SOURCE: "Terence and His Influence" in Terence, Twayne Publishers, 1985, pp. 120-30.

In the following excerpt, Forehand first summarizes his conclusions about the style and themes of Terence's plays, then discusses Terence's influence on later drama.

Terence has left us six plays upon which to base our evaluation of him. If, as the tradition affirms, this is the total output of his short life, we are in a position to survey his work without the worrisome question of how we would modify our opinions if we had more complete evidence. His reputation as a comic dramatist has withstood the test of critical opinion through the centuries; his theatrical soundness is evidenced by the influence he has had on playwrights since the Middle Ages, who turned to him for the most practical of reasons, that he provided characters, themes, and comic formulae useful for reaching their own audiences .…

Since antiquity...