Conventionality and the English History Play:
Redefining the Genre in Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II and William
Shakespeare’s Richard II
Chelsea Till
MA Thesis Literature and Culture: Specialization English, 10391096 Supervisor: Dr. Kristine Johanson
Table of Contents
Introduction………....3
The Development of the Public Theatre...………..7
A Critical Review of History Play Scholarship.…………...…………19
Chapter One – A Genealogy of the English History Play...28
The Medieval Morality and Saint’s Plays.………...29
Tudor Historiography...………...……...34
Early Tudor Historical Verse and Drama...38
Chapter Two – “All live to die, and rise to fall”: Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II as adhering to Convention...43
Chapter Three –“You may my Glories and my State depose, But not my Griefs; still am I King of those”: Redefining Convention with William Shakespeare’s Richard II...54
Conclusion………...………...…...61
Introduction
It is unsurprising that books on [Shakespeare’s] histories should be so shot through with anxiety about what history actually is, how it is constructed, staged, and analyzed. But there is something more here, something shifting and opalescent concerning their own historical (or historicist) perspective … which seems almost deliberately indeterminate … [H]istory becomes a catchall, though a catchall of different kinds, which facilitates the projects at hand and lends authority to their various claims and arguments without ever coming out into the light where the reader can see what it is.
--Andrew James Hartley, “This Strange, Eventful History…” (259) Although Hartley’s arguments are aimed specifically at the publications of Nicholas Grene and Michael Hattaway, this passage offers an interesting and
illuminating perspective upon the scholar’s representation of the English history play, especially in terms of genre. As Hartley articulates, there is an overarching problem in endeavoring to define history; thus: “It is unsurprising that books on the histories should be so shot through with anxiety about what history actually is, how it is constructed, staged, and analyzed” (259). Due to this difficulty, this “anxiety” as Hartley tells us, most recent texts tend to avoid providing a clear definition: they seem to be “almost deliberately indeterminate … [where] history becomes a catchall … without ever coming out into the light where the reader can see what it is” (259). The contemporary challenge of defining history and of defining the English history play is the focus of this thesis. By exploring previous studies of the genre, this investigation will demonstrate that the absence of clarity and the generalisation of history is evidently a common complaint, underlining that the label “the English history play” continues to be unresolved even today. I will show that most scholarly definitions prove to be inadequate, that they rely upon incomplete information, form conclusions not fully based on fact, and offer precarious definitions despite their potential. This thesis, as a result, interrogates and redefines the English history play. With particular
attention to the works of Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare, I will use the terms of “conventional” and “conventionality” in an attempt to provide a more solid definition of the dramatic genre.
As the remark of “a conventional English history play” inevitably implies a full and complete understanding of the genre, this concept of “conventionality” is a particularly interesting and thought-provoking topic, and inspires the need for the interrogation of such critical essays. Scholars such as Ruth Lunney, for example, continually refer to a “conventional” English history play.1 Lunney herself recognises that the genre should be centred upon the didactic, arguing that Marlowe’s Edward II is revolutionary as it diverts from the normal audience expectations and accepted conventions. This unconventionality is due, firstly, to the absence of narrative in the play’s presentation of exempla and, secondly, to the personal rhetoric that dominates the play, opposing the English history play’s traditional representative purpose. As she states: “There was a revolution in the London playhouses in the late 1580s and early 1590s, and central to it were the early performances of Marlowe’s plays. The key to understanding that revolution lies … in what the audiences noticed when they saw and attempted to make sense of the action on stage. Marlowe’s real innovation— his real subversion, if you will—was the empowering of his contemporary audience” (25). Due to these “unconventional” elements, Edward II supposedly swerves from the concept of a traditional English history play and represents something particularly groundbreaking. Lunney’s arguments, however, can be applied to Marlowe’s works generally. They also fail to provide any working definition for a “conventional”
1
C.f. Lunney, “Marlowe’s Edward II and the Early Playhouse Audiences”. See also: Charles R. Forker, “Marlowe’s Edward II and its Shakespearean Relatives: the Emergence of a Genre” in Shakespeare’s
English Histories: A Quest for Form and Genre, p.68; Deborah T. Curren-Aquino, King John: New Perspectives, p.18; or L. J. Mills, who talks of an “ordinary” history play in “The Meaning of “Edward
English history play, only mentioning the play’s morality and didacticism; these are elements that can be incorporated within other dramatic genres.
“Convention”, as a term, has always been essential in the study of any poetical or dramatic genre. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “Convention” as the
“Action of convening”, as an “Agreement, conventional use” and a “General
agreement or consent, deliberate or implicit, as constituting the origin and foundation of any custom, institution, opinion, etc., or as embodied in any accepted usage, standard of behaviour, method of artistic treatment, or the like”. As this definition infers, in order to achieve the designation of an “English history play”, the dramatic work would have to adhere to the established “method[s] of artistic treatment”, displaying the certain conventions associated with the genre. Thus, to be “conventional” is described as relating to the agreement, as: “pertaining to a convention” (OED). “Conventionality”, likewise, is underlined as: “The quality or style of being conventional”, as having a “conventional character or style”, an “obedience to a convention” and as being “regarded by society as fit and proper” (OED). This definition is particularly important to the examination of the genre; to be termed “conventional”, a history play would have to comply with the customs
generated by a given society, greatly implicating plays such as Marlowe’s innovative Edward II and the “other” history plays that stand outside the traditional “English” genre. My understanding of conventionality is, thus, formed upon the concept of what is accepted as the norm: what is conventional complies with the standards and
customs agreed upon by a society, during a particular period in history, and must consent to the conventions embodied in a method of artistic treatment, as emphasised by the OED.
This thesis uses Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II and William Shakespeare’s Richard II to interrogate the meaning of a “conventional” English history play. I have chosen these plays because they have similarities in plot and structure, and also because they reflect a crucial moment in the development of the genre. Using
Shakespeare’s first tetralogy as a model for comparison, I will thus identify, compare, and contrast the unconventional and conventional elements of Marlowe’s only
English history play with those of Shakespeare’s Richard II. By doing so, I aim to further elucidate the evolution of the immensely popular Elizabethan genre and to deliver a more solid understanding of the English history play.
This study is of interest for a number of reasons, the most prominent of which is that it investigates why the English history play lacks the cohesion that we find for the other dramatic genres. I examine why the genre’s definitions remain incomplete and uncertain, as opposed to those extensive definitions provided for tragedy and comedy.2 Although this ambiguity may be due to the fact that the English history play is a more modern genre, developing at a period of time experiencing an overall increasing interest in history, I will continue to look at these two plays explicitly, and discover the elements that mark them as conventional history plays. Thus, this thesis will not only build upon the rich vein of scholarship on the English history plays and on Shakespeare and Marlowe, but it will also provide further insights into the use of history in the dramatic genre, both as a “tool”, an element adopted for commercial reasons and for pleasure, and as political subject matter, allowing for the propaganda of the Tudor monarchy and social commentary.
