ter 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 le 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 le 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 hopelessly crippled and that
his evident intentions and effects are hopelessly lost unless interpreted
in this spirit: then we relegate Plautine drama to a low plane of broad
farce, where verisimilitude to life becomes wholly unnecessary because
undesirable; where the canons of dramatic art become inoperative; where,
contrary to what Koerting says, we are not asked to believe that
"everything is happening in a perf