SOURCE: A foreword to The Comedies of Terence, edited by Robert Graves, Aldine Publishing Company, 1962, pp. ix-xiv.

A highly versatile man of letters, Graves was an English poet, novelist, translator, and critic. He was first associated with the Georgian war poets during World War I, but afterward followed a more nontraditional yet highly ordered line, being influenced during the 1920s and 1930s by the American poet Laura Riding. Working outside the literary fashions of his day, Graves established a reputation which rests largely on his verbal precision and strong individuality as a poet. He is also considered a great prose stylist, and is well known for such historical novels as I, Claudius (1934) and Wife to Mr Milton (1943). In the excerpt below, he briefly introduces the plays of Terence, pointing out that they call attention to some of the less positive aspects of classical civilization.

Terence, like Plautus, wrote...