NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY

"Tragedie is to seyn a certeyn storie,As olde bokes maken us memorie,Of him that stood in greet prosperiteeAnd is y-fallen out of heigh degreeInto miserie, and endeth wrecchedly."

"Tragedie is to seyn a certeyn storie,As olde bokes maken us memorie,Of him that stood in greet prosperiteeAnd is y-fallen out of heigh degreeInto miserie, and endeth wrecchedly."

These criteria for tragedy were fixed in the consciousness of the sixteenth century; and, though gradually correlated and amalgamated with criticism based on the newly found "Poetics," they continued to influence the theory and practice of the drama. Fitting these definitions and greatly increasing their importance and vogue,collections of tragedies attained wide popularity during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. Boccaccio's "De Casibus Illustrium Virorum et Feminarum," Chaucer's "Monk's Tale," and Lydgate's "Falls of Princes" are examples, and, far the most influential on English tragedy, "The Mirror for Magistrates." This collection, first printed in 1559 and later frequently re-edited and enlarged, suggested many themes for the historical drama. Elizabethan playwrights seeking for tragic stories turned naturally to this most famous collection of "tragedies" in the medieval sense. Consequently, the very idea of tragedy continued to carry the connotation of a sudden reversal of fortune, the fall of princes. Tragedy, indeed, has always remained very largely devoted to themes "de casibus illustrium virorum et feminarum."

Turning now from the influence of medievalism to that of humanism, we may remember that in the drama even more than elsewhere humanism denotes a revolution in the spirit of the age, an emancipation of the individual mind from the fetters that had bound intellect and imagination through the Middle Ages. But we must deal first with one of the factors in accomplishing this emancipation, the reawakened knowledge of classical literature. There was some slight acquaintance with the Attic drama from the time that Greek was first taught at Oxford; the doughty Roger Ascham learned from his master Sir John Cheke to prefer Euripides to Seneca; and at the time when the study of Sophocles and Euripides was occupyingthe Italian dramatists, there must have been some similar response in England. Specific instances of this, however, are few and uncertain. The Greek dramatists seem to have exercised no appreciable direct influence on English tragedy of the sixteenth century; nor can their influence at any time during the seventeenth be said to have been considerable. For England, even more exclusively than for the Continent, the classical influence on the origin and early development of tragedy was confined to the ten plays which Renaissance scholarship attributed to the philosopher Seneca.

Seneca's plays, probably not intended for stage presentation, were literary exercises following the models of Greek tragedy and more especially of Euripides. By the humanist, after he had acquired some slight knowledge of the classical theatre, they were naturally accepted as plays actually performed, and their artificial and elaborate diction, which is their most conscious departure from Attic standards, was eagerly appraised as a merit. Their themes, with the exception of that of the pseudo-Senecan "Octavia," are borrowed from Greek mythology, with a strong preference for the most sensational and bloody stories of adultery, incest, the murder of parents by their children or of children by their parents. Whatever the revolting and bloody details, crime and its retribution make up the burden of each story. The plays present only the last phase of an action, and consequently open with lengthy exposition of preceding events. Much happens behind the scenes, little on thestage; there are many narrative and lyrical scenes, comparatively few dramatic. In comparison with the Athenian tragedies, they seem like prolonged rhetorical discussions of the familiar legends. Their structure involves a division into five acts, which had probably been earlier adopted in Latin tragedy and is noted in the "Ars Poetica," and the exclusion of the chorus from any participation in the action. It appears usually after each of the first four acts and indulges in philosophical reflections, hymns in praise of some deity, or lamentations. In each play a chief person or hero can be distinguished in conflict with one or more chief opponents; and each of the leading persons is accompanied by an adviser or confidant, usually a faithful friend for a hero and a nurse for the heroine. In addition to mortals, supernatural visitants, furies, gods, and especially ghosts, have a prominence that stirred Elizabethans to imitation. Though the presentation of character is not humanly vital, the long speeches and soliloquies display an elaborate analysis of moods of passion, with an absence of Athenian religion, a pagan cosmopolitanism, and an almost modern introspection. The style and philosophy were the chief recommendation of the plays to the Renaissance taste. Artificial, with constant use of antithesis, stichomythia, and hyperbole, oratorical, sonorous, bombastic, and thickly sprinkled with aphorisms and sentiments, the style seemed to the humanists to reach the height of tragic elevation and philosophic sententiousness.

The reasons for the almost exclusive adoption ofSeneca as a model seem to have been not only the comparative ignorance of Greek, but also the preference of Renaissance taste for the qualities just enumerated. Moreover, these lifeless and undramatic mixtures of rhetorical verbiage, melodramatic situations, and endless declamations had the advantage of being easy to imitate. In their encouragement to imitation and their absorption of interest away from the models of Greek tragedy, there was a danger of humanistic endeavor resulting in mere copying, a danger not altogether escaped in Italy and France, but happily averted in England.

When, on the other hand, the characteristics of these unpromising models are considered in comparison with the conventionality of the miracles and moralities, they clearly offered much provocative of literary endeavor and the development of thegenreof tragedy. Through them secular stories, real persons, and dramatic plots took the place of the allegories and the abstractions. While they encouraged the selection of such stories as resembled the sensational myths favored by Seneca, they opened the door to history, romance, and the whole world of classical fable. Though their particular structure proved in the end impossible on the English stage, they enforced the division into acts already familiarized in comedy, and suggested the possibility of a dramatic fable in distinction from the miracles' adherence to a narrative one. Again, their presentation of character brought new persons, new motives, and new methods, calling attention to drama not as an exposition of events or as an allegoryof life, but as a field for the study of human emotion. Their brilliant if bombastic rhetoric aroused enthusiasm for the drama as literature and poetry; and their reflective and aphoristic style encouraged an effort to elevate tragedy above its too familiar converse with comedy into the realm of austere philosophy. These influences, however, were general. Every particular of Seneca's plays had its sixteenth century imitators.

