Roman Drama.—Roman drama is not intrinsically good; it is in many respects a weak imitation of Greek drama, but it has been very much more important in its influence. Early English, French, and Italian dramatists all turned to Seneca as a model for tragedy, and to Plautus and Terence as models for comedy. This was partly due to the fact that though most of them had small Latin, they had less Greek; but it was partly because the Latin writers were easier to imitate. Italy had native farces, known as Atellan Fables, which were not without their influence on the development of comedy. These plays were broadly farcical, and dealt almost entirely with country life. The two great Roman comedy writers, Plautus and Terence, based their work, however, upon the new comedy of Greece, especially upon the plays of Menander and Diphilus. Plautus is decidedly coarse at times, and sometimes his fun is too much like that of a fourth-form boy at a public school, but his work is wholesome and vigorous, and he is a more creative and virile writer than Terence. Terence's plays are somewhat weak dramatically, but are written in a style of great beauty. He was a careful literary craftsman. Seneca, the only Roman tragic writer, had an immense influence on later dramatists. It is hard to account for this. He based his work upon Euripides, but he suppressed everything that makes Euripides tender and human. Senecan tragedy abounded in bloodshed and horrors; the speeches are full of pompous rant, and their metre is most monotonous. Some of the choruses are good rhetorical writing, though scarcely great poetry. Seneca's influence pervades all our early tragedy; it is clearly seen in Gorboduc and in Jonson's Sejanus and Catiline; even Shakespeare is not without traces of it. As the Roman Empire declined so did the Roman stage; finally nothing was performed save pantomime, in the proper sense of the word, where everything was done in dumb-show. This appeared to content the populace of the Roman Empire, even as the cinema seems to satisfy the citizens of a later and perhaps greater empire.
Mediæval Drama.—There is no drama between the death of Seneca and the Renaissance, unless we except the six curious 'comedies' of the nun Hrosvitha of Gandersheim (born about A.D. 935). These plays are based upon Terence, though they do not follow their model closely. They are, of course, written in Latin. They have some vivid dramatic touches, and frequent felicities of expression. They were probably intended for recitation, not for representation on the stage. They must be regarded as an isolated phenomenon. The Church for long discouraged drama, but ended by adapting it to its own purposes. As in Greece, therefore, drama originated in England from religion. The priests impressed certain events in sacred history upon the minds of their congregation by means of dramatic performances which at first took place actually in the church. Thus the removal of the stone from the mouth of the sepulchre and the discovery of the empty tomb was performed at Easter, and the finding of the Babe in the manger by the three Magi was represented at Epiphany. It is easy to understand how performances of this sort arose from the singing of suitable anthems on festival days. The Oberammergau passion-play is a somewhat sophisticated representative of these liturgical plays; it cannot be called a survival, as it only dates back to 1633. These mystery-plays, so called because they were produced by the trade-guilds (Lat. ministerium, a trade), were eventually brought out into the market-place on wagons, and were moved round to various 'stations' in the town, different plays being performed at each station. A distinction is sometimes made
between mystery- and miracle-plays, the former being defined as dealing with gospel events only, while the latter deal with incidents derived from the legends of the saints. Several collections of these plays survive—the Wakefield, Chester, and Coventry plays. They are written in a lively fashion, and are often naively humorous, the most sacred Bible characters being introduced along with English yokels and crudely comic persons. The next development of the drama was the morality play or allegory; the well-known Everyman is the most finished specimen of this kind of play which we possess. Here personifications of Virtues and Vices formed the dramatis personæ; the Devil was usually included in the cast. Moralities were in ways less crude than mysteries, as they consisted of an allegory worked out by means of a more or less continuous plot, while mysteries consisted merely of a series of isolated scenes. The interlude is another early species of drama; it marks a still further advance. Interludes were both farcical and theological in their subjects, and played an important part in the controversies at the time of the Reformation. John Heywood (1497-1580) is the most important writer of interludes, the controversial plays of John Bale (1495-1563) serving to link the interlude to the regular drama, which began gradually to spring up.
Interior of the Swan Theatre in 1596. From a sketch made by a Dutchman who visited England at the time.
Elizabethan Drama.—The first English comedy, Ralph Roister Doister, appeared in 1551. It is by Nicolas Udall, and is based upon the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus. Gammer Gurton's Needle, a more native production, thought to have been by John Still, who was master of St. John's College, Cambridge, and Bishop of Bath and Wells, appeared about 1566. Drama now improved rapidly, and was soon to attain perfection in Shakespeare. Marlowe, Kyd, Greene, Lyly, Nash, Lodge, and Peele all helped to prepare the way. The greatest of these is Marlowe, who died at the age of twenty-nine, leaving behind him the great plays Tamburlaine (1588), Faustus, and Edward II. In his development of blank verse he contributed greatly to the success of the drama. The earliest tragedy, Gorboduc (1562), is incredibly stiff and wooden in its versification. Marlowe made of blank verse an instrument that would sound any note of pathos or sublimity. In the plays of Shakespeare (1564-1616) drama reached its greatest height. In comedy, tragedy, history, in handling dramatic situations, and in liquid perfection of verse, he is supreme. Like the very greatest masters, he founded no school, and his contemporaries owe little to him. While they are all put in the shade by his myriad-minded genius, they are all partakers with him in the glory of their age, and are all great in themselves. Jonson (1573-1637) is one of the most important, as he to some extent founded a school and exercised considerable influence over later writers. He was a scholarly and laborious playwright, who over-elaborated some of his work, but who was a masterly adept at constructing a play, and a vigorous realist. Chapman (1559-1634), Dekker (1570-1641), and Marston (1575-1634) were all good workmanlike dramatists. Beaumont and Fletcher produced between them a great body of work, some of inferior quality, but all of great power. In some respects their work is less unlike that of Shakespeare than the work of other Elizabethans. Middleton, Webster, Tourneur, Thomas Heywood, and Massinger are all excellent in their way, Massinger in particular being a master of stage-craft. Shirley and Ford conclude the list of the great Jacobean dramatists. The Puritans caused the theatres to be closed in 1642.
Spanish and French Drama.—Meanwhile a similar outburst of dramatic activity was taking place on the Continent. In Spain, Lope de Vega (1562-1634) wrote a prodigious quantity of plays, and wrote them with much brilliance. Calderon wrote some beautiful plays, several of which have been translated by Edward Fitzgerald. Cervantes, though much better known as a novelist, wrote many good plays. The Spanish school directly inspired Corneille (1606-1684)
to write his play Le Cid, and so begin the great age of classical French tragedy. Racine (1639-1700) is the other great name. French classical drama, though somewhat fettered by its observance of laws that were wrongly considered essential, is extremely dignified and beautiful. In Molière (1622-73) France possesses the greatest of all writers of society comedies. He is as supreme in his kingdom as Shakespeare is in his empire. He borrowed from his predecessors with all the licence of genius, but he payed usurious interest on his borrowings.
Restoration Drama.—When the theatres were reopened after the Restoration, many dramatists began to write. Restoration comedy was largely based on Molière, who was brutalized by Wycherley, and adapted but not improved by Congreve. Congreve was, however, a master of sparkling dialogue, and in one play, The Way of the World, he has shown himself not unworthy of comparison with his master. Vanbrugh and Farquhar are the other two important writers of comedies; all their comedies are more or less disfigured by cynicism and immorality, the reaction after the Puritan restraint. Restoration tragedy is much less important than Restoration comedy. Otway, Lee, and Southerne are its chief exponents.