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Repetition and Parallelism in the Earlier Elizabethan Drama

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

F. G. Hubbard
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Extract

The main object of this study is to call attention to certain characteristics of style that may serve as evidence in determining questions of authorship and relation of plays within the period treated; to develop a small and, perhaps, rather rough instrument of research, which will hardly rise to the dignity of a “test,” but may serve as a useful auxiliary to more significant criteria. No attempt has been made to complete the study on the rhetorical side; attention has been given generally only to such matters as seemed important for the main purpose. A simple but sufficiently precise terminology has been used, and it has not been thought worth while to discuss its relation to the formal terminology of ancient or modern rhetorical treatises. All the forms here discussed are found in contemporary poetry other than the drama, especially in the work of the sonneteers.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , 1905 , pp. 360 - 379
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1905

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References

page 346 note 1 The following editions are referred to:—

The Cambridge Shakespeare, edited by W. A. Wright.

The Works of Christopher Marlowe, edited by A. H. Bullen, London, 3 vols., 1885.

The Life and Works of Robert Greene, edited by Rev. A. B. Grosart, Huth Library, 15 vols., 1881-86.

The Works of George Peele, edited by A. H. Bullen, 2 vols., London, 1888.

The Works of Thomas Kyd, edited by F. S. Boas, Oxford, 1901.

Locrine, The Doubtful Plays of William Shakespeare, by William Hazlitt, London, 1859, pp. 57-104.

page 346 note 1 Greene's Works, edited by Grosart (Huth Library), vi, p. 16.

For another explanation of this expression, see Boas, The Works of Thomas Kyd, Intro., p. xxix; Koppel, Engl. Stud., 18, p. 131; Schick, The Spanish Tragedy (Temple Dramatists), Intro., p. xii.

page 346 note 1 This passage is an imitation of Watson's Hecatompathia, Sonnet xli (Arber's Reprint, p. 77), as is suggested in a general way, but not specifically, by Sarrazin (Thomas Kyd und sein Kreis, p. 7). The first six lines of Sonnet lxiiii (Arber, p. 100) may also have been imitated here. For other imitations and borrowings from Watson by Kyd, see Dodsley-Hazlitt, v, p. 36; Boas, Works of Thomas Kyd, Intro., p. xxiv; Schick, Archiv für das Studium der Neueren Sprachen, 87, p. 300; Sarrazin, Thomas Kyd und sein Kreis, p. 6.

Watson's introduction to Sonnet xli is interesting. “This Passion is framed upon a somewhat tedious or too much affected continuation of that figure in Rhethorique, whiche of the Grekes is called or, of the Latines Reduplicatio: whereof Susenbrotus (if I well remember me) alleadgeth this example out of Virgill,

Sequitur pulcherrimus Austur, Auslur equo fidens.” Æneid, 10.

page 346 note 1 Examples: “Thy cursed father, and thy conquered selfe.”

Spanish Tragedy, iii, 7, 64.

“Thus to forbid me land? to slay my friends?”

Misfortunes of Arthur, iii, 1.

“In brief, you fear, I hope; you doubt, I dare.”

Misfortunes of Arthur, ii, 3.

“If their assents be slow, my wrath is swift.”

Misfortunes of Arthur, ii, 2.

“Your discipline in war, wisdom in peace.”

Richard III, iii, 7, 16.

page 346 note 1 Cf. pp. 361-2.

page 346 note 2 Publications of the Spenser Society, Nos. 43 and 44.

page 346 note 3 For description of the forms see pp. 362-7.

page 346 note 4 Where no figures are given, no examples have been observed.

page 346 note 1 Cf. G. Sarrazin, Thomas Kyd und sein Kreis, Berlin, 1892, p. 3.

page 346 note 2 F. S. Boas, The Works of Thomas Kyd, Introd., xxxix-xliv; Ward, History of English Dramatic Literature, 2d ed., I, pp. 308-9; A. H. Thorndike, Modern Language Notes, 17, pp. 143-4; Sarrazin, Thomas Kyd und sein Kreis, pp. 54-58; R. Fischer, Zur Kunstentwicklung der Englischen Tragoedie, Strassburg, 1893, pp. 100-112; J. Schick, The Spanish Tragedy, London, 1898, Preface, pp. xvi-xviii.

page 346 note 1 The Spanish Tragedy, Preface, p. xvii, “we note, further, its independence of any Senecan model.”

page 346 note 1 Greene's Life and Works, Huth Library, vol. i, Introd., pp. lxxi-lxxvii; Englische Studien, 22, pp. 389-436.

page 346 note 1 Examples: “this sword, this thirsty sword.”

