ABSTRACT

To the Renaissance Roman comedy seemed a hilarious combination of realism with ingenuity of story and style. Thus the essay De Carminibus Comicis prefaced to the 1558 (Basic) edition 1 of Plautus calls Comedy a versified exposition, 'a complete poem intricate in action or knit together by its characters, concerning a fictitious plot, about things, incidents and affairs taken from common life and resembling everyday occurrences.' It discusses the rise of comedy from rude realistic beginnings and asserts that in language and metrical licence it attempted to approximate to real speech. 'It chooses these rhythms as being apt and fitting, and agreeing closely with the sounds of the human voice. What nature produces with the voice should be included in our rhetoric.'