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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Middleton's London comedies of his early period, 1604-1614, have, throughout the course of English dramatic criticism, inspired curiously diverse comments.
The early comedy of Middleton is as light, rancid, and entertaining as anything in Elizabethan drama. It is irresponsible rather than immoral, and does not exactly recommend, or approve of, the trickeries and debaucheries which it represents, in a life-like way, under improbable conditions. . . . . His aim is at effect, and he rarely fails in his aim. . . . .1
1 Arthur Symons, Cambridge Hist. of Engl. Lit., VI, Chap, 111, p. 71.
2 C. M. Gayley, Representative Engl. Comedies, III, xxi and xxiv.
3 Adolphus Ward, Hist. of English Dram. Lit., Lond., 1875, II, 540.
4 Gamaliel Bradford, “The Women of Middleton and Webster,” Sewanee Review, xxix (1921), 14.
5 Gayley, op. cit., III, xxv.
6 Wilbur D. Dunkel, The Dramatic Technique of Thomas Middleton in his Comedies of London Life, The Univ. of Chicago, 1925.
7 See The Works of Thomas Middleton, ed. A. H. Bullen, Boston, 1855; The Works of Thomas Middleton, with Introd. by A. H. Bullen, London, 1885; The Works of Thomas Middleton, ed. A. Dyce, London, 1840; F. G. Fleay, A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama from 1559-1642, Lond., 1891; C. H. Herford, Article on Middleton, in Dict. of Nat. Biog.; A. C. Swinburne, Introd. to Mermaid Series ed. of Middleton, London, 1887. A. Symons, “Middleton and Rowley,” in Cambridge Hist. of Engl. Lit., VI, Chap. v, and A. Ward, op. cit., Vol. II.
8 A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, I, i.
9 The Mayor of Queenborough, V, i.
10 The Family of Love, II, iv.
11 Blurt, Master Constable, I, i.
12 Blurt, Master Constable, I, i.
13 Ibid, II, ii.
14 Ibid, II, ii.
15 Ibid, II, ii.
16 A Chaste Maid in Cheapside.
17 The Phoenix.
18 Michaelmas Term.
19 Ibid.
20 A. C. Swinburne, A Study of Ben Jonson, N.Y., 1889, p. 38. In this study Swinburne points out the fact that Ben Jonson's comedies suffer from over-scientific realism.
21 Cambridge Hist. of Engl. Lit., IV, Chap. xvi.
22 Ibid, VI, Chap. III, 68, 69.
23 C. J. Sisson, Le Goût public at le Théâtre Élisabéthain jusqu'a la mort de Shakespeare, Dijon, 1922.
24 Ibid, p. 30.
25 Ibid, p. 32.
26 Ibid, p. 79.
27 Ibid, pp. 75-76.
28 Ibid, p. 87.
29 Ibid, pp. 49-50.
30 Ibid, p. 146.
31 “The fashion of play-making I can properly compare to nothing so naturally as the alteration in apparel; for in the time of the great cropdoublet, your huge bombastic plays, quilted with mighty words to lean purpose, was only then in fashion; and as the doublet fell, neater inventions began to set up. Now, . . . . our plays follow the niceness of our garments, single plots, quaint conceits, lecherous jests, dressed up in hanging sleeves: and those are fit for the times and termers” (Foreword to The Roaring Girl).
32 “A sport only for Christmas is the play
This hour presents to you; to make you gay,
Is all the ambition 't has, and fullest aim
Bent at your smiles, to win itself a name;
And if your edge be not quite taken off,
Wearied with sports, I hope 't will make you laugh.“
(Prologue to The Widow)
33 Sisson, op. cit., p. 76.
34 Gayley, op. cit., III, lxiv ff.
35 Gayley, op. cit., III, lxxviii.
36 Arthur Symons, op. cit., VI, part 2, 71 ff.
37 Gayley, op. cit., III, lxi.