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 älteren 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 Universitäts-Dramen in der Zeit der Königin 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.