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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48108 76-3518 OVER, William Earl, 1948- THE REHEARSAL fit >ITS PLACE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH BURLESQUE DRAMA IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1975 Theater Xerox University Microfilms,Ann Arbor, Michigan 46106 © Copyright by William Earl Over 1975 THE REHEARSAL AND ITS PLACE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OP ENGLISH BURLESQUE DRAMA IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By William Earl Over, B.A., M.A. The Ohio State University 1975> Reading Committee: Approved By Prof. Donald R. Glancy Prof. John Walker Prof. Roy Bowen Adviser Department of Theatre4 This Dissertation is dedicated to my wife, Yvonne, who has been helpful and understanding throughout the period of ray research at Ohio State ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Professors Alfred Golding, Director of the Ohio State University Theatre Research Institute, and Albert Johnson of Memphis State University for the opportunity to read a paper on this dissertation at the American Theatre Association Convention in Washington, D.C. I would especially like to thank Professor Donald R. Glancy for his kind and generous assistance during the writing and research of this dissertation. His thoughtful advice and sincere involvement in every aspect of my research work at Ohio State has been truly exceptional* iii VITA August ll|., 1914.8........... Born - Hagerstown, Maryland 1966 .................... Andover H. S., Andover, Mass­ achusetts 1970 ...................... B.A., The University of Massachusetts, Amherst 1972 M.A., The University of Connecticut, Storrs 1972-1975 ................ Teaching Associate, Research Associate, Theatre Research Institute, The Ohio State University, Columbus FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Theatre and Drama. Studies in Dramatic Literature, Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Theatre History, Acting/Directing. Dramatic Literature: Professors Cecil Hinkel, John Morrow, Donald R. Glancy. Dramatic Theory and Criticism: Professors Donald R. Glancy, Cecil Hinkel, M. Drvota, John Morrow. Theatre History: Professors Walter Volbach, Arthur Saxon, M. Drvota. iv "I wish the stage were as narrow as the wire of a tightrope dancer, so that no incompetent would dare step upon it.” Goethe "Poetry is the Parent of Superstition.11 Thomas Sprat "In those gay days of wickedness and wit, When Villiers Criticized what Dryden writ, The tragic queen, to please a tasteless crowd, Had learn'd to bellow, rant, and roar so loud, That frighten*d Nature, her best friend before, The blustering beldam's company fore­ swore ." Sheridan, Prologue, The Critic v TABLE OP CONTENTS Page DEDICATION .................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................ iii VITA ........................................ lv QUOTATIONS .................................. v INTRODUCTION ............................... 1 Chapter I. THE PRE-RESTORATION PRECEDENT .... 12 II. THE EMERGENCE OP BURLESQUE DRAMA: 161*2-1671 £2 III. THE REHEARSAL AS BURLESQUE ART . Ill IV. IN THE WAKE OP THE REHEARSAL: 1672-1680 172 V. C O N C L U S I O N ......................... 226 GLOSSARY .................................. 21*1 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................... 21*1* vi INTRODUCTION The Rehearsal, a play attributed to the Duke of Buckingham, sometime favorite of Charles II, and a group of his literary associates, has been recognized from its first performance as a controversial work and a major achievement in the art of dramatic burlesque. The play was certainly popular with the King and the public theatre audience when it was first performed in 1671. Modern critics, however, have seen fit only to include The Rehearsal in important anthologies and to praise its powers of satirical penetra­ tion in their prefaces while, at the same time, avoiding a critical examination of the play. Scanty attention has been given the work in recent years, critics and scholars alike being content with an a priori acceptance of the play's worth without recognizing the need for its further evaluation. Though the foremost scholars of Restoration drama have drawn attention to the play's fully realized burlesque plot and have claimed it to be the epitome of Restoration dramatic burlesque,* yet The Rehearsal still remains, except for a *See Allardyce Nicoll, The History of English Drama (Cambridge: University Press, 19^2), vol. 1: Restoration Drama, 1660-1700. pp. 248-21*9; and Montague Summers, ed. Tlie Rehearsal, Vlfith an Introduction and Notes (London: Shakespeare Head Press, 1914)* PP* xci-xcii, xxiv. 2 few noteworthy articles, virtually ignored in modern journals. Such a condition is inexplicable in the face both of the consistent popularity of the play until the first quarter of the Nineteenth Century and of its influence upon such notable followers of the dramatic burlesque tradition as Fielding, Gay, Henry Carey, Sheridan, and numerous minor playwrights. In spite of The Rehearsalfs significance, a basic reconsideration of its position in the development of English burlesque drama of the Seventeenth Century has not been forthcoming. The following chapters identify those unique qualities of Buckingham’s burlesque that have contri­ buted to the advancement of burlesque drama in England. Through an examination of previous attempts at stage burlesque in England and a consideration of possible foreign and non- dramatic influences upon the authors of The Rehearsal, it is possible to place the play in historical perspective. The following study has, in that respect, a twofold purpose: first, to draw attention to the importance of the play as a significant advancement in the form of burlesque drama; and, second, to reveal the steady but constant development of that form from its early Elizabethan beginnings until the closing years of the Restoration era. Careful consideration of the development of the burlesque tradition in drama during that period has heretofore been avoided by Twentieth Century scholars. The attention of students of satire and burlesque has focused mainly upon the non-dramatic works of burlesque and satire, allowing for only a cursory appraisal of the 3 dramatic contribution to that form of literature.2 The following chapters employ various definitions and distinguish between "high burlesque” and ”low burlesque" as they apply to the various dramas studied.^ The distinc­ tions between such terms as "satire," "travesty," and "par­ ody" become increasingly significant in the following compara­ tive study of burlesque method in the drama. Traditionally, scholars have approached The Rehearsal from three perspectives. The most common approach has been to treat the play as a collection of specific literary and theatrical allusions to the various dramatic sources of its ridicule. Such scholarship is by nature quantitative and thus is of little value for the formal study of the play: to deter­ mine who or what is ridiculed in a piece without considering the form of that ridicule or its dramatic effectiveness is an endeavor that remains incomplete. Such attention to content as opposed to form was the critical viewpoint of the author of "the original Key" to The Rehearsal, which appeared as a Preface to the Briscoe edition of that play in 1701*. (seventeen years after the death of Buckingham). Following in that tradition, Edward Arber ^Howard D. Weinbrot's The Formal Strain: Studies in Augustan Imitation and Satire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969)* and Leonard Weinberg’s Introduction