THE BEGINNINGS OF TRAGEDY
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, no
specially 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's chapel. 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. The
Theatre, 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 by an 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 British legend 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 AEneid, 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 and of 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 "Phoenissae" 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 Magaera comes on before the fourth act to
superintend the revenge and murder. The play is based on Painter's version
of Boccaccio's _novella_, 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 Italian _novella_, 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 "Phaedra," 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's _novella_, and one by Frederigo
Asinari (1576) had added an Oedipean 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
a tangle 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 dramatic art 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," "Oedipus," 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 Sichaeus 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 "Solymannidae" 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
mechanical expedient 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 a development 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 have to 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 because the
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 in the
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 in fisticuffs 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 of _dramatis personae_ indicates 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:
"From among the grisly ghosts I come, from tyrants' testy train."
The fall of the Prince Cambyses, it should be added, is accidentally or
providentially upon his own sword; and only the exit of Ambidexter and a
few words from the three lords, who pronounce the accident a just reward
from heaven and promise princely burial, are required to bring the play to
a close.
In these plays we may trace the gradual emergence of tragedy in the popular
drama in response to a growing knowledge of its functions and methods. It
appears still mixed with farce and morality, but it has themes like those
of Seneca, bloody, revolting, and sensational, and its freedom in stage
presentation permits an emphasis on crime and death even greater than in
the Senecan imitations. Notably, it introduces the stories of the downfall
of a tyrant and the revenge of a son for a father. The structure has none
of the Senecan characteristics, and consists merely in linking together, or
rather in interrupting by extraneous comedy, a few scenes illustrating a
story; but it is like that of the English Senecan plays in the space it
gives to catastrophe. In general the plays begin conventionally with the
depiction of peaceful and prosperous circumstances, and proceed at once to
the disasters and deaths, with very little attention to the events or
motives that lead to these results. The element of conflict is as yet
hardly translated out of the abstract terms of the morality into those of
actual life. The conflict of motives never leads to a dramatic crisis but
keeps to the form of a medieval debate, as between Nature and Horestes, or,
indeed, between the bad and good counselors in "Gorboduc." Characterization
likewise depends mostly on the form of arguing abstractions, though certain
types of importance later are already noticeable. The faithful friend and
the aged counselor are ever at hand, and the part, if not the character, of
the tragic hero is provided in Horestes and Virginius. The villain receives
considerable attention. The English dramatists were puzzled to follow the
classical tragedies in placing the source of evil in Fate or the decrees of
the gods; and even when their stories provided them with persons
sufficiently iniquitous to cause all the tragic trouble, they seem to have
felt the need for a visible and special representative of the devil. Evil
in "Gorboduc" may be said to arise from the counsels of the parasites as
well as from the folly of the king and the envy of the princes. In "Tancred
and Gismunda" it is due, after classical imitation, to the intervention of
Cupid. In the popular plays the vice is borrowed from the moralities, and,
in all except "Horestes," is made a mischief-maker, a source of evil, and
the special representative of the devil. Questions in regard to the origin
of the vice and his relationship to the devil of the medieval drama have
not been freed from doubt by recent investigation, but it seems clear that
in the early tragedies he was given some of the work later accomplished by
the stage-villain and his accomplices. The part that women play in these
early tragedies should also be noticed. Women and love, as Professor
Creizenach has observed, receive far more attention in Renaissance tragedy
than in Greek or Senecan. "Tancred and Gismunda" and "Promus and Cassandra"
deal with stories of romantic love; Virginia and the queen in "Cambyses"
present noteworthy though slight examples of the idealization of women so
important in later drama. The purpose of all these plays, Senecan or
popular, is superficially didactic, as is witnessed not only by the
abundant moralizing in the Senecan imitations, but also in the popular
plays by the emphasis in the closing scenes on the reward of virtue and the
punishment of vice. In the last act of "Appius and Virginia" the lesson of
the play is written on the tomb, and in "Horestes" the conduct of the hero
is discussed by Nestor and Fame and finally rewarded by Hermione, Truth,
and Duty. "Cambyses" is more in line with later tragedy in presenting the
protagonist as a monster and in closing promptly after his punishment by
death.
The most certain accomplishment, however, in the development of the drama
up to 1570 had been in the widening of its range of material. The bible
narrative and moral allegory had been superseded by classical myth and
history, and these in turn were being encroached upon by the romantic
fiction of the Italian _novelle_ and by the chronicles of English history.
