The purpose of this thesis is to give a clear picture of the role of the slaves in Terence's plays. Roman Comedy presents us, in general, with a world whose hero is the slave. He provides much of the action and the humour of the play. So the slave as a character is indispensable. Though Terence and Pleutus differ in aim and thought, a comparison between them does help us to form an idea about Terence's displaying of his characters. We speak in the first chapter about the slaves' status in real life and comedy. The chapter ends by pointing out the reason why Roman comedians have depicted the character of the slave in such a way as we find in their writings. The function of the slave in Roman comedy is two-fold: (1) to manege the intrigue; (2) to provide humour. In Chapter II, accordingly, we show how Terence's "servi callidi" manage the intrigue and explain their methods of cunning and deception and how far Terence's slaves are individuals. The faithfulness of the slave in comedy towards the different members of the family strikes us. Some are devoted to the young masters, others to the old. We speak about these two types in Chapter III. Chapter IV concerns the comic situations. In it we explain the purpose of humour in comedy and examine briefly the different theories of laughter and show how Terence makes his slave provide the humour in the light of these theories end whether the laughter aroused by Terence's slave is an aim or an end in itself. We mention in Chapter V the other slaves in Terence who do not play major roles as "servi callidi". We explain Terence's technique in introducing such characters and show their place and value in the drama. Is Terence, in fact, an original dramatist? In Chapter VI we conclude our subject by summarising the chief features of Terence's slaves and the ways in which our dramatist differs from his originals and his predecessors in portraying his characters.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:640143 |
| Date | January 1954 |
| Creators | Abuzeid, Ahmed |
| Publisher | University of Edinburgh |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/1842/16384 |
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