[Footnote 61: bugbears.]

[Footnote 62: Jehovah's.]

CHAPTER VI

TRAGEDY: LODGE, KYD, MARLOWE, _ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM_.

Great as was the advance made by Lyly and Greene in Comedy, the advance
made by Kyd and Marlowe in Tragedy was greater. Indeed it may almost be
said that they created Tragedy as we know it. We have only to recall the
dull speeches of _Gorboduc_, the severe formality of _The Misfortunes of
Arthur_, to recognize the change that had to take place before the level
of such a tragedy as _Romeo and Juliet_ could be reached. Yet between
the two last-mentioned tragedies, if 1591 be accepted as the date of
Shakespeare's play, there lies a period of but four years. The nature of
the change was foreshadowed by the tragi-comedy, _Damon and Pythias_. In
an earlier chapter we dealt with the divergence of that play from the
English Senecan school of tragedy. This divergence, accepted as right,
set Tragedy on its feet. Great things, however, still remained to be
done.

The supreme quality of Tragedy is in its power to raise feelings of
intense emotion, of horror or grief, or of both. Failing in this, it
fails altogether. To this end Seneca introduced his Ghost, and his
disciples filled their speeches with passionate outcry and lurid
pictures of horrible events unfit to be presented in actuality.
_Gorboduc_ rained death upon a whole nation, _Tancred and Gismunda_
invoked every awful epithet and gruesome description of dungeon and
murder, for the same purpose. But the purpose remained unfulfilled--at
least, for an English audience nurtured on more vigorous diet than mere
words. The ear cannot comprehend horror in its fullness as can the eye.
Even the author of _Tancred and Gismunda_ was conscious of this, for at
the end he placed the deaths of both father and daughter, with horrible
accompaniments, upon the stage. He gave his audience what it wanted. Nor
were the English people slow to demand the same from others. We shall
find, in fact, that tragedy continued to borrow the exaggerated violence
of the Senecan school, even when it was most emphatically rejecting its
dramatic principles. It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that
the work of Kyd and Marlowe was merely to substitute actions for
descriptions, and sights for sounds. The difference between classic and
romantic tragedy is not so simple. We shall understand their task more
readily if we pause to consider what are the chief elements of
Shakes