The Growth of English Drama

s already indicated, Interludes were naturally deficient in this respect. Nor were the Moralities and Bible Miracles much better: their length and comprehensive themes were against them. There wer

to supply it, or the study of new models outside the field of English drama. The man

es of her lover Calisto and the much more crafty, indeed almost successful, wiles of the procuress, Celestine. True, the play is dull enough. But if dramatists had been awake to their defects, the value of the new importation from a foreign literature would have been noticed. The years passed, however, without producing imitators, until some time in the years between 1544 and 1551 a Latin scholar, reading the plays of Plautus, decided to write a comed

m further than ever from success. Still deeper complexities appear with Act IV, for now arrives, with greetings from Gawin Goodluck, long betrothed to Dame Custance, a certain sea-captain, who, misled by Ralph's confident assurance, misunderstands the relations between the Dame and him, suspects disloyalty, and changes from friendliness to cold aloofness. This, by vexing the lady, brings disaster upon Ralph, whose bold attempt, on the suggestion of Me

d themselves to act as Ralph's messengers, her gathering vexation at Ralph's tiresome wooing, her genuine alarm when she sees that his boastful words are accepted by the sea-captain as truth-these are sentiments and emotions copied from a healthy and worthy model. Matthew Merrygreek, an unmistakable 'Vice' ever at Ralph's elbow, is of all Vices the shrewdest striker of laughter out of a block of stupidity: it is from his ingenious brain that almost every absurd scene is evolved for the ridiculing of Ralph. Thoroughly human, and quite assertive, are the lower characters, the maid-servants and men-servants, Madge Mumblecrust, Tibet Talkapace, Truepenny, Dobinet Doughty and the rest. Need it be added that the battl

ufficient to illustrate

1

t now of Roister Doist

teem him after

towns, and seek

stock whereon

g is he facing

ts in fighting

r Doister is pu

n's peace is mor

mile, or cast

e hard ears in

hot haste must

good days, and f

2

is consulted by her on the matter of the sea-captain's (Suresby's

not, woman, but tell

my friend is a

t on my part; but h

was with me, a

ce. And h

er Doister, with

f marriage di

ye made any promise

had rather be torn

aith and troth b

uresby did I say,

tters there were

He told m

And of a ri

spied, did more

to Gawin Goodl

ere no such matter, D

my head thought it, G

eech you with m

ife I never inte

sick fool Ralph

knows wel

Ye say full

venson into rivalry with the Bishop Still to whom former scholars were content to assign it. Possibly as the result of a perusal of Plautus, possibly under the influence of the last play-for in subject matter

cock. To Gammer Gurton he announces that he has seen Dame Chat pick up the needle and make off with it. Between the two dames ensues a meeting, the nature of which may be guessed, the whole trouble lying in the fact that neither thinks it necessary to name the article under dispute. No wonder that discussion under the disadvantage of so great a misunderstanding ends in violence. Doctor Rat, the curate, is now called in; but again Diccon is equal to the occasion. Having warned Dame Chat that Hodge, to balance the matter of the cock, is about to creep in thr

tancy and mischief, the later play relies for its comic effects on situations brought about by mischief alone. These are three rather heavy counts against the younger rival. But in the other scale may be placed a very fair claim to greater naturalness. Taking the scenes and characters in turn, mischief-maker, churchman and all, there is none so open to the charge of being impossible, and therefore farcical, as the battl

is comedy's one and famous song; the

1

eat but l

ach is

think that

that wear

bare, take

othing

skin so f

good al

ide go bar

and hand

d send thee g

it be ne

2

of the needle on his retu

it is pity you should lac

my breeches be sewed? S

, if that ich could find

, ich promise thee, with

ither knee should la

int Sithe, I pray t

ur hands and eyes, but t

else to do? ye keep

to dig and delve, in

g in the dirt stil

at be abroad cham s

idle at home and c

, ich lost it, Hodge, w

for thee, which Gib

burst both Gib and T

the worst end, who

idging abroad, since

e, and at the door, sit

a long hour, before

as in vain; my nee'l

le, let me seek, and

sh (ich think), you know

ther, Cock: wha

How, G

soon, and grope beh

g when tho

d an old shoe, where

ying an inch of w

nd bring it

shall be

till thou hast light, and

and the commencement of Comedy proper. Leaving the latter at this point for the pre

and intercede for him, there had been tragedy indeed. But religious optimism was against any conclusion so discouraging to repentance. The lingering Miracles, it is true, still presented the sublimest of all tragedies in the Fall of Man and the apparent triumph of the Pharisees over Jesus. Between them, however, and the kind of drama that succeeded the Moralities, too great a gulf was fixed. Contemporaries of those original spirits, Heywood and Udall, could hardly revert for inspiration to the discredited performances of villages and of a few provincial towns. Tragedy had to wait until there was matured and made popular an Interlude from