The first signs of an intelligent interest in these plays appeared almost simultaneously at the very beginning of the fourteenth century in the commentary of the English Dominican, Nicholas Treveth, and in the study of the circle gathered about Lovato di Lovati at Padua. One of this school, Albertino Mussato, about 1314, wrote his "Eccerinis" on the fate of the Paduan tyrant, Ezzelino, of the preceding century. This first of the Latin tragedies of modern times aroused the admiration of scholars, and was followed by many other neo-Latin imitations of Seneca. These, while keeping to the Senecan form, often went beyond the stories of classical mythology and chose their subjects from the Bible or from ancient or modern history. Meanwhile neo-Latin comedy had had a beginning and was largely stimulated by the discovery, in 1427, of twelve hitherto unknown comedies of Plautus. All these neo-Latin plays were read and not acted; and the actual acting, either of the classical plays or their humanistic imitations, was not established until the close of the fifteenth century.

The knowledge of the classical drama spread after atime across the Alps, and Terentian comedy in particular exercised a wide influence upon the drama. Of especial interest in relation to tragedy is the new school of neo-Latin comedy which arose about 1530 in Holland and spread over Germany and into France. It applied Terentian style and structure to many of the stories in the Old Testament and to the parable of the prodigal son. To its original purpose of substituting for Terentian immorality themes edifying for youth, it soon added a Protestant tone, and in Kirchmayer's "Pammachius" (1538) entered the field of violent religious controversy. As the number of these plays rapidly increased, there resulted a secularization of treatment and the admission of Senecan as well as Terentian influence. The stories of Judith, Susannah, Goliath, and others gave opportunities for recourse to Senecan imitation; and in the "Jephthes" and "Baptistes," which about 1540 George Buchanan wrote at Bordeaux for his students to act, we have the first tragedies north of the Alps written in distinctly classical form,—a form, it should be said, derived from his study and translation of Euripides as well as from Seneca.

Seneca's preëminence as a model for tragedy, however, was in general not contested, but rather increased by the growing knowledge of Euripides and Sophocles. By the end of the fifteenth century there had been many translations of his plays in Italy; they were studied in the schools, and some had been given stage presentation. But the idea of a vernacular tragedy on the Senecan model wasnot put into effect until Trissino's "Sophonisba," written in 1515. This was followed by others, until by the time of "Gorboduc" Senecan tragedy in Italian was an established form, and Jodelle's "Cléopatre Captive" (1552) had marked the beginning of the Senecangenrein France. The Italian tragedy had also introduced some departures, in the choice of romantic material and in the innovation of "tragicomedy," which supplied the Senecan model with a happy ending. But all these writers of tragedy worked with a common purpose, to revive Senecan drama in their own day, and their plays adapted their themes and methods to the Senecan model with the faithfulness of disciples. These Senecan imitations, it should be noted, were designed for special performances under academic or courtly auspices, and not for the popular theatre.

In England during the first half of the sixteenth century there was a repetition of the inter-influence between the still flourishing forms of medieval drama and the new classical models which we have noted on the Continent. The early Renaissance in the reign of Henry VIII awakened an interest in Seneca; and the fragment of an English play introducing Lucrece has suggested to Mr. Chambers the possibility of an essay at Senecan tragedy thirty years before "Gorboduc." The main force of the humanistic influence seems, however, to have been in the direction of comedy. The drama was no longer confined to popular open-air presentations, but found a place at court, in the halls of noblemen, and especially at theschools and universities, where the comedies of Plautus and Terence and imitations both in Latin and English were frequently acted. The influence of the classical plays themselves and of the neo-Latin school and the controversial dramas of the Continent upon English moralities and interludes was extensive and distinct. This led to a multiplication and confusion of dramatic types out of which comedy emerged in such plays as "Gammer Gurton's Needle" and "Ralph Roister Doister." In Latin, but not in English, we can trace a similar movement toward tragedy. We hear of a "Dido" written by Ritwyse, master of St. Paul's, and performed by his pupils some time in the decade preceding 1532. "Absalon," written by Thomas Watson probably in the following decade, was highly praised by Roger Ascham, and, if it be identical with the play now in manuscript in the British Museum, is an example of biblical drama along Senecan lines. A non-extant "Jephthes" by Christopherson (1546), the "Archipropheta," with a romantic love episode and a clown, written by Grimald and acted at Oxford in 1547, and his "Christus Redivivus" published in 1543 as a "comœdia tragica," all belong to the same mixed species. A representative of the controversial drama appears in John Foxe's "Christus Triumphans" about 1550, which drew much from the famous "Pammachius," already translated by Bale and acted at Oxford to the great scandal of Gardiner. Of plays in the vernacular we hear of a few called tragedies, but the term was used without any exactness, and no extant playhas any just claim to the title. Ten tragedies and comedies are attributed by Bale to Ralph Radcliffe, a pedagogue, who in 1538 opened a theatre in his schoolhouse and gave plays before the 'plebs.' Some of these were certainly in Latin, but some may have been in English, and the titles are interesting as emphasizing again the prevailing humanistic influences. Of the tragedies, two, "The Burning of Sodom" and "The Delivery of Susannah," are on biblical themes evidently chosen for the purpose of edification; the third, "The Condemnation of John Huss," suggests the controversial type. Of the comedies, four have biblical themes, while three, "Patient Griselda," "Melibœus," and "Titus and Gisippus," indicate the growing search for secular and even romantic themes. In this confusion of many species of drama, created by a mixture of medieval and humanistic influences, there is at least no clear evidence of any English tragedy on Senecan lines before "Gorboduc." Of the development of the moralities toward tragedy, of which signs are not lacking, we get the clearest examples in plays a little later, which will be treated in the next chapter.