Edward I, 5, 27.

“to the gates of death and hell Pale death and hell.”

Battle of Alcazar, i, 1, 122-3.

See p. 363.

page 346 note 2 Ward, English Dramatic Literature, ii, p. 220; Fleay, Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, ii, p. 321; Schelling, English Chronicle Play, p. 25. Cf. Ulrici, Shakespeare's Dramatic Art, translated by L. Dora Schmitz (Bohn's Library), ii, p. 378.

page 346 note 3 Tieck, Alt-Englisches Theater, Berlin, 1811, ii, pp. iv-vii; Malone, Supplement to the Edition of Shakespeare's Plays, c., London, 1780, ii, p. 190; Ulrici, Shakespeare's Dramatic Art, ii, pp. 375-378; J. P. Collier, Biographical and Critical Account, c., New York, 1866, 4 vols., i, 119; J. A. Symonds, Shakspere's Predecessors in the English Drama, p. 368 and note; Sidney Lee, National Dictionary of Biography, 56, p. 399.

page 346 note 4 Modern Philology, i, pp. 409-422.

page 346 note 1 See table following.

page 346 note 1 See table following.

page 346 note 2 See p. 369.

page 346 note 3 The speech of the chorus at the end of the play is to be excepted from this general statement. Cf. Fischer, Kunstentwicklung der Englischen Tragoedie, p. 76.

page 346 note 4 Edward II, i, 4, 319-27; ii, 2, 223-35.

page 346 note 5 The Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy, pp. 59-60.

page 346 note 1 Compare table, p. 377, with table, p. 369. Cf. Kramer, Über Stichomythie und Gleichklang in den Dramen Shakespeares, Duisburg, 1889.

page 346 note 2 E. Dowden, Shakspere—His Mind and Art, Preface to 3d edition; F. G. Fleay, Chronicle History of the Life and Works of William Shakespeare, pp. 255-283; Schelling, English Chronicle Play, chapter iv; Verity, The Influence of Christopher Marlowe on Shakespeare's Earlier Style, p. 73, note.

page 346 note 1 Pp. 375-6.

page 346 note 2 Only those cases have been counted in which the parallelism extends to a half line or more.

page 346 note 1 The following examples will illustrate the manner in which parallelism has been added.

“Her looks are all replete with majesty.”

True Tragedy, l. 1281 (Bankside Shakespeare).

“Her looks do argue her replete with modesty;

Her works do show her wit incomparable.”

3d Henry VI, iii, 2, 84-5.

“Did I let pass the abuse done to my niece?

Did I impale him with the regal crown,

And thrust king Henry from his native home?”

True Tragedy, ll. 1476-8.

“Did I let pass the abuse done to my niece?

Did I impale him with the regal crown?

Did I put Henry from his native right?”

3d Henry VI, iii, 3, 188-90.

“That knows not how to use embassadors,

Nor how to use your brothers brotherly,

Nor how to shroud yourself from enemies.”

True Tragedy, ll. 1680-2.

“That know not how to use ambassadors,

Nor how to be contented with one wife,

Nor how to use your brothers brotherly,

Nor how to study for the people's welfare,

Nor how to shroud yourself from enemies?”

3d Henry VI, iv, 3, 36-40.

page 346 note 1 Dowden, Shakespeare—His Mind and Art, p. 191; Brandes, William Shakespeare, Leipzig, 1896, pp. 192-3; Moulton, Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist, chapter v; Schelling, English Chronicle Play, p. 94; Cunliffe, The Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy, pp. 73-9; T. Vatke, Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespeare Gesellschaft, iv, p. 67; Churchill, Richard the Third up to Shakespeare, pp. 531-4.