OF COMEDY IN GENERAL, AND HOW IT STARTED IN ENGLAND
OF COMEDY IN GENERAL, AND HOW IT STARTED IN ENGLAND

Summary/Abstract: English Renaissance drama grew out of the established mediaeval tradition of the mystery and morality plays, which focused on religious subjects and were generally enacted by either choristers and monks, or a town’s tradesmen, as later seen memorialized by Shakespeare’s mechanicals in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. At the end of the XV century, a new type of play appeared. The short plays and revels were performed at noble households and at court, especially at holiday times. These interludes started the move toward purely secular plays, and added more comedy than was present in the mediaeval predecessors. Unfortunately, since most of these holiday revels were not documented and play texts have disappeared, the actual dating of the transition is difficult. But how did it all really start? When there is a need to study any literary phenomenon, to be known first is what it is in itself, what historical development it has undergone, and what has been its social and cultural background.

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