A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 06 — Story, Setting & Ideas

Allegory and Individuality on Stage

Collier's introduction argues that these plays form a distinct class: they “enforce a moral lesson by means of abstract impersonations” yet also “consist merely of scenes drawn from life, represented by real characters.” This hybridity is evident in the excerpt from The Conflict of Conscience, where the Vice figure—a holdover from earlier moralities—appears alongside characters like Hospitality, who is both a personification and a victim of murder. The play does not rely solely on allegory; it stages a concrete crime (the killing of Hospitality) and its aftermath, with Usury hiding “in a rich man's house” and the poor mourning at the funeral. The result is a drama that moralizes through plot, not just through emblematic figures.

Diction of Insult and Irony

The dialogue in these plays is notably blunt and ironic. Conscience's Latin aside—“Audeo et taceo: I see and say nothing”—underscores his powerless observation of Lucre's corruption. Simplicity, a comic servant, speaks in prose that mixes proverbial wisdom with self-deprecating humor: “I must learn to cog, lie, foist, and swear; / And surely I shall never learn.” The characters' names often undercut their speech: Dissimulation claims to speak “bona fide,” while Lucre—whose name means profit—expresses false sorrow. This verbal play creates a texture where every line carries moral weight, and the audience is invited to detect hypocrisy beneath polite forms.

Structure and Theatrical Convention

The plays follow a loose episodic structure, moving between allegorical set pieces and scenes of everyday life. In the excerpt, a messenger reports the burial of Hospitality, listing the social ranks in attendance—“many of the clergy, and many of the nobility, / And many right worshipful rich citizens”—before noting that only “poor beggarly people” complain of the murder. This cataloging of society mirrors the morality tradition's tendency to represent types, but the specificity of the list (graziers, farmers) grounds the drama in Elizabethan social reality. The Vice's asides and the comic interludes of Simplicity provide rhythmic relief, while the rapid entrances and exits (Simony “runs” off, Dissimulation is told to “trudge”) maintain a brisk, presentational pace suited to open-air stages.

Recurring Motifs: Food, Money, and the Body

Throughout the excerpts, physical appetites serve as metaphors for moral failings. Simplicity longs for “pies, or bag-puddings with great lumps of fat,” contrasting his earthy desires with the spiritual hunger that Conscience represents. Lucre's name itself conflates wealth with bodily corruption; Conscience calls her a “whore, full of deadly hate,” linking economic greed to sexual immorality. The murder of Hospitality is described as a “bloody fact,” and the poor who mourn him are contrasted with the wealthy who “will not hinder the murderer.” These motifs of consumption, violence, and bodily decay give the allegory a visceral edge, reminding audiences that vice has tangible, destructive consequences.

Readers approaching this volume should attend to the interplay between abstract moral frameworks and the gritty, particular language of the plays. The notes by Hazlitt and Collier provide essential context, but the dramas reward close attention to how characters' names interact with their speech and actions. The hybrid form—neither pure morality nor pure comedy—requires a flexible reading that appreciates both the didactic intent and the theatrical vitality of these transitional works.

Sometimes the old plays feel like talking to a friend who’s half-finished a thought—the vice and virtue arguing in the same breath. I kept thinking about that strange blend of moral and real, and it reminded me of a later volume, Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The Moth and the Flame — Edition Insights, where the same tug sits quieter, more personal. It lingered.