Vol. 3, No. 1, Summer 2004

[page 11] The Defense Against Prejudice

The most influential critical system to answer medieval objections against the theatre developed during the Italian Renaissance. Critical response during the sixteenth century was not so much a direct revolt against the Medieval Age, but a discourse against the more severe partisans of Catholicism who disliked men of letters as Reformers, and literature as the instrument of Reformation.

Men of letters, Humanists, and students tried to change their society. To do so, they had to combat the church, or those people who followed a more traditional approach to life. Protestantism developed during this time, and the Reformers allied with these people. Yet men like John Calvin established Puritanism based on well-established principles that behavior evidenced motives and thought, and that ordained ministers were supreme arbiters of behavior. Calvin’s followers continued the prejudice against art, literature, and drama. As a result, critical response was also a discourse against the Puritan variety of Protestantism. Therefore, men of letters not only had to attack what they considered to be unworthy, obsolete, medieval foes of dramas, but they also had to defend drama against their own political and ecclesiastical allies.

Circumstances and events of the day channeled criticism in the extreme. Men of letters contested nearly eleven hundred years of established objections with a faint allegorical light near the end. They necessarily had to meet objections on the same level to satisfy those objections. They set themselves to prove that drama and literature were not corrupting influences, but strongholds of religious and philosophical truths. The function of the Renaissance criticism was to reestablish the aesthetic foundations of literature, to reaffirm the significance of classic culture, and to restore once and for all the element of beauty to its rightful placed in life and art.(15)

Although the Humanist scholars grounded their defense on the writings of Horace, they found rational justification of drama and an answer to every medieval objection against literary works in Aristotle’s Poetics. Under the criterion of reality, critics such as Cinthio (1504-1573) and [page 12] Scaliger (1484-1558) saw in Aristotle’s writings the contention that drama revealed a higher reality than mere commonplace fact. Scholars argued that drama did not deal with particulars, but universals. That is, drama had little regard for the actuality of the specific event, but aimed at the reality of an eternal probability.(16) The reality was not mere actuality, but the appearance of reality through drama’s imitation of human action. The Renaissance critics were forced to lay stress on the elements of probability and verisimilitude, i.e., a close simulation of the seeming realities of life. But the imitation of life was for them an imitation of life as it ought to be. Because drama dealt with universals, it aimed to portray not what has been, but what might have been or ought to be. The imitation was ideal.

Under the criterion of morality, Renaissance critics saw drama as essentially moral while not having a distinctly moral aim. Drama portrayed an ideal representation of life. And drama must necessarily present an idealized version of human life in its moral aspects. Furthermore, drama did not starve emotions, but excited them in order to regulate them. In other words, by admitting that theatre affected audience members, scholars were able to turn the issue in favor of theatre by giving affectation a moral function. Theatre functioned to purify and ennoble emotions.(17)

While the criterion of reality related to the criterion of morality through ideal imitation, the criterion of morality related to the criterion of utility through function. Under the criterion of utility, drama was more serious and philosophic than history because it universalized fact and imitated life in its noblest aspects.(18) The function of drama was to teach the moral ideal delightfully by using example as its instrument. To arrive at this end, the playwright had to incite in the spectator an admiration of the example or the ethical aim of drama would not be accomplished. More than a mere delightful expression of truth, drama attempted to stimulate a desire in the spectator’s mind to be like the heroes portrayed.

The problem with the criteria or reality, morality, and utility was that they were at least unfair and at most inappropriate criteria for dramatic art. To judge drama in terms of its moral [page 13] content, its closeness with a reality, and its usefulness was to judge drama in non-aesthetic terms. From the Greek philosophers through the Renaissance, drama was seen as a form of scholastic philosophy.(19) Drama was seen neither as an art nor a science, but as an instrument or faculty. Drama was an art only in that it had been reduced to rules and precepts. It was seen as a form of logic.(20)

Prejudice and Defense Revisited

During the Italian Renaissance, the prejudice against the theatre found its way into Puritan Protestantism through John Calvin, who perpetuated the medieval belief that the supreme question in a person’s relationship with life was the question of conduct. The English Renaissance theatre was caught between Queen Elizabeth’s use of theatre at times to make a religious and political statement and the Puritans who were backed by a theological philosophy grounded on behavior. However, the Puritan’s prejudice against theatre seems to be more fanatical and less based on objectivity than the objections of medieval scholars. The Puritans seemed to be engaged in a more precise definition of prejudice: to form an adverse opinion of judgment without knowledge of the facts and to hold an irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group.