t not unskilful restraints. In place of the strong unbroken sweep of a resistless current, which characterized the evolution of an Aeschylean drama, he had insisted on an orderly division of a plot into acts and scenes, as though one should break up the sheer plunge of a single waterfall into a well-balanced group of cascades. Yet he was wise in his generation, securing by this means a carefully proportioned development which, in the absence of that genius which inspired the Greek dramatists, might otherwise have been lost. Once strong and free in the plays of

t play we see Cambyses, king of Persia, set off for his conquests in Egypt; return; execute Sisamnes, his unjust deputy; prove a far worse ruler himself; shoot through the heart the young son of Praxaspes, to prove to that too-frank counsellor that he is not as drunk as was supposed; murder his own brother, Smirdis, on the lying report of Ambidexter; marry, contrary to the law of the Church and her own wish, a lovely lady, his cousin, and then have her executed for reproaching him with the death of his brother; and finally die, accidentally pierced by his own sword when mounting a horse. All these horrors, except the death of the lady, take place on the stage. Thus we have such stage-directions as, 'Smite him in the nec

oy of womb, heart's

nto the king, is th

eful time, these mo

into my arms from ea

y apron white: but

at it sustains would

my son to see: O

and sug'red joy to s

did I retain befo

smart was gone, what

f thy food, for to

tender heart at ti

ave thee suck, with

pon my knee to br

thee I reap? O ki

thou the heart to see t

me, alas, in this

O wel-away, that I

iss thy lips, silk-so

lamenting for to see

t us go home, our m

as little success. But the singleness of the theme helps towards that elevation of the main figures and intensifying of the catastrophe which tragic emotion demands. Unfortunately, from the start the author seems to have been obsessed with the notion that the familiar rant of Herod was peculiarly suited to his subject. In such a notion there la

trump of fame to s

t upon the stage with this enco

prime of youth ought

r, needest not, thysel

nia most becom

urnful plaints, dear m

d judge, Appius, has done no more than hi

fortune's force my pi

ed in Cambyses. Instead there is in one place a sort of frantic agitation, which the author doubtless thought was the pure voice of tragic sorrow. It is in the terrible moment when, after the heroic strain of the sacrifice is over, Virginius

oody knife, O man,

and only heir her

ke like despatch: com

less arm, with speed;

seus, 'This passion, and the death of a dear

oticeable in the Chorus, whose speeches commonly take the form of chants, encouraged the faculty of generalizing philosophically, so that one is constantly treated to general reflections expressive rather of broad wisdom and piety than of feelings directly and dramatically aroused; much also is made of retrospection and relation, whether the topic is ancient history, the events of a recent voyage, or a barely completed crime. The sage backward glance of the Chorus is quick to discover in present ruin a punishment for past crime; so that the plot becomes in a manner a picture of the resistless laws of moral justice. Speeches, a moralizing Chorus, actions not performed but reported in detail, a sense of divine retribution for sin, these are perhaps the qualities which, apart from the poetry itself, we recall most readily as typical of a Greek tragedy. These Seneca modified by the intro

eration and debate. Between this play and its predecessors no change can be more sweeping or more abrupt. In an instant, as it were, we pass from the unpolished Cambyses, savage and reeking with blood, to the equally violent events of Gorboduc, cold beneath a formal restraint which, regulating their setting in the general framework, robs them of more than half their force. Had this severe discipline of the emotions been accepted as for ever binding upon the tragic stage Elizabethan drama would have been forgotten. The truth is that the germ of dissension was sown in Gorboduc itself. Conscious that the banishment of action from the stage, while natural enough in Greece, must meet with an overwhelming resistance from th

old filled with poison, which the king accepted, and drinking the same, immediately fell down dead upon the stage, and so was carried thence away by his lords and gentlemen, and then the music ceased. Hereby was signified, that as glass by nature holdeth no poison, but is clear and may easily be seen through, ne boweth by any art; so a faithful counsellor holdeth no treason, but is plain and open, ne yieldeth to any indiscreet affecti

importance of Gorboduc as an example of English 'classica

her eyes, of dividing his kingdom equally between his two sons. Scene 2.-King Gorboduc submits his plan to the

ssive rivalry from his brother, and decides to collect forces for his own defence. Scene 2.-Ferrex's misguided precautions having been

c is now the labour of his counsellors, but the later announcement of the death of Ferrex casts him lower than before. At this point the Chorus, recalling the

