English Drama 1586-1642: The Age of Shakespeare

735 Pages·2013·3.74 MB·English

by  G. K. Hunter

ENGLISH DRAMA 1586-1642
THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE
G. K. HUNTER
CLARENDON PRESS ∣ OXFORD
1997
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TO SHELAGH
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LEWIS. I'm working on 'English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama', for
OHEL. JOY. Oh hell? LEWIS. The Oxford History of English Literature. JOY. Sixteenth
century. You got the easy one. LEWIS. You think so? William Nicholson, Shadowlands (
1989) Act I, pp. 32-3
Of the difficulties that lie in the way of an editor [of Elizabethan dramatic records] -- at least
if he regards his work as historical rather than romantic -- not the least is to avoid writing a
general history of the Elizabethan stage. There is no such thing as a clearly defined historical
field; facts are linked to other facts in all directions, and investigation merely leads to further
and further questions. Every custom and every institution at once rises the problem of its
own origin; every corporation and every social fact is influenced by other corporations or
reacts on other social facts. Thus to treat intelligibly any of the several dramatic companies
at the end of the [sixteenth] century, or any series of events in the dramatic history of the time
demands a knowledge of the constitution of other companies and of the sequence of other
events such as at present can hardly be said to exist. W. W. Greg, Preface to Henslowe's
Diary, Part II ( 1908)
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Preface
THIS present volume completes the Oxford History of English Literature Series, the earliest
volumes of which were published in 1945. The space of time between the first volume and the
last has seen a revolution (or even a series of revolutions) in the notion of what literary history is
or should be about (if it is allowed that it should exist at all), so that it may be in order (without
engaging in a retrospective survey) to give some explanation how the present volume relates to a
context that could not have been envisaged by the originators.
The first author designated for this volume was Professor F. P. Wilson . When Wilsondied in
1963, I was asked if I would see through the press the interconnected chapters he had written
(which I did) and then if I would consider carrying on the project from 1586 to 1642. The latter I
declined to do. Some twenty years later the Press asked me to reconsider my decision, and this
led me to wonder if the contradictions between history and literature (as I had seen it) could be
understood as a challenge rather than an impasse. I believed that, sheltering under the aegis of
Tolstoy rather than Ranke, I could use a plurality of historical perspectives to fit together the
plays I had to consider, without glossing over their particular and diverse functions as art and
entertainment.
Wishing to give proper space to these functions, I have used terms that allow for continuity in
aesthetic interest between that time and this. I have allowed anachronistic words like 'theatre' and
'author' to intermingle with the more accurate 'playhouse' and (poet'. I have used the word
'Elizabethan' to refer to the whole period from 1584 to 1642. Dates are regularized from 'Old
Style' to 'New Style'. Quotations are everywhere modernized. The presence of Shakespeare in the
company I have to deal with has, of course, threatened to unbalance the whole enterprise. I have
therefore assumed a general knowledge of his wuvre and used his plays as a means of delineating
what he shared with the whole movement to which he belonged rather than as philosophical or
political statements to be elucidated out of the historical context.
G. K. H.
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Acknowledgements
In the long history of this book I have incurred many debts. It could not have existed without
continual access to the resources of the Sterling and Beineke Libraries of Yale and the Bodleian
Library in Oxford. In 1978 the Guggenheim Foundation financed a year without teaching, in which
I was to think about Elizabethan dramaturgy. I did so, in ways that were not immediately
productive but eventually basic to the present enterprise. In 1984-5, the ideal conditions at the
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences in Palo Alto allowed me space to
consider the proposal of the Oxford University Pressthat I write this book. There I constructed a
first version of Chapter 3 and a general outline of the whole project. I am indebted to many
persons who have read portions of work-in-progress and brought light to dark places -- Jonas
Barish, David Bevington, Mary Bly, Julia Boss Knapp, Paul Leopold, Jenny Morrison, Leo
Salingar, Hilary Walford-- and especially to three colleagues, Eugene Waith, Lawrence Manley,
and Murray Biggs, who have over the years uncomplainingly given their attention to the recurrent
avalanches of confused typescript. At a personal as well as an academic level I am indebted to
the support of Mary Hunter, Andrew Hunter, and Ruth Hunter.
In this book, as in everything else, I owe most to the dedicatee, who has incessantly read,
commented, argued, improved, and so allowed me to know the pains of authorship only as one of
the pleasures of a shared life.
I thank the Cambridge University Press for permission to reprint some material first used in an
article published in Shakespeare Survey 42( 1990).
G. K. H.
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Contents
Abbreviations x
Note on the Text xi
Map xii
1. INTRODUCTION 1
2. PRECONDITIONS OF ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 7
3. THE EMERGENCE OF THE UNIVERSITY WITS: EARLY
TRAGEDY 22
4. EARLY COMEDY 93
5. EARLY HISTORY PLAYS 155
6. LATER HISTORY PLAYS 229
7. THE BOY ACTORS AND THE NEW DRAMATURGY 279
8. LATER COMEDY 359
9. LATER TRAGEDY 418
10. TRAGICOMEDY 497
Appendix: Entries, Masques, Jigs 525
Brief Biographies 534
Chronology 544
Select Bibliography and List of Plays 578
Index 611
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Abbreviations
G. E. Bentley, The Profession of Dramatist in
Bentley, Dramatist
Shakespeare's Time ( Princeton, 1971)
G. E. Bentley, The Jacobean and Caroline Stage
Bentley, JCS
( 7 vols.; Oxford, 1941-68)
G. E. Bentley, The Profession of Player in Shake-
Bentley, Player
speare's Time ( Princeton, 1984)
G. Bullough, Narrative and Dramatic Sources
Bullough
of Shakespeare ( 8 vols.; London, 1957-75)
E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage ( 4 vols.;
Chambers
Oxford, 1923)
The Complete Works of Robert Greene, ed. A. B.
Grosart
Grosart ( 15 vols.; London, 1881-6)
Annals of English Drama 974-1700, ed. A. Har-
Harbage-Schoenbaum bage, rev. S. Schoenbaum ( London, 1964); rev.
S. S. Wagonheim ( London, 1989)
Henslowe Diary, ed. W. W. Greg ( 2 vols.; Lon-
Henslowe's Diary
don, 1904-8)
Henslowe Papers, ed. W. W. Greg ( London,
Henslowe Papers
1907)
Ben Jonson, ed. C. H. Herford and P. and E.
Herford and Simpson
Simpson ( 11 vols.; Oxford, 1925-52)
H. N. Hillebrand, The Child Actors (University
Hillebrand of Illinois Studies in Language and Literature,
11; Urbana, Ill., 1926)
The Third Volume of Chronicles, compiled by
Holinshed
Raphael Holinshed ( London, 1587)
The Works of Thomas Nashe, ed. R. B. McKerrow
McKerrow
( 5 vols.; Oxford, 1904-10; rev. 1966
MLN Modern Language Notes
MLR Modern Language Review
MP Modern Philology
MSC Malone Society Collections
MSR Malone Society Reprint
NLH New Literary History
PQ Philological Quarterly
RES The Review of English Studies
RORD Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama
SEL Studies in English literature 15oo-1900
Sh. Q. Shakespeare Quarterly
Sh. S. Shakespeare Survey
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