ABSTRACT
The earlier tradition established by Peele and developed by Lyly, Greene, and the masque writers, which uses themes from romance and folklore and avoids the comedy of manners, is the one followed by Shakespeare. When Shakespeare began to study Plautus and Terence, his dramatic instinct, stimulated by his predecessors, divined that there was a profounder pattern in the argument of comedy than appears in either of them. The outlaws in The Two Gentlemen of Verona compare themselves, in spite of the Italian setting, to Robin Hood, and in As You Like It Charles the wrestler says of Duke Senior's followers: 'There they live like the old Robin Hood of England: they say many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world'. People certainly do not feel delivered from Falstaff as they feel delivered from Shylock with his absurd and vicious bond.
