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The Case for Comedy in Caroline Theatrical Apologetics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Joe Lee Davis*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan

Extract

The war waged by the propagandists of Puritan extremism against the Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline stages and the dramatists' counter-strategy of satiric portraiture that was often nothing more than gratuitous misrepresentation of the Puritan as a type are by now a familiar story to students of the Renaissance. How the case for comedy was restated in Caroline theatrical apologetics has not, however, been adequately set forth.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1943

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References

1 See E. N. S. Thompson, The Controversy between the Puritans and the Stage, Yale Studies in English, xx (New York, 1903); J. D. Wilson, “The Puritan Attack on the Stage,” CHEL, vi, 373–109; C. Cullen, “Puritanism and the Stage,” Proc. of the Royal Philosophical Soc. of Glasgow, xxiii (1911–12), 153–181; T. S. Graves, “Notes on Puritanism and the Stage,” SP, xviii (1921), 141–169; A. M. Myers, Representation and Misrepresentation of the Puritan in Elizabethan Drama (Philadelphia, 1931).

2 R[ichard] R[awlidge], A Monster Late Found Out and Discovered (Amsterdam, 1628), p. 2. Rawlidge's pamphlet is primarily a blast against drunkenness and alehouses in London.

3 William Prynne, Histrio-Mastix … (London, 1633 [1632]), “To the Christian Reader.”

4 W. C. Hazlitt, The English Drama and Stage (Roxburghe Library, 1869), pp. 242–243.

5 Prynne, op. cit., p. 6. Cyrus L. Day, “Randolph and Prynne,” MP, xxix (1932), 349–350, discusses the origin of Prynne's classification.

6 Such literalism in the Puritan extremist is to be traced to the general Puritan tendency to interpret Scripture literally. The most adequate discussion of Puritan literalism, with important qualifications, is by Perry Miller, The New England Mind (New York, 1939), pp. 20–21. Cf. M. M. Knappen, Tudor Puritanism (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1939), p. 357.

7 Prynne, op. cit., p. 545 and p. 688.

8 E. W. Kirby, William Prynne, A Study in Puritanism (Cambridge, Mass., 1931). pp. 6–7.

9 P. Miller and T. H. Johnson, The Puritans (New York, 1938), pp. 41–55, present distinctions between Puritanism and Anglicanism

10 See P Miller, The New England Mind, pp. 10–21 and 32–34, for a discussion of the Puritan conception of God and his activities on various planes.

11 Hazlitt, op cit, p. 237.

12 Prynne, op. cit., p. 70.

13 Ibid., p. 71.

14 Ibid., pp. 499–500.

15 Ibid., p. 290.

16 For a summary of Renaissance comic theory, see O. J. Campbell, Comicall Satyre and Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida (San Marino, Calif., 1938), pp. 1–14, and J. E. Spingarn, A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance (Columbia Univ. Press, 1924), pp. 101–106, 287–290.

17 For Sidney's reservations, see his Apologie for Poetrie, ed. E. Arber (London, 1924), pp. 66–67. On romantic comedy in Sidney's Arcadia, see K. O. Myrick, Sir Philip Sidney as a Literary Craftsman (Cambridge, Mass., 1935), pp. 304–309. Campbell, op. cit., pp. 12–14, discusses the attitudes of Sidney and Jonson toward laughter, but does not distinguish properly between them. J. L. Davis, The ‘Sons of Ben’ in English Realistic Comedy 1625–42 (University of Michigan unpublished dissertation, 1934), i, 1–192, studies all Jonson's realistic comedies with emphasis on the aesthetic problem of a fusion between non-dramatic satire and comedy. Cf. the treatment of this problem by Campbell, op. cit., pp. 1–134.

18 See particularly i, iii; The Plays of Philip Massinger, ed. W. Gifford (London, 1813), ii, 346–348.

19 G. C. M. Smith, Thomas Randolph (London [1927]), p. 18; G. E. Bentley, The Jacobean and Caroline Stage (Oxford, 1941), i, 291.

20 See Poetical and Dramatic Works of Thomas Randolph, ed. W. C. Hazlitt (London, 1875), i, 179, n. 1, for comment on the Puritans in Blackfriars. All later references to The Muses' Looking Glass are to the reprint included in vol. i of this edition.

21 For all quotations in this paragraph, see i, i, pp. 179–180.

22 For all quotations in this paragraph, see i, i, p. 180.

23 For all quotations in this paragraph, see i, i, pp. 180–181.

24 i, i, p. 181.

25 For all quotations in this paragraph, see i, i, pp. 181–182. For discussion of the Puritan attempt to reconcile ethics and economics, see William Haller, The Rise of Puritanism (New York, 1938), pp. 124–125, and E. A. J. Johnson, American Economic Thought in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1932), pp. 83–100.

26 For all quotations in this paragraph, see i, ii, pp. 183–184.

27 i, iii, p. 185.

28 Le Rouge et le Noir, ed. P. Jourda (Paris, 1929), ii, 159.

29 For all quotations in this paragraph, see i, iii, pp. 185–186.

30 Op. cit., p. 349.

31 i, iv, p. 192.

32 i, iv, pp. 188–189.

33 Their approval is expressed iv, v, p. 259.

34 v, i, p. 260.

35 v, iv, p. 266.

36 The first edition (London 1662) was re-issued (London, 1670) with a new title-page and title, Theatrum Triumphans.

37 Sir Richard Barer [Baker], Theatrum Redivivum (London, 1662), p. 68.

38 Ibid., p. 69.

39 Ibid., p. 26.

40 Ibid., p. 37.

41 Ibid., p. 82.

42 Ibid., pp. 38f.

43 Ibid., pp. 24f.

44 Ibid., p. 36.

45 Ibid., p. 31.

46 Ibid., p. 33.

47 Ibid., p. 57.

48 p. 30 and p. 129.

49 Ibid., p. 130.

50 Ibid., p. 62.

51 Ibid., p. 120.

52 Ibid., p. 98.

53 Ibid., p. 98f.

54 Ibid., pp. 100f.

55 Ibid., p. 133.

56 Ibid., pp. 133f.

57 Ibid., pp. 134f.

58 Ibid., pp. 137f.

59 Ibid., p. 138

60 Ibid., p. 114.

61 The Quakers Unmasked and Clearly Detected to be but the Spawn of Romish Frogs, Jésuites, and Franciscan Freers, Sent from Rome to Seduce the Intoxicated, Giddy-Headed English Nation (London, 1655). For charges of “Enthusiasm” brought against Puritans, see C. M. Webster, “Swift and Some Earlier Satirists of Puritan Enthusiasm,” PMLA, xlviii (1933), 1141–1153.

62 Baker, op. cit., pp. 125–126.

63 I am using the version of this essay included in Eastman's Enjoyment of Poetry with Other Essays in Aesthetics (New York, 1939), pp. 195–229.

64 Loc. cit., p. 217.

65 See, for example, J. A. Symonds, review of Dramatic Works of Richard Brome, Academy, v (1874), 305; A. C. Swinburne, “Richard Brome,” in Works, Bonchurch ed., xii (London, 1926), 334; George Saintsbury, review of Andrews' Richard Brome, Englische Stztdien, xlvii (1913–14), 265f; Bonamy Dobrée, Restoration Comedy 1660–1720 (Oxford, 1924), pp. 39–47; J. L. Davis, op. cit., ii, passim.