Special notice, however, must here be paid to one morality and the dramatic activity of its author. John Bale, born 1495, a converted Carmelite who became bishop under Edward VI and an exile during the reign of Mary, and who died not long after the accession of Elizabeth, was one of the most vigorous of Protestant controversialists and apparently the leader of whatmay be called the Protestant drama. His forty-six plays "in idiomate materno" seem to have been intended for presentation, and, while exhibiting classical influence, doubtless in the main followed medieval models. Of the five extant, written presumably about 1538, three, "God's Promises," "John the Baptist," and "The Temptation of our Lord," are miracle plays; one, "The Three Laws," is a morality. The fifth, "King John," inspired in its satirical and Protestant elements by "Pammachius" and perhaps also by Lindsay's "Three Estates," is the first example of a morality showing an approach to the later historical drama. It is in form a controversial morality, divided into two long parts or acts, but it follows roughly a chronological outline, and among its abstractions presents the king himself as the champion of Protestantism against the pope and Pandulph. Although the direct influence of the play on later drama cannot be traced, it is a notable advance, of which there were perhaps other examples, toward the treatment of English history and of individual persons rather than abstractions in the popular drama.

The humanistic activities of the sixty years before "Gorboduc" thus resulted in a breaking away of allegiance to medieval models and the introduction of new types, rather than in any direct contribution to the form or matter of tragedy. The vernacular play approaching nearest to the field of tragedy is still a controversial morality exhibiting all the traits of medieval drama, and in its innovations pointing not toward classicalmodels, but rather to a new extension of the morality toward the presentation of national history and real persons. During this time, however, the influence of Seneca's plays had been constantly extending and had been augmented by that of the imitations in Latin, French, and Italian. The interest of Seneca in the universities seems to have increased during the reigns of Edward and Mary and to have supplanted in a measure that in Latin comedy. In 1559 the appearance of the first English translation, that of the "Troades" by Jasper Heywood, opened the way to a wider interest and to the possibility of domiciling the Senecan drama on the English stage. By 1561 translations of four other plays had been published; and, before the collected edition of 1581, all of the ten had appeared and attained a greater popularity with the reading public than they have ever since experienced.

The first English tragedy was not a modification of current forms, but a direct imitation of Seneca. The production of "Gorboduc," however, only marked another stage in that conflict between medievalism and humanism which we have been tracing. In the next chapter we shall consider the conflict between Senecan imitations and popular tragedies that still kept to the morality form, a conflict that resulted in the discarding of both Senecan and morality incumbrances and the attainment in Marlowe and his followers of a form of tragedy very different from either, though inheriting bountifully from both.

One source of classical influence other than Seneca'splays and their imitations was of enough importance to require special mention, that of Aristotle's "Poetics." First printed in 1508, it reinforced the dogmas derived from the "Ars Poetica," and became the basis of a rapidly increasing amount of dramatic criticism. This criticism, mostly Italian, interpreted Aristotle by means of the Senecan tragedies and so reinforced their influence; but it was also greatly modified by the medieval ideas of tragedy which we have already noticed. The resultant theory of tragedy, with special regard to its misinterpretations of Aristotle, may be briefly summarized. His dictum that tragedy is the imitation of a serious action was interpreted to mean an action illustrious because the actors are persons of the highest rank, thus adopting the medieval restriction of tragedy to princes. There was less agreement in the restriction of tragedy to history rather than fiction; and over the question of the propriety of a happy ending there was considerable debate. Tragi-comedies were written and defended, but critics in general recognized tragedy as restricted to an unhappy ending, which was universally interpreted to mean deaths. In regard to the function of tragedy there was great difference of opinion over the meaning of [Greek: katharsis], the weight of opinion inclining to emphasize the ethical aim of tragedy, that is, the reward of virtue and punishment of vice and the inculcation of morality by means of frequent precepts. From Aristotle's discussion of character there was derived the curious idea of "decorum," so important in later theories of the drama, that every character shouldrepresent a class and should always have the same characteristics,—the kings all acting after one prescribed fashion, the soldiers after another, the old men after another, and so on. From Aristotle's mention of the restriction of time to one revolution of the sun came the unities of time and place, confining the action to one city and twenty-four hours, which were soon made predominant over the third unity of action. These distinctions became fixed in Italian criticism and were given their first full expression in English in Sidney's "Apology for Poetry," written about 1580; but before that they were more or less comprehended by most English students of Seneca. Although even a scholar in 1561 would have been unable to define the unities or decorum, he would have had some confused notion of them. The scope and function of tragedy were by that time assuming in the general literary consciousness a definition approved by both medieval and classical theory and later formulated by Puttenham: "Tragedy deals with doleful falls of unfortunate and afflicted princes, for the purpose of reminding men of the mutability of fortune and of God's just punishment of a vicious life."

