THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY
OF
ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE

Volume VI: English
THE DRAMA TO 1642
Part Two


Edited by A. W. Ward & A. R. Waller
  

  
CONTENTS
    Table of Principal Dates
  
Chapter I. Ben Jonson
  By ASHLEY H. THORNDIKE, M.A., Ph.D. (Harvard), Professor of English in Columbia University, New York
  1. Ben Jonson’s character and friendships
  2. Early life
  3. Production of Every Man in His Humour
  4. Maturity; Prosperity
  5. Later years
  6. Eminence in letters
  7. Epigrams; The Forest
  8. Underwoods
  9. The Sad Shepherd
  10. Early Plays
  11. His Programme of Reform; Every Man in His Humour
  12. Every Man out of His Humour
  13. His Tragedies
  14. Volpone; Epicoene
  15. The Alchemist
  16. Bartholomew Fayre
  17. His later Comedies
  18. His place in Literature
BIBLIOGRAPHY
  
II. Chapman, Marston, Dekker
  By W. MACNEILE DIXON, M.A. (Dublin), Litt.D. (Glasgow), Professor of English Language and Literature in the University of Glasgow
  1. Chapman’s life
  2. Shakespeare and the “Rival Poet
  3. Didactic nature of Chapman’s Poetry
  4. His Comedies
  5. His Historic Tragedies; Bussy D’Ambois; The Revenge
  6. Chapman’s Homer
  7. Marston’s life
  8. His prominence in the War of the Theatres
  9. Quarrel with Jonson: Assaults and Counter-assaults
  10. End of the quarrel
  11. Marston’s Tragedies; Antonio and Mellida
  12. The Malcontent
  13. Eastward Hoe
  14. The Fawne
  15. His other Plays; Withdrawal from theatrical life
  16. Dekker’s early activities; Value of his work; His Comedies: The Shomakers Holiday; Old Fortunatus; The Honest Whore
  17. His Collaborators
  18. His place as a Dramatist
  19. Importance of his prose work
BIBLIOGRAPHY
  
III. Middleton and Rowley
  By ARTHUR SYMONS
  1. Biographical details
  2. Middleton’s non-dramatic work
  3. His first Plays: The Mayor of Quinborough
  4. The Old Law
  5. Blurt Master-Constable
  6. His farcical Comedies: their character and material
  7. His realism
  8. Fluency and naturalness of his work
  9. His Collaborators
  10. Plays by Rowley alone; their sincerity and nobility of aim
  11. Rowley’s influence on Middleton
  12. A Faire Quarrell
  13. The World tost at Tennis
  14. The Changeling
  15. Later Plays by Middleton
  16. His dramatic genius
BIBLIOGRAPHY
  
IV. Thomas Heywood
  By A. W. WARD, Litt.D., F.B.A., Master of Peterhouse
  1. Thomas Heywood as the servant of public taste
  2. His special work in Domestic Drama
  3. His life: London and Court associations
  4. His point of view as a Playwright
  5. His non-dramatic works
  6. The Apology for Actors
  7. His Plays
  8. A Woman Kilde with Kindnesse
  9. Elizabethan Domestic Drama
  10. Early attempts at realistic treatment
  11. The Murder Plays
  12. Changes in the social system and their effect on the Drama
  13. Heywood’s picture of English country life
  14. The Royall King, and The Loyall Subject
  15. The Fair Maid Of The West
  16. Other Plays
  17. His work in collaboration with others
  18. His qualities as a Dramatist
BIBLIOGRAPHY
  
V. Beaumont and Fletcher
  By G. C. MACAULAY, M.A., late Fellow of Trinity College, University Lecturer in English
  1. New influences on the Drama
  2. Abandonment of Tragedy for Tragi-comedy; Lowering of moral standards
  3. Contemporary appreciation of Beaumont and Fletcher’s work
  4. Biographies and early intimacy of the two Dramatists; Individual characteristics
  5. Evidence as to authorship
  6. Fletcher’s Metrical Style: comparison with that of Shakespeare
  7. Features assignable to Beaumont
  8. Massinger’s collaboration with Fletcher
  9. Excellence of Fletcher’s stage effects
  10. His weakness in characterisation
  11. Sources of his plays
  12. Rapidity of production; Classification of the Plays
  13. Tragedies; Romantic Dramas
  14. Comedies
  15. Qualities of language and style in Beaumont and Fletcher’s plays
BIBLIOGRAPHY
  