Italian _novelle_ were open to dramatists mainly through a series of
collections of translations, of which "Painter's Palace of Pleasure" (1566)
was the chief. The interest in English history was stimulated and fed by
"The Mirror for Magistrates" and the various editions of the chronicles;
Grafton, Stowe, and the third edition of Fabyan appearing in the sixties,
and Holinshed in 1577; while interest in the classics was maintained by
numerous translations as well as by an increasing knowledge of Latin.
Translation, indeed, had brought the stories of the world to the English
mart, and the dramatic industry was now eager in its demand for material.
Of the continued development of popular tragedy after 1570, and
particularly of the sources drawn upon for dramatic material, we can get a
few hints from the titles of non-extant plays. The incomplete Revels
Accounts of performances at court preserve the names of over sixty plays
acted between 1570 and 1585, and about thirty are derived from other
sources. Of the court plays, none had biblical subjects; a number were
moralities, a few were drawn from old romances; but the majority were from
classical or Italian sources. Many of these must have contained tragic
incidents,[8] though probably they were not much more classical in form
than "Appius and Virginia" or "Horestes." Only one title drawn from
national history presents itself, "The King of Scots." The English
chronicle play had evidently not yet made any stir at court; but many of
the classical plays were drawn from Livy. Two other titles, "The Cruelty of
a Stepmother" and "Murderous Michael" (Sussex's men, '78, '79), and a third
of a play at Bristol in 1578, "What Mischief Worketh in the Mind of Man,"
may possibly have had for sources accounts of contemporary murders, and
thus have instituted the species of domestic tragedy. A few titles,
suggestive of tragedy, with accompanying comments, have been preserved by
Gosson, who praises: "The Jew," "representing the greediness of worldly
chusers and bloody minds of usurers," apparently a forerunner of "The
Merchant of Venice"; "Ptolemy," "describing the overthrow of seditious
estates and rebellious commons"; "The Blacksmith's Daughter," "contayning
the treachery of the Turkes, the honourable bountye of a noble mind, and
the shining of virtue in distress"; and his own play, "Catilin's
Conspiracy," "showing the reward of traitors."
Some further information concerning the emergence of popular tragedy can be
derived from the criticisms of the period. Gosson in his "Plays Confuted"
(1582), declares:--
"For the poets drive it most commonly unto such points
as may best show the majesty of their pen in tragical
speeches, or set their hearers agog with discourses of
love; or paint a few antics to fit their own humours
with scoffs and taunts or wring in a show to furnish
forth the stage when it is too bare; when the matter
itself comes short of this, they follow the practice of
the cobbler, and set their teeth to the leather to pull
it out.... So," he adds, "was the history of Caesar and
Pompey and the play of the Fabii at the theatre, both
amplified where the drums might walk or the pen
ruffle."
A similar criticism is made by Whetstone in his dedication of "Promus and
Cassandra" (1578): "The Englishman in this qualitie, is most vaine,
indiscreete, and out of order: he first groundes his work on
impossibilities: then in three howers more likely ronnes he throwe the
worlde: marryes, gets Children, makes Children men, men to conquer
kingdomes, murder monsters, and bringeth Gods from Heaven and fetcheth
Divels from Hel." Sidney in the well-known passage on the contemporary
drama in his "Apologie for Poetrie" (1595, but written about 1580)
amplified these same criticisms, deploring the lack of "noble moralitie,"
the violation of the unities, and the admixture of farce in current
tragedies, and especially animadverting on the histories and the "mongrel
Tragy-comedie." He asks scornfully: "And doe they not knowe, that a
Tragedie is tied to the lawes of Poesie, and not of Historie? not bound to
follow the storie, but having liberty either to faine a quite new matter,
or to frame the history to the most tragicall conveniencie. Againe, many
things may be told, which cannot be shewed, if they knewe the difference
betwixt reporting and representing,"--and he goes on to illustrate.
Evidently the medieval methods were still potent rather than those of
Sidney's models, Euripides, Seneca, and "Gorboduc"; and the tragedies in
the theatres followed their sources without recognition of the difference
between a narrative and a dramatic structure, and with an appeal to vulgar
taste by means of hideous monsters, pitched fields, scurrility, or "some
extreme shew of doltishness." From these critical comments we may infer
that the popular drama had before 1585 triumphed over the Senecan. The few
extant tragedies before that date have shown little which was not
paralleled in the contemporary drama of western Europe; but in the
popularization of a professional drama that rejected Senecan technic but
still delighted in the presentation of tragic fact we have the first clear
differentiation of English tragedy from that of other nations.