2
See Aristotle’s Poetics. Translated by Anthony Kenny (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). For more contemporary explorations see Joel B. Altman’s The Tudor Play of Mind (California: California University Press, 1978): pp. 229-248, or M. C. Bradbrook Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan
Following the introduction, this thesis outlines the development of the public theatre, its implications for the evolution of genre, and critically reviews previous history play scholarship. The first chapter details the genealogy of the English history play, demonstrating that the overall interest in history was not exactly a new
phenomenon, and providing strong evidence by examining the medieval morality and miracle plays and the historiography of the Tudor period. Chapter two uncovers and explores the conventional and unconventional characteristics of Christopher
Marlowe’s only English history play. However, by additionally analysing
Tamburlaine, this chapter argues that Edward II is indeed a conventional history play, participating in the period’s interest in history and using Shakespeare’s earlier history plays as a source, despite the unconventional elements that some scholars have found. The third chapter then investigates the similarities and differences between Marlowe’s Edward II and Shakespeare’s Richard II. However, by chiefly focusing on Richard II, this chapter will argue that, despite the resemblances, these plays are fundamentally different and mark a movement towards a refining and redefining of the dramatic genre.
The Development of the Public Theatre
As convention is always determined by the concurrent society, the rise of the public theatre would have had a significant impact upon the development of the English history play. The genre, as we know, was immensely popular within England’s late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century commercial playhouses.3
Yet, the turn of the century also represents a moment of monumental theatrical change. With a growing awareness of the power of the theatre and its affective potential upon
3
C.f McMillin and MacLean, The Queen’s Men and their Plays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
the audience, the distinguished theatre company and the individual playwright could now harness the recognised levels of theatre and genre convention and, ultimately, made their plays more distinctive within the context of theatrical performance.
The first public theatre was established in 1567, with the building of the Red Lion by John Brayne in London’s Whitechapel. Although most theatre historians still pinpoint 1576 as the official opening date, with the construction of James Burbage’s Theatre, the Red Lion must ultimately “make 1567 the watershed” for a new and commercialised playhouse (Gurr 11). As Andrew Gurr articulates in Playgoing in Shakespeare’s London, Brayne had built the Red Lion “on the pattern followed by the Theatre and the later playhouses” (11). The motivations for breaking with such
traditional forms, however, were purely lucrative: “At first this watershed was probably more important for the impresarios than the plays. It gave them better control of their income than they had passing a hat around in a market place or hiring an inn-yard or baiting area to put on their shows” (Gurr 11). As Gurr demonstrates, the building of the public playhouse allowed for a control of venue and pricing, providing a stable ground for theatrical enterprise and encouraging market
competition, and validating that the stationary theatre was purely entrepreneurial in its objectives. As John Orrell underlines, this theatre was clearly “a speculative venture, put up with an eye to profit” (102).
As the public theatre was therefore open for a substantial number of years by the time of the reign of the English history play, this latter supremacy of genre
suggests that the individual playgoer would have been well-equipped with significant theatrical experience. Scholars such as McMillin and MacLean argue that the Queen’s Men company, along with their creation of the history play, had “hit upon the kind of drama that would revolutionize the theatre of the 1590s” (xiv). However, before
examining these later years of the blossoming public theatre, it is necessary to recognise that the playgoer would have, conceivably, been more familiar with the plays performed by the individual touring companies instead. As McMillin and MacLean state: “English towns and cities were busy with drama and other kinds of showmanship throughout the sixteenth century” (xiv). The traditional theatrical world, in contrast, was a much more simplistic venture, recognised as providing a source of entertainment, compared to the moneymaking objectives of the purpose-built
playhouses: “The growth of London drama at the end of the century contributed to a shrinking of English theatre – a shrinking into the centre of a concentrated population and capital where drama could have been a thriving commercial enterprise.”
(McMillin and MacLean xiv). Howard and Rackin provide a useful picture, demonstrating that the nature of theatre spectatorship, beforehand, was drastically different and not deeply competitive: “There were no buildings dedicated solely to the public, commercial performance of plays in England until 1576 ... Before that,
religious theatre had been performed, usually by town guild members, on wagons in the street; or travelling players had performed in the great houses of the nobility or had rented temporary playing spaces in inns and innyards” (11). Thus, the spread of these patronised touring companies, performing in the “market place or … an inn-yard or baiting area” (Gurr 11), rather delivered an open-access to theatrical
entertainment, revealing that the common playgoer would have been more familiar with the drama of acting companies instead. As McMillin and MacLean underline: “It would be a mistake – one frequently made – to assume that London was the ‘home’ of the adult companies, or that they settled into certain playhouses for what we call a ‘long run’. These were touring companies much of the time, and our London playgoer would have been frequently aware of their comings and goings” (5). Since the original
performances was thus preoccupied with providing entertainment to the masses, and not so much an eye to profit, this shows that the traditional theatrical world was a much more simplistic and one-dimensional venture, and did not hold the competitive nature that was associated with the public playhouse.
However, as the touring industry eventually declined within the late 1580s, this suggests that the public theatre had only begun to fully establish itself within the later years of the sixteenth-century (McMillin and MacLean xii, 85,168). As
aforementioned, competition, as opposed to the provision of entertainment, was now the basis of the Renaissance theatre. This foundation thus forced Elizabethan drama to develop and made novelty an important feature of a theatre’s. As Jean E. Howard and Phyllis Rackin argue:
The London commercial theater … operated on different principles. The actors were professionals; the scripts were usually secular in content and were produced as commercial entertainment; novelty was as important as familiarity in making these scripts commercially successful; members of the audience were not necessarily known to one another or to the actors. … This imagined community was not so much based on personal acquaintance and familiarity, shared history, and prior relationships, as on the shared conditions of theatrical spectatorship in a commercializing culture and the shared temporality of theatrical enactment (31, my emphasis).
As Howard and Rackin demonstrate, the establishment of the public theatre had radically changed the course of theatrical entertainment. Commercial entertainment, as opposed to the original culture of “familiarity”, was now provided, serving as a compulsion for the plays to become fresh and innovative, both in an effort to maintain theatrical popularity and constant revenue. As McMillin and MacLean further
explicate: “[it was] during the decade of the 1580s that the daily repertory system took hold in the London playhouse. By 1592, when Henslowe’s listing of plays begins, a full-fledged repertory was being rotated at the Rose, and programmes so vast do not
happen suddenly or in isolation” (6). These scholars show that the public theatre had only slowly established its competitive nature over the century and, due to the
substantial dramatic exposure of the lower-class playgoer, was now driven to secure a stable income through the innovation of drama. Such evidence underlines that the movement towards a complete commercialised theatre had thus shaped its purely economical nature, which consequently urged the drama to develop and made a play’s novelty a critical trait of theatrical and personal success.
