"Soliman and Perseda," if not by Kyd, at least shows many evidences of his influence and is itself an interesting combination of the tragedy of revenge and romantic comedy. Love, Fortune, and Death make up a Kydian chorus and debate for supremacy until the close, when Death, like the Ghost, exults in an enumeration of the dead. The love story furnishes a clearly defined plot. The course of true love, despite the heroine's jealousy, an unintended murder by the hero, his banishment, the sack of Rhodes by the Turks, and the Sultan's passion for the heroine, ascends through the first four acts to the reunion and prospective happiness of the lovers. The fifth act proceeds to their separation and death through the Sultan's wickedness. Some of the incidents are those of romantic comedy, such as the use of the chain as a symbol of loyal love, its loss, the resulting jealousy, and the donning of boy's clothes by the heroine in order to receive death from the sword of the hated suitor. The fun of the piece is furnished by a miles gloriosus, Basilisco, and the extraordinary merit of his characterization furnishes the chief reason for doubting Kyd's authorship. Over lyric love, fortune, and fun, however, Death reigns supreme. This is his favorite tragedy, for eighteen persons are actually killed on the stage, and at the close not one of the dramatis personae is left to bear off the bodies of the slain.
The successes of Marlowe and Kyd gave tragic stories a new popularity with actors and audiences, and the stage was occupied with fiercely declaiming Asiatic conquerors, deep-dyed villains, and shrieking ghosts. Marlowe's themes, characters, and blank verse found many imitators, while Kyd's plays encouraged the presentation of stories of ghosts and revenge similar to those in Seneca and his English imitators. Direct imitations of Seneca in technic and language are also common. The abundance of bloodshed is invariable. A wide range of material was drawn upon, including Asiatic story, Italian novelle, Plutarch, Xenophon, and the Bible, although the English chronicles remained the favorite source, and the majority have at least the semblance of a historical setting. Many have a mixture of comic material, but they show in general a preponderance of tragic events and emotions far greater than in the early popular tragedies. There seems to have been a general effort in conformity with an address to the audience placed in the second act of "The Wars of Cyrus," acted by the Children of the Revels, which announces that they have "exiled from our tragicke stage" "needlesse antickes," and promises "mournfull plaints writ sad, and tragicke tearmes." The gentle reader will not linger long over any of these plays or discover in them signs of nascent genius, but they have a considerable interest in illustrating further the development of chronicle history toward tragedy, the influence of the Senecan tradition, and the dominating power of Marlowe's example. They also inform us of the conditions governing tragedy when Shakespeare began his career. In their many resemblances one to another we have evidence not so much of direct borrowings as of the close relations then existing among the few theatrical playwrights and companies. Any successful innovation was bound to have its immediate imitations, and on the other hand the keen rivalry for success was likely to result in innovation and novelty.
Of these plays perhaps "Locrine"[12] has the most diverse indebtedness. It presents a story of a bloody family feud, but it is also of the chronicle history order, with a mixture of battles, patriotism, and farce. It exhibits borrowings from Spenser, imitations of "Tamburlaine," Ate as a chorus, dumb shows requiring a menagerie, two ghosts, one of whom takes part in the action, and a story of double revenge. The hero is occupied with revenge number one until the fourth act, when his infidelity makes him the object of a return revenge that culminates in his death. Among the plays mainly indebted to Marlowe are: Greene's "Alphonsus of Aragon," a comedy that is almost a travesty on the first part of "Tamburlaine"; "Selimus," ascribed to Greene, which also shows Senecan structure and philosophy; "The Wounds of Civil War, or the Tragedies of Marius and Sylla," the first extant play based on Plutarch; "The Wars of Cyrus," in part romantic comedy; and Peele's "Battle of Alcazar," which has a presenter, dumb shows, three ghosts, and a Moorish villain of the same class as Marlowe's Barabas and Aaron in "Titus Andronicus."
The English chronicle plays also felt Marlowe's influence, most notably in Shakespeare's early historical plays, to be considered in a moment, but also in several plays almost contemporary with "Edward II" and the first versions of "Henry VI." "The True Tragedy of Richard III" (1594), by an unknown author or authors, seems to have preceded Shakespeare's play and to have followed the third part of "Henry VI." It presents a combination of chronicle play with Marlowesque protagonist and a Kydian apparatus of revenge. The ghost of Clarence appears at the beginning crying, "Vindicta," and Truth and Poetry supply the necessary exposition. The revenge element becomes prominent toward the end of the play, when the ghosts of Richard's victims appear to him in a dream, not visible as in Shakespeare, and the remorseful villain declares that not merely his victims but all the forces of nature, sun, moon, and planets, cry revenge:—
"The birds sing not, but sorrow for revenge.
