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TERENCE
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TERENCE . Our knowledge of the See also:life of the celebrated Latin playwright, Publius Terentius See also:Afer, is derived chiefly from a fragment of the lost See also:work of Suetonius, De viris illustribus, preserved in the commentary of See also:Donatus, who adds a few words of his own. The prologues to the comedies were among the See also:original See also:sources of Suetonius; but he quotes or refers to the See also:works of various grammarians and antiquaries—Porcius Licinus, Volcacius Sedigitus, Q. Cosconius, See also:Nepos, Santra, See also:Fenestella. There is uncertainty as to both the date of the poet's See also:birth and the manner of his See also:death. His last See also:play was exhibited in 16o B.C., and shortly after its See also:production he went abroad, " when he had not yet completed his twenty-fifth See also:year." See also:Cornelius Nepos is quoted for the statement that he was about the same See also:age as Scipio See also:Africanus the younger (See also:born in 185 or 184 B.C.) and See also:Laelius; while Fenestella, an See also:antiquary of the later Augustan See also:period, represented him as older than either. If Terence was born in 185, he published his six plays between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. Even in an imitative artist such precocity of See also:talent is remarkable, and the date is therefore open to legitimate doubt. He is said to have been born in See also:Carthage, and brought to See also:Rome as a slave. At Rome he was educated like a See also:free See also:man in the See also:house of Terentius Lucanus, a senator, by whom he was soon emancipated; whereupon he took his See also:master's nomen Terentius, and thenceforward his name was Publius Terentius Afer, of which the last member seems to imply that he was not a Phoenician (Poenus) by See also:blood. He was admitted into the intimacy of See also:young men of the best families, such as Scipio, Laelius and Furius Philus; and he enjoyed the favour of older men of See also:literary distinction and See also:official position. In the circle of Scipio he doubtless met the historian See also:Polybius, who was brought to See also:Italy in 167. He is said to have owed the favour of the See also:great as much to his See also:personal gifts and See also:graces as to his literary See also:eminence; and in one of his prologues he declares it to be his ambition, while not offending the many, to please the " See also:boni." Terence's earliest play was the See also:Andria, exhibited in 166 B.C. A See also:pretty, but perhaps apocryphal, See also:story is told of his having read the play, before its See also:exhibition, to See also:Caecilius (who, after the death of See also:Plautus, ranked as the foremost comic poet), and of the generous admiration of it manifested by Caecilius. A similar instance of the recognition of rising See also:genius by a poet whose own See also:day was past is found in the See also:account given of the visit of See also:Accius to the See also:veteran See also:Pacuvius. The next play was the Hecyra, first produced in 165, but withdrawn in consequence of its See also:bad reception, and reproduced in 16o. The Heauton Timorumenos appeared in 163, the Eunuchus in 161, the Phormio in 161, and the Adelphoe in 16o at the funeral See also:games of L. See also:Aemilius Paullus. Of these six plays. the Phormio and probably the Hecyra were See also:drawn from See also:Apollodorus, the See also:rest from See also:Menander. After bringing out these plays Terence sailed from See also:Greek parts, either to See also:escape from the suspicion of See also:publishing the works of others as his own, or from the See also:desire to obtain a more intimate knowledge of that Greek life which had hitherto been known to him only in literature and which it was his professed aim to reproduce in his comedies. The latter is the more probable See also:motive, and we recognize in this the first instance of that impulse to visit the scenes See also:familiar to them through literature which afterwards acted on many of the great writers of Rome. From this voyage Terence never returned. According to one account he was lost at See also:sea, according to another he died at Stymphalus in See also:Arcadia, and according to a third at Leucas, from grief at the loss by shipwreck of his baggage, containing a number of new plays which he had translated from Menander. An old poet quoted by Suetonius states that he was ruined in See also:fortune through his intimacy with his See also:noble See also:friends. Another account speaks of him as having See also:left behind him gardens, to the extent of about twelve acres, See also:close to the See also:Appian Way. It is further stated that his daughter married a See also:Roman See also:knight. No writer in any literature, who has contented himself with so limited a See also:function, has gained so great a reputation as Terence. He See also:lays no claim to the position of an original artist See also:painting from life or commenting on the results of his own observation. His See also:art has no relation to his own See also:time or to the See also:country in which he lived. The See also:chief source of See also:interest in the fragmentary remains of See also:Naevius, See also:Ennius, Pacuvius, Accius and See also:Lucilius is their relation to the See also:national and moral spirit of the age in which they were