People following Puritan beliefs blamed theatre practices and practitioners for the misfortunes of life and for the more undesirable aspects of society. In order to promote blame, Puritans infused theatre practices with prejudices that did not necessarily follow the realities of those practices. In other words, what the Puritans said the theatre did, and what the theatre actually did were probably two different things. To the Puritans, crimes of the theatre included emptying the churches, perpetuating pagan custom, distorting truth, showing forth profane, seditious, and bawdy stories, teaching knavery and lechery, causing God to visit the plague on London, leading youth into idleness and extravagance, affording meeting places for harlots and customers, aiding the Pope, and corrupting maidens and chaste wives.

[page 14] The basic assumption for these crimes stems from Tertullian’s and St. Augustine’s concern for causal relationships and the effects theatre has on its audience. If a person attended the theatre, then that person would be influenced by the production and act out that influence in society. In A Treatise Against Dicing, Dancing, Plays, and Interludes (1577), John Northbrooke writes,

While Northbrooke’s view is based on plot and character of the Elizabethan drama, that view displays little understanding of theatre itself. The Puritans saw theatre as a form of direct negative influence on people’s behavior and, consequently on the quality of moral life in society.

The Puritan notion of quality of moral life in the Elizabethan age related to salvation. If a person chose to ignore sacred teachings, he was succumbing to temptation by Satan, his soul would be lost, and he would be eternally damned to hell. If enough people were to succumb, then an entire nation would fall, barbarian people would conquer the land, and the gospel would be lost. Herein lies the heart of Puritan reasoning for the power struggle: a genuine fear of eternal damnation linked to the loss of a quality of life in society based on salvation.

Puritan thought followed the early Christian world-view of the duality of God and Satan. Because the theatre influenced a mass of people, because Elizabeth I at times used the theatre as [page 15] a political weapon, and because theatre demonstrated ungodly thoughts and actions, the Puritans regarded the theatre as source and service to Satan. Puritan exaggeration was based on a high level of anxiety and fear. Northbrooke describes theatres as houses of Satan and asserts that religious themes in drama are sacrilegious. He writes:

To Stephen Gosson (1554-1623) in Schoole of Abuse, the entire classic drama was infected by the blasphemy and immorality of paganism and almost all of the English stage was infected by the abuses of the theatre. Yet Gosson insisted that his intention was not to banish or condemn drama, but to chastise its abuses. Drama contained the germ of its own disintegration and he asserted that disintegration had already taken place in his own time. The delights and ornaments of drama intended to make moral doctrine more pleasing were in reality mere alluring disguises for obscenity and blasphemy.(23)

Besides founding their argument on causal relationships and effects, the Puritans also used authority as a foundation for argument. Consequently, defenders of theatre also used authority to counter Puritan argument. Three sources of authority were scripture, classic scholars, and, to the Puritans, a vague but powerful innate knowledge of God’s law.

To the Puritans, the innate knowledge of God’s law meant that whoever listened to and followed God’s law had righteous authority to judge thought, behavior, and influencing aspects [page 16] of society. This way, the Puritans claimed to be the elect of God, and to exercise authority over others not of like mind. In Elizabeth I and the Puritans, William Haller offers a history of Puritan political and social involvement. The Puritans promoted a change of authority over the church from Pope to the Crown. However, because the Crown, as authority over the church, did not follow the Puritan idea of God’s law, the Puritans elected themselves to be authority over the church. Haller writes:

Since neither the church headed by the Pope nor the Crown followed God’s law, the Puritans necessarily needed to fill the moral void. Consequently, when an influential Puritan said that the theatres were houses of Satan, others in society supported his authority to make that statement. This way, a Puritan gained prestige and power.

