Meanwhile students at the universities, also, had been acting Plautus and
Terence, and further, had been writing and acting Latin tragedies, as well
as comedies, of their own composition. Their chief models for tragedy were
the plays of the first-century Roman Seneca, who may or may not have been
identical with the philosopher who was the tutor of the Emperor Nero. Both
through these university imitations and directly, Seneca's very faulty
plays continued for many years to exercise a great influence on English
tragedy. Falling far short of the noble spirit of Greek tragedy, which they
in turn attempt to copy, Seneca's plays do observe its mechanical
conventions, especially the unities of Action and Time, the use of the
chorus to comment on the action, the avoidance of violent action and deaths
on the stage, and the use of messengers to report such events. For proper
dramatic action they largely substitute ranting moralizing declamation,
with crudely exaggerated passion, and they exhibit a great vein of
melodramatic horror, for instance in the frequent use of the motive of
implacable revenge for murder and of a ghost who incites to it. In the
early Elizabethan period, however, an age when life itself was dramatically
intense and tragic, when everything classic was looked on with reverence,
and when standards of taste were unformed, it was natural enough that such
plays should pass for masterpieces.
Pages:
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173