VI. Philip Massinger
  By EMIL KOEPPEL, Professor of English Philology in the University of Strassburg
  1. Massinger’s life
  2. Biographical value of his Dedications
  3. His relations with the Herberts
  4. Literary friends
  5. Joint workmanship with Fletcher and others
  6. His independent Dramas
  7. Some Political Dramas of the time
  8. Massinger’s political opinions
  9. His religious sympathies
  10. His literary models: Shakespeare, Fletcher, Jonson
  11. His constructive art
  12. Typical situations
  13. His women
  14. His lovers
  15. His villains
  16. His comical figures
  17. His style: preponderance of the rhetorical element
  18. His repetitions
  19. Contemporary and posthumous reputation
  20. Massinger in Germany
BIBLIOGRAPHY
  
VII. Tourneur and Webster
  By C. E. VAUGHAN, M.A., Balliol College, Oxford, Professor of English Literature in the University of Leeds
  1. Meagreness of biographical details
  2. Tourneur’s two Tragedies
  3. John Webster: periods of his literary activity
  4. Collaboration with Dekker and Marston
  5. West-Ward Hoe and North-Ward Hoe
  6. Webster’s original work
  7. The White Divel: question of its sources; possibility of originality in the plot
  8. Advance on his earlier work
  9. The theme of Revenge as handled by Elizabethan Dramatists
  10. The Dutchesse Of Malfy: its source and date; advance in representation and motif
  11. The last period
  12. Appius and Virginia
  13. The Devils Law-case: influence of Fletcher
  14. Secret of Webster’s genius: his profound knowledge of human character and sense of tragic issues
  15. His imagination and poetic power
BIBLIOGRAPHY
  
VIII. Ford and Shirley
  By W. A. NEILSON, M.A. (Edinburgh), Ph.D. (Harvard), Professor of English in Harvard University
  1. Commencement of the literary period of English Drama
  2. Ford’s life and early work
  3. Romantic character of his non-dramatic work
  4. His collaboration with Dekker
  5. His independent Dramas
  6. His lost Plays
  7. Ford as typical of the period of decadence
  8. His merits
  9. Shirley’s life and career
  10. His Poems
  11. His Tragedies
  12. His Comedies of Manners and Romantic Comedies
  13. His Entertainments
  14. Originality of his plots
  15. Conventionality of his style
  16. Comparison of Shirley with Ford
BIBLIOGRAPHY
  
IX. Lesser Jacobean and Caroline Dramatists
  By the Rev. RONALD BAYNE, M.A., University College, Oxford
  1. General characteristics of the Jacobean and Caroline Drama; the central position of Jonson
  2. Belated Elizabethans: John Day’s later comedies; The Ile of Guls; evolution of The Parliament of Bees; its merits and characteristics
  3. Armin’s Two Maids of More-clacke
  4. Sharpham’s two Plays; The single Plays of Barry, Cooke and Tailor
  5. The Pupils of Jonson: Nathaniel Field: his life and training
  6. A Woman is a Weather-cocke
  7. Field’s debt to Jonson; his romantic tendency and collaboration with Massinger
  8. Richard Brome’s life and training: his fifteen extant Plays
  9. The Northern Lasse
  10. Brome’s debt to Dekker; The Sparagus Garden
  11. The City Witt; its briskness and humour
  12. A Joviall Crew, Brome’s best Play
  13. His romantic experiments; partial success of The Queen and Concubine
  14. Thomas Randolph’s University training; His Aristippus and The Conceited Pedler
  15. Aristotle’s Ethics dramatised in The Muses Looking-Glasse
  16. Originality of Randolph
  17. May’s Comedies; The anonymous Nero
  18. Davenport’s Revisions of older Plays
  19. Thomas Nabbes’s virtuous heroines
  20. Comedies of Cartwright, and Mayne
  21. Sir John Suckling’s Plays: Aglaura, The Goblins, Brennoralt
  22. Marmion’s The Antiquary
  23. Tragicomedy as exemplified in the Plays of Lodowick Carlell, Henry Glapthorne and Sir William D’Avenant
BIBLIOGRAPHY
  
