ABSTRACT
Thomas More himself was fascinated by drama, as Anthony Munday’s play indicates, and may infer from the fact that he amended a play about the wise King Solomon, possibly for performance at Magdalene College, Oxford, in 1501. More’s friend Erasmus, author of The Education of a Christian Prince, published in 1516, argued that performance provided a means of learning. Sir Philip Sidney probably knew Aristotle, if only at second hand, but his variation on the more familiar ‘fear and pity’ is surely piquant. Sidney believed in decorum rather than realism, too. He admitted to being not greatly attracted by the drama, though he approved of Gorboduc and liked the works of George Buchanan. He was probably present at the entertainment presented to the Queen at Kenilworth in 1575, and himself wrote an interesting court masque, The Lady of May.
