SOURCE: Willam S. Anderson, in Barbarian Play: Plautus ' Roman Comedy, University of Toronto Press, 1993, 179 p.

In the following two chapters from his book-length analysis of Plautus's work, Anderson first examines the way in which Plautus subverts the conventional love plot in order to transform Greek romantic comedy into Roman comedy. Next, Anderson traces the development of the concept of "heroic badness "—the immoral tendencies shared by humanity and acted on by Plautus's "heroic rogues "—throughout Plautus's comedies.

Plautus' Plotting: the Lover Upstaged

When classical scholars began to develop an interest in New Comedy, then to pursue that interest with fervour under the stimulus of the new papyrus finds of this century, they themselves were living in a period of sentimentality. Tastes in the Anglo-American cultures agreed with the romantic ideals of Victorian society, and parallel romanticism affected the judgment of other European classicists. Thus, it is common...