disappear. The most common type of drama
for the next sixty years was the Morality, which symbolized life as a
conflict of vices and virtues or of the body and the soul. The drama was
rapidly changing from long out-door performances to brief plays that
could be given almost anywhere by a few actors. The term Interludes
became common for all such entertainments, and allegorical frameworks
served to contain a wide variety of matter, farce, pedagogy, politics,
religion, history, or pageant. Close imitations of the classical forms
were soon attempted by scholars and men of letters; but as the
professional actors grew in importance the development of a national
comedy and tragedy went on without much direction from critics or
theorists, but rather in response to the demands of actors and audiences
and to the initiative of authors.

The developments of comedy were numerous. Allegory gradually
disappeared, and the Morality ceased to exist as a definite type, though
its symbolization of life and its concern with conduct were handed along
to the later drama. The plays of Robert Wilson, about 1580, show an
interesting use of allegory for the purposes of social satire, and
realism and satire long continued to characterize Elizabethan comedy,
though for a time confined mostly to incidental scenes. Common and
incidental also was farce, which is found in most plays of the century
whether tragic, comic, or moral in their main purpose. Further, it was
soon discovered that the Plautian scheme of comedy was well suited to
farcical incident, as in _Gammer Gurton's Needle_ (1552).[6] The
classical models or their Italian imitations also produced other and
less domestic imitations, as in Gascoigne's translation of Ariosto's _I
Suppositi_ (pr. 1566) and Udall's _Ralph Roister Doister_ (1540); a
little later, Lyly's _Mother Bombie_, Munday's _Two Italian Gentlemen_,
and Shakespeare's _Comedy of Errors_. Indeed such adaptations continued
much later and resulted in some of the best farces, or realistic
comedies of intrigue, as Shakespeare's _Merry Wives of Windsor_ (1598),
Heywood's _Wise Woman of Hogsdon_ (1604), Jonson's _Epicene_ (1609) and
_Alchemist_ (1610).

[6] In this chapter the dates appended to the plays indicate the
conjectured year of presentation. Dates of publication are prefixed by
_pr_.

[Page Heading: Influence of Plautus]

The Plautian model, however, was far more influential than can be
indicated by these close adaptat