Renaissance Drama Guide
The Rise of Professional Theatre in London
The drama of the English Renaissance is the greatest literary achievement of the period and one of the supreme achievements of world literature, a body of work that has never been surpassed in its combination of poetic power, psychological depth, theatrical effectiveness, and range of human understanding. The professional theater emerged in London in the later sixteenth century, driven by the construction of permanent playhouses, the development of professional acting companies, and the presence of an unprecedentedly brilliant generation of playwrights — Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, Webster, Middleton, and their many talented contemporaries — whose works transformed the drama into the most powerful and sophisticated literary form of the age.
Before the construction of the first permanent playhouses in the 1570s, drama in England had been largely amateur and occasional: the mystery plays performed by guilds on religious feasts, the morality plays performed by traveling players in town squares and great halls, the academic plays performed at Oxford and Cambridge, the interludes performed in noble households and at court. The building of the Theatre in Shoreditch in 1576 by James Burbage (followed by the Curtain, the Rose, the Swan, the Globe, and the Fortune) created a new institution: a commercial entertainment venue that could accommodate audiences of two to three thousand people and that made drama a regular feature of London life. The rapid growth of the theater industry is one of the most remarkable cultural developments of the period. By the 1590s, London had more purpose-built playhouses than any other city in Europe, and the theater had become the dominant form of popular entertainment, drawing audiences from all social classes — from apprentices and shopkeepers to nobles and courtiers.
The Playhouses and Their Audiences
London’s playhouses were of two main types: the public amphitheaters and the private indoor theaters. The public theaters were large, open-roofed, polygonal structures like the Globe, where the stage projected into the yard and audiences stood in the pit or sat in the galleries. These theaters could hold up to three thousand spectators, and performances took place in the afternoon, using natural light. The private theaters were smaller, roofed, and lit by candles, charging higher prices and attracting a more elite audience. The most famous of these was the Blackfriars Theatre, which Shakespeare’s company used as their winter venue.
The audience for Renaissance drama was remarkably diverse. The public theaters drew a cross-section of London society, from apprentices and laborers to merchants, lawyers, and aristocrats. This diversity shaped the drama itself: playwrights had to appeal simultaneously to the groundlings (the standing audience in the pit) and the gentry in the galleries, and the plays are characterized by their combination of high poetry and low comedy, their willingness to satisfy both refined and popular tastes. The relationship between the stage and the court was close: the acting companies were patronized by the leading nobles of the realm, and they performed regularly at court for the queen and her ministers.
The University Wits
The University Wits transformed English drama in the 1580s. This group of young playwrights educated at Oxford and Cambridge — Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, Robert Greene, George Peele, Thomas Nashe, and John Lyly — brought classical learning and literary ambition to the popular stage and created the foundations of Elizabethan drama. They developed new dramatic forms — the revenge tragedy, the chronicle history play, the romantic comedy, the farce — and they established blank verse as the medium of serious drama. The most important figure among them was Christopher Marlowe, whose “mighty line” of blank verse and his conception of the tragic hero — the overreacher driven by limitless ambition — revolutionized dramatic poetry.
Christopher Marlowe
Marlowe’s “mighty line” revolutionized dramatic verse. His Tamburlaine the Great (1587) showed what blank verse could achieve on the stage, and his Doctor Faustus (c. 1588) created the most powerful dramatic treatment of the Faust legend before Goethe. His Edward II (c. 1592) is the finest history play before Shakespeare, and his The Jew of Malta (c. 1589) is a savage satire of religious hypocrisy. Marlowe’s death in 1593 at the age of twenty-nine cut short the most promising dramatic career of the period, but his influence on Shakespeare and on the development of English drama was profound.
The Acting Companies
The professional acting companies of the period were organized on a shareholding system, with leading actors owning shares in the company’s profits and properties. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men (later the King’s Men) were the most successful, with Shakespeare as a leading shareholder. Companies were patronized by the highest nobles in the land, and their members enjoyed the status of liveried servants. The boy companies — children’s acting troupes like the Children of the Chapel and Paul’s Boys — were also popular, performing at the private theaters and occasionally satirizing their adult rivals. The repertoire system meant that companies performed a different play each day, requiring an enormous output of new plays from the professional playwrights who wrote for them.
William Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s career spans the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, and his plays represent the summit of English Renaissance drama. His work encompasses the full range of dramatic genres — comedy, history, tragedy, and romance — and his achievement in each is extraordinary. His four great tragedies — Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth — are the most powerful plays in the language, and his comedies — A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, As You Like It — are among the most delightful. Shakespeare’s understanding of human nature, his ability to create characters who seem more real than actual people, his mastery of language at every level from the most sublime poetry to the most vulgar pun, and his profound engagement with the great questions of human existence — love, jealousy, ambition, forgiveness, mortality — have made him the central figure in world literature.
Ben Jonson and Other Playwrights
Ben Jonson was the leading comic dramatist of the period and the most learned of the playwrights. His comedies of humors — Every Man in His Humour (1598) and Volpone (1606) — combine classical form with contemporary social satire, and his The Alchemist (1610) is one of the greatest comedies in English. Jonson was also the first English poet laureate in all but name, and his influence on the development of English comedy was enormous. The Jacobean period also saw the tragedies of John Webster (The Duchess of Malfi, The White Devil), the city comedies of Thomas Middleton (A Chaste Maid in Cheapside), and the tragicomedies of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher.
Revenge Tragedy, Comedy, and the Closing of the Theatres
Revenge tragedy was the most popular tragic genre of the period, originating with Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy (c. 1587) and reaching its culmination in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi. These plays are characterized by their violence, their psychological intensity, and their exploration of the darker regions of human experience. Romantic comedy, as perfected by Shakespeare, was the most characteristic comic form, combining love stories with themes of mistaken identity, cross-dressing, and the movement from the city to the green world of the forest. The theaters were closed by the Puritan Parliament in 1642, bringing the golden age of English drama to an end. When the theaters reopened in 1660, English drama had been transformed, but the plays of the Renaissance remained the foundation of the English theatrical tradition.
FAQ
When were the first London theatres built? The Theatre was built in 1576, followed by the Curtain (1577), the Rose (1587), the Swan (1595), the Globe (1599), and the Fortune (1600).
What is the most famous Elizabethan theatre? The Globe Theatre, built in 1599 by Shakespeare’s company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.
Who were the University Wits? A group of university-educated playwrights — Marlowe, Kyd, Greene, Peele, Nashe, and Lyly — who transformed English drama in the 1580s.
Why were the theatres closed in 1642? The Puritan Parliament ordered the closure of all theaters, ending the golden age of English Renaissance drama.
How many people could the Globe hold? About 3,000 spectators — 1,000 standing in the yard and 2,000 seated in the galleries.
What is a revenge tragedy? A dramatic genre derived from Seneca, characterized by a ghost demanding revenge, a revenger protagonist, a play-within-a-play, and a catastrophic final body count.
Who was the most financially successful playwright of the period? Shakespeare, who became wealthy from his shares in the Globe and the Blackfriars theatres.
Internal Links
- Read about the greatest playwright in Shakespeare Guide.
- Explore revenge tragedy in Revenge Tragedy.
- See the broader context in Renaissance Literature Guide.
Related Concepts and Further Reading
Understanding renaissance drama requires familiarity with several interconnected ideas and principles that together form a complete picture. Exploring these related concepts deepens your knowledge and provides context that makes the core material more meaningful and applicable. Each concept builds on the others, creating a web of understanding that supports deeper learning and practical application. Taking time to explore how these elements connect reveals patterns that accelerate comprehension and retention of new information.
The relationship between renaissance drama and adjacent fields is worth particular attention. Many of the most important insights emerge at the boundaries between disciplines, where ideas from different areas combine to create new approaches and solutions that neither field could produce alone. Exploring these connections pays dividends in both breadth and depth of understanding, revealing patterns and principles that might otherwise remain hidden from view. Cross-disciplinary knowledge is increasingly valued as problems become more complex and interconnected.
For those looking to go beyond introductory material, several excellent resources provide deeper treatment of specific aspects of renaissance drama. Academic journals, industry publications, authoritative reference works, and online courses each offer different perspectives and levels of detail. The key is to match your reading to your current learning goals and build knowledge progressively, focusing on quality over quantity in your study materials. A well-chosen resource that matches your current level is worth more than dozens of resources that are too basic or too advanced.