An Introduction To The Ethics Of The Elizabethan Drama
By
Harold Bayley
London
CHAPMAN AND HALL LTD.
1906
"The men of one generation can never look at Truth with the same eyes as their fathers. The world changes; the field of knowledge and of action widens; and we, if we be true to our trust, must enlarge our outlook in response. In one age the change will be more rapid, in another less. But quick or slow it is always going forward. Progress is inevitable and it is for our health. Were it to cease, all that is worth to be called life would cease with it; we should sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and traditon."--E. Vaughan
Table Of Contents
Chapter Page I. London's Parnassus 1 II. The Sweetness And Gravity Of
The Dramatic Mind 15 III. The State Of
Learning 32 IV. Ecclesiasticism 52 V. Religion 66 VI. Educational Purpose 102 VII. Medicine And
Physiology 127 VIII. Elizabethan
Audiences 154 IX. Classicisms 165 X. The World-Makers 202 XI. The Problematic
Manuscripts 230 XII. The Miscellaneous
Similitudes 249 XIII. Error, Wit, And
Metaphor 278 XIV. Traits And
Idiosyncracies 303 XV. Conclusion 331 Appendix
It is an impossibility nowadays for any student of Elizabethan literature to ignore the so called Shakespeare-Bacon theory. I am uncertain what effect this book may have upon it. While on the one hand it tends to support the claims made on behalf of Bacon and much to enlarge them, on the other--especially as regards the arguments derivable from internal evidence--it reduces the subject, apparently ad absurdum. In any case, however, the additonal light thrown upon it must be an advantage. As a modern scientist has said, Delusion and Error do not perish by controversial warfare. They perish under the slow and silent operations of changes to which they are unable to adapt themselves.--Harold Bayley, 1906