The upper-class sixteenth-century playgoer, on the other hand, would have been more familiar with the academic drama that was produced within the period. Although its audience was of a lower number, the academic theatre quite differed from the traditional acting companies and public theatre, and so holds great importance in this analysis of growing theatre competition and spectatorship. To reiterate Alan H. Nelson’s claim: “English Renaissance academic theaters of the kind that flourished at Cambridge, Oxford, and the Inns of Court had a character of their own and should be studied and appreciated in their own right” (59). Although Nelson underlines that only a few play-texts survive, that fewer “survive from Oxford than from Cambridge, with a tendency toward the tragic rather than the comic”, and that with “the major exception of Gorboduc, Inns of Court plays tended to follow the Cambridge comic tradition” (65), the surviving plays of the academic drama reflect the evident development of the public theatre, embodying a move from the more traditional to more inventive forms of drama and to the staging of more popular plays. Gorboduc, for example, echoes this shift within theatrical entertainment. Written by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville for the Inner Temple, Gorboduc diverges from the “spectacle” and “traditional festival” of the medieval plays (Gurr 105) by directly employing a historical-political subject matter and combining it with poetical
language. As Irving Ribner tells us: “For further progress to be made [within the theatre] the level of morality abstraction [found within medieval drama] had to be abandoned entirely” (37). Thus, by openly centering its narrative upon the
protagonist, Gorboduc, his realm, and the disagreement between his two sons, plays like Gorboduc now fulfilled “what the Renaissance considered primary historical functions” (Ribner 37), additionally conveying that the academic drama itself marked an evolution from the traditional, medieval theatre and reflects the development of more relevant genres and to the staging of more historically relevant plays.
Furthermore, as Gorboduc is the only play that Sir Philip Sidney mentions directly within his Apology for Poetry (1595), this familiarity with the academic drama, “suggests that it was [still] performed throughout the 1570s” (Gurr 131). This information not only indicates that academic drama reflects the steady evolving nature of Renaissance theatre, but that the individual playgoer would have been well
equipped with substantial theatrical experience, especially in terms of genre by the “revolution” of the theatre within the 1590s. As such a discussion has shown, the upper-class male would have been well acquainted with the academic drama and the lower-class audience, in contrast, would have been more familiar with the plays locally performed by the acting companies.
There are many avenues in which to explore the development of the public theatre and, equally, the possible experience of the playgoer.4 Nevertheless, by the time of the flourishing London theatre of the 1590s, a spectator’s playgoing
experience would have been radically different. As Andrew Gurr again tells us, the audience’s social composition was unlike any other, ranging from the richest to the
4
For other examples, see Cox and Kastan’s A New History of Early English Drama; Michael Hattaway’s Elizabethan Popular Theatre; Alan C. Dessen’s Elizabethan Stage Conventions and
Modern Interpretations; and A. R. Braunmuller and Michael Hattaway’s The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Drama.
poorest: “The range [of individuals] in London was enormous, from the Earl of Salisbury, whose income as Lord Treasurer … was almost £50,000 a year, down to the wife (and hence dependent) of a glover or shoemaker who might earn for his family no more than £3. 6s. 8d. a year. There was nothing like the amorphous ‘middle class’ which provides the great bulk of modern theatre audiences” (58). As Gurr’s observations indicate, the London public theatre, though more centralised, was no longer a class-restrictive phenomenon, allowing access to both the prevalent upper-class and to the common playgoer: the composition ranged drastically. Additionally, women comprised a large section of the audience and, likewise, participated in the economy of the theatre. As Howard states: “The theater … was an institution where various social groups mingled—men, women, citizens, ambassadors from abroad, apprentices, country gentlemen in town for the law term” (309).
As the English Renaissance theatre was thus a public affair, allowing for equal admission, this validates the idea that the plays of the public theatre were partially adapted to fit the needs of such a diverse audience. As Roslyn Knutson speculates, there was the possibility that, after Marlowe’s death, Shakespeare was asked by the Chamberlain’s Men to write The Merchant of Venice. This was in response to the continuing popularity of The Jew of Malta (c.1589-1590), which had been revived in 1594. If these claims are true, Shakespeare must have been well “aware of what he would need to do to replicate Marlowe’s commercial success and, yet, at the same time provide a play with attractive, fresh material” (Logan 7). As such considerations indicate, both the playwrights and individual playing companies would often revise their own stock of plays to suit the inclinations of the audience, whilst maintaining that novelty crucial to their theatrical popularity and success. Gurr articulates similar claims:
Once it took on a plainly commercial function … London playgoing quickly became a settled institution. Its settled place in London’s commerce, however, paradoxically meant that it became subject to rapid and incessant change. Regular attendances at a fixed venue required the impresarios to offer a constant supply of novelty. Whereas when travelling the players could often sustain themselves with the same plays repeated in constantly changing venues, once the venue was fixed the repertory had to keep changing (143).
Further exaggerating the public theatre as profoundly enmeshed in its commercial enterprise, Gurr correspondingly underlines that the playwrights and separate theatre companies would often adapt their plays to suit the needs and wants of the audience. By stating that “Regular attendances at a fixed venue required … a constant supply of novelty”, Gurr stresses that the commercialised theatre was now forced to modify its repertory, elucidating the reason as to why they “had to keep changing”. Henslowe’s Diary itself substantiates this fact. If we look into the repertory of the Rose in the early 1590s, dramas would always dwindle in popularity. The plays of Henry VI provide a good example. They were performed regularly in 1591, however they continued to decrease in showings until 1593, when they were eventually exhausted and stopped being played (16-20). This evidence shows that the public playhouse, rather than being a small and selective phenomenon, or spread about the country with a small number of plays, was now well-grounded in audience diversity and theatrical commercialism, urging playwrights to keep up-to-date and using novelty to maintain the success of their plays and their popularity.
As a result of this need for novelty, rivalry had also become an important feature of the public theatre. The repertory of the Rose, for example, showing twelve performances of The Jew of Malta and fifteen of Henry VI between 1591 and 1593 (16-20), not only clearly establishes the co-presence of the two dramatists,
production” (Logan 4). As Logan states, this co-presence “thereby increase[ed] the opportunities for influence and create[d] what several critics have seen as a plausible context for an unfriendly rivalry” (4). As these arguments underline, the public theatre not only demanded the novelty of plays but also forced the contention of its
playwrights. Such rivalry, however, expanded to a greater number of dramatists than just Marlowe and Shakespeare. The repertory was also “marked by staggering variety” (Syme 491-492). Robert Greene provides a strong example of this outside contention. In A Groatsworth of Wit, he quite candidly criticises Shakespeare, who is “an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger’s heart wrapt in a player’s hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Iohannes fac totum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country” (144). Thus, by clearly parodying the Henry VI plays in echoing Shakespeare’s line “O, tiger’s heart wrapt in a woman’s hide” (3 Henry VI, line 137), Greene not only challenges and undermines this particular playwright’s popularity and creative ability, but also reveals the deeply competitive and envious nature of period. As Peter Dawkins tells us: “‘Iohannes fac totum’ was a term of abuse used mainly by the university wits and meaning ‘Jack-of-all-trades, master of none’”. As this shows, Greene’s reference to Shakespeare, sarcastically mentioning him as the only “Shake-scene” in the country, was “far from complimentary”, as Dawkins states. Such remarks not only underline the many anxieties of the period, but also reflect the numerous rivalries that would surround the burgeoning public theatre.
