English Literature
also as the finisher of Marlowe's _Hero and Leander_, in which, apart from
the drama, the Renaissance movement is seen at perhaps its highest point in
English poetry. Out of scores of long poems of the period, _Hero and
Leander_ and the _Faery Queen_ are the only two which are even slightly
known to modern readers.
MICHAEL DRAYTON (1563-1631). Drayton is the most voluminous and, to
antiquarians at least, the most interesting of the minor poets. He is the
Layamon of the Elizabethan Age, and vastly more scholarly than his
predecessor. His chief work is _Polyolbion_, an enormous poem of many
thousand couplets, describing the towns, mountains, and rivers of Britain,
with the interesting legends connected with each. It is an extremely
valuable work and represents a lifetime of study and research. Two other
long works are the _Barons' Wars_ and the _Heroic Epistle of England;_ and
besides these were many minor poems. One of the best of these is the
"Battle of Agincourt," a ballad written in the lively meter which Tennyson
used with some variations in the "Charge of the Light Brigade," and which
shows the old English love of brave deeds and of the songs that stir a
people's heart in memory of noble ancestors.
III. THE FIRST ENGLISH DRAMATISTS
THE ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA. First the deed, then the story, then the play;
that seems to be the natural development of the drama in its simplest form.
The great deeds of a people are treasured in its literature, and later
generations represent in play or pantomime certain parts of the story which
appeal most powerfully to the imagination. Among primitive races the deeds
of their gods and heroes are often represented at the yearly festivals; and
among children, whose instincts are not yet blunted by artificial habits,
one sees the story that was heard at bedtime repeated next day in vigorous
action, when our boys turn scouts and our girls princesses, precisely as
our first dramatists turned to the old legends and heroes of Britain for
their first stage productions. To act a part seems as natural to humanity
as to tell a story; and originally the drama is but an old story retold to
the eye, a story put into action by living performers, who for the moment
"make believe" or imagine themselves to be the old heroes.
To illustrate the matter simply, there was a great life lived by him who
was called the Christ. Inevitably the life found its way into literature,
and we have the Gospels. Around the life and literature sprang up a great
religion. Its worship was at first simple,--the common prayer, the evening
meal together, the remembered words of the Master, and the closing hymn.
Gradually a ritual was established, which grew more elaborate and
impressive as the centuries went by. Scenes from the Master's life began to
be represented in the churches, especially at Christmas time, when the
story of Christ's birth was made more effective, to the eyes of a people
who could not read, by a babe in a manger surrounded by magi and shepherds,
with a choir of angels chanting the _Gloria in Excelsis_.[126] Other
impressive scenes from the Gospel followed; then the Old Testament was
called upon, until a complete cycle of plays from the Creation to the Final
Judgment was established, and we have the Mysteries and Miracle plays of
the Middle Ages. Out of these came directly the drama of the Elizabethan
Age.
PERIODS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DRAMA
1. THE RELIGIOUS PERIOD. In Europe, as in Greece, the drama had a
distinctly religious origin.[127] The first characters were drawn from the
New Testament, and the object of the first plays was to make the church
service more impressive, or to emphasize moral lessons by showing the
reward of the good and the punishment of the evil doer. In the latter days
of the Roman Empire the Church found the stage possessed by frightful
plays, which debased the morals of a people already fallen too low. Reform
seemed impossible; the corrupt drama was driven from the stage, and plays
of every kind were forbidden. But mankind loves a spectacle, and soon the
Church itself provided a substitute for the forbidden plays in the famous
Mysteries and Miracles.
MIRACLE AND MYSTERY PLAYS. In France the name _miracle_ was given to any
play representing the lives of the saints, while the _mystère_ represented
scenes from the life of Christ or stories from the Old Testament associated
with the coming of Messiah. In England this distinction was almost unknown;
the name Miracle was used indiscriminately for all plays having their
origin in the Bible or in the lives of the saints; and the name Mystery, to
distinguish a certain class of plays, was not used until long after the
religious drama had passed away.
The earliest Miracle of which we have any record in England is the _Ludus
de Sancta Katharina_, which was performed in Dunstable about the year
1110.[128] It is not known who wrote the original play of St. Catherine,
but our first version was prepared by Geoffrey of St. Albans, a French
school-teacher of Dunstable. Whether or not the play was given in English
is not known, but it was customary in the earliest plays for the chief
actors to speak in Latin or French, to show their importance, while minor
and comic parts of the same play were given in English.
For four centuries after this first recorded play the Miracles increased
steadily in number and popularity in England. They were given first very
simply and impressively in the churches; then, as the actors increased in
number and the plays in liveliness, they overflowed to the churchyards; but
when fun and hilarity began to predominate even in the most sacred
representations, the scandalized priests forbade plays altogether on church
grounds. By the year 1300 the Miracles were out of ecclesiastical hands and
adopted eagerly by the town guilds; and in the following two centuries we
find the Church preaching against the abuse of the religious drama which it
had itself introduced, and which at first had served a purely religious
purpose.[129] But by this time the Miracles had taken strong hold upon the
English people, and they continued to be immensely popular until, in the
sixteenth century, they were replaced by the Elizabethan drama.
