Terence

John Barsby (University of Otago)

Ed. by William John Dominik, University of Otago
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.1.2: Ancient Roman Writing and Culture (Republic and Empire), -750-476.
Vol. editors: William John Dominik (University of Otago), Giacomo Fedeli (University of Exeter), Thomas Habinek (University of Southern California), Emily Kneebone (University of Nottingham), Elodie Paillard (University of Sydney), Sophia Papaioannou (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Jula Wildberger (The American University of Paris)

Dates

Born -184
Died -159
Activity -166--160

Places

Born in Ancient Rome (Republic & Empire)
Active in Ancient Rome (Republic & Empire)

Activities

Primary

Playwright / Dramatist

Resources

Plautus and Terence are the two major figures of ancient Roman comedy. They played an essential part in the development of the European comedy of manners, a genre which had been invented by the Greek dramatists of the New Comedy period (roughly 325-250 BC), notably Menander, Diphilus and Philemon. These Greek plays were lost from sight by the end of the classical era, but they served as models for Plautus and Terence, who were themselves used as models by the comic dramatists of Europe from the Renaissance onwards, including such masters as Shakespeare and Molière. Plautus, who was the more boisterous of the two Roman writers, was the more popular in Renaissance Italy and in Elizabethan England; the more refined Terence came into his …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2524 words

Citation: Barsby, John. "Terence". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 October 2006 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4350, accessed 22 November 2024.]

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here