| The enormous amount of research on the subject of early modern magic indicates clearly that magical thought occupied a significant place in contemporary mental patterns. Its existence was widespread enough to cause popular prejudice against its most esoteric forms combined with tacit acceptance of "folk" magic. I posit that the early playwrights who dramatized the magus were thus fairly constricted in how the magus could appear without unduly scandalizing the popular audience. This essentially created a sub-genre of the "magus play" that established a self-perpetuating theatrical tradition formed largely by audience prejudice. As this prejudice began to wane (for reasons still only partially understood), later dramatists such as Shakespeare and Jonson found themselves in possession of an increasingly stale tradition that had become shackled to a public morality no longer in existence. They were then capable of utilizing the outer shell of the tradition to take the magus play in shocking new directions, alternately adapting and utilizing its generic conventions to create a new theatrical experience for what had by then become a largely upscale audience. This dissertation seeks to trace a vital sub-genre of the theatre from its origins through its apotheosis. |
