Chapter XV

HISTORY OF DRAMATIC LITERATURE FROM 1550 TO 1600.

Italian Tragedy 350
Pastoral Drama 351
Aminta of Tasso 351
Pastor Fido of Guarini 352
Italian Opera 352
The National Taste revives in the Spanish Drama 353
Lope de Vega 353
His Extraordinary Fertility 353
His Versification 354
His Popularity 354
Character of his Comedies 354
Tragedy of Don Sancho Ortiz 355
His Spiritual Plays 356
Numancia of Cervantes 356
French Theatre--Jodelle 357
Garnier 357
Comedies of Larivey 358
Theatres in Paris 358
English Stage 359
Gammar Gurton’s Needle 359
Gorboduc of Sackville 359
Preference given to the Irregular Form 359
First Theatres 360
Plays of Whetstone and Others 360
Marlowe and his Contemporaries 360
Tamburlaine 361
Blank Verse of Marlowe 361
Marlowe’s Jew of Malta 361
And Faustus 361
His Edward II. 361
Plays whence Henry VI. was taken 361
Peele 362
Greene 362
Other Writers of this Age 363
Heywood’s Woman Killed with Kindness 363
William Shakspeare 364
His First Writings for the Stage 364
Comedy of Errors 365
Love’s Labour Lost 365
Taming of the Shrew 365
Midsummer Night’s Dream 365
Its Machinery 366
Its Language 366
Romeo and Juliet 366
Its Plot 367
Its Beauties and Blemishes 367
The Characters 367
The Language 367
Second Period of Shakspeare 368
The Historical Plays 368
Merchant of Venice 368
As You Like It 369
Jonson’s Every Man in his Humour 369