X. The Elizabethan Theatre
  By HAROLD CHILD, sometime Scholar of Brasenose College, Oxford
  1. Early Companies of Players
  2. Triumph of the Professional Actor and Patronised Company over the Stroller
  3. Grounds of objection to the Drama
  4. Royal patronage and its effect
  5. Increasing control of the production of Plays by the Master of the Revels
  6. The Chamberlain’s Company
  7. The Queen’s and Admiral’s Companies
  8. Places of performance
  9. Site and architectural features of the Theater
  10. The Curtain
  11. The Newington Butts Playhouse
  12. The Rose
  13. The Globe
  14. The Blackfriars
  15. The Swan
  16. Other Playhouses
  17. Differences between the Elizabethan and the Modern Stage
  18. Value of John de Witt’s drawing of the Swan
  19. The Alternation Theory
  20. Differences in Construction
  21. Stage Appliances and Properties
  22. Performances at private Playhouses and at Court
  23. Costumes
  24. The Audience
  25. The Author and his Company
  26. Financial arrangements
  27. Social position of the Actor
BIBLIOGRAPHY
  
XI. The Children of the Chapel Royal and their Masters
  By J. M. MANLY, M.A., Ph.D. (Harvard), Professor of English in the University of Chicago
  1. Early history of the Chapel Children
  2. Early Masters: John Plummer, Henry Abyndon, William Newark, William Cornish and others
  3. Histrionic activity of the Children; Dramatic work of the Masters
  4. Plays of the University Wits acted by the Children
  5. The Children at the Blackfriars: profitable nature of the undertaking
  6. The Child-actors
  7. Causes of their success
  8. Royal patronage
BIBLIOGRAPHY
  
XII. University Plays
  By F. S. BOAS, M.A., Balliol College, Oxford, LL.D. (St. Andrews), late Professor of English Literature in Queen’s College, Belfast, and late Clark Lecturer, Trinity College
  1. Medieval Drama at the Universities
  2. The Senecan School of dramatists; Grimald’s Christus Redivivus and Archipropheta
  3. Kirchmayer’s Pammachius
  4. Gammer Gurtons Nedle
  5. Effect of Queen Elizabeth’s visits to the Universities
  6. Halliwell’s Dido and Udall’s Ezechias
  7. Edwards’s Palamon and Arcyte
  8. Rickets’s Byrsa Basilica; Legge’s Richardus Tertius
  9. Perfidus Hetruscus
  10. Gager’s Meleager and Dido
  11. Fraunce’s Victoria; Academic Comedies
  12. Hymenaeus; Laelia
  13. Pedantius
  14. Attack on Academic Personages and on the Civic Authorities
  15. Club-Law
  16. The Parnassus Trilogy
  17. Tomkin’s Lingua
  18. Narcissus
  19. King James at Oxford
  20. Daniel’s The Queenes Arcadia
  21. Thomas Tucker, the Christmas Prince
  22. King James at Cambridge; Ruggle’s Ignoramus
  23. Barten Holiday’s Technogamia; Allegorical and satirical character of the later Plays
  24. King Charles at Cambridge and Oxford
  25. Influence of the University Drama
BIBLIOGRAPHY
  
XIII. Masque and Pastoral
  By the Rev. RONALD BAYNE, M.A.
  1. Popularity of the Masque in the age of Elizabeth
  2. Its early history
  3. Mummings and Disguisings: development of these into the Masque
  4. The Masque in Spenser
  5. Ben Jonson’s Masques
  6. Introduction of the Antimasque
  7. Development of the Presenter
  8. Campion’s Masques
  9. Chapman and Beaumont as Masque-writers
  10. Rapid increase of dramatic elements in Jonson’s Masques
  11. Jonson’s later work in this field
  12. Pastoral Poetry: its history and development
  13. Pastoral drama of the University Wits
  14. Daniel’s Pastorals
  15. Fletcher’s The Faithful Shepheardesse
  16. Ben Jonson’s The Sad Shepherd
  17. Randolph’s Amyntas
BIBLIOGRAPHY
  
XIV. The Puritan Attack upon the Stage
  By J. DOVER WILSON, M.A., Gonville and Caius College, Lecturer in English Literature at the Goldsmiths’ College, University of London
  1. The attitude of the Reformers towards the Stage
  2. Theological and moral objections
  3. Beginnings of Puritan opposition in England
  4. Attitude of the Civic Authorities in London
  5. Systematic persecution of Actors
  6. Royal Patronage
  7. Attacks on the Stage from the Pulpit
  8. Work of Pamphleteers
  9. Gosson’s Schoole of Abuse
  10. Lodge’s Defence
  11. Stubbes’s Anatomie of Abuses
  12. Waning interest in the struggle
  13. The Controversy at the Universities
  14. Effects of changes introduced under the Stewarts
  15. Heywood’s Apology for Actors
  16. Prynne’s Histriomastix
  17. General aspects of the Controversy
BIBLIOGRAPHY