第59章

1.The early English stage had the approval of virtually all the people.There were few voices raised against the dramas of Shakespeare.But the cleavage between the Puritans and the stage grew greater as the years went on.There were riotous excesses.The later comedy after Shakespeare was incredibly gross.The tragedies were shallow, they turned not on grave scenes of conscience, but on common and cheap intrigues of incest and murder.In the mean time, "the hatred of the Puritans for the stage was only the honest hatred of God-fearing men against the foulest depravity presented in poetic and dramatic forms." The Bible was laying hold on the imagination of the people, making them serious, thoughtful, preparing them for the struggle for liberty which was soon to come.The plays of the time seemed too trifling or else too foul.The Puritans and the English people of the day were willing to be amused, if the stage would amuse them.They were willing to be taught, if the stage would teach them.But they were not willing to be amused by vice and foulness, and they were not willing to be taught by lecherous actors who parroted beautiful sentiments of virtue on the stage and lived filthy lives of incest and shame off the stage.Life had to be whole to the Puritan, as indeed it has to be to other thoughtful men.And the Bible taught him that.His concern was for the higher elements of life; his appeal was to the worthier values in men.The concern of the stage of his day was for the more volatile elements inmen.The test of a successful play was whether the crowds, any crowds, came to it.And as always happens when a man wants to catch the interest of a crowd, the stage catered to its lowest interests.You can hardly read the story of the times without feeling that the Puritan made no mistake in his day.He could not have been the thoughtful man who would stand strong in the struggle for liberty on that side of the sea and the struggle for life on this side of the sea without opposing trifling and vice.