Page images
PDF
EPUB

man in his country maintained the good laws of the land, or stood up for any public interest, for good order or government, he was a Puritan: in short, all that crossed the views of the needy courtiers, the proud encroaching priests, the thievish projectors, the lewd nobility and gentry-whoever was zealous for God's glory or worship, could not endure blasphemous oaths, ribald conversation, profane scoffs, Sabbath-breaking, derision of the word of God, and the like-whoever could endure a sermon, modest habit or conversation, or anything good,-all these were Puritans; and if Puritans, then enemies to the king and his government, seditious, factious hypocrites, ambitious disturbers of the public peace, and finally, the pest of the kingdom. Such false logic did the children of darkness use to argue with against the hated children of light, whom they branded besides as an illiterate, morose, melancholy, discontented, crazed sort of men, not fit for human conversation; as such they made them not only the sport of the pulpit, which was become but a more solemn sort of stage, but every stage, and every table, and every puppet-play, belched forth profane scoffs upon them, the drunkards made them their songs, and all fiddlers and mimics learned to abuse them, as finding it the most gameful way of fooling."

CONCLUSION.

Both sides of the famous controversy over the lawfulness of stage-plays have been heard; the strength and weakness of each has been seen, and perhaps some definite judgment can now be given. As we oppose the earnestness and moral purpose of the Puritan to the scoffing and sacrilege of the actor; the creditable, though at times intolerant, campaign of the one to the unjust and unfeeling, though frequently amusing, course of the other, whatever feeling we have of the soundness and justice of the Puritan cause is greatly strengthened by two pieces of evidence drawn from those times. In the first place, in spite of their careless attitude and bold words, we have good reason to believe that the actors saw the force of their opponents' arguments. After the heat of the Martin Mar-Prelate Controversy had abated, actors virtually admitted their folly. In spite of Nashe's affirmation that he knew not wherein actors had offended, unless “in purloining some hours out of Time's treasury that might have been better employed," he saw fit to promise a better play for the next time if in that one they had "trod awry, or their tongues stumbled unwittingly on any man's content." Still more frankly do other plays admit the validity of the Puritan objection. Twice Lyly's prologues express the hope that no unseemly speeches stain his plays. This is virtual admission that some plays had been licentious. In regard to other points of the Puritan attack, the old comedy Wily Beguiled practically confirmed Martin's story of the play-loving Bishop. There the clerk assured a man in regard to his coming marriage: "Faith, you may be asked i' the church on Sunday at morning prayer, but Sir John cannot 'tend to do it at evening prayer, for there comes 1 Nashe, Summer's Last Will and Testament, 1592, Epilogue. 2 Sappho and Phao; Gallathea. igality, 1602.

[ocr errors]

Contention between Liberality and Prod

a company of players to the town on Sunday i' the afternoon, and Sir John is so good a fellow that I know he'll scarce leave their company to say evening prayer; for, though I say it, he's a very painful man, and takes so great delight in that faculty, that he'll take as great pain about building of a stage or so, as the basest fellow among them." This was just what ardent divines were saying of the desecration of the Lord's day. The enjoyment of the audience, likewise, in the obscenity of the theater, and the immorality of its surroundings, are several times admitted by Jonson.2 And lastly, at the end of the period, the actors' promise not to offend again, if allowed to reopen, is admission that they once had sinned. If actors and dramatists, who naturally perceived less evil in the theater than others, consciously or unconsciously gave this confirmation to the allegations of the opposite party, we see the justice of the Puritan cause.

Another striking proof that the English Puritan did not attack unfairly the vices of the theater is that in France, a/ country perhaps less given to Philistinism than England, a somewhat similar movement against the evil began at about the same time. We need not attempt to review the earliest opposition to the French mysteries, which naturally was more ecclesiastical than national. But a few of the facts as the mysteries gave place to the secular drama, and as modern theatrical conditions arose, are very significant for the student of the English movement.

