SOURCE: Norland, Howard B. “Roister Doister and the ‘Regularizing’ of English Comedy.” Genre 18, no. 4 (1985): 323-34.

In the following essay, Norland examines Ralph Roister Doister in light of its innovation and mode of story telling.

Roister Doister is traditionally considered to be “the first regular English comedy.”¹ This designation seems to result primarily from the play's observance of the five-act structure and its perceived imitation of Latin comedy. It is not, of course, the first English comedy; England's first extant secular play, Medwall's Fulgens and Lucres, performed more than fifty years earlier, has a better claim to that title. And it is not the first play in England to use the five-act structure; Grimald's Archipropheta, composed in 1546-47, adopted it. It may also not be the first English play to imitate Latin comedy; Jacke Juggeler which announces in its prologue its indebtedness to Plautus's “first commedie,” Amphitruo, may precede...