Roman Drama

REVIEWS 235 has given her. Of the definition of her northness in Ross. Of Ontario in -Knister. Of her adventurousness and sensibility in Birney. The intellectual stypticity and passion of A. J. M. Smith. By the latter's book, this process will be accelerated. In these latter poets, Canada has liberation. One word more. Canada's "modern" poets did not. wait for the Statute of Westminster, to be liberated. Much nonsense has been written, and is being written, about the drag of "colonialism" on Canadian literature; about the danger of Canadian literature, which is the spirit of the nation, being smothered between the British Commonwealth of Nations and the United States of America. The last and best sections of Mr Smith's book are sufficient rebuttal. They were largely written when the world was in danger of being lost. • ROMAN DRAMA"' GILBERT NoRwooo Classical studies have long been facing unprosperous days; and the heavy blows dealt of late years at all noble and ancient splendours have not spared the Graeco-Roman bases of our civilization and culture. But ever since this unpopulari~y began, and more vigorously sti11 during the present onslaught, teachers of Greek and Latin have offered an unremitting defence. Among other devices, there has been a. notable increase in translations of the ancient literature. Till recently little more than a department belles lettre.r, these are now produced and recommended as a substantial element in school and university work, fulfilling two purposes. Some teachers use them as part of Greek or Latin courses, substituted for the originals. Others prescribe them for students of English literature who, having little knowledge or none of the ancient languages, need these works for comparative study. The soundness of the former plan is still debated. ·But that the latter is excellent cannot be gainsaid, if certain obvious conditions are fulfilled. First, translations of poetry must be employed with the utmost wariness. Second, such versions must show good scholarship, literary skill and a firm refusal to "popularize." If *The Complete Roman Drama: All the Extant Comedies of Ploutus and Terence, and the Tragedies of Seneca, in a J/'ariety of Translations) edited, and with an introduction, by GEORGE E. DucKWORTH. (2 vols.) New York, Random House [Toronto, Macmillanl, 1942, $8.00. , 236 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY ancient literature is to "compete" with modern by a piteous attempt at contemporary manner, defeat is both inevitable and· deserved. Nearly all products of the new policy meet the second condition; and in this respect Professor Duckworth's volumes deserve emphatic praise. The first condi'tion does not really apply to them, for little of Seneca, practically nothing in Plautus or Terence, is poetry in any sense but the .technical. The comedies are capable of being scanned, usually with a struggle; but only one line in fifty sounds like verse. It is strange that-except in the very late ~erolus­ no ancient dramatist, despite the example of mime-wri,ters such as Sophron, ever saw that the increasing realism of both treatment and vocabulary, together with a growing laxity of versification, pointed to the use of prose. Few Latin authors, if any, could have been chosen who are so attractive as these three to students of comparative literature; for, whatever their excellence as playwrights, they are vastly important in the history of letters. Seneca has exercised a prodigious influence . Shakespeare composed an admirable essay in the Senecan manner when he put into the player's mouth that splendid piece of bombast about Fortune and the mobled queen. In the same play he mentions Seneca and Plautus by name-the only dramatists whom he thus honours. His Comedy of Errors closely follows ' Plautus, Menaechmi; indeed, the_ stage of Italy, France and England owes much to both Plautus and Terence. The former,s Amphitruo has engendered the most numerous progeny: M. Giraudou .x names his own version Amphitryon 38, and I cannot dispute his arithmetic. Dryden wrote one of the thirty-eight. Moliere,s splendid work has given two words to the French language: hi~ line, "le veritable Amphltryon est PAmphitryon Oll ron dtne," has made the name a playful word for "host,; and his character Sosie has...