Such rivalry, however, was largely conducted in terms of genre. As Robert A. Logan tells us: “each playwright displayed an eagerness to contribute some novel manifestation of his artistic talent to the rapid development of England’s burgeoning theatrical tradition—largely through innovations in genre, language, and stage
spectacle” (7). The contemporary theatre audience would have been familiar with the genres of tragedy and comedy, which were both of immense popularity. Marlowe’s own tragedies, such as Dr. Faustus and The Jew of Malta, mark a “novel
manifestation” through the innovation of genre (Logan 7) and were similarly very admired plays, repeatedly performed throughout the 1590s.5 As McMillin and MacLean state, Marlowe was the chief competitor of the public theatre, being “at the centre of the commercial drama” (167). Shakespeare had his own great tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, which were equally popular, employing the general themes and focusing upon a particular character. Despite being written later, the plays’ continued fixation upon tragedy validates that “Marlowe and Shakespeare were endeavouring to capture the attention of the same public theatre audiences” (Logan 5), and underlines that this rivalry was mostly conducted in terms of genre. McMillin and MacLean further elucidate these claims by discussing Shakespeare. The authors argue: “the Queen’s Men did not take him as seriously as they took Marlowe, the influence of whose plays they sought to curtail in some explicitly anti-Marlowe efforts. Thus, while Shakespeare was dealing with the Queen’s Men by rewriting their plays, the Queen’s Men were dealing with Marlowe by replying to his.” (xv). As these comments demonstrate, tragedies such as Selimus (1594) were not only written in an “attempt to rival Tamburlaine” (McMillin and MacLean 160) but also display that certain genres could be utilised as the primary weapon of the competitive public theatre. Many scholars have written on the obvious rivalries and interactions between the theatre companies, of the Admiral’s and Chamberlain’s Men in particular, and
5
similarly the playwrights,6 but this site could be more fittingly described as a “battleground” for theatrical supremacy (Bevington 210).
Henslowe’s Diary demonstrates that comedy, likewise, dominated the public theatre, as plays such as “The comodey of Jeronymo” are staged repeatedly
throughout the early to mid 1590s (16-35).7 Although Janette Dillon tells us that the “generic label of comedy is in fact quite difficult to apply to many plays before the 1580s”, as “many Elizabethan and earlier plays import[ed] comic routines as an add-on element” (47), comedy was, nevertheless, an important dramatic category, despite the fact that it could be merged with other genres. As McMillin and MacLean
reiterate, a “medley” style had dominated the public theatre: “‘medley’ acting is the best way to grasp the style of the Queen’s Men, and to gain a sense of this style, we would call upon the play that is before us, Three Lords and Three Ladies of London. It cannot be thought of as a history, tragedy, or comedy – it is a medley or it is nothing” (124). Comedy, as a characteristic, was thus clearly well known to the immediate audience, especially since comic authors like George Peele had started to write “more extensively for the public stage” (Dillon 54). Indeed, a “rather sudden change is apparently visible … when three innovative plays were performed at court: George Peele’s The Arraignment of Paris and John Lyly’s Campaspe and Sappho and Phao” (Dillon 49). Shakespeare, likewise, dominated the stage with his own
comedies. Following the format of the 1623 folio, the “comedies” designated plays such as The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love’s Labour’s Lost and The Comedy of Errors, all of which were written within the 1590s (Bate and Rasmussen 5). Although David Bevington argues that Shakespeare was indebted to Peele, Lyly, and Greene (210) for his comic form and tone, we have to remember “Shakespeare could owe no
6
C.f. James Shapiro, Rival Playwrights (Columbia: Columbia University Press, 1991).
7
Although this could be a reference to Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, Edgar Allison Peers argues that the play was clearly written afterwards and was intended as a burlesque, p.138.
debt to Marlowe [for his comedies], since Marlowe never wrote a play that could be generically classified as comedy” (Dillon 62). Marlowe’s plays are so few and there is evidently a predominance of tragedy throughout his writing. Therefore, as the
playwrights Lyly, Peele, Shakespeare, and Greene had dominated the public theatre with their comedies, this demonstrates that rivalry was mainly concentrated and conducted through innovation of genre.
Vital to this discussion on conventionality and the English history play is the importance placed upon genre. With the establishment of a new, public theatre in 1567, the provision of theatrical entertainment had become a more speculative
venture, only reaching its full maturity within the latter years of the sixteenth-century. The playhouse now, as Thomas Cartelli argues, “functioned as a medium for the expression and entertainment of a range of ideas and fantasies, some orthodox, some heterodox, some potentially seditious, some expressly patriotic, some conducive to social change, some committed to social control” (61, Cartelli’s emphasis).
Furthermore, as such comments demonstrate, although the plays “served as entertainment [that] does not meant that they lacked ideological implications and effects” (Howard 309). The theatre companies and playwrights themselves, as a result, had learnt to harness the customary levels of theatre and genre convention, and were able to secure their play’s repeated performance and commercial success. The theatrical world, by comprehending its own potential power upon the fee-paying audience, had thus embraced its deeply competitive nature and was able to reach its apex, staging more appropriate and sophisticated plays like Henry V, for example, by William Shakespeare (1599).
Although the natural assumption would be that the representation of history constitutes an English history play, this thesis becomes much more interesting when applied to the literature surrounding the genre. As mentioned above, “the English history play … [was] the kind of drama that would revolutionize the theatre of the 1590s” (McMillin and MacLean xiv). Yet, if we endeavour to find a concrete
definition of the genre, we stumble across great uncertainty; the English history play has always been very problematic to define. The 1623 First Folio originally
designated the “Comedies”, “Histories”, and “Tragedies” (Bate and Rasmussen 63). The titles of plays, such as “The Life and Death of King John” and “The Life and death of Julius Caesar”, however, are directly comparable to one another and, yet, are registered as embodying different dramatic categories (63). As this cataloguing shows, there is an ambiguity surrounding the definition of an English history play. Although the genre has always been branded as a distinctive entity, incorporating both tragic and comic elements, there is a blurring and confusion of definitions and
hypotheses, particularly evident in the scholarly literature. To quote Irving Ribner, this labeling of history is deeply mystifying: “The Elizabethans themselves have left us little of value in so far as a definition of the history play is concerned” (6). As he states: “The designations on the title-pages of quartos are equally useless … the term “history” was applied to almost anything” (6). Thus, as the dramatic category has always been so problematic and complicated to define, this thesis will now interrogate the previous scholarly literature upon the English history play and, as a result,
elucidate the need for exploring the conventional elements of the genre.
