Government Regulation of Elizabethan Drama

race the sort of control exercised by the government over the content of plays, and to speculate concerning its effect on the Elizabethan drama. The material throwing light on this subject is by no means so full as we could wish; but it is still possible to ascertain something from the surviving manuscripts showing the Master's expurgations, and from accounts of the instances in which he or his superiors interfered, ? of all the cases, that is, in which players or playwrights got into trouble because of the content of their plays. Judged by the standards of the time, the government supervision was, on the whole, a reasonable and a lenient one. The character of the men chosen for the office of Master of the Revels indicates a sense of fitness on the part of the government, for they were, as we have seen, gentlemen of good family, generally with some literary experience and qualifications, not apt to take any unreasonable or Philistine attitude towards the drama. r It is, of course, necessary for us to remember that the idea of ' censorship at this period was something radically different from that which inspires the uncertain supervision exercised over the stage in England and sporadically in the United States at the present time. The Puritan notions concerning decency and morality scarcely affected the Master of the Revels, who naturally held the views of his class and his time. Scenes which to our modern sense of propriety seem inexpressibly offensive, the Maste...