Such definition of medieval and classical influences as we have been attempting necessitates a somewhat unreal separation of the two forces. Evidently, in the mind of any playwright, the two combined in a confusion of impulses, of the sources of many of which he must have been unaware. Absolute restriction to the old tradition or to the new inspiration is hardly to be expected in any Englishdramatist attempting tragedy in the neighborhood of 1562. Such an author would have open for his choice a wealth of stories, classical, medieval, or Italian, as yet untouched by drama; and, though he might choose a story whose events paralleled some Senecan plot, he would be likely to adhere closely to his narrative source after the medieval fashion. Even if he strove loyally after the Senecan form, his knowledge would be hardly sufficient to prevent departures from strict classical standards. Seneca does not always clearly observe the unities or remove violent action from the stage, and his Elizabethan follower would naturally err on the side in accord with popular dramatic tradition. Of the chorus, reduced in importance by Seneca, he would find it difficult to make much use. On the other hand, the adapter of the morality structure to tragic purpose would perhaps fail to derive anything from Seneca except his bombast and sensationalism. For whatever audience the dramatist was writing, he would have many spectators demanding the fun, horse-play, and crude horror of medieval tradition, while his own literary aspirations might lead him to prefer lofty declamation and aphoristic phrasing. But, whether his knowledge was large or small, he was likely to combine in his conception of tragedy, as did Puttenham, both the Christian idea of evil, thwarting good and meeting punishment, and the Senecan idea of a crime followed by retribution or revenge. And, whether he catered to popular taste or to literary ambition, he must have contemplated the presentation of a reversal of fortune, personsof royal or distinguished rank, and a catastrophe involving deaths.

It is, after all, the main contribution of humanism that through the study of the classics there had come new impetus and authority for individual effort. Art was to be based on classic precedents, but it was forbidden by the spirit of the new age to remain after medieval fashion satisfied with repetitions and translations. For the dramatist there were not only new models, but a circulation of ideas, free opportunity, and the incentive of fame. For him, too, there was a public long habituated to the drama and now well tutored in novelties and variations of the old forms, a public that no longer expected a conventionalized stage, but was possessed of what the apostle Paul deemed the chief characteristic of the classical spirit, the desire to hear some new thing.

The authorities on their respective subjects are: W. Creizenach,Geschichte des neuren Dramas, Halle, 1893-1903 (3 vols. and index, extending to 1570, have appeared); A. W. Ward,A History of English Dramatic Literature to the Death of Queen Anne, 1899, new and revised edition, 3 vols.; E. K. Chambers,The Mediæval Stage, Oxford, 1903. These all cover the matter of the present chapter and contain bibliographies. Ward gives full bibliographical notes to editions and monographs; Creizenach's index is substantially complete for all European plays; Chambers's Appendix X contains references to editions and descriptions of all English plays up to Elizabeth's accession. Klein,Geschichte des Dramas, 13 vols., 1865-76, and Collier,History of English Dramatic Poetry, new edition, 1879, are both somewhat out of date, though the latter contains much useful material. R. Pröloss,Geschichte des neueren Dramas(1881-83), and K. Mantzius,The History of Theatric Art, 3 vols. (1904), are slighter. The only rapid andreadable survey of European drama is by Brander Matthews,The Development of the Drama(1906). For France, the authority for medieval drama is L. Petit de Julleville,Histoire du Théâtre en France au Moyen Age, 1880-86, 4 vols.; for Germany, R. Froning,Das Drama des Mittelalters, 1891; for Italy, A. Ancona,Origini del Teatro italiano, 1891, 2d edition. J. J. Jusserand,Le Théâtre en Angleterre(1881, 2d ed.); J. A. Symonds,Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English Drama(1884); G. Gregory Smith,The Transition Period(1900, inPeriods of European Literature); Gayley,Plays of Our Forefathers(1907), are of value. Dealing more specifically with matters discussed in this chapter are the volumes of Cloetta and Spingarn cited in the last chapter, C. H. Herford'sThe Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century, Cambridge, 1886, J. W. Cunliffe'sThe Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy, Manchester, 1893, and R. Fischer'sZur Kunstentwickelung der Englischen Tragödie von ihren ersten Anfangen bis zu Shakespeare, 1893. The Elizabethan translations of Seneca have been reprinted by the Spenser Society (1887). Within the last few years three new translations have appeared: by Watson Bradshaw, in prose (1902); by Miss E. A. Harris, in verse, two tragedies 1899, the remaining eight 1904; by F. J. Miller, in verse, with introduction on Seneca's Influence on English Drama by J. M. Manly (Chicago, 1907). Text and discussions of plays are presented by A. W. Pollard,English Miracle Plays, Oxford, 4th ed., 1904; A. Brandl,Quellen des weltlichen Dramas in England, 1898; J. M. Manly,Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean Drama, 1897 (2 vols., the third to contain notes and discussion). Dodsley'sOld Plays, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 15 vols., 1874-76, also contains texts. The matter of this and subsequent chapters also receives treatment in the general histories of literature. J. J. Jusserand,Literary History of the English People, 2 vols., 1895-, is especially valuable in its account of the drama. The newCambridge History of English Literature(now in progress) will contain valuable monographs on the matter of this and subsequent chapters.The Dictionary of National Biographyis, of course, most valuable for individual writers. F. E. Schelling'sElizabethan Drama, 1558-1642, which appears as this volume is passing the press, is a general history of the drama of the period stated, with special reference to the development of dramatic species. It contains an extremely useful Bibliographical Essay and "A List of Plays" written, acted, or published in England, 1558-1642.

