THE SETTING OF A RENAISSANCE TRAGEDY IS OFTEN AN IMPORTANT PART OF ITS THEMATIC STRUCTURE

The setting of a Renaissance tragedy is often an important part of its thematic structure

The setting of a Renaissance tragedy is often an important part of its thematic structure

Introduction

English Renaissance drama increased out of the established Medieval tradition of the mystery and morality performances (see Medieval English Drama). These public scenes concentrated on religious topics and were generally enacted by either choristers and monks, or a town's tradesmen (as subsequent glimpsed lovingly memorialized by Shakespeare's 'mechanicals' in A Midsummer Night's Dream).

At the end of the fifteenth years, a new type of play appeared. These short plays and revels were presented at noble households and at court, especially at vacation times. These short entertainments, called "Interludes", begun the move away from the didactic environment of the earlier performances in the direction of purely secular plays, and often supplemented more comical performance than was present in the medieval predecessors. Since most of these holiday revels were not documented and play texts have went away and been destroyed, the genuine dating of the transition is difficult. The first extant solely secular play, Henry Medwall's Fulgens and Lucres, was presented at the house of Cardinal Morton, where the young Thomas More was assisting as a page. Early Tudor interludes soon grew more complicated, incorporating melodies and dance, and some, particularly those by John Heywood, were heavily leveraged by French farce. (Deleuze and Guattari 1972)

Woodcut from Fulgens and Lucrece Not only were performances shifting focus from educating to entertaining, they were furthermore gradually changing focus from the religious in the direction of the political. John Skelton's Magnyfycence (1515), for demonstration, while on the face of it resembling the medieval allegory performances with its characters of Virtues and Vices, was a political satire against Cardinal Wolsey. Magnificence was so incendiary that Skelton had to move into the sanctuary of Westminster to escape the wrath of Wolsey.

The first annals plays were in writing in the 1530's, the most notable of which was John Bale's monarch Johan. While it considered matters of ethics and belief, these were managed in the light weight of the Reformation. These performances set the precedent of giving history in the spectacular medium and prepared the base for what would later be increased by Marlowe and Shakespeare into the English History Play, or Chronicle Play, in the latter part of the years.

Frontispiece to Plautus' Comediae XX Not only was the Reformation taking contain in England, but the winds of academic Humanism were clearing in from the Continent. Interest increased in the classics and the performances of classical antiquity, especially in the universities. Latin texts were being “Englysshed” and Latin poetry and play started to be acclimatized into English plays. In 1553, a schoolmaster named Nicholas Udall composed an English comical performance titled "Ralph Roister Doister" based on the traditional Latin comical performance of Plautus and Terence. The play was the first to insert the Latin character kind miles glorious ("braggart soldier") ...