written. Plautus, though, like Terence, he takes the first See also:sketch of his plots, scenes and characters, from the See also:Attic See also:stage, is yet a true representative of his time, a genuine See also:Italian, See also:writing before the genius of Italy had learned the restraints of Greek art. The whole aim of Terence was to See also:present a faithful copy of the life, See also:manners, modes of thought and expression which had been drawn from reality a See also:century before his time by the writers of the New See also:Comedy of See also:Athens. The nearest parallel to his literary position may he found in the aim which See also:Virgil puts before himself in his See also:Bucolics. He does not seek in that poem to draw Italian peasants from the life, but to bring back the shepherds of See also:Theocritus on Italian scenes. Yet the result obtained by Virgil is different. The See also:charm of his pastorals is the Italian sentiment which pervades them. His shepherds are not the shepherds of Theocritus, nor are they in any sense true to life. The extraordinary result obtained by Terence is that, while he has left no trace in any of his comedies of one sketching from the life by which he was surrounded, there is perhaps no more truthful, natural and delicate delineator of human nature, in its See also:ordinary and more level moods, within the whole range of classical literature. His permanent position in literature is due, no doubt, to the art and genius of Menander, whose creations he has perpetuated, as a See also:fine engraver may perpetuate the spirit of a great painter whose works have perished. But no See also:mere copyist or verbal translator could have attained that result. Though without claims to creative originality, Terence must have had not only See also:critical genius, to enable him fully to appreciate and identify himself with his originals, but See also:artistic genius of a high and pure type. The importance of his position in Roman literature consists in this, that he was the first writer who set before him-self a high ideal of artistic perfection, and was the first to realize that perfection in See also:style, See also:form, and consistency of conception and See also:execution. Living in the See also:interval between Ennius and Lucilius, whose original force and genius survive only in rudeand inartistic fragments, he produced six plays, which have not only reached our time in the form in which they were given to the See also:world, but have been read in the most critical and exacting literary epochs, and still may be read without any feeling of the need of making See also:allowance for the rudeness of a new and undeveloped art. While his great See also:gift to Roman literature is that he first made it artistic, that he imparted to " See also:rude See also:Latium " the sense of elegance, consistency and moderation, his gift to the world is that through him it possesses a living See also:image of the Greek society in the 3rd century B.C., presented in the purest Latin See also:idiom. Yet Terence had no See also:affinity by birth either with the Greek See also:race or with the See also:people of Latium. He was more distinctly a foreigner than any of the great classical writers of Rome. He lived at the See also:meeting-point of three distinct civilizations--the mature, or rather decaying, See also:civilization of See also:Greece, of which Athens was still the centre; that of Carthage, which was so soon to pass away and leave scarcely any vestige of itself; and the nascent civilization of Italy, in which all other modes were soon to be absorbed. Terence was by birth an See also:African, and was thus perhaps a fitter See also:medium of connexion between the genius of Greece and that of Italy than if he had been a pure Greek or a pure Italian; just as in See also:modern times the Jewish type of genius is sometimes found more detached from national peculiarities, and thus more capable of reproducing a See also:cosmopolitan type of See also:character than the genius of men belonging to other races. The prologues to Terence's plays are of high interest. Their See also:tone is for the most See also:part apologetic, and indicates a great sensitiveness to See also:criticism. He constantly speaks of the rnalevolence and detraction of an older poet, whose name is. said to have been Luscius Lavinius or Lanuvinus. The chief See also:charge which his detractor brings against him is that of contaminatio, the combining in one play of scenes out of different Greek plays. Terence justifies this practice by that of the older poets, Naevius, Plautus, Ennius, whose careless freedom he follows in preference to the " obscura diligentia " of his detractor. He recriminates upon his adversary as one who, by his close adherence to his original, had turned See also:good Greek plays into bad Latin ones. He clears himself of the charge of plagiarizing from Plautus and Naevius. In another See also:prologue he contrasts his own treatment of his subjects with the sensational extravagance of others. He meets the charge of receiving assistance in the See also:composition of his plays by claiming as a great See also:honour the favour which he enjoyed with those who were the favourites of the Roman people. But the See also:gossip, not discouraged by Terence, lived and throve; it crops up in See also:Cicero and See also:Quintilian, and the ascription of the plays to Scipio had the honour to be accepted by See also:Montaigne and rejected by See also:Diderot. We learn