Editing Plautus (section)

==Influence==
Intellectual and academic critics have often judged Plautus's work as crude; yet his influence on later literature is impressive—especially on two literary giants, Shakespeare and Molière.

Playwrights throughout history have looked to Plautus for character, plot, humor, and other elements of comedy. His influence ranges from similarities in idea to full literal translations woven into plays. The playwright's apparent familiarity with the absurdity of humanity and both the comedy and tragedy that stem from this absurdity have inspired succeeding playwrights centuries after his death. The most famous of these successors is Shakespeare—Plautus had a major influence on his early comedies.

===The Middle Ages and early Renaissance===
Plautus was apparently read in the 9th century. His form was too complex to be fully understood, however, and, as indicated by the ''[[Terentius et delusor]]'', it was unknown at the time if Plautus was writing in prose or verse.

W. B. Sedgwick has provided a record of the ''Amphitruo'', perennially one of Plautus' most famous works. It was the most popular Plautine play in the Middle Ages, and publicly performed at the Renaissance; it was the first Plautine play to be translated into English.

The influence of Plautus's plays was felt in the early 16th century. Limited records suggest that the first known university production of Plautus in England was of ''Miles Gloriosus'' at Oxford in 1522–3. The ''magnum jornale'' of Queens College contains a reference to a ''comoedia Plauti'' in either 1522 or 1523. This fits directly with comments made in the poems of Leland about the date of the production. The next production of ''Miles Gloriosus'' that is known from limited records was given by the Westminster School in 1564.<ref>L. Bradner. "The First Cambridge Production of Miles Gloriosus." ''Modern Language Notes'', 70.6 (1955), pp. 400–403.</ref> Other records also tell us about performances of the ''Menaechmi''. From our knowledge, performances were given in the house of Cardinal Wolsey by boys of St. Paul's School as early as 1527.<ref>H. W. Cole. "The Influence of Plautus and Terence Upon the Stonyhurst Pageants". ''Modern Language Notes'' 38 (1923) 393–399.</ref>

===Shakespeare===
Shakespeare borrowed from Plautus as Plautus borrowed from his Greek models. According to C. L. Barber, "Shakespeare feeds Elizabethan life into the mill of Roman farce, life realized with his distinctively generous creativity, very different from Plautus' tough, narrow, resinous genius".<ref>C.L. Barber, "Shakespearian Comedy in the Comedy of Errors", ''College English'' 25.7 (1964), p. 493.</ref>

The Plautine and Shakespearean plays that most parallel each other are, respectively, the ''Menaechmi'' and ''[[The Comedy of Errors]]''. According to Marples, Shakespeare drew directly from Plautus "parallels in plot, in incident, and in character",<ref>M. Marples, "Plautus", ''Greece & Rome'' 8.22 (1938), p. 2.</ref> and was undeniably influenced by the classical playwright's work. H. A. Watt stresses the importance of recognizing the fact that the "two plays were written under conditions entirely different and served audiences as remote as the poles".<ref name="Watt">H. A. Watt. "Plautus and Shakespeare: Further Comments on Menaechmi and The Comedy of Errors", ''The Classical Journal'' 20 (1925), pp. 401–407.</ref>

The differences between the ''Menaechmi'' and ''The Comedy of Errors'' are clear. In the ''Menaechmi'', Plautus uses only one set of twins—twin brothers. Shakespeare, on the other hand, uses two sets of twins, which, according to William Connolly, "dilutes the force of [Shakespeare's] situations".<ref name="Watt"/> One suggestion is that Shakespeare got this idea from Plautus' ''Amphitruo'', in which both twin masters and twin slaves appear.

It can be noted that the doubling is a stock situation of Elizabethan comedy. On the fusion between Elizabethan and Plautine techniques, T. W. Baldwin writes: "[...] ''Errors'' does not have the miniature unity of ''Menaechmi,'' which is characteristic of classic structure for comedy".<ref>T.W. Baldwin. ''On the Compositional Genetics of The Comedy of Errors''. (Urbana 1965), pp. 200–209.</ref> Baldwin notes that Shakespeare covers a much greater area in the structure of the play than Plautus does. Shakespeare was writing for an audience whose minds weren't restricted to house and home, but looked toward the greater world beyond and the role that they might play in that world.

Another difference between the audiences of Shakespeare and Plautus is that Shakespeare's audience was Christian. At the end of ''Errors'', the world of the play is returned to normal when a Christian abbess interferes with the feuding. ''Menaechmi'', on the other hand, "is almost completely lacking in a supernatural dimension".<ref>N. Rudd. ''The Classical Tradition in Operation''. (Toronto 1994), pp. 32–60.</ref> A character in Plautus' play would never blame an inconvenient situation on witchcraft—something that is quite common in Shakespeare.