gues pursue th

and, imbru'd with

still before th

ischiefs on th

he king, pleading the latter's own act, in dividing the kingdom, as the initial cause of the ensuing disaster. Before he has been long gone from his father's presence, Marcella, a lady-in-waiting, rushes into the room, in wild disorder and grief, to report his murder at his mothe

od, and death mu

just and ever

h ever so

nment. The Duke of Albany, however, thinks to snatch power to himself from this opportunity. Scene 2.-Report is made of the suppression of the rebellion, but this news is immediately followed by a report of Albany's attempted usurpation of the throne. Coalition for his defea

s when kings w

ce, but follo

, when in fond

, and sage rede[5

lagues, when mu

irs unto the r

row, when lo, u

sudden hap of

r remains, suc

nly is the r

alm is so mad

by vested in su

re where right i

time, finds its way into English drama. Meeting with small favour from writers skilful in the stringing together of rhymes, it suffered comparative neglect for some years until Marlowe taught its capacities to his own and

est would be sacrilege in the prevailing gloom. Two effects alone are aimed at; an impression of loftiness in the theme, and a profound melancholy. Not warm gushing tears. Those are the outcome of a personal sorrow, small and ignoble beside an abstract grief at 'the falls of princes', 'the tumbling down of crowns', 'the ruin of proud realms'. What does the reader or spectator know of Ferrex that he should mingle his cries with Videna's lamentations? The account of Porrex appealing, with childlike faith in his mother, to the very woman who has murdered him, may, for the moment, bring tears to the eyes. But it is an accidental touch. The tragedy lies not there but in the great fact that with him dies the last heir to the throne, the last hope of avoiding the miseries of a disputed succession; and that in her revengeful fury the queen, as a woman, has committed the blackest of all crimes, a mother's slaughter of her child. We are not asked to weep but to gasp at the horror of it. It is in order to protect the loftier, broader aspects of the catastrophe from the influence of the particular that action is excluded. This cautions us against confusing tragedy and pathos. To perceive the difference is to recognize that English Tragedy really begins with Gorboduc. Until its advent the stress laid on the pathetic partially obscured the tragic. This may be seen at once in the Miracles, though a little thought wil

y that awaits general criticism we may add here that Tragedy is never greater than when her handmaid is ready to do her modest service. Sophocles puts

aidens, haple

d a meal apa

ed my table,

e; and grant me,

thee, with thes

rt! the forms

h them our c

were round th

s of old when

he sleeping Duncan, Cordelia rise to our minds. Nor need we quote the famous words of Webster's Ferdinand. It is enough that the gre

perpetuated the inherited taint of sin by becoming the parents of a boy, Mordred. Afterwards Arthur married Guenevera, and some years later went to France on a long campaign of conquest. In his absence Mordred gained the love of Guenevera. The play begins with the contemplated return of Arthur, glorious from victory, the object being to concentrate attention upon the swift fall from glory and power to ruin and death. Guenevera, having learnt to hate her husband, debates in her mind his death or hers, finally deciding, however, to become a nun. Her interview with Mordred ends in his resolving to r

is sought to intensify the gloom by recourse to Seneca's stage Ghost; thus, the departed spirit of the wronged Gorlois opens the play with horrid imprecations of evil upon the house of Uther, and, at the close, exults in the fullness of his revenge. From his

reak, and guilt

he author of Damon and Pythias did before him-of the Greek device of stichomythia. He was most anxious, also, to provide stirring topics for his characters to speak on, the queen's uncertainty between crime and religion in the second scene being a notable example. But of necessity the distance of time and space imposed by his methods between an event and the reporting of it gives a measure of detachment to its discussion. In the matter of personal feeling, too, he was hampered by this same unavoidable detachment, and by the need of being impressive; for he and his friends seem to have been convinced that the wider and less particular the subject the greater would be the hearer's awe. We need only compare Arthur's speech over Mordred's body with the lamentation of the mother in Cambyses to perceive how the new methods compel the king to hasten from the thought of the 'hapless boy' to a consideration of their joint fate as 'a mirror to the world'. Because, in Cambyses, we know so little more of the boy and his mother t

iends, come, hea

, but all at o

gh: it likes m

nsters yet. My

: somewhat my

; but whatsoev

e taken from Cador's speech urging Arthur to adopt

ice than len

gence soon u

w to sin that

d that suffere

of leave inc

rdoneth one, e

s. Each patience

ely punish'd f

urther off than

ple will prev

est persuasion

ks out right, an

looks too many

ordred's crimes ha

a sort, as i

ustice rule wit

ck at length, al

laws, so damn

ve his deep

with all that

fire, let torme

olds both re

s the author forget the artistic strength achieved by contrast. Arthur is depicted as a veteran warrior, contented with his conquests, and anxious to establish peace within his kingdom. He is remorseful, too, for past sins, and is ready to make amends by yielding up to Mordred the coveted throne-until that prince's insolence makes compromise impossible. Mordred,

