The First Phase of the Elizabethan Attack on the Stage, 1558-1579

Abstract

THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA, at the very time of its greatest triumphs, when every week thousands of Londoners thronged to see the plays of Shakespeare and his fellows, was faced with a determined and clamorous group of opponents who declared that the public playhouses were sources of all manner of evils, and who not only refused to attend performances themselves but also tried to prevent others from attending. Though the members of this opposition were at first only an insignificant minority, they eventually grew so powerful that in 1642 Parliament was persuaded to pass a law closing all theaters, and England remained without legitimate dramatic entertainment until the Restoration. The players and their friends met the opposition as best they could, by conciliation or counterattack. The controversy that was generated, besides being an episode of intellectual and social history interesting for its own sake, influenced the course of the drama in many ways for more than half a century. It is therefore important that its causes and progress should be described as accurately as possible. According to the interpretations of the controversy that are now accepted, the attacks were the end products of a movement that began at least by the time of Henry VIII. In the early years of Elizabeth's reign, and even before-so the accounts go-there was in England a strong feeling of antagonism to the stage, which increased as the century progressed and in 1564 (or, as some say, in 1574) cul-