even of the Gaoler’s Daughter in the “Two Noble Kinsmen,” we can only account for such a peculiar case as Memnon—in Fletcher’s “Mad Lover”—by postulating a conscious development of the idea that “love is a kind of madness.”
It is possible that the difficulty of keeping to the point of view we have chosen may lead to many mistakes being made in our treatment of individual characters. But it seems better to run the risk of this than to set about this work as though it were a medical treatise, or as though the plays to be considered had been produced by a kind of evolution, and not by very human, imperfect, work-a-day playwrights. That being said, Prologue has finished:
“Now, good or bad, ’tis but the chance of war.”
FOOTNOTES:
[5:1] “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” v., 2, 337.
[5:2] “Merchant of Venice,” iv., 1, 48.
[5:3] “Philaster,” ii., 4.
[5:4] Drayton, “The Battle of Agincourt.”
[6:1] “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” v., 1, 7.