"Shakespeare is not an isolated phenomenon; if we study him , as we should, in the ligh od his predecessors and associates, our understanding is much increaased , although we do not cease to marvel.Seen against such figures as Greene, Marlowe, jonson, Beaumont and Fletchter, Webster, ford and othrs of equal or less distinction, he reamins a colosus, but noy an inexplicable one.Roundly speaking , one may say that Greene and his felows evolved the style of what was to become Shaksprean drama , and that Marlowe fixed it.The form of the Latter s Edward ll is familiar to us in Shakesperean histories , and the verse of his Tambourline The Great has some said , a more than Shakesperean surge end thunder.Ben Jonson, a scholarly writer of masques as well as plays an a poet with sardonic turn of wit, brought the comedy of typs from Roman times to the theatre of his ays with The Alchemist , Every Man in his Humour and Volpone , the prolific collaboration of Beaumont and Fletcher, marking a post Shakesperean stage in the drama s evolution , yielded a rich vein of romance in THE FAITHFUL SHEPERDESS and THE MAIDS TRAGEDY and did not disdain to burlesque its own school in th Knight of the Burning Pestle ; and in such sombre plays as the Duchess of Malfi and The Broken Heart the devil haunted genious of Webster and Ford plumbs the very depth of passion, cruelty and Pity.It is a charge against our later theatre that, bemussed by Shakespeare s splendourit has somewhat neglected the secondary luminaries of this Constellation".......
from The British Theatre by Bridges Adams
director of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre
since 1919- 34
read it , wont regret[/SIZE]
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