The Dramatic Values in Plautus | Page 5

Cas[33] implies much too favorable an estimate of Plautus' artistic worth, as the defects cited are represented as something isolated and remarkable, whereas they are characteristic of Plautine comedy. Langen still displays clear-headed judgment when he says of the Miles[34]: "Wenn die Farben so stark aufgetragen werden, hort jede Feinhet der Charakterzeichnung auf und bereinem Dichter, der sich dies gestattet, darf man bezuglich der Charakterschilderungen nicht zu viele Anspruche machen. Es ist sehr wahrscheinlich dass Plautus mit Rucksicht auf den Geschmack eines Publikums die Zuge des Originals sehr vergrobert hat."
But Langen fails to follow this splendid lead. Without taking advantage of the license that he himself offers the poet, he severely condemns[35], the scene in which Periplecomenus shouts out to Philocomasium so loudly that the soldier's household could not conceivably help hearing, whereas he is supposed to be conveying secret information.[36] If carried out in a broadly farcical spirit, the scene becomes potentially amusing.
[Sidenote: Mommsen] Mommsen in his History[37], in the course of an interesting discussion on palliatae and their Greek originals, has a far saner point of view. He says of the authors of New Comedy, "They wrote not like Eupolis and Aristophanes for a great nation; but rather for a cultivated society which spent its time ... in guessing riddles and playing at charades.... Even in the dim Latin copy, through which we chiefly know it, the grace of the original is not wholly obliterated. persons and incidents seem capriciously or carelessly shuffled as in a game of cards; in the original a picture from life, it became in the reproduction a caricature."
Naturally we are not concerned with any consideration of the value of his estimate of New Comedy. Assuredly he rates it too highly, as later investigations have indicated.[38] But here for the first time we are able to quote a well-balanced appreciation of some essential features of Plautine drama: a "capricious shuffling of incidents" and "caricature." In fact it will be our endeavor to show that the palliata was not a true art form, but merely an outer shell or mold into which Plautus poured his stock of witticisms.
[Sidenote: Korting] Still more trenchant is the conclusion of Korting in his Geschichte des griechischen und r?mischen Theaters (P. 218 ff.): "Die neue attische Kom?die und folglich auch ihr Abklatsch, die romische Palliata, war nicht ein Lustspiel im h?chsten, im sittlichen Sinne des Wortes, sondern ein blosses Unterhaltungsdrama. Am��sieren wollten die Kom?diendichter, nichts weiter. Jedes h?here Streben lag ihnen fern. Wohl spickten sie ihre Lustspiele mit moralischen Sentenzen.... Aber die sch?nen Sentenzen sind eben nur Zierat, sind nur Verbramung einer in ihrem Kerne und Wesen durch und durch unsittlichen Dichtung ... Mit der Wahrscheinlichkeit der Handlung wird es sehr leicht genommen: die seltsamsten Zuf?lle werden als so ziemlich selbstverst?ndliche M?glichkeiten hingestellt ... Es ginge das noch an, wenn wir in eine phantastische M?rchenwelt gef��hrt werden, in welcher am Ende auch das Wunderbarste m?glich ist, aber nein! es wird uns zugemutet, ��berzeugt zu sein, dass alles mit nat��rlichen Dingen zugehe.
"Alles in allem genommen, ist an dieser Kom?die, abgesehen von ihrer formal musterhaften Technik, herzlich wenig zu bewundern.... An Zweideutigkeiten, Obsc?nit?ten, Schimpfscenen ist ��berfluss vorhanden."
With admirable clarity of vision, Korting has spied the vital spot and illuminated it with the word "Unterhaltungsdrama." That amusement was the sole aim of the comic poets we firmly believe. But if this was so, why arraign them on the charge of trying to convince us that everything is happening in a perfectly natural manner? The outer form to be sure is that of everyday life, but this is no proof that the poets demanded of their audiences a belief in the verisimilitude of the events depicted. Can we have no fantastic fairyland without some outlandish accompaniment such as a chorus garbed as birds or frogs? But we reserve fuller discussion of this point until later. We might suggest an interesting comparison to the nonsense verse of W. S. Gilbert, which represents the most shocking ideas in a style even nonchalantly matter-of-fact. Does Gilbert by any chance actually wish us to believe that "Gentle Alice Brown," in the poem of the same name, really assisted in "cutting up a little lad"?
Korting regains his usual clear-headedness in pronouncing 'that there is little in the technique of palliatae to excite our admiration.' Again we insist (to borrow the jargon of the modern dramatic critic) it was but a "vehicle" for popular amusement.
[Sidenote: Schlegel] Wilhelm Schlegel, in his History of the Drama[39] has the point of view of the dramatic critic, rather than the professional scholar; while expressing a measure of admiration for the significance of Plautus in literature, he is impelled to say: "The bold, coarse style of Plautus and his famous jokes, savour of his familiarity with the vulgar ... mostly inclines to