from these prologues that the best Roman literature was ceasing to be popular, and had come to rely on the patronage of the great. A consequence of this See also:change of circumstances was that comedy was no longer national in character and sentiment, but had become imitative and artistic. The life which Terence represents is that of the well-to-do See also:citizen class whose interests are See also:commonplace, but whose modes of thought and speech are refined, humane and intelligent. His characters are finely delineated and discriminated rather than, like those of Plautus, boldly conceived. Delicate See also:irony and pointed See also:epigram take the See also:place of broad See also:humour. Love, in the form of pathetic sentiment rather than of irregular See also:passion, is the chief motive of his pieces. His great characteristics are humanity and urbanity, and to this may be attributed the attraction which he had for the two chief representatives of these qualities in Roman literature—Cicero and See also:Horace. Terence's pre-eminence in art was recognized in the Augustan age; and Horace expresses this See also:opinion, though not as his own, in these words (Epistles II. i. 59):- " Vincere Caecilius gravitate, Terentius arte." The art of his comedies consists in the clearness and simplicity with which the situation is presented and See also:developed, and in the consistency and moderation with which his various characters play their parts. But his greatest attraction to both See also:ancient and modern writers has been the purity and charm of his style. He makes no claim to the creative exuberance of Plautus, but he is entirely free from his extravagance and mannerisms. The superiority of his style over that of Lucilius, who wrote his satires a See also:generation later, is immeasurable. The best See also:judges and the greatest masters of style in the best period of Roman literature were his chief admirers in ancient times. Cicero frequently reproduces his expressions, applies passages in his plays to his own circumstances, and refers to his personages as typical representations of character.' See also:Julius See also:Caesar's lines en Terence, the " dimidiatus Menander," while they complain of lack of comic See also:power, characterize him as " See also:puri sermonis amator." Horace, so depreciatory in See also:general of the older literature, shows his appreciation of Terence by the frequent See also:reproduction in his Satires and Odes of his See also:language and his See also:philosophy of life. Quintilian applies to his writings the word elegantissima. His works were studied and learned by See also:heart by the great Latin writers of the See also:Renaissance, such as See also:Erasmus and See also:Melanchthon; and See also:Casaubon, in his anxiety that his son should write a pure Latin style, inculcates on him the See also:constant study of Terence. Montaigne2 applies to him the phrase of Horace: " Liquidus puroque simillimus amni." He speaks of " his fine expression, elegancy and quaintness, " and adds, " he does so possess the soul with his graces that we forget those of his See also:fable." Sainte-Beuve devotes to him two papers of delicate and admiring criticism. He quotes See also:Fenelon and See also:Addison, " deux esprits polis et doux, de la meme famille litteraire," as expressing their admiration for the inimitable beauty and naturalness of one of his scenes. Fenelon is said to have preferred him even to See also:Moliere. Sainte-Beuve calls Terence the See also:bond of See also:union between Roman urbanity and the Atticism of the Greeks, and adds that it was in the 17th century, when See also:French literature was most truly Attic, that he was most appreciated. M. Joubert3 applies to him the words, " Le miel attique est sur ses levres; on croirait aisement qu'il naquit sur le wont Hymette." The chief See also:manuscript of Terence is the famous Codex Bembinus, of the 4th or 5th century, in the Vatican. Another Vatican MS. of the loth century contains illustrations based on an old tradition. Each play has an See also:argument in See also:metre by Sulpicius See also:Apollinaris (2nd century of our era). We have also a valuable commentary (newly edited by P. Wessner) on five of the plays, derived chiefly from Euanthius and Donatus (both of the 4th century), and another of less importance by one Eugraphius. The editio princeps was published at See also:Strassburg in 1470. The most famous edition is that of See also:Bentley, published at See also:Cambridge in 1726. At present the best texts are those by K. Dziatzko (See also:Leipzig, 1884), and A. See also:Fleckeisen (Teubner, 2nd ed., 1898). Each of the plays has recently been edited with See also:English notes. For a conspectus of Terentian studies see See also:Teuffel-See also:Schwabe-Warr, See also:History of Roman Literature, and Schanz's Geschichte der romischen Litteratur (3rd ed., 1907). Among critical estimates of Terence may be mentioned Sainte-Beuve's in Nouveaux lundis (3rd and loth of See also:August 1863), and See also:Mommsen's in the History of Rome, See also:book iv., See also:chapter xiii. \Ioliere made large use of the Phormio in See also:Les Fourberies de sea See also:pin, and the subject of l'Ecole See also:des See also:maris is taken from the Adelphoe. Terence was translated into English See also:verse by See also:George See also:Colman (1765). (W. Y. S.; E. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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