Analysis
Nicholas Udall would almost certainly have seen mystery and morality plays presented in his community as he was growing up. Traveling companies brought English drama to communities throughout England, including Southampton. When, beginning at the age of twelve, he attended St. Mary’s College, Winchester, he most likely would have studied Aristotle’s De poetica (c. 334-323 b.c.e.; Poetics, 1705), the major plays of the Greek dramatists, and the Roman comedies of Plautus and Terence, especially those of Terence. Although no records exist to indicate specifically which plays might actually have been performed at Winchester while Udall was a student, it is known that Greek and Roman plays were presented at other grammar schools in England at that time, and later in his life Udall demonstrated an analytical knowledge of the works of Terence. Further familiarity with the elements of drama would have come from his participation in, or at least his knowledge of, the ceremony of the Festival of the Boy Bishop, which was celebrated annually at Winchester. The ceremony involved having students take the parts of ecclesiastical officials in presenting divine services at the school. If Udall did not actually participate in such ceremonies, he would certainly have observed them.
Udall probably wrote a number of plays presented during and after his lifetime both in the schools as pedagogical exercises and at court for entertainment. John Bale, the notable Protestant spokesperson, credits Udall with commaediae plures (many comedies). The only play that, in addition to Ralph Roister Doister, can definitely be attributed to Udall is Ezechias (c. 1546), a play acted before Queen Elizabeth at Cambridge in 1564, but no longer extant. In this play, which perhaps belonged to Udall’s Eton period, Hezekiah was portrayed as a reformer sent by God “to roote up al Idolatry,” as Udall wrote in The Paraphrase of Erasmus upon the New Testament, comparing King Henry VIII to Hezekiah in that regard.
Two other plays are sometimes thought to be by Udall, but inadequate evidence exists to make such an assertion: Thersites (1537), an interlude whose title character is a braggart soldier in the vein of Ralph Roister Doister, and Respublica (wr. 1553, pb. 1866), a piece of dramatic propaganda illustrating how Roman Catholicism is beneficial to a nation. Still two more plays are occasionally mentioned in connection with Udall, mainly because the authors are unknown and because the plays resemble Ralph Roister Doister in some ways. In Jacob and Esau (entered in the Stationers’ Register in 1557), the household servants of Esau are reminiscent of those in the household of Dame Christian Custance in Ralph Roister Doister. In Jack Juggler (pb. 1562), a Plautine plot is given English dress, again as in Ralph Roister Doister.
Ralph Roister Doister
Most scholars believe that Ralph Roister Doister was written in 1552, at the time the author was canon of St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. Udall’s purpose was apparently to provide a Christmas comedy for the students of some London school. The plot of the play is simple enough. Ralph Roister Doister is a roistering, bullying coward who, like William Shakespeare’s Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night: Or, What You Will (pr. c. 1600-1602) is nothing but bluster. He is constantly in love with some woman or another. As the play opens, he is infatuated with Dame Christian Custance, a rich and virtuous widow betrothed to Gawin Goodluck, a merchant who is away on business. Ralph sees himself, quite inaccurately, as God’s gift to women and sees no reason why Dame Christian should not be delighted to wed him....
(This entire section contains 2049 words.)
Unlock this Study Guide Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
In his misapprehension, Ralph is aided by the sycophantic Matthew Merrygreek, who avows that people often mistake Ralph for Launcelot, Guy of Warwick, Hector of Troy, Sampson, Alexander, and others. Merrygreek assures Ralph that he is indeed “the tenth worthy.” Thus encouraged, Ralph sends a love letter to Dame Christian.
Using flattery and promises of gifts, Ralph persuades Dame Christian’s servant Madge Mumblecrust to take the letter to her mistress. Dame Christian refuses even to open the letter, however, and chastises Madge, ordering her to bring “no mo letters for no man’s pleasure.” When Dobinet Doughty, Ralph’s servant, brings a ring as a present for Dame Christian, Madge, therefore, refuses to deliver it. Dobinet turns to other servants: Tom Truepenny, Tibet Talkapace, and Annot Alyface, who are anxious to take the gift to their mistress. Their reward, however, is a severe scolding from Dame Christian.
Sent by Ralph to learn the effects of his letter and gifts, Merrygreek praises Ralph to Dame Christian, who rejects Ralph utterly, calling him “a very dolt and lout.” When he hears of the rejection, the courtly lover Ralph insists that he will surely die. Merrygreek holds a mock funeral, with Ralph interrupting from time to time. Merrygreek advises Ralph “for a while to revive again,” in order to get even with Dame Christian, who has caused his death.
When Ralph meets Dame Christian, he again declares his love for her. The virtuous widow, angered at being pestered, tells him plainly: “I will not be served with a fool in no wise; When I choose a husband, I hope to take a man.” Reminded that Ralph has sent her tokens of his love and a true love letter, the widow produces the letter and allows Merrygreek to read it. The parasite so alters the punctuation that the letter consistently says the opposite of what Ralph intended it to say. Ralph threatens to avenge himself on the scrivener who wrote the letter for him, but when the scrivener arrives, he so bullies the cowardly Ralph that no revenge is attempted. Merrygreek agrees to explain the misunderstanding to Dame Christian.
