SOURCE: Webster, T. B. L. “The Comedy of Menander.” In Roman Drama, edited by T. A. Dorey and Donald R. Dudley, pp. 1-20. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965.

In the following essay, Webster discusses characteristics of Menander's comedies, commenting on his treatment of plot, establishing of a setting, and use of the mask to play with audience expectations.

The long line of writers of social comedy from Shakespeare and Goldoni to Galsworthy, A. A. Milne, and their present-day successors have, partly consciously and partly unconsciously, been writing in a tradition which goes back to Plautus and Terence. But Plautus and Terence themselves were adapting and translating Greek New Comedy, which has only recently become known to us from considerable stretches of original text. The approach of the two Roman writers to their Greek originals was very different. Terence translated texts accurately but often flattened out the colour of the...