Oldal 26 [26]
SHAKESPEARE’S ART OF POESY IN KING LEAR
idiosyncratic morality play — a work of Gothic dramatic architecture that takes
premises, structure and characterizations from medieval precedent and makes
of them something utterly unprecedented.”*°
Research on Tudor drama in the 1990s refines the rather casual claims of
earlier scholarship when developing the generic notion of the interlude. This
umbrella term denotes different pieces of drama ranging from short plays to
any sort of entertainment in Early Modern texts.*” However, Greg Walker’s
introduction to an anthology of Medieval playtexts offers a more crystalized
definition and refers to the “Tudor interlude” or “household drama” as a
subgenre of morality plays characterized by at least five distinctive elements:
these plays were written to be performed indoors in “the great hall of a
royal palace or noble manor house;”*’ they all show “interest in secular and
political concerns,” as opposed to moralities, which focus on “the welfare of
the human soul;”*® they circulated in printed form throughout the sixteenth
century; they were performed by more professional players, “perhaps members
of the household chapel or traveling troupes;” and due to these better skilled
actors, new dramatic elements could appear in the interludes, for example
“the increasingly sophisticated tumbling and word-play which is the crucial
element of the characterization of Vices.”* As for the particular texts that
belong to this genre, Greg Walker lists eight plays: Henry Medwall’s Fulgens
and Lucres; John Skelton’s Magnyfycence; The Enterlude of Godly Queene Hester;
John Heywood’s The Four PP and The Play of the Weather; John Bale’s Johan
Baptystes Preachynge and The Three Laws; and Sir David Lindsay’s Ane Satyre of
the Thrie Estaitis. Of these, Skelton’s Magnyfycence, which was printed in 1530,
seems to bear the strongest resemblance to Shakespeare’s King Lear as far as
its dramatic structure is concerned, so it appears to be the ideal choice to show
how the general dramaturgical patterns of morality plays appear in King Lear.”
Robert Potter: The Summoning of King Lear, in Robert Potter: The English Morality Play,
London-Boston, Routledge-Kegan Paul, 1975, 152.
The difficulty of giving a proper definition is described well in the following article: Jean-Paul
Debax: Complicity and Hierarchy: a Tentative Definition of the Interlude Genus, in Peter
Happé — Wim Hiisken (eds.): Interludes and Early Modern Society. Studies in Gender, Power
and Theatricality, Amsterdam—New York, Rodopi 2007, 23-42.
Greg Walker: Politics and Morality: The Interludes. Introduction, in Greg Walker (ed.):
Medieval Drama: An Anthology, Oxford, Blackwell Publishers, 2000, 305.
59 Ibid., 301.
60 Ibid., 302.
61 Ibid., 302.
The thematic similarity is easily seen even when reading Greg Walker’s summary ofthe plot:
“The play concerns the fortunes of a prince, the Magnyfycence of the title, who, despite his
claim to have set his court perpetually to rights under the guidance of his wise counselor
Measure, is eventually tricked into abandoning that prudent arrangement. Two fools, Fansy
and Foly, persuade him to admit into his service a number of ne’er-do-well suitors, Crafty
Conveyance, Clokyd Colusyon, Counterfet Countenaunce and Courtly Abusyon. These vices,
by posing as virtues, lead him to banish Measure, and adopt the lifestyle and mannerisms of
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