fabula palliata

▪ Roman drama

plural  fabulae palliatae  

      any of the Roman comedies that were translations or adaptations of Greek New Comedy. The name derives from the pallium, the Latin (Latin literature) name for the himation (a Greek cloak), and means roughly “play in Greek dress.” All surviving Roman comedies written by Plautus and Terence belong to this genre.

      The comedies retained the Greek stock characters and conventionalized plots of romantic intrigue as a framework to the satire of everyday contemporary life. The fabula palliata became something more than mere translation in the works of Plautus, who introduced Roman manners and customs, Italian place-names, and Latin puns into the Greek form, writing in a style that is characterized by boisterous humour, nimbleness and suppleness of diction, and high spirits. Plautus sometimes turned scenes of iambic dialogue in his Greek originals into musical scenes composed in various metres. Terence, though closer in spirit to his Greek originals, often combined materials from two different plays into one (contaminatio). His style is graceful and correct, more polished but less lively than that of Plautus, and his characters are well delineated. Statius Caecilius, famed for his emotional power and well-constructed plots, and Sextus Turpilius, who kept close to Greek models, are other prominent representatives. By the mid-2nd century BC, the fabula palliata had been replaced by the fabula togata (from the Roman toga, “play in Roman dress”), but no complete work survives of this naturalized Roman comedy. It is through the fabulae palliatae of Plautus and Terence that Greek New Comedy was preserved and influenced succeeding generations of comedy in Europe from the Renaissance on.

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