Unfortunately we have only this indirect evidence that such differentiation
was well under way before Marlowe.
On the basis of such evidence, however, we may draw a few inferences in
regard to the course of popular tragedy from 1570 to 1585. We may infer
that Senecan imitations in the hands of amateurs did not multiply, and were
not readily accepted even as object lessons by writers for the public
theatres, who, whatever inspiration they may have received from amateur or
academic plays, must have felt the increasing force of the demand from the
public for amusement and sensation. While undoubtedly many traces of
Senecan influence continued, and while classical themes persisted, the
prevalent type of drama became neither right comedy nor right tragedy but
the so-called "history." Whether based on history or fiction, its main
purpose was the presentation of a story, the more marvelous the better;
and, even if it ended in deaths, it was likely to contain a mixture of
farce, romantic love, stage spectacle, and, as time went on, a diminishing
inculcation of morality. Throughout the period, popular tragedy probably
remained commingled with other species of drama. As it forsook the
morality, it found itself wedded with farce or spectacle; or, perhaps more
extensively, with history and romantic comedy. What course the popular
drama farthest removed from court or academic influence may have taken, we
can only surmise, though the presentation of contemporary murders, which
found favor even at court, must presumably have flourished with less
cultivated audiences. And it is impossible to resist the conjecture that
English history must have received crude presentation in the public
theatres much earlier than we have any record of.
We may also surmise that in the quarter of a century from "Cambyses" to
"Tamburlaine" there must have been some considerable development in the
power to depict tragic fact, in the traditions of tragic acting, and in the
cultivation of the taste of both audiences and authors for the genuinely
terrible, pathetic, and heroic, but we must assume that tragedy still
awaited the service of both literary and dramatic genius. The genius of
Marlowe, however, had its way prepared by twenty-five years of
extraordinary dramatic activity, during which the functions of comedy and
tragedy had become known if not observed, comedy had attained a
considerable development in Lyly and Peele, and tragedy had gained
sufficient vigor to extend its themes, and to decide against a development
imitative and scholarly, and in favor of one original and popular.
NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY
Most of the books in the list for the last chapter are useful in connection
with the matter of this. Creizenach and Ward are the chief authorities;
Collier, Symonds, and Jusserand deal with the period. Spingarn, Cunliffe,
and Fischer are valuable for their special fields. Texts are to be found in
Manly, Dodsley, Brandl, and discussions in the latter. For the stage
history of the Elizabethan drama, the works of F. G. Fleay are very
valuable, though marred by much unsupported conjecture: _A Biographical
Chronicle of the English Drama_, 1559-1642, 2 vols. (1891); _A Chronicle
History of the London Stage_, 1559-1642 (1890); _A Chronicle History of the
Life and Work of William Shakespeare_ (1886). The first-named is the most
reliable and useful of the three. Original documents and records are
printed in part in Collier and Fleay; and in Halliwell-Phillipps's
_Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare_ (6th ed., 1886); Malone's _Variorum_
ed. of Shakespeare, 1821; Cunningham's _Extracts from the Annals of the
Revels at Court_, Shakespeare Society, 1842; Nichols's _The Progresses and
Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth_, 3 vols., 1823; _Aussere Geschichte
der englischen Theatertruppen_, 1559-1642, by Hermann Maas (Materialien zur
Kunde des aelteren Englischen Dramas, 1907); Hazlitt's _English Drama and
Stage_ (1869); Chamber's _Notes on the Revels Office_ (1906). The essays of
Gosson, Sidney, Webbe, Puttenham, which supply most of the dramatic
criticism of the period, are in Arber's Reprints; selections from these and
other critical works with an introduction are collected in _Elizabethan
Critical Essays_, G. Gregory Smith (1904). J. W. Cunliffe's edition of
Gascoigne's _Posies_ (1907) contains the plays, which he has also edited
with an introduction in _The Belles-Lettres Series_ (1906). A study of
Legge's _Richardus Tertius_ is found in G. B. Churchill's _Richard III up
to Shakespeare_ (Berlin, 1906); and an account of the Latin university
plays in the article cited, by G. B. Churchill and W. Keller (_Shakspere
Jahrbuch_, 1898). W. W. Greg's _A List of English Plays written before 1643
and printed before 1700_ (London Bibliographical Society) is based on the
title-pages of the original copies. Fleay's _Biographical Chronicle_
includes all plays known, extant or not. Greg, Fleay, and Schelling
supersede Halliwell-Phillipps's _Dictionary of Old English Plays_ (1860),
and W. C. Hazlitt's _Manual of Old English Plays_ (1892). _English Drama, a
Working Basis_, by K. L. Bates and L. B. Godfrey, Wellesley College (1895),
is the only attempt at a directory to modern editions, and though very
incomplete, is the most serviceable guide to the whole field of English
drama.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Before the first act, "there came in upon the stage a king with an
Imperiall Crowne upon his head ... sitting in a chariot very richely
furnished, drawne in by foure kinges in their dublettes and hosen, with
crownes upon their heades, representing unto us ambition," etc. And before
the fifth act there is a similar exhibition of a woman in a chariot driving
kings and slaves. These shows may have suggested to Marlowe the famous
business of Tamburlaine and his chariot. The show before act ii introduces
the paraphernalia of coffins and a grave, afterwards so frequent in popular
tragedy.