Sim Suresby, servant to Goodluck, arrives to see how Dame Christian is getting along. As he and the widow talk, Ralph and Merrygreek come back to explain the love letter. Sim hears enough to arouse his suspicions and leaves to report to his master. Angered at having her good reputation stained, Dame Christian sends Ralph and the mischievous Merrygreek packing; Ralph threatens to burn down her house. Dame Christian sends for her Tristram Trusty to protect her and arms her servants with brooms, clubs, and distaffs to defend herself against the threat. Trusty arrives and assures her that she has nothing to worry about from the cowardly Ralph and the practical joker Merrygreek. When Merrygreek returns, they enlist him as an ally against Ralph.
Ralph returns ready to battle the woman who spurned him and is advised by Merrygreek to show Dame Christian that he is a real man. When she sees Ralph, the widow, as agreed, runs away pretending to be afraid. Even so, Ralph decides to retreat, claiming that he has forgotten his helmet, but Merrygreek gives him a stewpot for his head and urges him forward. With drums beating and flags waving, Ralph inches his way into battle. Dame Christian returns to take on Ralph, while her servants take revenge on Dobinet for his earlier behavior.
Merrygreek, arguing that he is protecting his valiant friend by striking at the widow, actually pummels Ralph with every blow. Thoroughly battered and defeated, Ralph swears that Dame Christian is an Amazon and wagers that she must have killed her first husband. Shouting “Away, away, away! She will kill us all,” Ralph drops ceremony and runs for his life.
In the meantime, Sim Suresby has reported his suspicions to his master, who has returned home. After talking with his friend Tristram, Gawin Goodluck is reconciled with Dame Christian. To celebrate, Goodluck invites all of his friends to supper. After Merrygreek apologizes for his mischief, Goodluck asks both the parasite and the braggart soldier to join the party. The play ends with a song in praise of the queen.
The plot of Ralph Roister Doister is clearly based on the classical Roman model of comedy that Udall knew well from his study of Plautus and Terence. The unities of place and action are strictly adhered to, and the unity of time is not much warped. The scene is consistently simple, a village street. The action, occurring in only slightly more than a day, has a clear beginning, middle, and end.
The character of Ralph Roister Doister is easily traceable to the third century b.c.e. Miles Gloriosus (The Braggart Warrior, 1767) of Plautus and Terence’s Thraso in Eunuchus (pr. 161 b.c.e.; The Eunuch, 1598). Ralph’s opinion of himself as a great man, one whom love has weakened, is established early in the play and developed consistently throughout the work. Matthew Merrygreek is also a character suggested by the traditional parasite of Roman comedy. Like Diccon of Gammer Gurton’s Needle (pb. 1575), Merrygreek is an opportunist who depends on his wit for his livelihood.
As dependent as both Ralph and Merrygreek are on their Roman models, however, both are also distinctively English. Plautus’s braggart soldier is brasher, less sociable than Ralph. Terence’s Thraso is overweening in his pride; Ralph is merely stupid—agonizingly, painfully, pitifully stupid. Terence’s parasite fools Thraso more to further his own interests than in an attempt to increase the festivities of the play. Merrygreek, on the other hand, intends no lasting harm. More important than his own gain is the intrinsic humor of the situation of the blockhead, Ralph, in love with a woman whose name he cannot even remember. Merrygreek says early in the play,
But such sport have I with him as I would not leese,Though I should be bound to live with bread and cheese.
He is more nearly the father of the buffoons who appear in the later English comedies than the son of Roman parasites; in truth, he is both.
Dame Christian Custance can also be traced to Roman comedy. Terence regularly presents heroines in distress who are rescued from dire financial, physical, or social straits. Such a woman is Dame Christian Custance. At the same time, she recalls Geoffrey Chaucer’s Constance in “The Man of Law’s Tale”: Both are women in distress, and both pray to the God who “didst help Susanna wrongly accused.” Udall’s Custance is distinctive, however, as an English woman beset with local problems and surrounded with English servants.
Perhaps Dame Christian’s servants are the most English element in the play. Unlike the servants of Roman comedy, who can never be anything but servants, no matter if they be wiser than their masters, Udall’s servants are all pretenders to the middle class. Dame Christian’s servants are clearly not wiser than their mistress, as she often explains to them, but they have a kind of independence unknown to Roman servants. Madge Mumblecrust does not hesitate to kiss Ralph, who she thinks has come to woo her mistress. Tibet and Annot leap at the chance to take Ralph’s love tokens to their mistress because they believe that as soon as Dame Christian is married,
. . . we shall go in our French hoods every day,In our silk cassocks, I warrant you, fresh and gay.
In sum, Udall did not merely translate Plautus and Terence, as Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, sometimes did Petrarch; rather, Udall added to his classical models elements of native English drama and of life on sixteenth century English streets. All English comedies that followed—those by Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker, and even Gammer Gurton’s Needle (written shortly after Ralph Roister Doister)—show great improvements in the genre, but Ralph Roister Doister established the type by combining Roman and English elements into a new formula whose total is greater than the sum of its parts.
Because Ralph Roister Doister has a secure place in history as the first regular English comedy, scholars sometimes give it more credit than it is due. Although it provided the foundation for the later great English comedies, no one can reasonably discuss it alongside the significant plays of Jonson, Shakespeare, and others. Udall’s purpose, as the prologue declares, was to use “mirth with modesty.” Who, the audience is asked, would not like to have a story told
Wherein all scurrility we utterly refuse,Avoiding such mirth wherein is abuse,Knowing nothing more commendable for man’s recreationThan mirth which is used in an honest fashion?