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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...
This section contains 4,877 words (approx. 17 pages at 300 words per page) |
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