In this chapter the development of tragedy is to be traced from 1562, the year of the production of "Gorboduc," to about 1587, the beginning of Marlowe's career. Our knowledge of the drama during this period is scanty, and there are few extant tragedies or plays resembling tragedy. Before examining these plays with the detail which their historical position demands, it will be necessary first to glance at the theatrical conditions. Reference has been made to some of the changes that had been working a transformation from the conditions of the popular performance of the religious drama in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Through these, the drama had already to a large extent passed from the control of the guilds to that of small companies of amateur or professional actors; from the open air into the halls of noblemen or of the schools; from the large stage with its fixed stations for the different actors or the procession of pageants, to the small and perhaps improvised platform. Long plays with hosts of actors had given place to short plays with few parts, or many parts divisible among few actors, and constructed with a clear distinction between "on the stage" and "off the stage." Performances indoors, nospecially prepared stage, few actors, and short plays represent the prevailing theatrical practice of the early sixteenth century.

From 1562 on, however, theatrical conditions were various and shifting, and not always easily discernible by the modern student. While miracles were still performed after the old popular fashion, the traveling professional companies were growing in importance and tending to monopolize the acting of interludes. Amateur actors, however, at court, school, university, inns of court, or, indeed, among the Bottoms and mechanics of the villages, still contended with the professional for the control and maintenance of the drama. So far as tragedy is concerned, it will be convenient to keep in mind at least four distinct kinds of performance. First, the Gentlemen of the Inns of Court, who throughout the Elizabethan period showed themselves liberal patrons of the drama, occasionally gave plays, usually in connection with special festivities. Second, there were performances at the schools and universities which continued to exert an important dramatic influence, as they had for the preceding sixty years. Plays at the universities were generally in Latin, but there were English plays at both schools and universities, and companies from the Merchant Tailors and Westminster schools acted at court; these last performances falling properly in the third group. Third, companies of children were trained for performance at court; and these were in the course of time restricted to the choir boys of St. Paul's and of the Queen'schapel. Fourth, the traveling professional companies, numerous at the beginning of the period, acted in the inn-yards of London, at court, in the halls of noblemen, on the village greens, in the guild halls, even in the churches of the towns, or wherever else they could obtain an opportunity, until the most important of them found homes in the London theatres. On all four of these classes of actors the influence of the court was considerable, for it was the highest gratification of either amateur or professional to be engaged in a court performance, and performances at court were subject to greater preparation than those in public.

Such were the conditions governing the presentation of tragedies in this period, but in the course of its twenty-five years the professional companies constantly grew in importance and in the end practically monopolized the business of giving plays. Schools, universities, and companies of amateurs became of decreasing moment in the development of the drama, while the choir boys were permitted to act plays publicly in their own theatres and thus became formidable professional rivals of the men's companies. In 1572 the statute compelling the common players to obtain the license of some nobleman reduced the number of the adult companies, but strengthened those that survived, which now became known as Lord Leicester's men, Lord Howard's men, and so on. In London they were able with the assistance of the court to establish and maintain themselves despite the active and constant opposition of the city authorities. TheTheatre, built outside the city proper in 1576, was soon followed by other playhouses, and in 1583 a company was licensed under the Queen's personal patronage. Henceforth the history of the Elizabethan drama is in the main confined to four or five companies of men and one or two of children, acting regularly in their established theatres and occasionally in the provinces, or at court, or elsewhere.

The character of a tragedy naturally varied with the circumstances of its presentation. A Latin play at one of the universities was much more dignified and scholarly than the performance of a few traveling actors for the delectation of a provincial audience; and a play by the Gentlemen of the Inner Temple was given with an elaborateness not to be expected in those by the choir boys, which were likely to be brief and to include a good deal of singing. The extant tragedies can consequently be best classified according to their methods of presentation. Before all audiences, it should be remembered, moralities of divers sorts were performed, but we are now concerned only with those that most closely approach tragedy. All the extant Latin plays were presented at the universities. Of English plays, "Gorboduc," "Tancred and Gismunda," "Jocasta," and "The Misfortunes of Arthur" were acted by gentlemen of the Inner Temple or Gray's Inn, and are all Senecan tragedies. "Damon and Pithias" and "Appius and Virginia" were acted at court by children, and show little Senecan influence, but are medleys of tragedy, comedy, and music. No performance byan adult company of any extant tragedy is recorded, but "Horestes" and "Cambyses," both of which may have originally been intended for children, bear some evident marks of popular presentation, and both are mixtures of morality, farce, and tragedy. These plays, with the exception of "The Misfortunes of Arthur," acted in 1588 at the very end of the period, were all written and performed in the sixties. With the addition of "Promus and Cassandra" (1578), apparently not acted, they comprise all extant plays acted before 1586-87 which can be classed as tragedies or tragicomedies. Our knowledge of the professional drama may be supplemented from the titles of non-extant plays and from the Revels Accounts of performances at court; but it should be observed that our information in regard to the development of popular tragedy is very meagre, especially for the important period after 1570, and that the group of Senecan plays, which we are to examine first, owed their existence to no popular favor, but to amateur performances under special conditions.

