“Form, Experiment, and Moral Purpose in Early Elizabethan Drama: A Study of George Gascoigne’s Jocasta, The Supposes, and The Glasse of Government”
Academic Information:
-Name: Nenshi Virda
-Roll No.: 17
-Enrollment No.: 5108250034
-Sem: 1
-Batch: 2025-2027
-E-mail: nancyvirda.6359@gmail.com
Assignment Details:
-Paper No. & Name: 105- History of English Literature – From 1350 to 1900
-Paper Code: 22396
-Unit: 1
-Topic: “Form, Experiment, and Moral Purpose in Early Elizabethan Drama: A Study of George Gascoigne’s Jocasta, The Supposes, and The Glasse of Government”
-Submitted To: Smt. Sujata Binoy Gardi, Department of English, MKBU
-Submitted Date: November 10, 2025
Table of Content:
Abstract
Key Words
Research Question & Hypothesis
1.1. Introduction
1.2. Gascoigne and the Spirit of Early Elizabethan Theatre
1.2.1. Gascoigne and the Birth of Dramatic Form
1.2.2. The Supposes: Comedy as Moral Experiment
1.2.3. The Glasse of Government: Drama as Moral Education
1.2.4. The Role of Structure and “Act-Time” in Gascoigne Drama
1.2.5. The Union of Form and Moral Purpose
1.2.6. Connection to the Title: Form, Experiment, and Moral Purpose
1.3. Conclusion
1.4.References
Abstract:
The early Elizabethan theatre stood between two worlds — the moral traditions of the Middle Ages and the creative energy of the Renaissance. George Gascoigne, one of the first English dramatists of this period, played an important role in this transformation. His three plays—Jocasta, The Supposes, and The Glasse of Government—are not simply old literary works but important experiments that helped shape the structure and spirit of English Renaissance drama. In these plays, Gascoigne combines classical form, lively English expression, and the moral discipline of Protestant humanism.
This paper studies Gascoigne’s dramatic art through three main critics: Felix E. Schelling, who says that Gascoigne began the first serious experiments in English dramatic form; Thornton Shirley Graves, who explains how the structure of acts in Elizabethan theatre created a sense of moral rhythm; and Shaun Stiemsma, who argues that drama in early modern England reflected civic and moral ideas. Together, these critics show that Gascoigne’s plays are built on the belief that structure and morality are connected—that artistic form can shape human behavior and virtue. The Elizabethan stage, therefore, was not only a place of entertainment, but also a space where art became a way of moral learning and reflection.
Keywords:
George Gascoigne; Elizabethan drama; Renaissance theatre; moral purpose; dramatic form; Felix E. Schelling; Thornton Shirley Graves; Shaun Stiemsma; Protestant humanism; ethical reflection; civic virtue; moral rhythm; early modern drama; art and morality; dramatic experimentation.
Research Questions:
How do George Gascoigne’s plays 'Jocasta, The Supposes, and The Glasse of Government' illustrate the connection between dramatic form and moral purpose in early Elizabethan theatre?
Hypotheses:
Each of Gascoigne’s experiments—tragic (Jocasta), comic (The Supposes), and moral (The Glasse of Government) represents a stage in the evolution of English theatre from religious allegory to civic and humanist reflection.
1.1. Introduction:
The Elizabethan Age is known for great dramatists like Shakespeare and Marlowe, but earlier writers such as George Gascoigne helped prepare the ground for them. His plays—Jocasta, The Supposes, and The Glasse of Government mark the shift from medieval morality to Renaissance drama, joining moral teaching with artistic form.Felix E. Schelling (1892) called these works the first true experiments in English drama, tragedy, comedy, and moral play. Thornton Shirley Graves (1915) explained that the five-act structure created moral rhythm and order. Shaun Stiemsma (2017) added that the dramatic form itself reflected civic and ethical values. Gascoigne's work shows that early Elizabethan drama was not just entertainment but moral education. His plays balance art and virtue, turning the stage into a mirror of human behavior and a guide to moral order.
1.2. Gascoigne and the Spirit of Early Elizabethan Theatre
1.2.1. Gascoigne and the Birth of Dramatic Form:
George Gascoigne’s plays stand at the beginning of the Elizabethan stage, a period when drama was searching for its identity. His work reflects the early experiments through which English theatre found its structure and purpose. Felix E. Schelling in “Three Unique Elizabethan Dramas” calls Gascoigne’s plays “unique” because each one tested a new kind of dramatic form—tragedy, comedy, and moral play. Together, they show how form itself became a language of meaning in early English drama.
