interludes
interludes.The word ‘interlude’ was used from the 14th century for a short dramatic performance, given on its own or during an interval within a longer entertainment. Henry Medwall's Fulgens and Lucrece (probably 1497) and Nicholas Udall's Jack Jugeler (1535–60) show the genre's usual moralism, and the latter also its use of characteristic names in Dame Coye and Jenkin Careaway. Elizabeth I allowed her father's Lusores Regis (Players of the King's Interludes) to disintegrate, and the entertainment ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’ in A Midsummer Night's Dream parodies the genre's lack of sophistication. Interludes by Thomas Heywood, John Rastell, and others, however, encouraged a movement away from the abstract morality towards a more localized and particular dramatic form. They may also have exercised a specific influence upon later plays, including the two parts of Henry IV.
Jane Kingsley-Smith/Gabriel...
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