[3] The earlier version also survives in MS. and has been published by
Professor Brandl in his _Quellen des Weltlichen Dramas_. The revised
version is the result of elaborate care and reflects more highly developed
dramatic conditions than existed in the sixties, but in some respects it
may be closer to the original performance than is the manuscript. The songs
of the chorus, now four maids of Gismunda's instead of four gentlemen of
Salerne, and the dumb shows must have had some equivalents in the
presentation before the Queen, though both are wanting in the earlier
version. The dumb shows are noteworthy because, unlike those in _Gorboduc_
and _Jocasta_, they are not allegorical, but represent important actions
described or referred to in the text.
[4] _Geschichte des neueren Dramas_, ii, 471.
[5] For a list of Latin plays acted at the universities, see Fleay,
_Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama_, vol. ii, 347-366. This list
must be corrected in many particulars by an article, "Die Lateinischen
Universitaets-Dramen in der Zeit der Koenigin Elisabeth," by
George B. Churchill and Wolfgang Keller, _Jahrbuch der Deutschen
Shakespeare-Gesellschaft_, xxxiv, 220-323.
[6] Far more novel than any of the plays discussed in its departures from
Senecan precedent, is _Perfidus Hetruscus_. So far as can be judged from
the outline (_Jahrbuch_, xxxiv, 250-252), it offers no semblance of Senecan
structure. There is no chorus, but there are six ghosts, a villain, two
accomplices,--one a Capuchin, the other a Jesuit,--and an elaborate plot,
as full of surprises as of poisonings. It seems to be a popular revenge
play turned into Latin, and can hardly come within our period.
[7] One play should be mentioned here as standing in some ways between the
classical and popular plays. _Promus and Cassandra_, by George Whetstone,
published 1578, cannot be placed in any of our four classes, for there is
no evidence that it was ever acted. Like _Tancred and Gismunda_, it was
based on an Italian _novella_, also the source of _Measure for Measure_,
and it follows Latin comedy rather than tragedy. In its division into five
acts, its frequent soliloquies, its attempted observance of decorum
(especially vaunted in the preface), and in its serious purpose and moral
sentiments, the play shows a pedantic clinging to classicism. In the main,
however, it belongs with _Damon and Pithias_ and _Appius and Virginia_, and
seems to have been intended for performance by children. It is a mixture of
tragedy, comedy, farce, and songs; and this abundance of incongruous
material seems to have led to its division into two plays, as Whetstone
says, for the purpose of decorum. Here, as elsewhere in the period, the
experiment of putting new material into old dramatic structures burst the
bottles. Clowns, parasites, tyrants, prostitutes, hangmen, Egyptians, and
girls in boys' clothing make up a pageant which is a sort of tragicomedy
but which the learned author called by the more popular title, "a history."
[8] _Ariodante and Genevra_ (_Orlando Furioso_), _Ajax and Ulysses_,
_Agamemnon and Ulysses_, _Caesar and Pompey_, _Cloridon and Radimanta_ _Duke
of Milan_, _Effigenia_ (_Iphigenia_), _Four Sons of Fabius_, _Mutius
Scaevola_, _Quintus Fabius_, _Perseus and Andromeda_, _Sarpedon_, _Scipio
Africanus_, _Timoclea at the Siege of Thebes_, _Telemo_, _Twelve Labors of
Hercules_. Some titles suggesting medieval romance are: _Knight of the
Burning Bush_, _Red Knight_, _Paris and Vienna_, _Solitary Knight_.