The relationship between a master and a clever servant is also a common element in Elizabethan comedy. Shakespeare often includes foils for his characters to have one set off the other. In Elizabethan romantic comedy, it is common for the plays to end with multiple marriages and couplings of pairs. This is something that is not seen in Plautine comedy. In the ''Comedy of Errors'', Aegeon and Aemilia are separated, Antipholus and Adriana are at odds, and Antipholus and Luciana have not yet met. At the end, all the couples are happily together. By writing his comedies in a combination of Elizabethan and Plautine styles, Shakespeare helps to create his own brand of comedy, one that uses both styles.<ref name="Watt"/>

Also, Shakespeare uses the same kind of opening monologue so common in Plautus' plays. He even uses a "villain" in ''The Comedy of Errors'' of the same type as the one in ''Menaechmi'', switching the character from a doctor to a teacher but keeping the character a shrewd, educated man.<ref name="Watt"/> Watt also notes that some of these elements appear in many of his works, such as ''Twelfth Night'' or ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'', and had a deep impact on Shakespeare's writing.<ref name="Watt"/>

Later playwrights also borrowed Plautus' stock characters. One of the most important echoes of Plautus is the stock character of the parasite. The best example of this is [[Falstaff]], Shakespeare's portly and cowardly knight. As J. W. Draper notes, the gluttonous Falstaff shares many characteristics with a parasite such as Artotrogus from ''Miles Gloriosus''. Both characters seem fixated on food and where their next meal is coming from. But they also rely on flattery in order to gain these gifts, and both characters are willing to bury their patrons in empty praise.<ref name="Draper">J. W. Draper. "Falstaff and the Plautine Parasite", ''The Classical Journal'' 33 (1938), pp. 390–401.</ref> Draper notes that Falstaff is also something of a boastful military man, but says: "Falstaff is so complex a character that he may well be, in effect, a combination of interlocking types".<ref name="Draper"/>

As well as appearing in Shakespearean comedy, the Plautine parasite appears in one of the first English comedies. In ''[[Ralph Roister Doister]]'', the character of Matthew Merrygreeke follows in the tradition of both Plautine parasite and Plautine slave, as he both searches and grovels for food and also attempts to achieve his master's desires.<ref name="Draper"/> Indeed, the play itself is often seen as borrowing heavily from or even being based on the Plautine comedy ''Miles Gloriosus''.<ref>H. W. Cole. "The Influence of Plautus and Terence Upon the Stonyhurst Pageants", ''Modern Language Notes'' 38 (1923), pp. 393–399.</ref>

H. W. Cole discusses the influence of Plautus and [[Terence]] on the Stonyhurst Pageants. The Stonyhurst Pageants are manuscripts of Old Testament plays that were probably composed after 1609 in Lancashire. Cole focuses on Plautus' influence on the particular Pageant of Naaman. The playwright of this pageant breaks away from the traditional style of religious medieval drama and relies heavily on the works of Plautus. Overall, the playwright cross-references eighteen of the twenty surviving plays of Plautus and five of the six extant plays by Terence. It is clear that the author of the Stonyhurst Pageant of Naaman had a great knowledge of Plautus and was significantly influenced by this.<ref>H. W. Cole. "The Influence of Plautus and Terrence Upon the Stonyhurst Pageants", ''Modern Language Notes'' 38.7 (1923), pp. 393–399.</ref>

There is evidence of Plautine imitation in Edwardes' ''Damon and Pythias'' and [[Thomas Heywood|Heywood's]] ''Silver Age'' as well as in Shakespeare's ''Errors''. Heywood sometimes translated whole passages of Plautus. By being translated as well as imitated, Plautus was a major influence on comedy of the Elizabethan era.
In terms of plot, or perhaps more accurately plot device, Plautus served as a source of inspiration and also provided the possibility of adaptation for later playwrights. The many deceits that Plautus layered his plays with, giving the audience the feeling of a genre bordering on farce, appear in much of the comedy written by Shakespeare and [[Molière]]. For instance, the clever slave has important roles in both ''L'Avare'' and ''L'Etourdi'', two plays by Molière, and in both drives the plot and creates the ruse just like Palaestrio in ''Miles Gloriosus.''<ref>S. V. Cole. "Plautus Up-to-Date", ''The Classical Journal'' 16 (1921), pp. 399–409.</ref> These similar characters set up the same kind of deceptions in which many of Plautus' plays find their driving force, which is not a simple coincidence.

===Later periods===
20th century musicals based on Plautus include ''[[A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum]]'' ([[Larry Gelbart]] and [[Burt Shevelove]], book, [[Stephen Sondheim]], music and lyrics).

[[Roman Laughter|''Roman Laughter: The Comedy of Plautus'']], a 1968 book by [[Erich Segal]], is a scholarly study of Plautus' work.

The British TV [[sitcom]] ''[[Up Pompeii!]]'' uses situations and stock characters from Plautus's plays.  In the first series [[Willie Rushton]] plays Plautus who pops up on occasion to provide comic comments on what is going on in the episode.