Terence
Terence (?190–?159 BC),Roman comic dramatist, brought to Rome from Carthage as a slave but later freed for his literary talents. Like Plautus, he adapted the Greek New Comedy, specifically the plays of Menander, to produce six plays based on the same stock characters and intrigue plots. Terence's style and plotting were studied in 16th-century grammar schools, where he was also attributed with the invention of the five-act structure. Shakespeare's debt to the Roman may include echoes from his plays Andrian and The Eunuch, in The Taming of the Shrew, Love's Labour's Lost, and Much Ado About Nothing.
Jane Kingsley-Smith
Bibliography
Miola, Robert S., Shakespeare and Classical Comedy: The Influence of Plautus and Terence (1992)
Salingar, Leo, Shakespeare and the Traditions of Comedy (1974)
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