Outlines of English and American Literature The Rise of the Drama byLong, William J.
"Few events in our literary history are so startling as this sudden rise of
the Elizabethan drama," says Green in his History of the English
People, and his judgment is echoed by other writers who speak of the
"marvelous efflorescence" of the English drama as a matter beyond
explanation. Startling it may be, with its frank expression of a nation's
life, the glory and the shame of it; but there is nothing sudden or
inexplicable about it, as we may see by reviewing the history of
playwriting in England.