"Gorboduc," or "Ferrex and Porrex," printed surreptitiously in 1565 and with an authoritative text about 1570, was written by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, the author of "The Complaint of Buckingham" and "The Induction" in "The Mirror for Magistrates," and afterwards Lord Buckhurst, Lord High Treasurer. It was performed before the Queen as a part of the elaborate Christmas entertainment of the Inner Temple in 1561-62. The plot is taken from a Britishlegend that was introduced into literature by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and relates the division of the kingdom by Gorboduc between his two sons, Ferrex and Porrex, the murder of the elder by the younger, the murder of the younger by his mother, the murder of both father and mother by their subjects, the slaughter of the people by the nobles, and the resulting civil wars. The story, evidently chosen because of its likeness to Seneca's "Thebais," is treated in Senecan manner, each of the first four acts being followed by a chorus of "Foure auncient and sage men of Brittaine." The murders are not enacted but are related by messengers, but the unities of time and place are violated, as Sir Philip Sidney noted with disapproval. There is little characterization, much political moralizing, which delighted Sidney, and an abundance of long declamations, about eight hundred lines, nearly half of the play, being comprised in ten speeches. The play is written in blank verse, already used in Surrey's translation from the Æneid, and perhaps adopted in imitation of the unrhymed verse of the Italian tragedies. After the Italian fashion, each act is preceded by a dumb show, symbolizing the following action, and these dumb shows seem to have been utilized to provide the spectacle that was entirely wanting in the play proper. Supernatural visitants appear in the three furies before act iv; and before the last act the dumb show consists of a battle-scene, similar to those which later became the invariable accompaniments of the chronicle history play: "there came forth upon the stage a company of hargabusiers andof armed men all in order of battaile," who discharged their pieces and marched three times about the stage.

In spite of the close adherence to the Senecan model, there is little direct borrowing from Seneca, and medieval elements are not lacking. The debates between the good and bad counselors are very like those of the moralities, and the structure is essentially that of a chronicle of a whole story rather than that of a classical tragedy. The first two acts are occupied by the interminable debates, and the last three by the catastrophe, or rather the succession of catastrophes, though the final scene of the fifth act is a sort of epilogue after Senecan fashion. The play has little literary value, though Marcella's recital is not without power and the disquisitions on discord and disloyalty in the state have the merit of earnestness; but it is clearly the beginning of a new species. It abandons current dramatic forms, and endeavors to depict the fall of English princes in accordance with the models of classical tragedy.

"Jocasta," by Gascoigne and Kinwelmarsh, acted 1566 by the Gentlemen of Gray's Inn, demands little attention. It is a translation in blank verse of Lodovico Dolce's "Giocasta," itself an adaptation of the "Phœnissæ" of Euripides. It thus furnishes additional evidence of the influence of Italian tragedy on English. The chorus numbers four, as in "Gorboduc," and the dumb shows, apparently of Gascoigne's invention, are notably elaborate and spectacular.[2]

"Tancred and Gismunda," acted before the queen at the Inner Temple in 1568, under the title "Gismond of Salerne," was written in rhymed quatrains by five gentlemen of the Temple, and afterwards revised and put into blank verse by the author of the fifth act, Robert Wilmot, and first published in 1591.[3]In both versions Cupid appears before the first and third acts as the director of the action, and Magæra comes on before the fourth act to superintend the revenge and murder. The play is based on Painter's version of Boccaccio'snovella, which is followed closely, but the base-born lover becomes a count according to the prevailing theory of tragedy. The story itself has an obvious dramatic power and a certain dramatic structure which it imposes on the play.Gismunda's passion for the Count Palurin runs counter to her father's wishes; at the end of the third act love is triumphant, but in the fourth is defeated, and the gruesome catastrophe follows, Tancred and Gismunda dying on the stage. This is the earliest extant English play based on an Italiannovella, and the first tragedy to adopt a romantic love story and to make the passion of love its central motive; and the authors accomplished their experiment with evident enthusiasm and some gracefulness and force of diction. They were, however, very conscious of their models. Seneca's "Thyestes," and "Phædra," itself presenting a story of passionate love, were perhaps their chief inspirations; but Buchanan's "Jephthes" and Beza's "Abraham," translated into English in 1577, are mentioned in Wilmot's dedication, and, together with other plays, supplied precedents for the treatment of the favorite tragic theme, the sacrifice of a child by a father. Moreover, Italian tragedies had, since Giraldi's "Orbecche," been turning to romantic fiction for their subjects instead of to history and mythology; and some of these, "Orbecche" itself, and, as Professor Creizenach notes,[4]Dolce's "Dido," doubtless influenced the young templars. There had, indeed, already been Italian tragedies based on Boccaccio'snovella, and one by Frederigo Asinari (1576) had added an Œdipean horror by making Tancred put out his eyes before killing himself, an augmentation adopted by Wilmot in his revision. The play was thus not only thoroughly Senecan, but the result of atangle of derivative Senecan influences. The authors were probably unconscious of the incongruity so obvious to us between the classical form and the romantic material. They were interested in their story and were eager to give it all the advantages that erudition could discover; their intentions were doubtless perfectly reflected in the praise which William Webbe gave them for a play that "all men generally desired, as a work, either in stateliness of show, depth of conceit, or true ornaments of poetical art, inferior to none of the best in that kind: no, were the Roman Seneca the censurer."