With the growth of scholarly attention upon the histories, it is evident that the distinctions of theme, form, and ideology have attracted most attention. Although, in an attempt to define the genre, most studies have focused upon the use of an “English
past”, this emphasis of distinctive subject matter is primarily found within the earlier investigations of the histories. Felix Emmanuel Schelling (1902), for example, argued that the history play was an essentially national product, dealing with “the general subject of English history” (v). While there are clear problems with Schelling’s work – he makes “little attempt to fix the limits of the history play as a genre” and separate it from the general course of Elizabethan drama (Ribner 6) – his emphasis upon the “English” past is crucial to the understanding of the drama. Other researchers have continued to underline the distinction of theme today. 8 Howard and Rackin, for instance, argue: “what distinguishes [the English history plays] from other types of drama is above all their subject matter” (6). The principal approach to define the genre, therefore, has primarily rested upon the distinction of its historical subject matter, propounding the “Englishness” of such plays.
Other academics, however, have criticised this thematic classification of genre. Although most scholars have frequently cited “Englishness” as the history play’s distinguishing feature, Irving Ribner (1954, 1957), for example, cautions us to “bear in mind that those plays whose theme is the presently authenticated history of England do not compromise the whole of the dramatic genre” (2). Although the history play, for Ribner, is clearly defined by its illustration of history, this illustration is not one necessarily English. As he states: “Plays which deal with the history of any country are history plays” (6). Thus, as to be classified as a history through the distinction of “Englishness” is ludicrous: “it is ridiculous to make generic distinctions on the basis of the national origin of subject matter” (Ribner 5), Ribner rightly
reminds us to recall that other history plays exist outside the “English” genre.
8
Since the use of “Englishness” is a vague and inadequate term in providing a description of the genre, various studies have taken a different approach and have focused upon the form that dominates by the history play.9 Previous studies of this type have tended to focus upon the chronological. Dr. Johnson (1765), for example, has emphasised the English history play as being sequential, portraying:
a series of actions, with no other than chronological succession, dependent on each other, and without any tendency to introduce and regulate the conclusion … a history might be continued through many plays; as it had no plan, it had no limits …[but] histories, being neither tragedies nor comedies, are not subject to any of their laws; nothing is more necessary … than that the changes of action be so prepared as to be understood, that the incidents be various and affecting, and the characters consistent, natural, and distinct. No other unity is intended, and therefore none is to be sought.
This definition is very interesting. Dr. Johnson, by stating: “nothing is more than necessary … than the changes of action”, advocates that only form, and not the representation of history, is the most important criterion of the English history play. More recent scholars, on the other hand, have argued that the form is open-ended. In a typical study of this type, G. K. Hunter (1997) argued that the history play does not end with these specified events: “It takes very little reading in Shakespeare’s historical sources to learn what nonsense [Dr. Johnson’s definition] is…. History plays are not controlled by the formal disclosures of death or marriage; they allow the open-endedness of history itself to appear” (161). This quotation more fittingly underlines that the form, in contrast, is clearly open-ended, an element crucial to the interpretation of the English history plays. As Marlowe’s own history play ends with the death of King Edward II and the beginning of the reign of King Edward III, I am
9
See Martha Fletcher Bellinger’s “The Chronicle and History Play”, in A Short History of the Theatre
(New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1927): pp.198-201, for example. Although Bellinger argues that the genre evolved through its form, she does not provide any solid evidence that can be used as a definition of the history play.
inclined to believe that the English history plays are open-ended, particularly since Marlowe failed to provide any following play.
Nevertheless, as most recent research upon the history play has tended to focus upon ideology and, in particular, political didacticism, I believe that this the most important feature of the genre. While the more popular works of this type, E. M. W. Tillyard’s Shakespeare’s History Plays for example, are no longer accredited, this emphasis upon ideology, nonetheless, has delivered great value in achieving a
definition of the genre. Tillyard, himself, advocates this political dimension to English history play, by centering the first tetralogy on cyclical order and the endorsement of the Tudor myth. Goy-Blanquet further characterises Tillyard’s claims by calling Shakespeare’s histories “the grand epic of Tudor England” (4). Despite the many problems with Tillyard’s works –they have long been discredited and can be “applied to Shakespeare’s Histories no more than to the rest of Shakespeare or indeed than to Elizabethan literature generally” (Elizabethan World Picture 7) – his approach towards a definition of the genre is important. Thus, by arguing for a distinct ideological and didactic purpose, Tillyard crucially acknowledges the political dimension necessary to the classification of the English history play.
Scholars such as Lily B. Campbell, Irving Ribner, Phyllis Rackin, and G. K. Hunter best endorse this political dimension to the English history play, placing them more decisively within the context of Tudor historical thought. Lily B. Campbell, for example, argues for the genre’s distinct ideology by underlining the “specific striking parallels” that can be found between the events of Shakespeare’s plays and the incident’s of his contemporary world (Gaby 25). Although originally building upon Tillyard’s arguments, Shakespeare’s “Histories”: Mirrors of Elizabethan Policy clearly provides an original contribution to the definition of the history play. In
comparison to the spiritual and cosmic ethics underlined by Tillyard, Campbell just advocates political didacticism, declaring that: “Tragedy is concerned with the doings of men which in philosophy are discussed under ethics; history with the doings of men which in philosophy are discussed under politics” (17). From this separation of thought, didacticism emerges as the primary function of the English history play. Many other critics, such as F. P. Wilson, Ruth Lunney, and Lisa Hopkins have similarly centred their narratives upon this political dimension of the genre, arguing either for their instructional quality and for the promotion of sacred kingship.
Irving Ribner, in comparison, stresses for the didactical element of the history play by its presentation of both public and private virtues. The chief focus of the history play, he argues, is the doings of men in politics and in their personal lives: “One wonders whether, in actual analysis of a play, the line between private and political conduct can be clearly drawn. The political and personal are often
inseparable, and it is perhaps inevitably so in a dramatist such as Shakespeare who saw the problems of state in terms of the personality of the ruler” (8). More recent scholars, such as G. K. Hunter, have also promoted the history play’s distinct political and thus ideological focus, stating that the English history play was obviously used to represent English dynastic politics (155). As a result, the English history play is most often characterised by its distinct ideological function. Through the genre’s
representation of both public and private events, the genre is believed to share a great affinity with prose historiography and therefore constitutes a distinct dramatic
category.
Scholars such as Michael Hattaway, Scott McMillin, and Sally-Beth MacLean, however, have provided more original arguments for the history play’s distinct
play’s closely affiliation with tragedy, arguing that the two categories both,
characteristically, have a political focus (4). Quite surprisingly, this leads Hattaway to label the histories as “Historiographic metafictions”, stating that playwrights such as Shakespeare were “always alert to a variety of historical processes and [that their] political characters often behave theatrically” (19). Due to this definition, the history play is further emphasised as being openly fictive in its narration of events and fully aware of its own “theatrical settings” upon the stage (12). While there are evident problems with Hattaway’s article –he makes little attempt to explain his arguments and is “deliberately indeterminate” (Hartley 272) - his emphasis upon open
theatricality may be important to our understanding the genre, particularly in terms of the history play’s overtly dramatic events.
