Thomas Randolph (1605-1635) :

Abstract

The difference between shows and plays, especially at the universities, and the nature of the revels for which most university drama was written before 1640, are examined here to put Randolph's shows and plays into their probable context. In-depth analyses of Randolph's Aristippus and The Muses' Looking Glass, Randolph's most ingenious and eclectic show and play, help to explain his technique.

I also examine misleading stereotypes about English university education after the reformation, which supposedly paralysed the humanist movement for over a century. By serving themselves, the Tudors established Christian humanism as the ruling motive of English classical studies for generations: using the rational wisdom of antiquity to supplement Christ's teachings as a guide to the active Christian life of service to God and Crown. The ensuing Golden Age of both learning and the arts of the early 17th century resulted in an unprecedented number of amateurs capable of producing first-class poetry and admirable drama. Never in England had poetry and drama, even their practice, been so much a part of the education and accomplishments of a gentleman. Of the many academic playwrights, some of these products of this new Christian humanism, like Marlowe, Lyly, Shirley, and Randolph, later found their way to the London theater.

This study of the drama of Thomas Randolph is concerned with the reasons for the eclipse of his great reputation as a university wit and as the expected successor to Jonson as Poet Laureate. Because Randolph spent most of his adult life at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he earned his M.A and later became senior fellow, most of his poems and plays were originally written for academic audiences. Yet his plays were so admired that he apparently became company playwright for a new London playhouse for about a year, c. 1630, before returning to Trinity.

The text of Randolph's Salting is first printed here. A "salting" is an initiation of lowerclassmen into the academic community by a senior of their college. My study of this mock oration enabled me to establish that Milton's sixth prolusion is another salting.