one of
them, except Ariosto's translator, gave us comedy which may be
considered complete in every way. They all display a very elementary
knowledge of plot construction. Udall is perhaps the most successful in
this respect; his plot is trivial but, well versed as he is in Terence,
he manages to give it an ordered and natural development. But the other
pre-Lylian dramatists quite failed to realise the vital importance of
plot, which is indeed the very essence of comedy; and, in expending
energies upon the development of an argument, as in _Jacke Jugeler_,
which was a parody of transubstantiation, or upon the construction of
disconnected humorous situations, as in _Gammer Gurton's Needle_, they
missed the whole point of comedy. Again, though there is a clear idea of
distinction and interplay of characters, there is little perception of
the necessity of developing character as the plot moves forward.
Merygreeke, it may be objected, is an example of such development, but
the alteration in Merygreeke's nature is due to inconsistency, not to
evolution. Moreover, stage conventions had not yet become a matter of
fixed tradition. "We have a perpetual conflict between what spectators
actually see and what they are supposed to see, between the time
actually passed and that supposed to have elapsed; an outrageous demand
on the imagination in one place, a refusal to exercise or allow us to
exercise it in another[112]." Further, English comedy before 1580 was
marked, on the one hand, by its poetic literary form and, on the other,
by its almost complete absence of poetic ideas. Lyly, with the instinct
of a born conversationalist, realised that prose was the only possible
dress for comedy that should seek to represent contemporary life. But
even in their use of verse his predecessors were unsuccessful. Udall
seemed to have thought that his unequal dogtail lines would wag if he
struck a rhyme at the end, and even Edwardes was little better. The use
of blank verse had yet to be discovered, and Lyly was to have a hand in
this matter also[113]. As for poetical treatment of comedy, Edwardes is
the only one who even approaches it. He does so, because he sees that
the comic muse only ceases to be a mask when sentiment is allowed to
play over her features. And even he only half perceives it; for the
sentiment of friendship is not strong enough for complete animation, the
muse's eyes may twinkle, but passion alone will give them depth and let
t