McMillin and MacLean, on the other hand, outline the ideological dimension of the genre by stressing the history play’s own malleability (133). While other critics, such as G. K. Hunter and Irving Ribner, argue that the genre chiefly involves the cutting and shaping of history, McMillin and MacLean, however, demonstrate that other elements of the drama can be adapted for distinct, political and individual purposes.10Although these arguments are likewise problematic – the scholars have often been criticised for their lack of substantial evidence (see Calore) – they too provide a useful and interesting insight into the examination of the genre, elucidating that there are many elements that can be manipulated for distinct political purposes of the English history play.
Propaganda, such as originally expressed by E. M. W. Tillyard, is most currently promoted as the ideological focus of the English history play. In a more recent attempt to define the genre, the contemporary study has tended to focus upon
10
McMillin and MacLean state that The Queen’s Men advocated a style of “truth” and “plainness” style through their narration of English history, in keeping with the distinct political purposes of the playing company, pp. 32-36.
its nationalist and patriotic nature. This has led scholars, such as Howard and Rackin, for example, to underline the genre as a distinctly “national” history play (14). Jean E. Howard, within “Shakespeare, Geography, and the Work of Genre on the Early Modern Stage”, argues:
In all the English histories, England is embodied and personified in its monarch, but gradually it also becomes recognizable, in a more modern, nationalist manner, as a bounded territory, a distinct geographic entity…. In short, if Shakespeare’s English histories begin in nostalgia for medieval kingship, they end in celebration of a nation that exceeds the equation of country with king (305-306).
As this passage infers, the English history play is now, more importantly, recognised as a form of national propaganda, promoting itself with a distinction of ideological focus and English theme. Richard Helgerson and A. J. Hoenselaars reiterate these claims, maintaining that nationalism is an overt and important feature. Helgerson, within Forms of Nationhood, for example, argues: “Shakespeare has stood, as he still stands today, for Royal Britain” (244). This new approach to define the genre, thus, fundamentally rests not only upon the distinction of historical subject matter,
propounding the “Englishness” of such plays, but also upon its political, national, and patriotic nature, as a propagation not of sacred kingship but of the English nation as an entirety.
New historicism, similarly, argues for the propagation of the nation through the English history play. Rather than being openly propagandistic, Stephen
Greenblatt, for example, quarrels for “supremacy” of the nation through his model of containment and subversion. By starting with a discussion of Harriott in the 17th century, Greenblatt thus insists that many texts of the century reflect the capacity to generate subversion, and that this subversion, however, was used for their own political ends. Thus, the histories, by containing such a capacity, similarly achieve
Harriott’s reign of superiority, underlining that the propagation of English culture is a crucial political element of the history plays.
While these articles have agreed that the history play constitutes a separate dramatic category, it is also crucial to recognise that not all scholars welcome this view entirely. In some cases, academics question whether these original comments and classifications are truly “a sign that the Elizabethans and the Jacobeans perceive history (or, in modern parlance, the history play) as a dramatic genre in its own right, separate from tragedy and comedy” (Kewes 171). This review itself has shown that many of the distinctions of theme and form are solid enough as definitions. But, the classification of genre is still important despite being difficult to define. To quote Howard: “a given genre system is constantly in flux in response to a wide variety of historical and social pressures. New genres emerge; old ones mutate; some disappear. Often, one labels a genre as a distinctive entity only retrospectively, and there is always considerable instability around the edges of any generic classification” (301). Therefore, due to this generic uncertainty, I advocate any ideology as being the most deserving criterion of the English history play, defining the genre’s conventionality by both its didacticism and national propaganda. “The “historiographical” approach”, as Kewes states, “is a promising one. It has the potential to enhance our understanding of early modern historical culture and of the drama’s contribution to it” (184).
As my discussion of critical work upon the English history play has demonstrated, the genre is primarily defined by its distinction of theme, form, and ideology. We also see an importance placed on Shakespeare as “creating” what we know as the English history play.11 Undoubtedly, there is scope for a great deal of more research. There is an absence of clarity and a simplification of history evident in
11
C.f. Campbell, Helgerson, and E. M. Tillyard, for instance, all centre their texts on Shakespeare. This thesis, as a result will this premise and will use it as a critical point of departure for analysing the English history play.
most of these scholarly definitions, underlining that the English history play continues to be fully unresolved even today. Thus, this calls for a more solid examination of the dramatic genre, one that is based upon the empirical data of the plays, which operates with their understanding of history, and also looks specifically at the terms of
“convention” and “conventionality”. I, personally, identify Englishness, political ideology, and the dramatisation of English history as being the most deserving criterions of the English history play, particularly since all the texts centre their narratives around a particular reign and a particular monarch. Rather than just propounding one distinctive form, this thesis will, therefore, examine the numerous characteristics that constitute the genre and, as a result, will account not only for the English history play’s contribution to the theatrical world but to Renaissance political thought.
Chapter One
A Genealogy of the English History Play
The coupling of history and poetry will seem a strange pairing to historians, who stay away from poetry as if by a strict professional rule. They hold the common view that verse is the utterance of fine sentiments in fancy words and so has little to do with reality. They are mistaken.
--Lauro Martines, Society and History in English Renaissance Verse, (vii). What exactly are the origins of the English history play? Scholars such as Kewes directly ask this question within their own essays, enquiring whether the label actually constitutes a separate genre.12 But for the purposes for this discussion on conventionality and the English history play, this thesis will now incorporate a genealogy, a direct line of descent, for the dramatic category and, by ending with the production of Marlowe’s Edward II and Shakespeare’s Richard II, I hope to
illuminate how the popular English history genre was established within the commercialised, public theatre.
History and poetry have always been connected, as Lauro Martines articulates. Although he argues that poetry is always associated to the period in which it was written, reflecting the concurrent historical and social issues: “Poets, like all people, belong to a time and place, and therefore any act of creative writing on their part is likely to bear the marks of a milieu” (1), I am inclined to stretch this assumption a little further and discuss it in conjunction with the English history play. Initially, Martines states: “The coupling of history and poetry will seem a strange pairing to historians”. As comment this infers, the contemporary historian would not want use to poetry, as they believe it provides no realism, just uttering “sentiments in fancy
12
words”. Nevertheless, as the “rise of a drama using the materials and subserving the purposes of history was inevitable, for the stage has never failed to mirror the interests of the world about it” (Campbell 18), this shows that there are easily two levels within Martines’ arguments. Therefore, if we look into the sixteenth-century drama, we will not only see the Renaissance’s renewed interest in history, but also the marriage of dramatic poetry with the historian.