In Jocasta, Gascoigne introduced the form of blank verse tragedy to England. The play was based on Euripides’ Phoenissae, yet it was not a simple translation. Gascoigne adapted it to English taste, making it a story about family conflict, duty, and the moral cost of ambition. The use of blank verse, unrhymed iambic pentameter gave English theatre a rhythm that matched thought and emotion. Through its five-act structure, the play moves steadily from confusion to recognition and punishment, creating a moral pattern within its form. In this way, Jocasta not only tells a story but also teaches that human pride and disobedience lead to downfall.
Schelling sees Jocasta as proof that the Elizabethan stage began with moral seriousness and classical discipline. The tragedy’s structure reflects Gascoigne’s belief that art should not only please but also instruct. By Shaping his play within a strict classical form, he turned the stage into a moral school.
1.2.2. The Supposes: Comedy as Moral Experiment:
Gascoigne’s second major play, The Supposes (1566), is very different in tone and spirit, but it continues his experiment with dramatic form. Adapted from Ludovico Ariosto’s I Suppositi, it was the first English comedy written entirely in prose. This change from verse to prose was revolutionary; it made dialogue sound more natural and closer to everyday English speech.
Through The Supposes, Gascoigne brought Italian comic structure to England and reshaped it to reflect English society. The play’s plot of mistaken identities, disguises, and misunderstandings seems lighthearted, but beneath the laughter lies a moral purpose. It teaches the dangers of deception and the importance of honesty, moderation, and social responsibility. In the end, truth is revealed, and harmony is restored—a reflection of the moral order that Elizabethan audiences expected from comedy.
Schelling praises Gascoigne for this new kind of dramatic experiment. He notes that The Supposes proved English prose could be both artistic and expressive. Gascoigne’s innovation helped make the stage a place where social life, moral values, and humor could come together. His comedy shows that laughter itself can be a tool for learning, as it exposes human foolishness and restores ethical balance.
1.2.3. The Glasse of Government: Drama as Moral Education:
Gascoigne’s The Glasse of Government (1575) (printed 1576) brings together his earlier experiments and stands as his most complete moral play. Based on the parable of the Prodigal Son, it portrays young students facing temptation and moral tests, showing how education and discipline shape character. The title itself a “glass” or mirror suggests self-examination and the moral duty to govern one’s own behavior.
Blending the tradition of morality to play with Renaissance humanism, Gascoigne presents characters who represent moral types but also feel psychologically real. The play teaches that learning must involve virtue, not just knowledge. As Shaun Stiemsma explains in Dramatic Form in the Early Modern English History Play (2017), dramatic form reflects the moral and civic ideals of its society. The Glasse of Government embodies this idea through its structure of temptation, correction, and repentance.
Gascoigne’s drama is therefore not only art but education. Through its moral rhythm, it turns the stage into a classroom where virtue is learned by action rather than sermon.
1.2.4. The Role of Structure and “Act-Time” in Gascoigne’s Drama:
Thornton Shirley Graves’s essay “The ‘Act Time’ in Elizabethan Theatres” (1915) explains how the structure of plays in five acts gave early English drama a sense of rhythm and order. This organization was more than a stage convention; it reflected the Elizabethan view of life as a moral journey from sin to redemption.
In Gascoigne’s plays, this “act-time” creates a moral rhythm. In Jocasta, each act moves closer to tragic discovery and moral judgment. In The Supposes, the acts build comic tension and end in harmony and forgiveness. In The Glasse of Government, the structure divides students’ experiences into stages of temptation, error, and moral correction.
Graves show that this structure reflected the Elizabethan belief that art should imitate moral order. The balance of acts and scenes mirrors the balance expected in human life. Gascoigne’s use of clear form and pacing shows his deep understanding of drama as a tool for discipline. For him, structure was not just about performance—it was about shaping the audience’s moral understanding through time and rhythm.
1.2.5. The Union of Form and Moral Purpose:
Gascoigne’s achievement lies in how he united form and moral purpose. Each of his plays uses structure and language to express ethical ideas. He believed that art could guide behavior, and that dramatic form was itself a kind of moral teaching.
