The Villain as Hero in Elizabethan Tragedy (Classic Reprint)

Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Villain as Hero in Elizabethan Tragedy Elizabethan drama is a term rather loosely used to cover the plays produced between the accession of Elizabeth, in 1558, and the restoration of Charles II in 1660. The plays of this period are, as every student knows, of very mixed type and unequal value, including as they do the sacred drama of national origin, the Latin imitations of Plautus and Seneca, the masterpieces of Shakespeare, and the decadent drama immediately preceding the closing of the theatres. It was towards the end of the sixteenth century that the Moral plays, performed chiefly for the edification and amusement of the common people, and the stiff imitations of Classical plays, performed chiefly at court began to give way before a new movement drawmg nourishment from both, but distinctly different from either the Romantic Drama, the drama of passion, which was the crown and flower of Elizabethan dramatic art, and of which Shakespeare is the great exemplar. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.