As in the introduction, the great event of the English history play had occurred in 1623, with the designation of a substantial amount of plays in Shakespeare’s First Folio into the “Histories”, moving away from the traditional generic labels of
“Comedy” and “Tragedy”. Although certain scholars have argued that there has never been any evidence in support of an earlier English history play, particularly before Shakespeare’s contribution to the genre,13
this is not simply the case. The focus upon history has never been a new phenomenon. To quote G. K. Hunter: “Shakespeare could not, any more than God, invent ex nihilo” (161). Therefore, as the “material on which he laid his seal manual had been evolving throughout the preceding … years” (Hunter 161), this thesis will now examine the medieval morality and saint plays and, as a result, further elucidate those elements that were later incorporated in the
“conventional” English history play genre.
The Medieval Morality and Saint’s Plays
The medieval morality and saint plays have always been recognised to play an important role in the development of the Renaissance drama. Irving Ribner, for example, argues there are clear roots in the medieval drama that did not reach full development till the last years of Elizabeth’s reign: “The elements which enabled
13
drama to fulfill what Elizabethans considered the valid objectives of history came from the medieval religious plays. From the slowly evolving miracle and morality drama emerged both a capacity for philosophic content and the outlines of an appropriate dramatic form” (31). As this comment infers, the English history play mainly received its dramatic form and distinctive ideology from both the medieval morality and miracle, or saint’s, plays. Although some of these plays were still popular and repeatedly staged throughout late Tudor England,14 these genres are considered to be the originators and, thus, the direct ancestors of the Elizabethan English history play.
Firstly, the medieval morality play can be envisioned to be a direct forbearer of the English history play by its insistence upon allegory, reflecting the instructional, didactic tendency that we find in the later genre. An “allegory” is often defined as a “symbolic representation” and as: “The use of symbols in a story, picture, etc., to convey a hidden or ulterior meaning, typically a moral or political one” (OED). As this definition infers, the moralities had a distinct political and ideological purpose, albeit a religious purpose, comparable to that of the English history play. The morality plays were regularly types of political allegory, where the protagonist was met by various personifications of moral attributes and who, quite visibly, try to prompt him to choose an ethical and, thus, “moral” life. Plays like The Summoning of Everyman are a typical example. With these allegorical features exemplified by its characters: Everyman, Good-deeds, and Kindred, for instance, it is clear that the morality plays were distinctly concerned with the political and would barely hide their personified
14
See Richard Southern, pp. 15-19; Andrew Gurr, pp. 143-144; and Henslowe’s Diary, p.16, for example. First recorded play in the Rose: Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, played on 19th Feb 1591, taking a total of 16 shillings and 2 pence.
and symbolic meanings. The titular character Everyman is, quite literally, emblematic of “every man”. Such an openness of allegory has led scholars such as Pamela M. King declare Everyman as the archetypal morality play and as “the first medieval English play of any kind to be revived in modern production” (225). Mankind, however, is another prime example. The anonymous text, being a moral fable about the character Mankind, is also symbolic of the human race as an entirety and,
similarly, incorporates many other politically representative characters, like Mercy or Mischief. Although we do find a use of specified names and specified history in the English history play, this insistence upon allegory reflects the same instructional and political tendency that we find in the later genre and, consequently, demonstrates that there is a close affinity between the medieval morality plays and the Elizabethan historical drama.
Additionally, the moralities can be recognised as a direct predecessor of the English history play by their political subject matter. In order to focus upon the presentation of morality, the medieval genre would often portray the fall into sin and the consequential journey into repentance. The opening of Mankind is a perfect example of this overtly religious and yet political subject matter. After Mankind’s speech, Mercy bids him to rise from his feet and states: “Dystempure not yowr brayn wyth goode ale nor wytht wyn. Mesure ys tresure … be ware of excesse … When nature ys suffysyde, anon þat 3e sese” (lines 236-240). As this quotation underlines, there is a certain open and instructional quality propounded by the medieval morality play, especially since Mercy directly warns Mankind to “beware of excess” from the beginning and advocates certain qualities for an ethical way of life. Although this is a distinctly religious dimension, such plays demonstrate that the moralities are
can be elucidated through both in their allegorical titles and actual substance. The premise of Everyman, correspondingly, displays the genre’s overtly political focus:
Go thou to Everyman, And show him in my name
A pilgrimage he must on him take, Which he in no wise may escape; And that he bring with him a sure s
Without delay or any tarrying (lines 66-71)
As this passage displays, Everyman similarly propounds a distinctly religious politics within it presentation of subject matter. By displaying the commandment of God, his belief that that Everyman is too focused upon wealth and worldly possessions, and his decision to send Death to remind him of the right way of life, the author
unambiguously stresses the moral and thus emphasises the didactic element of the morality play. Furthermore, as the messenger states: “By figure a moral play-/The Summoning of Everyman called it is” (lines 3-4), it is clear the play accentuates its own instructional quality throughout and, once again, underlines its distinctive political purpose. Although we find that the morality plays do advocate a certain religious politics in comparison to the dynastic politics of the English history play, it is clear that the medieval moral genre holds a great affinity with the more modern historical drama. Thus, as the philosophical content provides an emphasis upon moral teaching and upon allegory in particular, this displays that the medieval morality play must be a direct ancestor of the English history play, simply because it contains the ideological focus necessary to its own distinction.
Another branch to be associated with the Elizabethan historical drama is the medieval saint’s plays, which are otherwise known as the miracle plays. The saint’s plays themselves were also very ideological. As Darryll Grantley argues:
“Hagiographical prose and verse literature can be identified as having recurrent characteristics relating to the ideological function it is intended to fulfill” (267). But,
as the term “Hagiographical” implies, the saint’s plays hold great significance within the development of the English history play, particularly because they were centred on the life of a saint. The plays themselves could be real or fictitious, presenting an account of the life or martyrdom of a saint, however they had a clear interest in history and, most importantly, concentrated upon a historical figure. The Thomas Becket plays, put forward by Benjamin Griffin’s “The Birth of the History Play: Saint, Sacrifice, and Reformation”, are the best example of this link between the medieval drama and the Elizabethan historical plays. However, since “what remains of the overwhelming bulk of early saints’ plays in Britain is simply this list of titles, with a few other records asides” (Grantley 266), we will have great difficulty in examining this genre, as the play-texts themselves no longer exist.
The saint plays themselves are key to the development of the historical genre chiefly because they were first ever recorded plays to focus upon the subject of English history: “The earliest recorded play on a British figure and the earliest extant play on a British figure are both saint plays” (Griffin 222). To quote Benjamin Griffin: “on the present information, it is clear that in England no saint’s life was so frequently dramatized as that of St. Thomas Becket. And though Becket was an important saint for European Christianity generally, it is also clear that in England, the fact of his “Englishness,” of the English matter of his story, was a decisive factor in this repeated dramatization” (222-223). As this comment infers, the medieval miracle or saint’s play had previously held the distinctive historical and English subject matter crucial to the distinction of an English history play. To quote Griffin again: “The saint plays, it is now known, particularly emphasized native “British” or English history” (217). Such evidence shows that the saint plays had great impact upon the emergence of a new historical drama and are, thus, are direct ancestor a direct ancestor of the
English history play, providing the characteristically British subject matter necessary to the distinction of the genre.
