Terence (redirected from Publius Terentius Afer)

Terence (Publius Terentius Afer) (tĕr`əns), b. c.185 or c.195 B.C., d. c.159 B.C., Roman writer of comedies, b. Carthage. As a boy he was a slave of Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, who brought him to Rome, educated him, and gave him his freedom. Six comedies by him survive—Andria, Heautontimorumenos, Eunuchus, Phormio, Adelphi, and Hecyra. All are adapted (with considerable liberty) from Greek plays by Menander and others. The writing is polished and urbane, the humor broad, and the characters realistic.

Bibliography

See G. E. Duckworth, The Complete Roman Drama (1942); W. G. Arnott, Menander, Plautus, and Terence (1965).

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Terence

 orig. Publius Terentius Afer

(born c. 195, Carthage, North Africa—died 159? BC, in Greece or at sea) Roman comic dramatist. Born as a slave, he was taken to Rome, where he was educated and later freed. His six extant verse plays are The Woman of Andros, The Mother-in-Law, The Self-Tormentor, The Eunuch, Phormio, and The Brothers. Produced between 166 and 160 BC, they were based on Greek originals (including four by Menander); Terence eliminated their original prologues, used contemporary colloquial Latin, and introduced a measure of realism. He influenced later dramatists such as Molière and William Shakespeare.

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Terence

Latin name Publius Terentius Afer. ?190--159 bc, Roman comic dramatist. His six comedies, Andria, Hecyra, Heauton Timoroumenos, Eunuchus, Phormio, and Adelphoe, are based on Greek originals by Menander

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Terence 

(Publius Terentius Afer). Born circa 195 B.C.; died 159 B.C. Roman dramatist.

Terence was born in Carthage. Between 166 and 160 B.C., he wrote six plays, using the plots and masks of the Greek New Comedy: The Lady of Andros, The Self-tormentor, The Eunuch, and The Brothers were adaptations of plays by Menander, and Phormio and The Mother-in-law were adaptations of plays by Apollodorus of Carystus. In these plays Terence departed from the convention of mixing Greek and Roman elements and from the crude comedy and buffoonery typified by Plautus. Despite the use of the device of contaminatio (adding a character from a second Greek original), the plots in Terence’s comedies develop consistently; his characters, depicted with psychological subtlety, contrast with the accepted pattern. Terence separated the prologue from the plot and used it to make sharp comments on current events and to engage in polemics with literary opponents. Terence had an enormous influence on the togata, the Roman comedy of the mid-second century B.C. His influence can be seen in Moliere’s plays. A. N. Ostrovskii translated the Mother-in-law.

WORKS

Comédies: Texte établi par J. Marouzeau, vols. 1–3. Paris, 1942–49.
In Russian translation:
Komedii. Moscow, 1934.
Adel’fi. Moscow, 1954.

REFERENCES

Tronskii, I. M. Istoriia antichnoi literatury, 3rd ed. Leningrad, 1957. Pages 305–14.
Savel’eva, L. I. Khudozhestvennyi metod Publiia Terentsiia Afra. Kazan, 1960.
Haffter, H. “Terenz und seine künstlerische Eigenart.” Museum Helveticum, 1953, vol. 10, pp. 1–20,73–102.

K. P. POLONSKAIA