Representative English Comedies, v. 1. From the beginnings to Shakespeare
General
Representative English Comedies, v. 1. From the beginnings to Shakespeare
English drama (Comedy)
The uproarious laughter caused, according to
tradition, by this character cannot, therefore, have depended upon
the lines of the dramatist, except in so far as those consist of
threats, objurgation, profanity, and the like. There is little in the
asides of the printed page, or in the rare addresses of the Devil to
his audience, or the deportation of souls to hell[45] to account for
amusement. Rewfyn,[46] Rybald, and Tutivillus are the only humorous
devil-names in the five cycles of which we have been speaking; and of
the shouting and fireworks in which we are told the infernal spirits
were wont to indulge, we find scarcely any mention except in the plays
concerning the fall of the angels and the harrowing of hell. That the
merriment of the crowd was provoked by the appearance and antics of
the Devil--that is to say, by the improvisation of the actor--and
his raids upon the spectators is natural to infer. The dramatists
themselves did not provide for close association between the spirits
of hell and living men. The Devil addresses the audience but seldom,
and then, perhaps, to threaten with his club. In fact, the Devil of the
old miracles, as we usually conceive him, is an anachronism created
by certain historians of the drama; the buffoon roaring, pyrotechnic,
and familiar, springs into prominence only with the Digby plays, and
is but slowly developed in the moral plays and interludes. Though the
aspiring angels of the York and Chester plays "go down" in actual fact,
and the Lucifer of the former cycle complains of heat and smoke, there
is no mention of hell-mouth in the account-books before 1557, nor in
the stage directions of the Digby[47] before we reach the Digby _Paul_
and _Magdalene_ Mss. of about 1480-90; and even then the entries appear
to be the insertions of some later hand. In these plays the flames of
hell-mouth, the fireworks, and thunder are distinctive accessories of
the Devil's presence. Still, it is not in a miracle play after all,
but in a moral--the _Castell of Perseverance_ (about 1400)--that the
first stage direction of this nature is found. In the transitional
miracle morals, _Paul_, _Wisdom_, _Magdalene_, the Devil by his own
account as well as by stage direction "rores and cries." He was abusive
in the _Castell of Perseverance_; but in the later morals or moral
interludes he "rores and cries" for mere fun--in the _Lusty Juventus_,
for instance, the _Disobedient Child_, and _All for Money_.
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