l, that fallin

ere to turn my

ast so unprep

ld the kinglie

ctions well: a

ate and totteri

h the faster

oth forejudge

whiles they do

ails, the fear e

n war itself i

s the date, some three or four years later than Gorboduc and seventy years earlier than The Misfortunes of Arthur. When we call to mind the form finally adopted for tragedy by Shakespeare, we shall find this play an illuminating beacon, lighting the first steps along the right path. The author was well acquainted with classical drama, as may be seen in his use of stichomythia, amongst other things, and possibly in his preference for a Grecian story. He probably knew Gorboduc quite well, and learned much from its faults. Backed by this knowledge he selected, adapted, and rejected methods at discretion, and stood finally and defini

of Pythias's life as bail, and at the last minute he returns, just in time to save the life of his devoted and willing friend. Such signal proofs of the sincerity of their affection win for both of them not only life but royal favour, the king turning from his evil ways to follow their cou

e always rather the product of evil influence than of original sin, is ennobled to the standing of an honest faithful slave, simple in his notions, shrewd to save his own skin, overjoyed at being made a freed man, and withal one who keeps good time by his stomach; in a word, Stephano. The Vice (of whom Will and Jack are lighter adaptations), the source of all mischief, the Newfangle of Like Will to Like and the Diccon of Gammer Gurton's Needle, is Carisophus, the disappointed courtier, who endeavours to creep back to favour by double-dealing with Aristippus and by practising the base treachery of a common informer, and who finally is kicked out of court and off the stage by Eubulus, the good counsellor. These adaptations, then, of the stock Interlude characters, are merely a continuation of the changes initiated by Heywood and others of his day and amplified in the first regular comedies; they owe nothing to classical influence. But the same feeling after naturalness which makes Stephano and Carisophus such w

e may choose to place the origin of this grave spirit in the 'classics', but it may be pointed out, with reason, that the persistent traditions of the Moralities, the pious moralizings retained in such Interludes as Like Will to Like, may just as easily have passed over naturally into Edwards's work along with the Vice. In support of this other source may be cited the absence from this play of the long speeches which went hand in hand

tably Stephano and the gruff but kind-hearted hangman, Gronno-and to the humanity which vitalizes the major personages, Carisophus in particular; to the dignity also, maintained throughout the play (the Collier episode alone exc

ny longer, seeing t

O king, to pa

justice, do thine

tremble, for I tr

ight pattern of

er, my sweet Damon, an

n my name; for th

ved a gift far

ow for ever, a true fr

st, my mouth shall

my simple ghost, t

t the place, whe

n France and his defiant rejection of the Papal demands, he attempts to redeem the situation, even in the dreadful moment of John's kneeling supplication to Pandulph, by putting into the former's mouth 'asides' expressing a heart completely at variance with the formal penitence; in fact this scene might be understood as a clever hoodwinking of the enemy to circumvent the Dauphin. With true artistic and patriotic instinct the author creates the redoubtable Faulconbridge to demonstrate that Englishmen were stout of heart and loyal to the throne in its worst perils, whatever might be the temporary failings of the king and a few nobles. In The Famous Victories the earlier author had for his central figure a type of character that will always appeal to an English audience. Here we fin

haracter-Henry V-which his predecessor comprehended in one. The historical method had, however, a certain effect on the English drama. It made extremely popular, by its patriotic subjects, a form which disregarded the skilful evolution of a plot, contenting itself with a succession of scenes, arranged merely in order of time, that should carry a comprehensive story to its finish. We shall see this influence operating disastrously in plays other than History, and must mark it as a re

is questioned as to his parentage, the inheritance depending on his answer; the second is from one of John's dying speeches, full of remorse for his bad government, and may be comp

en into a trance of thought

rapit t

onour blows th

ceed these fu

hear a holl

is the son

eaves upon the

onsort I am

murmur of the

ilippus Re

light make music

ir with glory

leaves, and moun

ars that I am

whither art

ughts ywrapt in

hou art, and whe

d cannot maintai

are far unfitti

ay; for why, th

high to stoop

near approach of death,

see a catal

iend in marb

gh to lose my

devil whisper

tis in vain to

ed for Arthur'

a thousand

e me for my w

s none so m

give the numb

v'd but by an

v'd but wreck

'd and not infr

done a deed d

and where have

not to some

ete with rage

pity for so st

y that John de

ay he rather l

France not to expect rea

nk the menac

ears as threat

uld he scorn

smallest tit

less he is a