ABSTRACT
O give not up fair poesy...to such contempt...It is the sweetest heraldry of art / That sets a difference 'tween the tough sharp holly /And tender bay tree'.
Sir Thomas More, 3.1.195-200
Despite Munday's anti-theatrical tract and Thomas Alfield's claim that Munday returned to the theatre in the early 1580s, we know nothing specifically of Munday's time in the theatre prior to 1584, the presumed performance date of his translation of Pasquiligo's Fedele and Fortuna. Then, several years later, the next evidence exists in two play manuscripts written in his hand, John a Kent dated 1590, and Sir Thomas More, undated and marked for censorship. More informative records begin in December 1597, the year following Munday's last year as Messenger of Her Majesty's Chamber, when he appears for the first time in Philip Henslowe's diary; such references continued virtually unabated until 1602, after which Munday moved his focus to city entertainments. Although Munday had begun translating chivalric romances as early as 1580, the main period of play writing, 1590-1602, approximates the time when he was most actively translating romances and getting them into print, an observation that calls attention to his intense professional engagement with popular media and public authorship.