The early Miracle plays of England were divided into two classes: the
first, given at Christmas, included all plays connected with the birth of
Christ; the second, at Easter, included the plays relating to his death and
triumph. By the beginning of the fourteenth century all these plays were,
in various localities, united in single cycles beginning with the Creation
and ending with the Final Judgment. The complete cycle was presented every
spring, beginning on Corpus Christi day; and as the presentation of so many
plays meant a continuous outdoor festival of a week or more, this day was
looked forward to as the happiest of the whole year.
Probably every important town in England had its own cycle of plays for its
own guilds to perform, but nearly all have been lost. At the present day
only four cycles exist (except in the most fragmentary condition), and
these, though they furnish an interesting commentary on the times, add very
little to our literature. The four cycles are the Chester and York plays,
so called from the towns in which they were given; the Towneley or
Wakefield plays, named for the Towneley family, which for a long time owned
the manuscript; and the Coventry plays, which on doubtful evidence have
been associated with the Grey Friars (Franciscans) of Coventry. The Chester
cycle has 25 plays, the Wakefield 30, the Coventry 42, and the York 48. It
is impossible to fix either the date or the authorship of any of these
plays; we only know certainly that they were in great favor from the
twelfth to the sixteenth century. The York plays are generally considered
to be the best; but those of Wakefield show more humor and variety, and
better workmanship. The former cycle especially shows a certain unity
resulting from its aim to represent the whole of man's life from birth to
death. The same thing is noticeable in _Cursor Mundi_, which, with the York
and Wakefield cycles, belongs to the fourteenth century.
At first the actors as well as the authors of the Miracles were the priests
and their chosen assistants. Later, when The town guilds took up the plays
and each guild became responsible for one or more of the series, the actors
were carefully selected and trained. By four o'clock on the morning of
Corpus Christi all the players had to be in their places in the movable
theaters, which were scattered throughout the town in the squares and open
places. Each of these theaters consisted of a two-story platform, set on
wheels. The lower story was a dressing room for the actors; the upper story
was the stage proper, and was reached by a trapdoor from below. When the
play was over the platform was dragged away, and the next play in the cycle
took its place. So in a single square several plays would be presented in
rapid sequence to the same audience. Meanwhile the first play moved on to
another square, where another audience was waiting to hear it.
Though the plays were distinctly religious in character, there is hardly
one without its humorous element. In the play of Noah, for instance, Noah's
shrewish wife makes fun for the audience by wrangling with her husband. In
the Crucifixion play Herod is a prankish kind of tyrant who leaves the
stage to rant among the audience; so that to "out-herod Herod" became a
common proverb. In all the plays the devil is a favorite character and the
butt of every joke. He also leaves the stage to play pranks or frighten the
wondering children. On the side of the stage was often seen a huge dragon's
head with gaping red jaws, belching forth fire and smoke, out of which
poured a tumultuous troop of devils with clubs and pitchforks and gridirons
to punish the wicked characters and to drag them away at last, howling and
shrieking, into hell-mouth, as the dragon's head was called. So the fear of
hell was ingrained into an ignorant people for four centuries. Alternating
with these horrors were bits of rough horse-play and domestic scenes of
peace and kindliness, representing the life of the English fields and
homes. With these were songs and carols, like that of the Nativity, for
instance:
As I out rode this enderes (last) night,
Of three jolly shepherds I saw a sight,
And all about their fold a star shone bright;
They sang _terli terlow_,
So merryly the shepherds their pipes can blow.
Down from heaven, from heaven so high,
Of angels there came a great companye
With mirth, and joy, and great solemnitye;
They sang _terli terlow_,
So merryly the shepherds their pipes can blow.
Such songs were taken home by the audience and sung for a season, as a
popular tune is now caught from the stage and sung on the streets; and at
times the whole audience would very likely join in the chorus.
After these plays were written according to the general outline of the
Bible stories, no change was tolerated, the audience insisting, like
children at "Punch and Judy," upon seeing the same things year after year.
No originality in plot or treatment was possible, therefore; the only
variety was in new songs and jokes, and in the pranks of the devil.
Childish as such plays seem to us, they are part of the religious
development of all uneducated people. Even now the Persian play of the
"Martyrdom of Ali" is celebrated yearly, and the famous "Passion Play," a
true Miracle, is given every ten years at Oberammergau.
2. THE MORAL PERIOD OF THE DRAMA.[130] The second or moral period of the
drama is shown by the increasing prevalence of the Morality plays. In these