THE DRAMATIC VALUES IN PLAUTUS

frank and vivid burlesque not even the most stolidly Teutonic of
humorless critics ever thought of demanding a "picture of life."
But with the abandonment of the purpose of political propagapda,
the consequent disappearance of the chorus with its burlesque
trappings (largely through motives of state economy) , and the
establishment in the New Comedy of a type of dramatic machinery
that had a specious outer shell of reflection of characters and events
in daily life, the critics instantly seem to demand the standard of
dramatic technique of Aristotle and Freytag and condemn all
departures from this standard. In reality, we believe that the
kinship of Plautus with Aristophanes is much closer than has usually
been realized.
Is, then, the change from Old to New Comedy as great as has
been represented? Does not the change consist rather in the outer
form and in the ideas expounded than in the spirit of the histrionism
and mimicry ? And must not the vigor, from what we have
seen, have been intensified in Plautus? LeGrand alone seems to
have caught the essence of this :109 "Que dire de la mimique ?
D' apres les indications contenues dans Ie texte meme des comedies,
d' apres les commentaires-notamment ceux de Donat, d'apres les
monuments figures-en particulier les images des manuscrits, elle
devait etre en general tres vive, souvent trop vive pour Ie gout des
modernes. Et puis, ils s'addressaient a des spectateurs
meridionaux, coutumiers dans la vie quotidienne d'une gesticulation
plus animee que la notre." And this is said as a combined
estimate of New Comedy and palliatae.
We are now prepared to advance a definite thesis, that shall
gather up the random threads of argument and suggestion scattered
through the foregoing pages and shall, we hope, provide a
conclusive and final answer to both of our original questions. If
we can establish : that our author's sole aim was to feed the popular
hunger for amusement ; that, while after leaving much of his Greek
originals practically untouched, he considered them in effect but a
medium for the provocation of laughter, but a vessel into which to
pour a highly seasoned brew of fun ; that to this end his actors went
before the public, potentially speaking slap-stick in hand, equipped
by nature with liveliness of grimace and gesture and prepared to
act with verve, unction and an abandon of dash and vigor that
would produce a riot of merriment ; that his dramatic machinery is
l09Daos, p. 617 .
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