OF CALIFORNIA Literary Criticism from the TRA Elizabethan Dramatists CHAPTER I CRITICISM TILL 1600 FUNCTION OF THE DRAMA RADITION has a strong hold on things, and will persist in determining how things ought to be, long after they have ceased to be so. Traditionally the function of the English drama was didactic. It was brought into being because it seemed an effective method of teaching the people. We know, however, how soon it brought down upon itself the displeasure of the very people that gave it existence, because forces beyond their control, yet innate in its creation, developed for it additional functions which they considered anything but desirable. Nevertheless, the ostensible purpose of dramatic production remained didactic to the end of the medieval drama. Now the end of the medieval drama almost coincided with the culmination of the modern drama, and the distinction between the two forms was, popularly, not great enough to prevent the application of the same theories to both, no matter what the practise was; particularly since such application is made unconsciously. Furthermore, the conscious critical views of English critics had their source on the continent; chiefly in the writings of the elder Scaliger, whose Poetics (1561) like the other similar continental works, was little more than a monumental perversion of Aristotle. Scaliger's prestige in England was unlimited. The awe with which his very name was alluded to is simply amazing. Here is what this god of criticism had to say of the function of the drama (Poetics, 11): The end [of poetry] is the giving of instruction in pleasurable form; for poetry teaches, and does not simply amuse, as some used to think because primitive poetry was sung, its design seemed merely to please; yet underlying the music was that for the sake of which music was provided only as a sauce. In time this rude and pristine invention was enriched by philosophy, which made poetry the medium of its teaching. Now is there not one end, and one only, in philosophical exposition, in oratory, and in the drama? Assuredly such is the case. All have one and the same end-persuasion. Is it any wonder, then, that our earliest dramatists did not dare suggest, probably even to themselves, the propriety of the absence of the didactic motive? Here are their own statements in chronological order, so far as this can be determined. In Damon and Pythias by Edwards, performed in 1564, we find (Hazlitt's Dodsley, 4, P. 99): Dionysius. O noble gentlemen, the immortal gods above Hath made you play this tragedy for my behalf. In 1568 was published The Tragical Comedy of Appius and Virginia, of which the Epilog tells us: And by this poet's feigning here example do you take Of Virginia's life of chastity, of duty to thy make; Of love to wife, of love to spouse, of love to husband dear, Of bringing up of tender youth: all these are noted here. In the same year was printed Ulpian Fulwell's Like Will to Like, in which a new note is struck. The title page reads: An Interlude entitled Like Will to Like, Quoth the Devil to the Collier, very godly and full of |