Documento de Cátedra Literatura Anglófona I

Profesora titular: Teresita Carelli

Profesora adscripta: Jimena Sol Olivares

DRAMA
THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH DRAMA
Medieval Theatre
Medieval times started after the fall of Rome and lasted through to
15th century, roughly to the Protestant Reformation. In this time
before the printing press made it necessary or even possible for the
great majority of people to read, the primary method of teaching and
learning was through the oral tradition. Throughout this time, the
church had grown to become the most powerful and most consistent
institution throughout Europe. Monarchies and dynasties rose and
fell, but the church consistently held sway.
Since theatre tells stories, it was a natural mechanism for telling the bible stories and delivering any
other information the church wanted communicated to the people, particularly as this period was a
time of turmoil and the church was the only stable government. In fact, the church had become so
strong that it was able to close all theatre productions except for those that it officially sanctioned.
Those plays fell into three categories: morality, mystery and miracle plays.

Plays in Medieval Theatre

During medieval times, the church took over the theatre almost exclusively. This lesson takes a
look at the three primary genres of theatre that evolved through the church during these times.
These are the three principal kinds of vernacular drama of the European Middle Ages:
➢ Morality play: an allegorical play popular especially in the 15th and 16th centuries in which
the characters personify abstract qualities or concepts (such as virtues, vices, or death).
Morality plays used allegorical characters to tell the story of mans' life and ultimate journey
to the afterlife. An allegorical character is one who is symbolic and one who represents an
idea. As their name would suggest, morality plays teach their audience lessons on how to
lead a good and moral life. For example:

Everyman: it is the most famous

extant morality play. In Everyman, the
character of God tells the character of
Death to bring Everyman to heaven to
face his fate in the afterlife, the sum
of all of his good and bad deeds on
earth. When the character of
Everyman begs for more time, Death
refuses, but tells him that he may
choose someone to accompany him
on his journey. Everyman tries to find
a companion, talking to the
characters of Fellowship, Kindred,
Cousin, Goods, Good Deeds,
Knowledge, Confession, Beauty,
Strength, Discretion, and Five Wits.

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Documento de Cátedra Literatura Anglófona I
Profesora titular: Teresita Carelli
Profesora adscripta: Jimena Sol Olivares

➢ Mystery play: a type of drama based on the life of Christ. (Collins English Dictionary.
Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers); a medieval drama based on scriptural incidents
(such as the creation of the world, the Flood, or the life, death, and resurrection of Christ).

➢ Miracle play: a medieval play based on a biblical story or the life of a saint. (Collins English
Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers); a medieval dramatic form dealing with
religious subjects such as Biblical stories or saints' lives, usually presented in a series or
cycle by the craft guilds. Most Miracle plays are performed about either St. Nicholas or the
Virgin Mary.

ENGLISH DRAMA FROM MEDIEVAL TO RESTORATION TIMES

Traces of the dramatic may be observed well back into the Anglo-
Saxon period but these could scarcely be called plays in any modern
sense. The story of the real beginnings of European drama,
independent of any connection with the great dramas of the Greeks
and the Romans, must begin in the Medieval Church. It was here
that the priests felt the need of giving life to the Bible for their
humble and uneducated parishioners, especially on certain
occasions, such as Easter and Christmas. These dramatic units were
little religious plays depicting dramatic episodes from the Bible or
enlarging upon the characters of biblical personages, each play
having a dramatic structure, a plot, with the element of conflict
more or less pronounced.
By mid-15th century, the liturgical mystery and miracle play had
degenerated into a crude, but clever, secular drama of the people.
People had taken this secular play to their hearts and flocked into
the public squares of every village to see and applaud what was designed more and more to
please them. Drama had strong popular roots before the Renaissance courtly and classical

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Documento de Cátedra Literatura Anglófona I
Profesora titular: Teresita Carelli
Profesora adscripta: Jimena Sol Olivares

