Both statements of the principle of decorum rigidly match character type with nature or behavior. By simplification of character, consistency could be assured. It is obvious that this view of dramatic character did not prevail in Elizabethan drama, but not because it was completely out of harmony with Elizabethan thought. When Timothy Bright approvingly noted that “butchers acquainted with slaughter, are accepted therby to be of a more cruell disposition: and therefore amongst us are discharged from iuries of life & death,”[28] he was reflecting a type of thinking in keeping with the principle of decorum.
It is against such Idols of the Tribe that Bacon inveighs. But even when he attacks such habits of thought, he gives us a clear concept of them.
The spirit of man (being of an equal and uniform substance) pre-supposes and feigns in nature a greater equality and uniformity than really is. Hence the fancy of the mathematicians that the heavenly bodies move in perfect circles, rejecting spiral lines. Hence also it happens, that whereas there are many things in nature unique and full of dissimilarity, yet the cogitation of man still invents for them relatives, parallels, and conjugates. Hence sprang the introduction of an element of fire, to keep square with earth, water, and air. Hence the chemists have marshalled the universe in phalanx; conceiving, upon a most groundless fancy, that in those four elements of theirs (heaven, air, water, and earth,) each species in one has parallel and corresponding species in the others.... Man is as it were the common measure and mirror of nature. For it is not credible (if all particulars be gone through and noted) what a troop of fictions and idols the reduction of the operations of nature to the similitude of human actions has brought into natural philosophy; I mean, the fancy that nature acts as man does.[29]
For the Elizabethans, as Bacon laments, external and internal experiences were manifestations of a single spirit which had parallels in the natural and moral universe. Consequently, in depicting and understanding character, the Elizabethans looked for similarities, not differences. What made one man like another and like the macrocosm was a habitual way of estimating character.
However, instead of the simple formulae of “decorum,” the Elizabethans employed a complex system of correspondences. For them, man was volatile. Potentially he was capable of absorbing concepts shared by other men. This reduced the possibility of matching thought and character. He was also capable of experiencing passions common to all mankind. This made it impossible to match nature and character. In so dynamic a philosophy the meaning of decorum had to change. Professor Lily B. Campbell has rightly pointed out that decorum in Elizabethan drama was “not a law of aesthetic theory but a law of moral philosophy.” To extend her definition, it was also a law of social organization and political life.
In the highly stratified Elizabethan society, precepts and models of behavior were strictly developed. Bearing, speech, and dress reflected class status. Ceremony was not only appropriate but necessary, for, as Sir Thomas Elyot admonished:
Lette it be also consydered, that wee bee men and not Aungelles: wherefore we know nothyng but by outwarde signification. [Honor is not everywhere perceived] but by some exterior signe, and that is eyther by lawdable reporte, or excellency in vesture, or other thing semblable.[30]
In this context ceremony is not unnatural, and in fact, to the Elizabethan, ceremony signified the natural order of the universe. Man constantly saw his corresponding reflections in the “outward signification” of society, nature, and morality.
That this central habit of thought was deeply ingrained in Elizabethan nature is reflected in Bacon himself. Despite his recognition of the fallacy of such thought, he still finds general similitude between feature and nature. He still thinks that the deformed person must be evil, although he tries to provide a scientific explanation of the causes of this correspondence. It is true that this form of logic was falling before the development of inductive thought, particularly in the sciences. Nevertheless, through most of the Renaissance and certainly in the period with which we are dealing, it prevailed.
Its effect on the decorum of character was twofold. First, character fitted into a group. Whatever his individuality might be, a man was a member of a class and his behavior conformed to the behavior of the class. Second, external features implied internal qualities. Man carried the mark of his class and his nature, in his walk, talk, features, and costume. The outer man was the inner man; therefore, the inner man tended the form and bearing of the outer man carefully. In these ways decorum still functioned in Elizabethan thought and served as a basis for the portrayal of character by the actor.