Felix Schelling’s praise for Gascoigne’s “unique” plays points to this union of artistry and virtue. Graves’s theory of act-time explains how structure becomes a mirror of ethical order. Stiemsma adds that dramatic form communicates civic ideology, turning art into public education. These three perspectives together show that Gascoigne’s drama embodies the central goal of early Elizabethan theatre to create beauty through discipline and to teach morality through form.
Gascoigne’s plays also reflect the social changes of his time. The rise of Protestant ethics, the growth of education, and the emphasis on self-control and governance all influenced his writing. His characters often face choices between desire and duty, freedom and obedience mirroring the struggles of Elizabethan England itself. Through their successes and failures, audiences learned the values of moderation, truth, and moral balance.
1.2.6. Connection to the Title: Form, Experiment, and Moral Purpose:
The title Form, Experiment, and Moral Purpose reflect the three essential dimensions of George Gascoigne’s dramatic achievement and the lasting value of his contribution to English drama. Each element of form, experiment, and morality captures how his plays built the foundation for the artistic and ethical character of the Elizabethan stage.
The form in Gascoigne’s work represents discipline and structure. By adapting classical models such as the Greek tragedy and the Italian comedy, he brought order and proportion to a developing English theatre. His use of blank verse in Jocasta and prose in The Supposes showed that language and structure could mirror moral balance. For Gascoigne, form was not only a matter of style but also a reflection of moral harmony—a way to organize both art and life.
The experiment defines Gascoigne’s spirit as a pioneer. Each of his three plays explores a new dramatic territory—Jocasta in tragedy, The Supposes in comedy, and The Glasse of Government in moral allegory. Through these experiments, he expanded the possibilities of English drama and demonstrated that the stage could combine classical ideas with English realities. His experiments also show how early dramatists learned by imitation and transformation, reshaping foreign influences into a national art form.
Moral Purpose lies at the heart of Gascoigne’s dramatic vision. His plays were not created merely for amusement but to guide and instruct. They reflect his belief that the theatre should serve conscience as well as the imagination. By showing the consequences of pride, deception, and moral weakness, Gascoigne taught lessons of balance, virtue, and moderation. In his view, drama could cultivate virtue just as education could refine the mind.
Together, these three dimensions of form, experiment, and moral purpose reveal Gascoigne’s role as both artist and moral thinker. His plays remind us that the early Elizabethan stage was already a space of reflection and civic learning, where art was designed to shape not only taste but also character. Long before Shakespeare perfected the form, Gascoigne had already imagined a theatre that united discipline with delight and turned performance into a moral art.
1.3. Conclusion:
George Gascoigne’s work shows that the Elizabethan stage did not begin with Shakespeare but grew through the efforts of early dramatists who joined art with moral purpose. His plays Jocasta, The Supposes, and The Glasse of Government unite form, experiment, and ethics, shaping English drama into a medium of reflection and education. Felix E. Schelling saw these plays as “unique” steps in the growth of tragedy, comedy, and moral drama. Thornton Shirley Graves explained how Gascoigne’s structure created moral rhythm and order, while Shaun Stiemsma argued that dramatic form expressed civic and ethical ideals. Together, they reveal Gascoigne as more than an imitator—he was a moral architect who bridged the gap between medieval morality plays and Renaissance theatre. His stage taught that art’s true purpose is not only to entertain but also to guide the human soul toward virtue and understanding.
1.4. References:
Gascoigne, George. Glass of Government. 1575. Nabu Press, 1575, Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/glassofgovernmen0000gasc/page/n123/mode/2up.
GASCOIGNE, GEORGE. Supposes and Jocasta (Classic Reprint). FORGOTTEN BOOKS, 2018, Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/supposesjocastat00gasc.
Graves, Thornton Shirley. “The ‘Act Time’ in Elizabethan Theatres.” Studies in Philology, vol. 12, no. 3, 1915, pp. 101–34. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4171674. Accessed 2 Nov. 2025.
Schelling, Felix E. “Three Unique Elizabethan Dramas.” Modern Language Notes, vol. 7, no. 5, 1892, pp. 129–33. JSTORhttps://www.jstor.org/stable/2918361 Accessed 2 Nov. 2025.
Stiemsma, Shaun (Author), et al. Dramatic Form in the Early Modern English History Play. The Catholic University of America, 2017. Dissertations and Theses. Catholic University of America, JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.38760807. Accessed 2 Nov. 2025.
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