The silly lambs sit bleating for revenge."
Richard is a man of powerful will carried away by ambition and evidently modeled on Tamburlaine; but unlike the Scythian and like Faustus, he is conscience-smitten, and his punishment comes in remorse as well as death. This conception, based on the chronicle, is treated with power, but in the main the play is a hodge-podge. More worthy examples of chronicle history are "Edward III," often ascribed to Marlowe and not unworthy of him, and the anonymous "Tragedy of Woodstock."[13] The latter shows frequent resemblances to "Edward II" and apparently preceded Shakespeare's "Richard II," leaving off at the point where that play begins. The events of half a reign are focused about the central personalities of Richard and Woodstock, a weak king beset by flatterers and an honorable and patriotic leader of the nobles. The construction is skillful in its integration of comedy with the main action and its alternation of tragic and comic, action and counsel, force and counter-force; and the characterization is remarkably well individualized. Woodstock, especially, has human appeal and is notable as a tragic hero, or at least the central figure of a history, who meets misfortune and death through no fault of his own but solely through the wickedness of others.
Holinshed's chronicle is also the source of "Arden of Feversham" (1592), sometimes ascribed on very insufficient grounds to Shakespeare, the earliest extant domestic tragedy. The play deals with a notorious murder of some forty years before, and follows the crude dramaturgy of the earliest chronicle plays. The stage presentation of notably brutal murders is common to-day and was to be expected on the Elizabethan stage, but the play seems also to represent reaction from the royalties, marvels, and unrealities of the contemporary tragedy. The epilogue, indeed, offers a defiance of romanticism and the since well-worn creed of the realist.
"Gentlemen, we hope youle pardon this naked tragedy,
Wherein no filed points are foisted in
To make it gratious to the eare or eye;
For simple truth is gratious enough,
And needes no other points of glosing stuffe."
Notwithstanding this protestation, occasional monologues reveal the common stylistic decorations. The play is tediously detailed and artlessly realistic, though it has some vigorous blank verse and several powerful scenes; the most powerful, when Michael in the middle of the night is awaiting the murderers of his master, recalling a well-known passage in "The Spanish Tragedy." But the greatest merit of the play lies in the portrait of Alice Arden, absorbed in a despicable passion, but cunning and unabashed, incomparably the most lifelike evil woman up to this time depicted in the drama.
Peele's "The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe, with the Tragedie of Absalon," acted about 1591, has, unlike "Arden," many "filed points to make it gratious to the eare and eye." It gains a unique interest as the only extant tragedy of this period based on the biblical narrative. The bible story is treated just as a historical chronicle would have been; and the play, divided by choruses into three "discourses," offers no advance in conception, structure, or characterization on the average tragedy of the period. Yet it is the masterpiece of one of the most active among Shakespeare's predecessors and illustrates his most distinctive contribution to the drama's development. As the author of "Alcazar," "Edward I," and possibly "Locrine," as well as "David and Bethsabe," Peele's contribution deserves some note. His dramatic career began at Oxford, where he made a version of one of the "Iphigenias" of Euripides, which was acted at Christ Church, and where he also aided in the production of Dr. Gager's Latin plays. In London he became the friend of Nash, Greene, and Marlowe, and the versatile adopter of the latest dramatic modes, whether in comedy, pastoral, history, or tragedy. In his best work, however, and especially in "David and Bethsabe," there are graces of style which justify Nash's eulogy of his friend as "primus verborum artifex." The great innovation of this early drama was, after all, in poetic style; and in furthering this Peele may claim a place only second to Marlowe. If Marlowe gave sweep and grandeur to blank verse, Peele brought a sweetness of cadence and, as Professor Ward observes, "a vivacity of fancy and a variety of imagery." As Marlowe turned everything into sonorous phrase, now bombastic, now superb, so Peele turned every thought to music and fancy, sometimes banal, sometimes lovely. "David and Bethsabe," with its oriental setting, though treated with careless dramatic art, proved an inspiration to the stylist. The excess of verbalism, indeed, gives the play a sugary and monotonous effect, and its poetry loses connection with character or situation. Absalon plays with conceits for twenty-five lines while hanging by his hair, and laments melodiously for fifteen lines more after being stabbed. But there is charm and gracefulness everywhere, in the choruses, in the defense of Hamon, and in the parables, and now and again the very allurement and luxury of words, as in the famous,