(d) The themes were usually tragic in nature, for the dramatists were as a rule too much in earnest to give heed to what was considered to be the lower species of comedy. The general lack of real humor in the early drama is one of its most prominent features. Humor, when it is brought in at all, is coarse and immature. Almost the only representative of the writers of real comedies is Lyly, who in such plays as Alexander and Campaspe (1584), Endymion (1592), and The Woman in the Moon gives us the first examples of romantic comedy.
1. George Peele (1558–98) was born in London, educated at Christ’s Hospital and at Oxford, and became a literary hack and free-lance in London. His plays include The Araygnement of Paris (1581), a kind of romantic comedy; The Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First (1593), a rambling chronicle-play; The Old Wives’ Tale (1595), a clever satire on the popular drama of the day; and The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe (published 1599). Peele’s style can be violent to the point of absurdity; but he has his moments of real poetry; he can handle his blank verse with more ease and variety than was common at the time; he is fluent; he has humor and a fair amount of pathos. In short, he represents a great advance upon the earliest drama, and is perhaps the most attractive among the playwrights of the time.
We give a short example to illustrate the poetical quality of his blank verse:
David. Now comes my lover tripping like the roe,
And brings my longings tangled in her hair.
To ’joy her love I’ll build a kingly bower,
Seated in hearing of a hundred streams,
That, for their homage to her sovereign joys,
Shall, as the serpents fold into their nests,
In oblique turnings wind the nimble waves