English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600 -- History and criticism; English drama -- To 1500 -- History and criticism
_Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes_ merits a passing notice if only because
it contains the earliest known example of a girl disguised as a page,
the Princess Neronis waiting upon her lover in that office. As has been
pointed out, however, in the discussion of _Gallathea_, Peele makes no
really dramatic use of the novel situation. If the dramatist had been
content with one knight instead of two, or had even vouchsafed the aid
of acts and scenes, his readers would have been able to follow the
succession of events much more clearly than is now possible: as it is,
between Clyomon and Clamydes, the Golden Shield and the Silver Shield,
there is constant confusion. But Peele was not born for chivalrous
romance. A writer who could allow one of his heroes to begin his career
by a piece of schoolboy trickery followed by headlong flight to escape
detection, and could make the sea-sickness of his other hero the cause
of his introduction to the lady of his heart, had not the true spirit of
romance in him. We meet our old acquaintances, the thinly disguised Vice
and the rude clown of uncouth dialect, under the names of Subtle Shift
and Corin; abstractions also reappear in Rumour and Providence. The
crudity of the verse will be sufficiently illustrated in the first line:
As to the weary wandering wights whom waltering waves environ.
_The Famous Chronicle History of King Edward the First_ is almost as
complete a medley as the most tangled play of Greene's. Peele's lack of
power to concentrate interest makes itself lamentably felt throughout.
We are conscious, as we read, that King Edward, or Longshanks, as he is
always named, is intended to impress us with his sterling English
qualities. He overcomes all difficulties, and if we could only unravel
his thread from the skein of characters, we should acknowledge him to be
a worthy monarch, brave, loving, wise, just and firm. One or two scenes,
we feel, are inserted deliberately for the sake of heightening his
character, notably that in which he elects to face single-handed a man
whom he supposes to be the redoubtable Robin Hood and who proves to be
no less than Llewellyn, Prince of Wales. Unfortunately these excellent
intentions are not seconded by the rest of the play. Some of the scenes
in which Edward takes part are not at all calculated to increase his
dignity; in the last of all, for instance, it is hardly an English act
on his part to conceal his identity in a monk's cowl and spy upon the
secrets of his queen's dying confession. That, however, may have been
pardoned by an Elizabethan audience; any trick may have been thought
good enough which exposed Spanish villany. A more serious defect is the
undue prominence given to Llewellyn and to Queen Elinor. This is not
accidental, for the full title of the play states that it is to include
'also the life of Llevellen rebell in Wales; lastly, the sinking of
Queene Elinor, who sunck at Charingcrosse, and rose againe at
Potters-hith, now named Queenehith'.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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