one town or village. In Arden of Feversham, Arden's house and the painter's are set together;[1] in The Taming of A Shrew, the lord's house and the alehouse for the induction, and Polidor's and Alphonso's during the main play;[2] in The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, the houses of Elimine and Samethis;[3] in 1 Sir John Oldcastle, Cobham's gate and an inn;[4] in Stukeley, Newton's house and a chamber in the Temple;[5] in A Knack to Know an Honest Man, Lelio's and Bristeo's for one scene, Lelio's and a Senator's for another, possibly Lelio's and Servio's, though of this I am less sure, for a third.[6] These are the most indisputable cases; given the principle, we are at liberty to conjecture its application in other plays. Generally the houses may be supposed to be contiguous; it is not so in Stukeley, where Old Stukeley clearly walks some little distance to the Temple, and here therefore we get an example of that foreshortening of distance between two parts of a city, with which we became familiar in the arrangement of Court plays.[7] It is not the only example. In George a Greene Jenkin and the Shoemaker walk from one end to the other of Wakefield.[8] In Arden of Feversham, although this is an open-country and not an urban scene, Arden and Francklin travel some little way to Raynham Down.[9] In Dr. Faustus, so far as we can judge from the unsatisfactory text preserved, any limitation to a particular neighbourhood is abandoned, and Faustus passes without change of scene from the Emperor's Court to his own home in Wittenberg.[10] Somewhat analogous is the curious device in Romeo and Juliet, where the maskers, after preparing
- ↑ Arden of Feversham, sc. i, begins before Arden's house whence Alice is called forth (55); but, without any break in the dialogue, we get (245) 'This is the painter's house', although we are still (318) 'neare' Arden's, where the speakers presently (362) breakfast.
- ↑ T. of A Shrew, sc. xvi (cf. p. 92), see. iii, iv, v (a continuous scene). T. of The Shrew, I. i, ii, is similarly before the houses both of Baptista and Hortensio.
- ↑ Blind Beggar, scc. v, vii. The use of the houses seems natural, but not perhaps essential.
- ↑ 1 Oldcastle, II. i. 522, 632.
- ↑ Cf. p. 67, n. 1.
- ↑ K. to K. Honest Man, sc. v. 396, 408, 519, 559; sc. vii. 662, 738, 828, 894; sc. xv. 1385, 1425, 1428; cf. Graves, 65.
- ↑ Cf. pp. 25, 33.
- ↑ George a Greene, sc. xi. 1009, 'Wil you go to the townes end. . . . Now we are at the townes end'.
- ↑ A. of Feversham, III. vi. 55, 'See Ye ouertake vs ere we come to Raynum down'. . . . (91) 'Come, we are almost now at Raynum downe'.