drama had an opportunity to develop. When Renaissance forces did begin to operate, drama
came to the fore as a full-blown genre and with a solid tradition of liturgical-secular
development. Never since the great ancient Greek
period of the theater had the world seen such
dramatic activity and such a phenomenal brilliance
as in England (and Spain) in the latter years of the
16th century and the early years of the 17th. In
England, with the strong Reformation influence,
the popular and the classic tendencies developed
side by side, the tragedy and the comedy developed
apart but played to the same audiences, and the
intellectual and the bawdy became common
grounds upon which the noble, the student, and
the industrial and farmer classes met and mingled.
England´s drama of the Elizabethan Age was
prolific, popular, and highly diversified.
The early comedy and tragedy followed the classical models: imitations of the style and
spirit of Seneca but with some considerable change. The comedy added romance and
delicate lightness with Lyly, Peele, and Greene; the Senecan tragedy received radical
modification at the hands of Kyd and Marlowe. These pre-Shakespearean dramatists laid
the groundwork for the appearance of the master handler of both comedy and tragedy.
Drama in England during the Age of Elizabeth presents some
interesting facets. The great and varied production of one man,
Shakespeare, tends to obscure the fact that there were other
playwrights of no little ability, working side by side with him and
producing play of equal or near equal merit. Ben Jonson, for
example, and his satirical comedies Volpone (1606), The Silent
Woman (1609), The Alchemist (1610). Many dramatists supplied the
theatres of London, both ´public´ and ´private´, during the period,
each contributing, in his own way, to the mass dramatic production
that survives from this Elizabethan Age and the following
transition period.
The fact that James I succeeded Elizabeth on the throne in 1603,
in itself, would not affect aesthetic writing. But the temper of the
new king and the fact that the English people resented him bitterly
would tend to alter the tone and theme of literature, not the
development of the technique. In addition, Puritan ideas of
morality were gaining ground rapidly and the English mind was
turning away from the light and the frivolous. The theater was becoming more and more a
symbol of sin and wickedness in the minds of the new and growing puritanical middle class.
In 1642 things reached such a state that the playhouses were closed by Act of Parliament.

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Documento de Cátedra Literatura Anglófona I
Profesora titular: Teresita Carelli
Profesora adscripta: Jimena Sol Olivares

During approximately the 90 years following the return of

Charles II to the throne, the literature of England was
dominated by a new spirit of classicism, known usually as
neoclassicism or the Restoration period. Literature had passed
through a transition period of Puritan writing and the
Restoration brought English letters back into its normal course
of development.
The dominant aspects of Restoration literature were drama and
satire. Most of the dramatic production of the age was written
for aristocratic audiences. Drama was no longer to be directed
to the insatiable craving of the masses to be entertained, as in
the days of the ´public´ theaters of the Age of Elizabeth. The
audiences were now almost exclusively confined to London and the fashionable society.
These audiences demanded plays redolent of the refinement and the elegance of the French
taste in manners and dress.
The plays, then, reflected a gay and dissolute society. They were cynically witty and
reflected the artificiality of the frivolous. It is in comedy that the age is best represented.
These plays were witty and brilliant. They were devoted to depicting the speech, the
interests, the dress, and the manners of the time. Comedies reflected the very shams of the
people who flocked to see them. They held social institutions,
such as marriage, up to ridicule. They attacked conventional
living from every clever angle.
Comedy was the popular type of drama throughout the period
and the Restoration´s greatest dramatic output lies in this
clever, but naughty and artificial, play of social intrigue. A few
of the outstanding writers are: William Wycherley – The
Country Wife (1672), William Congreve – Love for Love (1695),
The Way of the World (1700) (his acknowledged masterpiece and
representative of the best of the Restoration “comedy of
manners”).
The Theatres
Two patents were issued by Charles II that allowed for two acting companies to be
established as the major production companies of their time. Sir William Davenant was
granted one of these royal patents and the Duke of York’s Company opened in 1661. The
second royal patent was issued to Thomas Killigrew, who started the King’s Company.
During the Restoration, semi-operas were rising. The design and architecture of the actual
stage, as well as advances in stage machinery, gave way to a flourishing theatrical era in the
1660s. These advances allowed for more elaborate scene and set design, making even
transformation scenes possible. The Duke’s Theatre, planned by William Davenant and
designed by Christopher Wren. It was built on the Thames River so that viewers would
arrive by boat. This was by far the most elaborate theatre Britain had seen during the

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Documento de Cátedra Literatura Anglófona I
Profesora titular: Teresita Carelli
Profesora adscripta: Jimena Sol Olivares

Restoration period and was also London’s first building to include a proscenium arch. The
proscenium arch framed a scenic stage, a smaller stage attached to the back of the main
stage, and used mainly for set pieces. Though the thrust stages of the 16th and 17th
centuries were still widely used in the 18th century, they were fast losing popularity to a
stage more similar to a modern day one.

The Swan Theatre

Indoor Theatre:
The Drury Lane
Theatre