England.— In England, as in Spain, the humanists failed to impose upon the drama the rules supposedly based on classical precedent, but in no other nation was the classical influ ence a more powerful germinating force. Medi eval forms variously modified continued to sur vive, but in 'Ralph Roister Doister> (1552) and 'Gorbodier> (1561), comedy and tragedy appear as highly developed forms. Though similar academic attempts, especially in Senecan tragedy, followed for some years, the establish ment of the first London theatre in 1576 marked the triumph of the professional companies over their amateur and academic rivals. A dozen years later the advent of a group of clever poets determined the course of the popular drama and prepared theway for Shakespeare. The genius , of Marlowe (M4-1593) brought poetry to the theatre and raised the prevailing popular forms to dramatic and literary effectiveness. He re made history and tragedy with an utter dis regard for classical rules and yet, in spite of the violence and spectacle with which he delighted his audiences, he made his blank verse a noble and a dramatic expression of human passions and aspirations. Kyd borrowing from Seneca the story of re venge and the accompanying ghosts and horrors created a special type, the tragedy of blood. In comedy Lyly and Greene were the most notable innovators, the former producing artificial and courtly plays, lyrical, spectacular and abounding in witty repartee, the latter intro ducing romantic comedy with its averted trag edy and sentimental treatment of love. In all these plays there was rarely any attempt to fol low the three unities, or to restrict in any way the presentation of the story upon the stage. The primary aim of each dramatist was to tell his story so as to please his audience, but each was also a poet, thrilled with the spirit of the years of the Armada and ardent for the glories of the new poesy.
After these innovators came Shakespeare. This is no place for even a summary of his achievement, but it may be noted that, begin ning as a remaker of old plays and an imitator and adapter of the various popular types, he was throughout his career conditioned by the efforts of his fellow dramatists and the demands of the London theatres. His masterpieces are the culmination of a most varied and virile dramatic period. The most marvelous of his gifts, his faculty of expression and his knowl edge of human nature correspond to the two great excellencies of Elizabethan drama, its poetry and its characterization. The blending of wit, drollery, sentiment and fantasy that makes his comedy so enchanting and the enor mous range of situation and character that dis plays his creative genius as supreme were the outcomes of the freedom of the stage from restrictions and of the adventurous audacity with which the Elizabethan playwrights tried their hands at everything.
The development of Shakespeare's art was in a measure paralleled chronologically by the general development of the Elizabethan drama. During the last half of his career, perhaps in part from the survival of classical influences, the other dramatists were like him, freeing themselves from much of the lawless absurdity of earlier days. Foremost among the reformers was Ben Jonson (q.v.) who sought to impose on the popular drama as much as possible of classical regularity and propriety. He was at his best in a kind of drama that Shakespeare did not attempt, the ((comedy of humours,o plays dealing with the manners of the day; sometimes conventionalized by too close adher ence to Latin models, but again, as in mew Fair,' transcending anything else in Eng lish drama in the humor and truth of their realism. Of the other great names of the period
there is hardly space here even for mention. Beaumont and Fletcher (q.v.) possessed an extraordinary cleverness of invention and fa cility of expression and, like their contempora ries in Spain, relied on complexity of plot and ingenious alterations of suspense and surprise. The heroic romances of their collaboration and the lively comedies of Fletcher's later years, though long popular and influential on the stage, lacked the moral vigor that had been characteristic of the 16th century drama and thus supply one of the earliest symptoms of the decline of the drama. Under James I, indeed, the drama no longer reflected a vigorous na tional spirit, but rather a corrupt and immoral society, and the poets no longer felt the stimulus of a free field for exploration and discovery, but wrote under the overshadowing influence of the great masterpieces of their immediate pred ecessors. Massinger, Ford, Middleton, Web ster, Shirley and others produced plays of great beauty and power, but their best work exhibited no marked departure from the past, and in one way or another marked a moral and artistic decline.
Though the brought in French tastes and models, the influence of the great Elizabethans continued potent. The heroic plays, written in rhymed verse and drawn from French romances and dramas, carried on the methods of the heroic plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, and the comedies, written under the inspiration of Moliere, depended largely on the examples of Fletcher and Jonson. Shakespeare's tragedy, though modified and deformed to suit the taste of the day, was dominant in the the atre. Jeremy Collier's famous attack on the immorality of the stage made an end to a period that includes Wycherley, Otway, Congreve and Dryden and that rivalled the Elizabethan in the supremacy of the drama over other forms of literature. The divorce between literature and the theatre thus proclaimed has never in the centuries since been completely annulled.
In the 18th century, while French examples dictated English literary drama, they never won much hold on the theatre. Frigid imitations of the pseudo-classical form such as Addison's and Johnson's (Irene' were abundant, but even these literary imitations soon began to reflect Elizabethan models. In comedy Steele's sentimental plays correspond to the tearful comedy of France, and Lillo's domestic trage dies, based on Elizabethan predecessors and of importance abroad as well as at home in break ing the classic fetters, correspond to the tragedie bourgeoise. The vogue of the sentimental in comedy was broken by Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer' ; and in Sheridan's and for Scandal,' English comedy of man ners reached a height not since surpassed. The Romantic Movement dealt the death blow to the vestiges of pseudo-classicism still surviving, but was peculiarly sterile in positive achieve ment. The romanticists essayed the drama, but neither Lamb, Wordsworth nor Coleridge suc ceeded on the stage, and Byron and Shelley wrote without the stage in view. English writ ers in the 19th century were too indifferent to theatrical technic to produce effective plays. Tennyson, Browning, Arnold and Swinburne have all written dramas, but they belong to the hybrid ((closet drama') that separates itself from the stage. At present in the poetical plays of Mr. Stephen Phillips' and the technically skilful studies of social conditions by Mr. Pinero we may discern signs in England as on the Con tinent of a revival of serious dramatic activity and of the reunion of literature and the theatre.