The Cambridge History of English Literature: Edited By a W. Ward and a R. Waller, Vol. 6 (Classic Reprint): The Drama to 1642 (Classic Reprint) - Tapa blanda

Excerpt from The Cambridge History of English Literature, Vol. 6: The Drama to 1642

Even a brief summary of Jonson's life indicates its im portance in the history of literature. The forty years of his literary career were marked by varied and influential activity in both prose and verse, in other forms as well as the drama, and as a critic no less than as a creator. Four or five of his plays won immediate recognition as masterpieces of realistic comedy; his tragedies, also, were regarded as models; and his masques were not the least important source of his contemporary reputation. As a scholar, he was highly regarded; as a writer of occasional verse, he was the laureate of James and Charles and the leader of the younger poets of the early seventeenth century; as a critic, seeking the reform of abuses and the definition and maintenance of standards of literary art, he exercised an influence comparable to that of Dryden or Samuel Johnson on later genera tions. During the major part of his career, he was a sort of literary dictator, encouraging or restraining the literary endeavours of his fellow craftsmen, by means of his conversation as much as of his published writings. Though Jonson was often opposed to pre vailing fashions, no other writer so comprehensively represents the course of English literature from the end of the sixteenth century to the outbreak of the civil war.

Of the significance of his criticism, we can now form an idea only through a study of the fragmentary comments in his Discoveries, Conversations with Drummond, prologues and pre faces, taken in connection with his actual poetic and dramatic practices. A reconstruction of that criticism, therefore, can be only hypothetical and partial, and must be concerned, mainly, with his own work in the drama. But it should be observed that.

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Conte7it5 CHAPTER IX LESSEE JACOBEAN AND CAEOLINE DKAMATISTS By the Rev. Ronald Bayne, M.A., University College, Oxford PAGE General characteristics of the Jacobean and Caroline Drama; the central position of Jonson. Belated Elizabethans: John Day slater comedies; The lie of Guls; evolution ofT heP arliament of Bees; its merits and characteristics. Armin sT wo Maids of More-clacke. Sharphani stwo Plays. The single Plays of Barry, Cooke and Tailor. The Pupils of Jonson: Nathaniel Field: his life and training .A TV otnan is a Weather-cocke. Field sdebt to Jonson; his romantic tendency and collaboration with Massinger. Richard Brome slife and training: his fifteen extant Plays. The Northern Lasse. Brome sdebt toD ekker. The Sparagus Garden. The City Witt; its briskness and humour. A Joviall Crew., Brome sbest Play. His romantic experiments; partial success ofT he Queen and Concubine. Thomas Randolph sU niversity training. His Aristippus and Jhe Conceited JP edler. Aristotle sE thics dramatised inT he 3I uses Looking-G lasse. Originality of Randolph. May sC omedies. The anonymous Nero. Davenport sR evisions of older Plays. Thomas Nabbes svirtuous heroines. Comedies of Cartwright and Mayne. Sir John Suckling sP lays: A glaura, The Goblins, Brennoralt. Marmion sT he A ntiquary. Tragicomedy as exemplified in the Plays of Lodowick Carlell, Henry Glapthome andS ir William DA venant .... 210 CHAPTER XTHE ELIZABETHAN THEATRE By Harold Child, sometimeS cholar of Brasenose College, Oxford Early Companies of Players. Triumph of the Professional Actor and Patronised Company over theS troller. Grrounds of objection to theD rama. Royal patronage and its effect. Increasing control of the production of Plays by theM aster of the Revels. The Chamberlain sC ompany. The Queen sand Admiral sC ompanies. Places of performance. Site and architectiual features of the Theater. The Curt
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