OUTLINE HISTORY OF ENGLISH DRAMA (PART II) – JACOBEAN TO COMMONWEALTH

 Jacobean Theatre

 

    Though the theatre as such did not undergo any significant change from Elizabethan times, it must be acknowledged that the quality of the plays produced during the Jacobean era were relatively inferior. Two factors may be pointed out as chief catalysts in this regard. The first is the fact that during the period demand for new plays increased quite drastically, and to cope with the pressure, playwrights began to frequently collaborate with each other. Though this move did pay rich dividend as far as enabling the plays to be completed much quicker, it took a toll on the overall merit of the work. The second factor is that unlike in Elizabethan times, when the performances were attended by people from both classes of the society, in the Jacobean era, the theatre came to be frequented for the most part by aristocrats. More tellingly, unlike the Elizabethans who were relatively enlightened and open in their tastes, the Jacobeans represented a debauched lot who were prone to ransacking the theatre if the performance was not to their liking. Consequently, the plays became increasingly sensational, giving prominence to scenes that depicted acts of violence and cruelty. The upshot is that though many playwrights did come into the theatre and proved to be successful, none of them were able to leave such a long lasting impression like that of their Elizabethan predecessors.

 

Post-Shakespearean Dramatists

 

    The tag Post-Shakespearean that is generally used to refer to playwrights of the Jacobean era, signifies those dramatists who began their career after Shakespeare had established himself on the English stage. So it must be understood that some of the playwrights thus referred would have actually began their career during the time of Elizabeth itself, but are still categorized as Jacobean because their true flowering as dramatists occurred only during the Reign of James. Among such playwrights the most telling by far are the names of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, considered to be the greatest collaborators in the annals of English drama. What makes the Beaumont and Fletcher pairing so special is the fact that though they worked together, it never showed in their actual play, which always imparted the impression of being produced by a single playwright. The fact that beside Shakespeare and Jonson, they happen to be the only dramatists to have a folio edition of their plays published during the seventeenth century, bears ample testimony to the importance they commanded. It is however noteworthy that although their names are invariably mentioned in conjunction with each other, Beaumont and Fletcher wrote only a handful of plays together. Most of the 50 odd works attributed to their partnership were in fact written individually, with their actual collaboration merely spanning 7 years at best. The most telling contribution made by these so called twin souls of English drama is the perfection of the tragicomedy genre brought into vogue by some of the early comedies by Shakespeare, though it must be said they excelled in writing tragedies too. After Beaumont and Fletcher perhaps the most influential figure to reckon with in the context of Jacobean theatre is Thomas Middleton, who could be regarded as probably the most cynical among the many playwrights of the time. This is most evident in the society he depicts in his plays, which is rampant with vice to the extent that evils like corruption and deception represent a normal practice in it. His characters concomitantly are depicted as persons with no scruples whatsoever, extremely lustful for wealth, for whom social climbing is all that really matters. Particularly partial to collaborations, it is notable Middleton had a special knack for creating multiple subplots, and unreservedly catered to the Jacobean demand for gruesome depictions on the stage. If the world presented by Middleton in his plays is primarily vicious, then that by John Webster is outright wicked, suffused with evil, practically a living hell, in which people are shown to be devoid of any agency. Webster thus could be rightfully regarded as the bleakest, the most pessimistic Jacobean playwright by far. As one might expect, he specialized in tragedies, which are fittingly labelled tragedies of horror, not because they involve supernatural elements intervening in the action, but owing to the point they paint a picture of human nature and society as incorrigibly horrific. The fact that the modernist critic T. S. Eliot has characterized Webster as someone who always saw the skull beneath the skin, most tellingly encapsulates his basic trait as a dramatist. Details relating to John Ford’s personal life are for the most part speculative, as precious little information is available about him as an individual. Yet there can be no doubting the fact that he is by far the most complex and intricate among the Jacobean playwrights, a point borne out by the fact that they manifest an evident preoccupation with abnormal psychology. The influence of Robert Burton’s treatise The Anatomy of Melancholy which deals with the idea of melancholia or clinical depression as we call it today, is often cited by critics as the obvious catalyst in this regard. Beside this, it is notable that scenarios in Ford’s plots often highlight the conflict between the passions of the individual and the moral demands made by the society at large, invoking an ethical dilemma that is true for the ages. Thomas Dekker represents a striking contrast to the three preceding dramatists discussed above. Unlike Middleton, he takes a kindly view of vices and follies, unlike Webster, presents an evidently optimistic outlook on life, and unlike Ford is satisfied with a straightforward portrayal of events and people. Dekker’s dramatic art advances in general a romantic delineation of human nature, with a marked aversion for gristly depictions. Beside the playwrights dealt with thus far, some of the other important dramatists of the time include, John Marston, whose plays reveal a tendency for bitter satire, Philip Massinger, who quite openly quoted controversy by dealing with socially and politically sensitive topics, and Thomas Heywood, who is speculated to have had at least a finger in over 200 plays. William Rowley, George Chapman, Cyril Tourneur, James Shirley and Thomas Randolph, also made noteworthy strides as dramatists in the Jacobean era.

 

The English Civil War

 

    Ever since James I became the king of England, a tension began brewing between the throne and the parliament. This tension during the reign of his son Charles I boiled over in the form of a full-fledged civil war between the faction that supported the king known as the Royalists, and those the parliament called the Roundheads. The immediate repercussion of this war was that the parliament implemented an ordinance in 1642, in which among the various other things it prohibited, also levied a ban on theatres and dramatic performances. This ban remained in place for the next eighteen years, all through the regime of the so called commonwealth, till 1660 when monarchy was finally restored in England.