Opposition in France to the sacred drama came really from three sources. The Protestants first objected to it because of its free, irreverent and even indecent use of Bible story. Henri Estienne was one to express these objections most vigorously. Immediately, the Catholics, hitherto rather unconcerned, were inspired with like dread, especially lest their plays should make the common people

'Wily Beguiled, Dodsley, p. 292.

Poetaster, III, 1. See also his poem, Come leave the loathed stage, the sentiment of which Carew and Cleveland confirm.

[blocks in formation]

too familiar with the Bible, and should give opportunity for discussion of dogma. These were the religious objectorsoriginally and largely springing from the spirit of the Reformation.1 Quite different was the opposition that came from the cultured classes, the feeling of disgust for the barbarism of the old national drama, and a desire for classical purity in structure and thought. This was the spirit of the Renaissance, which supplemented strongly the objections brought on religious grounds against the French theater.

The same influences turned also against the secular drama, which had been misused for political and religious purposes. The religious objection, however, was so much stronger at that time that the authorities, while satisfied with mere restraint of secular plays, forbade definitely, in 1548, and again in 1598, sacred performances. Since the sacred drama did not die immediately with the act of 1548, maintaining a precarious existence by disguise of identity, the later opposition on grounds of morality, decency and social economy, concerned the sacred, as well as the secular, drama. In this transitional period, the spirit moving both the attackers and defenders of stage-plays is well illustrated in the Remonstrance of 1588 on the one hand, and in the words of the dramatist, Larivey, on the other.5 The unknown author of the Remonstrance called the king's attention to the evils of public plays on festival days and on Sundays, especially in the Hotel de Bourgogne, that "cloaque et maison de Satan." At the time, the Confrères were fighting hard to hold their own. His complaint was that on the stage the altar with its adornments, and priests in holy garb were represented to make of marriage a mockery, and that the text of the Gospel was irreverently used, so that holy things were profaned, and God blasphemed even 1 Calvin seems to have yielded to the popular demand for stage-plays, but not willingly. Holl, p. 104.

2 Les Mystères, I, 423-4, 441; Sainte-Beuve, p. 246; Darmesteter and Hatzfeld, p. 150–1; Rigal, p. 44; Holl, p. 22.

3 Sainte-Beuve, p. 274.

4 Rigal, pp. 42-4; 203.

5 Darmesteter and Hatzfeld, p. 181.

by religious orders. This was the main argument of the anonymous remonstrancer; but he did not forget the vice learned by idlers as they drank and gambled in the playhouse, and the ruin that came to many women through associations there. Consequently his words were applicable as well to secular as to religious plays.

In addressing this remonstrance to the king as the one mainly responsible for the evil's existence, the author did not stand alone; all the preachers of Paris, he asserted, remonstrated against the abuses of the theater. And indirectly, Larivey, in defending at this time his profession against its traducers, admitted their numerical strength. Larivey's reply to these "carpers," that they were ignorant of the subject, sought to reveal to them the healthful influence of comedy. But he himself acknowledged that his aim was to be popular, and since to attain this he stooped to immorality, his arguments for the purity of the stage are seriously weakened.

That both the attack and the defense should correspond so closely in nature to the English conflict is not strange. The secular drama was open to just the same threefold objection that it was in England. If the plays were coarse and vile, so also were the lives of the players low, and the play-house the resort of idlers and criminals. In respect to the performers the situation was worse than it was in England; for women formed part of every company, to the increased scandal of the profession. The actors and actresses seem to have been an immoral lot; Tristan called them "debauchés"; Tallemant characterized the actors as sharpers, and the actresses as women of ill repute; and Claude le Petit spoke even less respectfully of them. Rigal admits that this view is not false.1 England was not troubled in this way. But the character of the play-house and its audiences was exactly the same in both countries.2 Even Bruscambille, says Rigal, when not defending his craft, complained of the disorderly conduct of the pages, footmen, 1 Rigal, p. 166-7. 2 Ibid., p. 203–16.

« PreviousContinue »