SOURCE: Mooney, Michael E. “‘The Common Sight’ and Dramatic Form: Rowley's Embedded Jig in A Faire Quarrel.” Studies in English Literature 20, no. 2 (spring 1980): 305-23.

In the following essay, Mooney examines Rowley's use of the jig in A Fair Quarrel.

While the “embedded jig” is a feature common to many Renaissance plays, it is neither easily identifiable nor sharply defined. Indeed, even in C. R. Baskervill's seminal analysis we find uncertain limits demarcating the jig's perimeters. Although Baskervill centered his discussion on such isolated examples as “Singing Simkin,” “Rowland's Godson,” and “The Blackman,” and although he maintained that the jig chiefly served as “an afterpiece in the form of a brief farce which was sung and accompanied by dancing,” he also implied that the jig's influence was wider-ranging than had been supposed.¹ In delineating the forms these entertainments might assume, Baskervill clearly saw the jig not only as an...