Description
Book SynopsisThe Girl from Andros was the first play of the brilliant but short-lived Roman comic playwright Terence and shows him as already a master dramatist. It is based on two plays (both now lost) by the Greek playwright Menander and was first put on in Rome in 166 BCE. The main focus of interest is the plotting and counter-plotting of a devious master and his equally devious slave, but there are also two boys both in danger of losing the girls they love, and a girl in search of the family from which she has long been separated – typical ingredients of a Latin comedy.
The play is a theatrical
tour de force with many comic highlights and is enlivened by a succession of metatheatrical remarks; but it also provokes thought on various aspects of human relationships in a male-dominated, slave-owning society that jealously guards its rights of citizenship. It was the first ancient Latin comedy to be performed in the Renaissance and influenced a number of plays in succeeding centuries, most notably Richard Steele’s
The Conscious Lovers (1722); it was also the inspiration for Thornton Wilder’s novel
The Woman of Andros (1930). This volume includes the first detailed commentary on the play in any language for nearly sixty years.
Trade ReviewReviews ‘Dr Brown's book fills a real need, with a right-to-the-point introduction and commentary. His translation stays close to the Latin, but that does not keep it from being brilliant by moments'.
Professor Benjamin Victor, University of Montreal
'I am very happy to say that this Andria is an exemplary edition, invaluable for scholars, students and the Latin-inclined general reader alike. A fine work for us to remember Peter by.'
Keith Maclennan,
Classics for All'In preparing this last of his many contributions to the study of Terence, Brown was thus able to draw upon the full range of his knowledge, experience, and interests, and the result has all the virtues we might expect of him: clear and accurate discussion of the Latin text, a keen eye for details and nuances of interpretation, scrupulously evenhanded reporting and cogent analysis of past scholarly views, and a precise English rendering of the Latin original.'
Sander Goldberg,
Bryn Mawr Classical ReviewTable of ContentsIntroduction
Text and Translation
Commentary
Bibliography
Index
