A History of English Literature

non-dramatic verse, though there is an occasional delightful exception, as
in the famous 'Drink to me only with thine eyes.' But of his non-dramatic
verse we shall speak in the next chapter.
7. Last, and not least: Jonson's revolt from romanticism to classicism
initiated, chiefly in non-dramatic verse, the movement for restraint and
regularity, which, making slow headway during the next half century, was to
issue in the triumphant pseudo-classicism of the generations of Dryden and
Pope. Thus, notable in himself, he was significant also as one of the
moving forces of a great literary revolution.
THE OTHER DRAMATISTS. From the many other dramatists of this highly
dramatic period, some of whom in their own day enjoyed a reputation fully
equal to that of Shakspere and Jonson, we may merely select a few for brief
mention. For not only does their light now pale hopelessly in the presence
of Shakspere, but in many cases their violations of taste and moral
restraint pass the limits of present-day tolerance. Most of them, like
Shakspere, produced both comedies and tragedies, prevailingly romantic but
with elements of realism; most of them wrote more often in collaboration
than did Shakspere; they all shared the Elizabethan vigorously creative
interest in life; but none of them attained either Shakspere's wisdom, his
power, or his mastery of poetic beauty. One of the most learned of the
group was George Chapman, whose verse has a Jonsonian solidity not
unaccompanied with Jonsonian ponderousness. He won fame also in
non-dramatic poetry, especially by vigorous but rather clumsy verse
translations of the 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey,' Another highly individual figure
is that of Thomas Dekker, who seems to have been one of the completest
embodiments of irrepressible Elizabethan cheerfulness, though this was
joined in him with an irresponsibility which kept him commonly floundering
in debt or confined in debtor's prison. His 'Shoemaker's Holiday' (1600),
still occasionally chosen by amateur companies for reproduction, gives a
rough-and-ready but (apart from its coarseness) charming romanticized
picture of the life of London apprentices and whole-hearted citizens.
Thomas Heywood, a sort of journalist before the days of newspapers,
produced an enormous amount of work in various literary forms; in the drama
he claimed to have had 'an entire hand, or at least a maine finger' in no
less than two hundred and twenty plays. Inevitably, therefore, he is
careless and slipshod, but some of his portrayals of sturdy English men and
women and of romantic adventure (as in 'The Fair Maid of the West') are of
refreshing naturalness and breeziness. Thomas Middleton, also a very
prolific writer, often deals, like Jonson and Heywood, with sordid
material. John Marston, as well, has too little delicacy or reserve; he
also wrote catch-as-catch-can non-dramatic satires.
The sanity of Shakspere's plays, continuing and indeed increasing toward
the end of his career, disguises for modern students the tendency to
decline in the drama which set in at about the time of King James'
accession. Not later than the end of the first decade of the century the
dramatists as a class exhibit not only a decrease of originality in plot
and characterization, but also a lowering of moral tone, which results
largely from the closer identification of the drama with the Court party.
There is a lack of seriousness of purpose, an increasing tendency to
return, in more morbid spirit, to the sensationalism of the 1580's, and an
anxious straining to attract and please the audiences by almost any means.
These tendencies appear in the plays of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher,
whose reputations are indissolubly linked together in one of the most
famous literary partnerships of all time. Beaumont, however, was
short-lived, and much the greater part of the fifty and more plays
ultimately published under their joint names really belong to Fletcher