"The Misfortunes of Arthur," by Thomas Hughes, was acted and published in 1588. The story from "The Morte D'Arthur" was suggested by its likeness to Senecan plots; and the play was an ambitious attempt to use British legend as Seneca had treated classical myth. The strife between father and son, with its accompaniments of adultery and incest, is viewed as constituting a Nemesis for the crimes of Arthur's father, Pendragon; and the ghost of the wronged Gorlois appears in the first scene to promise revenge, and in the final scene to triumph over its fulfillment. The author knew his models by heart, borrowed much, availed himself of all the particulars of the Senecan technic, and imitated everywhere with a good deal of spirit and success. The play has dramatic and poetic merits beyond its predecessors, but its late date makes it of small importance in our effort to trace the beginnings of English tragedy. Acted twenty-six years after "Gorboduc," it testifies less to the progress of dramaticart than to the conventionalizing effect of Senecan models. Though perhaps the most successful of English imitations of Seneca, it marks the failure of amateur actors and courtly audiences to revive the classical drama on the English stage. On the occasion of its performance before the Queen at Greenwich, its actors and authors may very likely have thought it full of significance for the future of the drama; but "Tamburlaine" had already been acted, and poetry had taken up its abode in the despised public theatres. The chief interest for us in "The Misfortunes of Arthur" is that it furnishes further illustration of the use of English history and of stories of revenge.

To understand the full importance of the attempt to domicile Seneca in England, we must turn to the universities. Two English plays, which would be of interest, have not been preserved, "Ezechias," a tragedy by Udall, acted in 1564 at Cambridge, and "Palamon and Arcyte" by Edwards, the author of "Damon and Pithias," acted 1566. These are the only English plays at all tragical that are recorded; but the practice of giving Latin plays continued and grew in popularity.[5]We hear of "Dido" and an "Ajax Flagellifer," apparently a translation of Sophocles, both in 1564, and a "Progne"in 1566. The extant Latin tragedies are of a later date. Gager's "Meleager," "Œdipus," and "Dido," all acted in the early eighties, are modeled strictly on Seneca, the first two showing direct borrowings. In the fragment which we possess of the third, the ghost of Sichæus appears to warn Dido, and is followed by the storm, represented, we learn, by sugar for snow, sweetmeats for hail, and rose-water for rain. Gager's "Ulysses Redux," acted in 1591, a little beyond the limits of our period, presents a somewhat freer treatment of the Senecan form, the number of characters and of scenes being larger than in the earlier plays. Of uncertain date are a "Herodes," which takes the form of a revenge play introduced by the ghost of Mariemma, and "Solymannidæ" and "Tonumbeius," which apply Senecan methods to Eastern instead of to classical atrocities. "Roxana" (1632), acted before 1592, is a translation of "La Dalida" of Luigi Groto, and won some contemporary distinction and the praise of Dr. Johnson two centuries later. It is a revenge play with a ghost, combining Senecan gruesomeness with the motives of romantic comedy.

More famous than any of these in its own day was "Richardus Tertius," a tragedy in three parts, each part acted on a separate night in 1579 at St. John's, Cambridge, the work of Thomas Legge, Master of Caius and afterwards Vice-Chancellor of the university. Legge seems to have felt the incongruity between the material of the chronicles, which he followed closely, and a strict Senecan form, and to have striven to overcome this by the mechanicalexpedient of prolonging the action over three plays. But the problem of presenting on the stage the events of a whole reign could not be solved in the terms of the Senecan formula. Legge copied the Senecan rhetoric, interpreted historical events and persons under the guidance of the formula, and retained much of its technic, the narration of deaths instead of their presentation, counsel scenes between hero and advisers, frequent use of the nuntius, and a vestige of a chorus. But the play departs as widely as popular dramas from the unities of time and place, contains many scenes with more than three speakers, is full of dramatic action, and presents processions, pageants, and battle scenes after the fashion of later chronicle plays in the public theatres. Its influence on popular drama may well have been considerable; though, on the other hand, its adherence to sources and its looseness of structure may have been reflections from the public stage. Whether the first chronicle play or not, it is the earliest extant play to indicate the result of the inevitable conflict between a narrow and stereotyped dramatic form and the wide range of material which the chronicles afforded.[6]

In these university Latin plays there is evident adevelopment similar to that traced in the English Senecan drama. Biblical themes disappear; close imitations of Seneca on classical themes give way to freer treatment of romantic or historical material. Revenge and the ghost are ever prominent; and English history introduces a host of events, varied, incongruous, panoramic, and bursting the bounds of the traditional structure. Nash, Marlowe, and others of the later dramatists were university men, and saw some of these plays performed, and perhaps took part in them. Their scenic spectacle, choices of themes, handling of situation, and general effect must have had an appreciable influence upon the subsequent course of the drama. To the various influences which we have denominated humanistic, and especially to the derivative influences reinforcing that of Seneca, we must add this of the Latin plays at Oxford and Cambridge. Latin tragedies continued to be acted at the universities for many years, but their influence on the popular drama can have been potent only during its formative period.

When we turn from these academic and amateur productions to the more popular performances,[7]we haveto deal with a very different class of plays. The four to be considered were all written by men of scholarly training, and all deal with classical themes, but the Senecan influence is slight and mainly discernible in the figurative and hyperbolic diction and the fondness for sententious maxims. None of the four are divided into acts; none have choruses or other characteristic marks of Senecan structure; all present action to the exclusion of reflection, and all are in rhymed verse, the favorite metre, at least in the serious portions, being doggerel. All admit comic and farcical scenes, and three are in a large measure moralities. In the tragic portions all admit violence and murders of all kinds on the stage; there is a beheading, a hanging, and, in the case of "Cambyses," a flaying, accomplished, the stage direction reassures us, "with a false skin."

