Abstract

The first large discoveries of Menander seem to have given courage to a school of critics who thought Terence a crude and bungling adapter; their attitude is typified by the learned article about him written for Pauly-Wissowaby Günther Jachmann. This exaggeration provoked a counter-exaggeration; a school arose which thought Terence a great original poet, treating his originals as Shakespeare did Plutarch; this was the view of Norwood in England, Croce and various followers in Italy, Erich Reitzenstein in Germany. Then truth began to emerge between the extremes, notably in the exact and intelligent study of Terence's individuality which Hans Haffter published in 1953; in 1968 Walter Ludwig modified the picture, claiming somewhat less.