Menander [key], 342?–291? b.c., Greek poet, the most famous writer of New Comedy. He wrote ingenious plays using the love plot as his theme; his style is elegant and elaborate and his characters are highly developed. Although original texts of his plays only came to light beginning in 1906, many fragments of his plays survive; The Curmudgeon, discovered in Cairo in 1957, is Menander's only complete play now extant (tr. by Gilbert Highet, 1959). Seven of his plays were adapted by Plautus and Terence.
See studies by T. B. L. Webster (1960, 1974, 1975), A. W. Gomme and F. H. Sandbach (1973).
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