costumes, depending upon outer action for effect. There were stereotyped characters, of which the most important was Harlequin, a buffoon or clown. This is the same type as the Spanish Gracioso, and has descended to the modern stage in the pantomime of "Harlequin and Columbine." The two great writers of masques are Cino and Vasari, and the earliest scenarios, a form of masque, were published in Venice by Scala in 1611. They consist of pastorals, comedies, and tragedies.

Q. What of comedy in Italy?

A. The first regular comedy did not appear in Italy until the sixteenth century, with the comedies of Ariosto (1474-1533), "Cassaria" and "Suppositi." Ariosto was the first to introduce intrigue and characterization. This form of comedy was called Commedia d'Arte, a direct descendant of the old Roman plays in which buffoonery played an important part.

Q. What was the next step?

A. The next move was in the direction of pastoral comedy, the subject matter of which was derived from the idylls of Boccaccio, interspersed with music. The chief writers are Tasso, who wrote "Aminta" (1573), and Guarini, who wrote "The Faithful Shepherd" (both pastorals);

Musato, who wrote " Eccelino da Romano" (fourteenth century); Trissino, who wrote "Sofonisba " (1515); Rucellai, who wrote "Rosmunda."

There were many other writers of tragedy. Every Italian tragic scene that these set forth was a transcript from Seneca. Italy imitated the classic drama and created the romantic drama in "Tancred and Gismunda." The unbridled immorality of Italy was felt in its drama, and permeated life in all directions. This was brought to England by its own young men, who had gone over to Italy for culture. They returned corrupted and were called Italianated Englishmen.

Q. What of Goldoni?

A. Goldoni is the greatest name in dramatic literature in the eighteenth century (1707-1793). He created the modern Italian comedy, which supersedes that of the harlequin. He wrote more than one hundred and twenty comedies, among which are "The Fan" and "The Café" in Italian, "Le Bienfaisant" (The Benevolent Misanthrope) in French, and "Le Baruffe Chiozzotte" (The Frays and Feuds of Chiozza) in the Venetian dialect.

GERMAN DRAMA

Question. Trace the drama in Germany from the eleventh century.

Answer. The development of the drama in Germany followed much the same lines as in the other European countries. When the mystery and miracle plays were taken out of the universities, where they had been necessarily controlled by the clergy who composed the faculties, they came to be enacted for public entertainment. A German play, "The Three Kings," has been preserved from the eleventh century. Isaac and his sons were often the theme of dramas in the

twelfth century. "An Anti-Christ" is a typical twelfth century play, reflecting the national spirit of the German Empire under Barbarossa. In Germany, from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, the best work was done in verse, in the development of the popular epic and the poetry of knighthood, resulting in the "Nibelungenlied.” Q. What is an epic poem?

A. An epic poem is one which narrates at length and in metrical form a series of heroic achievements. The great epics of other countries

are the Iliad and Odyssey in Greek, the Æneid in Latin, "Beowulf" in Anglo-Saxon, "The Divine Comedy" in Italian, the poem of "The Cid" in Spanish, and Milton's "Paradise Lost." Among the epics compiled in recent times from national traditions is that of the North American Indian in Longfellow's "Hiawatha.”

Q. Name the first secular comedy in German. A. The earliest stages of pure secular comedy are found in the "Fastnachtspiele" (Shrovetide plays). In the sixteenth century the drama promised much under the influence of the Reformation, the movement of protest begun by Luther in Germany about 1517 against what he considered the abuses in the Catholic Church. In 1527 "The Prodigal Son," by Waldis, appeared, modelled on the Latin classic writer, Terence, showing the classic influence which continued for a long time and which gave the German dramatists. a sense of form. The Reformation influence was shown in the nine plays of Frischlin.

Q. What is the great name of this period?

A. The greatest name of this period is Hans Sachs, a cobbler and a meistersinger (a poet or master-singer) of Nuremberg. Toward the close of the sixteenth century strolling players from England brought into Germany, not only the

theatrical effects of the Elizabethan theatres, but above all that comic personage of the English drama, the clown, who came to be called "pickled herring" in Germany, corresponding to the Spanish Gracioso and the Harlequin of France and Italy. The drama so introduced was called Englischen Comödien und Tragödien (English Comedies and Tragedies). The next dramatist of importance is Jacob Ayrer, who died in 1605. His "Comedia von der Schönen Silea " had probably the same source as Shakespeare's "The Tempest." He gave an impetus to the national drama of Germany. Gryphius (1616-1664), one hundred years after Shakespeare was born, followed with his noted comedies.

Q. What of the seventeenth century?

A. The chief literary development of the seventeenth century in Germany was in fiction. Throughout all European countries the standard was fixed by France, which was a strict adherence to the classic unities. The German critic Lessing (1729-1781), the greatest dramatic critic since Aristotle, refuted the French rules of the three unities and showed that they were a perversion of the classic unities. Diderot, the French critic, had indicated the path which Lessing followed. Lessing wrote plays which proved his