"Damon and Pithias" (1571), by Richard Edwards, was acted by the Children of the Chapel at court in 1563-64, and, judging from the title-page, probably also in public. The prologue, which contains a discussion of "decorum," explains that the term "tragicall comedy" is used becausethe story is a matter "mixed up with mirth and care." The serious portion of the play presents the tyrant Dionysius as well as the two faithful friends, and shows evidence of a study of Seneca; but it is intermixed with comedy, where the influence of Plautus is noticeable, and indeed with scenes of broadest farce. Carisophus, the parasite, is hardly distinguishable from the vice of the moralities, and is not only clown and mischief-maker, but the villain, whose infamy brings about the tragic entanglements. The play contains a number of songs, and this mixture of tragedy, farce, and musical comedy seems typical of the children's plays of this period.

"Appius and Virginia" (S. R. 1567-68), by an unknown R. B., was also evidently acted by one of the children's companies, perhaps, as Mr. Fleay plausibly conjectures, by the boys of the Westminster school. It is much shorter than "Damon and Pithias," but, like that play, is styled a tragical comedy, is written in rhymed verse, mostly doggerel, and contains farcical scenes and many songs. The vice Haphazard is a clown and mischief-maker; and, in addition, a number of personified abstractions, Conscience, Justice, Comfort, Doctrina, etc., indicate the close relation of the play to the moralities. The main plot, however, is tragic and has no integral connection with the comic scenes. It begins with the domestic happiness of the family of Virginius, and proceeds promptly to the action. Virginia is beheaded, and the head is afterwards exhibited; Appius Claudius and Haphazard are executed out of the sight of the audience; and inthe closing scene the tomb of Virginia is shown upon the stage, Memory inscribes her renown, while Justice, Reward, Doctrine, and Fame apparently join in a song "around about the tomb in honor of her name."

"Horestes" (1567) by John Pickering was probably the "Orestes" acted at court 1567-68. It also seems to have been performed by children, but was very likely given public presentation by various companies. The title runs significantly, "A New Interlude of Vice, conteyninge the Historye of Horestes," etc. The vice, indeed, is hardly absent from the stage, and offers much that is new in his species. He is a clown, but apparently this is only a disguise, for he appears to Horestes as a messenger from the gods, urging him to revenge; later as Courage he is Horestes' faithful friend and supporter, then as Revenge he attends to the execution of Clytemnestra, and finally he appears as a beggar thrust out of court, since Revenge could not agree with the Amity dwelling there, and takes the opportunity to read a long lecture to women. The diversity of elements confused in this personage is typical of the play. It is in a large measure a morality; Nature appears to Horestes to dissuade him from including his mother in his vengeance, Fame appears as a judge and exempts him from guilt, and other abstractions are numerous and voluble. There are also a number of songs, Egisthus and Clytemnestra having just finished a love song when the messenger announces the avenger's approach. There are many scenes of sheer farce, where the humor lies wholly infisticuffs and beatings; and the spectacular element suggests the later historical plays. Horestes is accompanied by an army which marches with drums about the stage and fights two pitched battles, one with the host of Egisthus and the other for the possession of the city. "Make your lively battel and let it be long," says the stage direction. Still further, the classical elements are curiously confused. Although there are a number of quotations from Ovid and frequent citations of other classical worthies, there is no mention of Seneca, though the plot of "a revenge for a father" here makes its first appearance in the English drama, and the authors appear to have been entirely ignorant of the Greek tragedies. The ultimate source is the sixth book of Dictys Cretensis. The author follows closely one of the popular versions of the Troy legend, retains the anachronisms of the romantic version, and imposes on that the structure of the morality, the vice taking the place of the oracle of Apollo, and abstractions mingling with the knights and dukes of the Trojan war. The play is thus interesting as marking another step in the translation of the morality into the "history" type of tragedy. The closing scenes, in particular, illustrate the adherence to sources with morality embellishments. The play by no means ends with the murders. Horestes is approved by Fame, accused by Menelaus, who arrives, defended by Nestor, who throws down his glove as a gage, then reconciled to Menelaus, married to Hermione, crowned by Duty and Truth, and applauded and advised by Commons and Nobelles.

"Cambyses" (S. R. 1569-70) was written by Thomas Preston, afterwards Master of Trinity Hall, and acted some time in the sixties. Perhaps originally intended for a school performance, it was later evidently acted in public, and seems more suited than even "Appius and Virginia" or "Horestes" to a performance by an ordinary professional adult company. The title-page sets forth the plot with a terse emphasis of its various elements: "A Lamentable Tragedie mixed full of pleasant mirth containing the Life of Cambises King of Persia from the beginning of his kingdome unto his Death, his one good deede of execution, after that, many wicked deedes and tyrannous murders committed by and through him, and last of all, his odious death by Gods Justice appointed." Like "Horestes," this is a combination of morality and history, and the chronicle or epical method is enforced by the fact that we have the whole story of "the life and death," as later titles ran, of a monarch. The chronicle structure is mixed full of pleasant mirth and pays a certain regard to climax. Cambyses begins by executing an unjust judge, and proceeds to murder the child of his minister, then his brother, then his bride, and finally himself. The comic scenes have a link of connection with the tragic ones in Ambidexter, the vice and accomplice of the villanous tyrant. Seneca is appealed to as an authority in the prologue, but there is little trace of his influence, unless it is found in the central figure of the wicked tyrant and his gory career, or in the highfalutin of Cambyses' vein. The extraordinary list ofdramatispersonaeindicates sufficiently the hodge-podge of the action and the prominence of the morality influence. The deaths are managed by Cruelty or Murder; Commons Cry, Commons Complaint, Small Nobility, and Proof appeal against tyranny; the marriage feast is arranged by Preparation; the comic scenes are shared by Huf, Ruf, Snuf, Hob, and Lob; Venus and Cupid manage the love affairs; and Shame appears as a sort of tentative ghost:


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