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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: PAI-PAS |
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PARNASSUS PLAYS , a series of three scholastic entertainments performed at St John's College, Cambridge , between 1597 and 1603. They are satirical in character and aim at setting forth the wretched state of scholars and the small respect paid to learning by the world at large, as exemplified in the adventures of two university men, Philomusus and Studioso. The first part, The-Pilgrimage to Parnassus, describes allegorically their four year's journey to Parnassus, i.e. their progress through the university course of logic, rhetoric, &c., and the temptations set before them by their meeting with Madido, a drunkard, Stupido, a puritan who hates learning, Amoretto, a lover, and Ingenioso, a disappointed student. The play was doubtless originally intended to stand alone, but the favour with which it was received led to the writing of a sequel, The Return from Parnassus, which deals with the adventures of the two students after the completion of their studies at the university, and shows them discovering by bitter experience of how little pecuniary value their learning is. They again meet Ingenioso, who is making a scanty living by the press, but is on the search for a patron, as well as a new character, Luxurioso. All four now leave the university for London, while a draper
satisfaction . Gullio is indeed a great admirer of Shakespeare, and in his conversations with Ingenioso we have some of the most interesting of the early allusions to him.A further sequel, The Second Part of the Return from Parnassus, or the Scourge of Simony, is a more ambitious, and from every point of view more interesting, production than the two earlier pieces. In it we again meet with Ingenioso, now become a satirist, who on pretence of discussing a recently-published collection of extracts from contemporary poetry, John Bodenham's Belvedere, briefly criticizes, or rather characterizes, a number of writers of the day, among them being Spenser, Constable, Drayton, John Davies
Burbage
The three pieces have but small literary and dramatic value, their importance consisting almost wholly in the allusions to, and criticisms of contemporary literature. Their author is unknown, but it is fairly certain, from the evidence of general style, as well as some peculiarities of language, that they are the work of the same writer. The only name which has been put forward with any reasonable probability is that of John Day, whose claim has been supported with much ingenuity by Professor I. Gollancz (see full discussion in Dr A. W. Ward's Eng. Dram. Lit. ii. 640, note 2), but the question still awaits definitive solution. As to the date there is more evidence. The three pieces were evidently performed at Christmas of different years, the last being not later than Christmas 1602, as is shown by the references to Queen Elizabeth, while the Pilgrimage mentions books not printed until 1598, and hence can hardly have been earlier than that year. The prologue of 2 Return states that that play had been written for the preceding year, and also, in a passage of which the reading is somewhat doubtful, implies that the whole series had extended over four years. Thus we arrive at either 1599, 1600 and 1602, or 1598, 1599 and 16oi, as, on the whole, the most likely dates
dates
The question of how far the characters are meant to represent actual persons has been much discussed. Mr Fleay maintains that the whole is a personal satire, his identifications of the chief
Davies
Lodge
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