Princeton Studies in English, Issue 3Princeton University Press, 1928 |
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abused actors Antonio's Revenge appears audience Bellafront bethan century character Christian Christopher Marlowe church comedy contemporary conventional court courtesan critics death Dekker delight didactic didacticism discussed divorce doth dramatists Dutch Courtesan Elizabethan drama England English drama evident evil example fact Faustus ghost Gismond Gorboduc Greene's Grissill Hazlitt's Dodsley Heaven hero heroine Heywood Honest Whore husband instance Italian Jonson kind King Lady London London Prodigal lust Maid's Tragedy Malone Society Reprints Marlowe Marlowe's marriage married Marston matter medieval Mermaid edition Mistress moral play murder playwrights plot poet Poetic Justice poetry popular praise problem prodigal prologue punishment Puritans Queen reform Renaissance repentance revenge play satire scene Seneca sermons Shakespeare Shakespeare Apocrypha sinner soul speaks speeches stage story Tamburlaine theater theme Thomas Dekker thou tion tragedy Tudor unto vertue vice virtue virtuous Volpone Wendoll wife wives woman women words writing
Popular passages
Page 122 - A play in which the wicked prosper, and the virtuous miscarry, may doubtless be good, because it is a just representation of the common events of human life : but since all reasonable beings naturally love justice, I cannot easily be persuaded, that the observation of justice makes a play worse; or that, if other excellencies are equal, the audience will not always rise better pleased from the final triumph of persecuted virtue.
Page 29 - I say, of those that I have seen,) which notwithstanding as it is full of stately speeches, and well-sounding phrases, climbing to the height of Seneca his style, and as full of notable morality, which it doth most delightfully teach, and so obtain the very end of poesy...
Page 74 - And for the authentical truth of either person or action, who (worth the respecting) will expect it in a poem, whose subject is not truth, but things like truth ? Poor envious souls they are that cavil at truth's want in these natural fictions; material instruction, elegant and sententious excitation to virtue, and deflection from her contrary, being the soul, limbs, and limits of an authentical tragedy.
Page 73 - But my special aim being to put the snaffle in their mouths that cry out, We never punish vice in our interludes...
Page 122 - For, indeed, poetry ever setteth virtue so out in her best colours, making Fortune her well-waiting handmaid, that one must needs be enamoured of her. Well may you see Ulysses in a storm, and in other hard plights ; but they are but exercises of patience and magnanimity, to make them shine the more in the near following prosperity.
Page 137 - May this a fair example be to me, To rule with temper ; for on lustful kings Unlooked-for sudden deaths from Heaven are sent ; But cursed is he that is their instrument.
Page 73 - For my particular, I can, and from a most clear conscience, affirm, that I have ever trembled to think toward the least profaneness ; have loathed the use of such foul and unwashed bawdry, as is now made the food of the scene...
Page 28 - Magistrates one of its most famous "tragedies." The didactic purpose of the Mirour is evident from its title-page: "The Mirour for Magistrates wherein may bee seene, by examples passed in this Realme with how greevous plagues vices are punished in great Princes and Magistrates: and how fraile and unstable worldly prosperity is found where Fortune seemeth most highly to favour.
Page 34 - Not that he conceived it to be a contemptible younger brother to the rest: but lest while he seemed to looke over much upward, hee might stumble into the Astronomers pit.
Page 56 - Playes, all coosonages, all cunning drifts ouer-guylded with outward holinesse, all stratagems of warre, all the cankerwormes that breede on the rust of peace, are most...