Renaissance Notes on Comedy

From Thomas Heywood's An Apology for Actors, Book III (1612)

• Quotes much of Donatus (see Classical Notes on Comedy)
• Tragedies and comedies began from divine/religious things (a rebus divinis)
• Comedies begin in turbulence and end in peace (turbulenta prima, tranquilla ultima), while tragedies begin in peace and end in turbulence (tranquilla prima, turbulenta ultima)
• There are three kinds of comedies--moving, standing, and mixed
• Comedies have four parts--prologue, proposition (1st act), business (epitasis), and conclusion (catastrophe)
• Cites content of comedy (following Greeks) as "private and public deed without danger."
• Quotes Cicero as saying "comedy is the imitation of life, the glass of custom, and the image of truth."
• Says comedy is good because
• It is an ornament to the city (strangers from other countries see it and talk about it at home)
• Use of the English language on the stage beautifies it
• The stage educates the unlearned/illiterature about history and teaches them to obey the king.
• Comedy makes people "see and shame at their thoughts":
• "Art thou addicted to prodigality? envy? cruelty? perjury? flattery, or rage? our scenes afford thee store of men to shape your lives by, who be frugal, loving, gentle, trusty, without soothing, and in all things temperate.  Wouldst be honorable? just, friendly, moderate, devout, merciful, and loving concord? thou mayest see many of their fates and ruins, who have been dishonorable, injust, false, gluttonous, sacrilegious, bloody-minded, and broachers of dissention.  Women likewise that are chaste, are by us extolled, and encouraged in their virtues...The unchaste are by us showed their errors...What can sooner print modesty in the souls of the wanton, than by discovering unto them the monstrousness of their sin? It follows that we prove these exercises to have been the discoverers of many notorious murders, long concealed from the eyes of the world."

From I.G.'s A Refutation of the Apology for Actors, Book III (1615)

From John Rainoldes' Th'Overthrow of Stage Playes (1599)