In The Art of English Poesy, George Puttenham (c. 1529-1590) tried to tie the innate knowledge of God’s law to a playwright’s God-like gift in order to offer a defense. However, his defense was extremist; he related playwrights to creators and tried to endow them with the same kind of authority and prestige reserved for the elite Puritans. To Puttenham, a playwright or poet was a creator like God who formed a world out of nothing. Playwrights and poets were the first priests, prophets, legislators, philosophers, scientists, orators, historians, and musicians of the world. From the beginning, they had been held in the highest esteem by great men, and the nobility, antiquity, and universality of their art proved its preeminence and worth. With such a history and such a nature, it was sacrilege to debase drama or to use it on any unworthy subject or for ignoble purposes.(25)

[page 17] The authority of scripture offered Puritans irrefutable evidence against theatre. Northbrooke asserts that St. Ambrose ordered theatre to be utterly abolished, for no theatre is mentioned in scripture.(26) The argument was that because scripture did not reference theatre, then theatre had no place in God’s kingdom. Defenders could not touch that source of authority.

Defenders needed to find a way to overcome the obstacles of scripture as authority, and the self-proclaimed authority of the Puritans. They turned to the authority of classic scholars as their basis for defense. In A Defense of Poetry, Music, and Stage Plays, Thomas Lodge (c. 1558-1625) replied to Gosson’s attack by almost entirely appealing to the authority of classical scholars. He strung together classical names and dug up old Boccaccioan principles of allegorical and moral interpretation to point out drama’s efficacy as a civilizing factor in primitive times and as a moral agency ever since. To Lodge, drama was a heavenly gift and should be condemned only when abused.(27) In this respect he agreed with Gosson.

In Sir Philip Sidney’s Defense of Posey, we find a more supportive and substantial defense. Sidney (1554-1586) introduced the criticism of the Italian Renaissance to England nearly twenty-five years after Minturno and Scaliger published. Consequently, his defense follows Italian criticism and justifies theatre as true, moral, and useful.(28) Through Sidney, the Renaissance argument following the criteria of reality, morality, and utility offered a strong and substantial defense. The Puritans ignored it.

Lingering Prejudice Today

The puritanical philosophy of life and objections to the theatre linger within today’s Christian arena. Within most if not every denomination, there are some people who believe [page 18] conduct to be the supreme arbitrator in life. That is, they believe that a person is according to how he or she behaves. They strive to follow dictums of behavior, for themselves and for others, in order to become a righteous people. Being righteous, then, they can attain a good life after death as well as respond to the world in meaningful ways.

Under this philosophy, objections thrive against theatre. The content of drama portrays a false world; it is not real. Morally, the theatre is objectionable in both content and in practice. It serves to arouse emotions that in turn hurt the spiritual life of the spectator. Furthermore, the theatre has no use. It does not function to help people behave morally, thereby does not help them become a righteous people.

Yet Christianity as a whole has shifted away from the Puritan ideal. Instead of what a person does defining who he or she is, who a person is determines what she or he does. Focus has shifted, then, from an outward appearance to an inward state of being and a process of becoming. Behavior comes from the person. Today’s Christian doctrine attempts to reveal guidelines for each individual to inwardly grow and develop as a human being by revealing concepts and philosophies that help people understand the world and their relationship to it. Therefore, the goal is not to dictate behavior, but to help develop the individual as a unique human being having attributes and worth.

Under the same goal, today’s Christian doctrine does not aim to dictate the content and structure of dramatic art, but allows theatre the freedom to exist within the confines of its own art form. The mere appearance of theatre is no longer a valid issue. Morality, utility, and reality are not the criteria for theatre under today’s ecclesiastical frame. The theatre is no longer shackled with rules and precepts in order to fit under the standards of a particular doctrine. Just as today’s theatre cannot be the same as the Roman theatre, the theatre within today’s Christian arena cannot be the same as the theatre within the medieval Christian arena. And yet, the dilemma remains.

Endnotes