ABSTRACT
The figure of the villain is a type distinct from the Vice in its origin and partly also in its function. The Vice-dramas are those dramas which contain a Vicefigure, they are either Moralities or Tragedies, that is, serious plays. The Vice-Tragedies are three in number; the Vice-figure in these plays is, in all probability, borrowed from the Moralities. Some of the early Comedies have figures that are in some respects similar to the Vice; Diccon, the Bedlam, in Gammer Gurton’s Needle, a mischief-maker pure and simple, or Conditions in Common Conditions a mischief-maker and buffoon. The Vice-dramas may be conveniently classified in two groups, the Moralities and the Tragedies. The Vice is an ethical person he is an allegorical representation of human weaknesses and vices, in short the summation of the Deadly Sins: he is the antithesis of piety and morality and is the friend of an unrestrained worldly life.
