CHAPTER XV.

HISTORY OF DRAMATIC LITERATURE FROM 1550 TO 1600.

Italian Tragedy 350 Pastoral Drama 351 Aminta of Tasso 351 Pastor Fido of Guarini 352 Italian Opera 352 The National Taste revives in the Spanish Drama 353 Lope de Vega 353 His Extraordinary Fertility 353 His Versification 354 His Popularity 354 Character of his Comedies 354 Tragedy of Don Sancho Ortiz 355 His Spiritual Plays 356 Numancia of Cervantes 356 French Theatre--Jodelle 357 Garnier 357 Comedies of Larivey 358 Theatres in Paris 358 English Stage 359 Gammar Gurton’s Needle 359 Gorboduc of Sackville 359 Preference given to the Irregular Form 359 First Theatres 360 Plays of Whetstone and Others 360 Marlowe and his Contemporaries 360 Tamburlaine 361 Blank Verse of Marlowe 361 Marlowe’s Jew of Malta 361 And Faustus 361 His Edward II. 361 Plays whence Henry VI. was taken 361 Peele 362 Greene 362 Other Writers of this Age 363 Heywood’s Woman Killed with Kindness 363 William Shakspeare 364 His First Writings for the Stage 364 Comedy of Errors 365 Love’s Labour Lost 365 Taming of the Shrew 365 Midsummer Night’s Dream 365 Its Machinery 366 Its Language 366 Romeo and Juliet 366 Its Plot 367 Its Beauties and Blemishes 367 The Characters 367 The Language 367 Second Period of Shakspeare 368 The Historical Plays 368 Merchant of Venice 368 As You Like It 369 Jonson’s Every Man in his Humour 369