for this lukewarm attitude are not difficult to discem. Plautus fits in very well indeed with modern ideas of what comedy is and ought to be, but Terence does not. His plays are not especially funny, and...
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