ART AND THE STUDY OF EARLY ENGLISH DRAMA

Abstract

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak to this group about a relatively neglected class of studies involving the varied and complex relationships between art and drama. These can, I think, be of importance to historical consideration of the early English drama» For various reasons, a literary emphasis has dominated studies of this drama. The result has been an insufficient attention to the visual aspects of the theatric art, and also a delayed recognition of the considerable importance traditions evidenced in art are likely to have for criticism of plays composed in periods which assumed and cultivated a close interrelation of the arts and the habit of seeing the intelligible in the visible.