Terence and the Traditions of Roman New Comedy

Abstract

This chapter examines how Terence converges with and diverges from inherited norms of the genre we call Roman New Comedy, or comoedia palliata, Roman adaptations of Greek New Comic scripts. The assessment of Terence's relationship to the traditions of Roman New Comedy is not an academic or tangential issue, for Terence himself devotes the bulk of his prologues to articulating that complex relationship. Presumably, then, Terence's place within the Roman New Comic tradition was of keen interest to Terence, his audience, his peers, and his sponsors. After consideration of what Terence himself says in his prologues about his place in the Roman New Comic tradition, the chapter compares the significant features of Terentian comedy with corresponding features in the works of Plautus and Caecilius Statius. Plautine characters express knowledge of their own theatricality, and fragments of Caecilius suggest that this metatheatrical awareness pervades the genre.

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