This brings us to the end of the task we undertook at the beginning of this book, that is, the development of a new approach to the history of serious drama before Shakespeare. The change-over from a drama of set speech and declamation to a drama rich in action may now be seen as a slow process of evolution, embracing many stages, and many movements and influences continually merging with one another; when it is examined more closely, what at first sight, and seen from a distance, appeared likely to show as a single, straightforward line of development has turned into something very much more complex. But that is what happens in all researches whose object is the close study of a period in which a revolution in style has taken place; one's hopes of discovering some unifying principle or some comprehensive formula survive only so long as one fails to recognize the many different factors that operate from time to time within the period and that govern and define the changes that occur. So too in the present instance we cannot escape the conclusion that the developments in form and style in pre-Shakespearian drama had more aspects and more causes than is generally realized. Not the least important reason for this was that the conventions underlying the composition of the set speech were interpreted very differently by different playwrights, and modified accordingly; at times, moreover, there was some conflict between individual styles of expression and the traditional forms that adhered to established conventions. However, as far as the function and techniques of the set speech in early Elizabethan drama are concerned, all qualifications notwithstanding, one continuous line of development stands out very clearly. We can follow it through from the stage where the set speeches are merely juxtaposed without any kind of relationship between them to that

prototypes that are essentially different in character and background; they include the Miracle Play, the Morality, the Interlude, the Masque, and Senecan tragedy. No single, fixed conception of drama, therefore, such as was possible a hundred years or so later with the classical drama of France, could be evolved by taking these prototypes as a starting-point and working over the various ways in which their methods were developed. Thus to do reasonable justice to any particular play, it is important to discover what particular conception of drama underlay its composition. For we are continually finding ourselves confronted by 'special' forms of drama.