Parnassus plays

Title page of The Return from Parnassus: Or the Scourge of Simony (1606)

The Parnassus plays are three satiric comedies, or full-length academic dramas, each divided into five acts. They date from between 1598 and 1602. They were performed in London by students for an audience of students as part of the Christmas festivities of St John's College at Cambridge University. It is not known who wrote them.[1]

The titles of the three plays are

  • The Pilgrimage to Parnassus
  • The Return from Parnassus
  • The Return from Parnassus: Or the Scourge of Simony

The second and third plays are sometimes referred to as Part One and Part Two of The Return from Parnassus.

The trilogy raises an Elizabethan question: After college – what comes next? Francis Bacon in his essay "Of Seditions and Troubles" pointed to a 16th-century problem – universities were producing more scholars than there were opportunities for them. The University Wits – Lily, Marlowe, Green, Peele, Nashe and Lodge – were scholars who found employment in theatre, not perhaps their first choice, but there was little else for them. Their great education tended to discourage them from taking up the humble trades of their fathers. The Parnassus plays may not provide a solution, but they at least illustrated the fears of such ambitious young scholastic dreamers.[2][3]

For the most part, the plays follow the experiences of two students, Philomusus and Studioso. The first play tells the story of two pilgrims on a journey to Parnassus. The plot is an allegory understood to represent the story of two students progressing through the traditional course of education known as the trivium. The accomplishment of their education is represented by Mount Parnassus. The second play drops the allegory and describes the two graduates' unsuccessful attempts to make a living, as does the third play, which is the only one that was contemporaneously published. New in the third play is the serious treatment of issues regarding censorship.[4][5][6]

It has been said that this trilogy of plays "in originality and breadth of execution, and in complex relationship to the academic, literary, theatrical and social life of the period, ranks supreme among the extant memorials of the university stage",[7] and that they are "among the most inexplicably neglected key documents of Shakespeare's age".[8]

St. John's College, Cambridge, England, where the Parnassus plays were performed
Manuscript of the Return from Parnassus; Or the Scourge of Simony, the page containing Kempe's comment on Shakespeare. Act IV, scene 4
  1. ^ Muir, Andrew. Shakespeare in Cambridge. Amberley Publishing Limited, 2015. ISBN 9781445641140
  2. ^ Edmondson, Paul. Wells, Stanley. The Shakespeare Circle; An Alternative Biography. Cambridge University Press. 2015. ISBN 9781316404621
  3. ^ Munro, Lucy. Archaic Style in English Literature, 1590-1674. Cambridge University Press. 2013. ISBN 9781107042797
  4. ^ Glatzer, Paula. The Complaint of the Poet: The Parnassus Plays. The Edwin Mellen Press (1977) ISBN 978-0779938070
  5. ^ Reyburn, Marjorie. New Facts and Theories about the Parnassus Plays. PMLA. Vol. 74, No. 4 (Sep. 1959). pp. 325-335. Modern Language Association.
  6. ^ Wiggins, Martin. Richardson, Catherine Teresa. British Drama (1533-1642): A Catalogue. 1598-1602. Volume 4. Oxford University Press (2014) ISBN 9780199265749
  7. ^ The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume VI. The Drama to 1642, Part Two. XII. University Plays. § 16. The Parnassus Trilogy.
  8. ^ Sams, Eric. The Real Shakespeare; Retrieving the Early Years, 1564 —1594. Yale University Press. 1995 page 86.