As this discussion has shown, the medieval morality and saint’s play tradition had great impact upon the development of the Tudor drama and are, therefore, direct ancestors of what we now know as the English history play. To use a quote by Griffin, these two genres are “the history play that is prefigured” (226). By both of the genre’s political ideologies and by the saint’s play’s individual English focus, we can
establish this direct ancestry. Although only there are only now five medieval morality plays being in existence, The Pride of Life, The Castle of Perseverence, Wisdom, Mankind and Everyman, as Pamela M. King points out (240), and no
surviving play texts of the saint’s plays at all, the genres are clearly very important to our understanding of the historical genre. Together they incorporate all of the
elements essential to the designation of an English history play: a distinction of Englishness, political ideology, and the dramatisation of English history.
Tudor Historiography
Despite the obvious influences of the medieval morality and saint’s plays, the historiography of the Tudor period holds equal importance in this genealogy of the English history play. Although the historiographical literature was mainly written in prose, they likewise allowed for the emergence of the historical genre, particularly, because of their display of political problems. Additionally, the chronicles of the period held a capacity for instructional and moral teaching, in keeping with the terms and the aims of the future English history play. Scholars such as G. K. Hunter favour this view of history play ancestry. In English Drama 1586-1642: The Age of
explanation, and seeks to derive definition of the history play not from origins but from consequences” (165). As Hunter explains, the history plays emerged as an art form due to the problems posed by the prose chronicles and to “be confronted by the randomness of historical truth” (165). These comments infer that Tudor
historiography had, likewise, a great impact upon the development of the English history play, and so have a rightful place in this genealogy.
Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland are a natural starting point for this discussion of the English history play, as Shakespeare and the other playwrights used these volumes as a source. Published in 1577, and again in 1587, these chronicles provided an open-access to history and, in particular, were used to educate the more common man (Patterson 3). Furthermore, as Annabel Patterson states: “Holinshed’s Chronicles was itself, or now, can be seen, as great interdisciplinary project. It was offered to the late-Elizabethan reader, in two editions a decade apart, as the work of group in collaboration” (vii). Although the Chronicles are not the first detailed account of chronicle history, and are not even particularly dramatic in their form, mainly stripped down to provide a huge compilation of bare facts, they are a primary origin of the English history play. This lineage is
demonstrated through the usage of Tudor historical thinking:
At the daie of the coronation, to the end he should not séeme to take vpon him the crowne and scepter roiall by plaine extorted power, and iniurious intrusion: he was aduised to make his title as heire to Edmund (surnamed or vntrulie feined) Crookebacke, sonne to king Henrie the third, and to saie that the said Edmund was elder brother to king Edward the first, and for his deformitie put by from the crowne, to whom by his mother Blanch, daughter and sole heire to Henrie duke of Lancaster, he was next of blood, and undoubted heire. But because not onelie his fréends, but also his priuie enimies, knew that this was but a forged title … Therefore they aduised him to publish it, that he challenged the realme not onelie by conquest, but also because he by king Richard was adopted as heire, and declared by resignation as his lawfull successor, being next heire male to him of the blood roiall.
As this passage infers, the Chronicles displayed a similar use of historical subject matter, combined with a political philosophy similar to the English history play. By this discussion of Henry IV and the problems of the court, specifically the question of Henry’s right to the crown, the Chronicles emphasise a chief political focus and, likewise, underline their instructional tendency. As Manley tells us, what we now see here is “the often subtle transformation of exemplary history into “politic” history, whose function was still under the provision of examples, but examples that were no longer understood as practical demonstrations of philosophical norms and precepts” (209). As this passage demonstrates, the chronicles are not simply “rude material” of chronicle history, but acted as a demonstration of Tudor historical thought (Patterson xiii- xiv). Due to this philosophic and thus didactic capacity, Holinshed’s Chronicles are a natural predecessor of the English history play, providing the genre with more political, and less exemplary, models of history, in combination with Tudor, and less medieval, historical thought.
Edward Hall’s Chronicle likewise marks a turning point in the development of the English history play. Holinshed himself had originally used The Union of the Two Noble and Illustrate Families of Lancastre and Yorke (1548) when writing his own history. However, as the former writer had moved away from the more simple forms of Renaissance historiography, Hall’s Chronicle has great importance in this
genealogy. As E. M. W. Tillyard argues, Hall’s Chronicle holds great significance for the English history play, as it was clearly, and more decisively, a “moral drama” (50). The dramatisation of English history can be exemplified, for instance, through Hall’s opening paragraph:
What mischiefe hath insurged in realms by intestine duision, what depopulacion hath ensured in countries by ciuill discencio, what detestable murder hath been comitted in citees by separate faccions, and what calamitee hath ensued in famous regios by domestical
discord and vnnaturall controuversy. Rome hath felt, Italy can tesifie, Faunce can be here witnes, Beame can tell, Scotlande maie write, Denmarke can shewe, and espeically this noble realme of Englande can apparently declare and make demonstracion (1)
As this passage infers, Hall had moved away from the previous forms of
historiography, which heavily relied upon simple dictation and compilation, and openly moralised and dramatised the events of English history. By exclaiming: “What mischiefe that insurged”, Hall not only emphasises his central political theory, but also underlines that chronicled history could easily be dramatised for these purposes. Thomas More’s History of King Richard III (c. 1512-1519) is another example of this dramatised, chronicled history. The dramatisation and moralisation of English history is shown here, however, by More’s focus upon personality:
Then said the protectour: ye shal al se in what wise that sorceres and that other witch of her counsel shoris wife w their affynite, haue by their sorcery & witchcraft wasted my body. And therw he pluked up hys doublet sleue to his elbow vpon his left arme, he whe shewed a werish withered arme and small, as it was neuer other.
… no man was there present, but wel know that his harme was euer such since his birth. Natheles the lorde Chamberlain … aunswered & sayd: certainly my lorde if they haue so heinously done, thei be worthy of heinouse punishment. What quod the protectour thou seruest me I wene w iffes & with andes, I tel the thei haue so done, & that I will make good on thy body traitour. And thew as in a great anger, he clapped his fist vpon y borde a great rappe. At which token giuen, one cried treason (48)
Although this scene involves the oncoming execution of the Lord Chamberlain, this passage demonstrates that Renaissance historiography could be adapted for more uses than just detailing the events of history. Renaissance historiography, as both Hall and More validate, also contains the capacity for producing a “moral drama”. Thus, by chiefly focusing upon the Lord Protector and his dramatic manipulation of the
Hastings, More was able to underline the political focus of his history and, by relying upon personality, he is able to advocate this certain political philosophy: that
