| This study examines the trial, one of the most frequently employed conventions in English drama from 1580 to 1642. First, "trial convention" is defined and noted in its various guises--impromptu or formal trials, trials by combat or ordeal, the Parliament of Love, and mock, abrogated, and narrated trials. Succeeding chapters consider the background, staging, characters, language, and structures of the trials, and the conclusion briefly compares law and legal procedure in the drama and in the world outside it.By cautiously combining all types of staging evidence, it is possible to reconstruct the staging of the trial, which in many plays requires a large property--an elevated seat or "state" for the judge, a bar, or a table. Unusual trials call for additional stage resources--a scaffold or flying machinery.Several of the unusual trials go beyond theatricality and are thematically important. The trial-and-execution sequence in The Spanish Tragedy, III.vi, is the only application of ideal justice in Kyd's revenge tragedy. In 2 Henry VI the Horner-Peter combat contributes to the portrait of a weak king, but the reverse is true in Richard II, where Richard acts from strength when he stops the combat between Bolingbroke and Mowbray. At his trial by ordeal in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff functions as a scapegoat who reunites the community. Characters unique to the trial are the lawyer and the judge. The stereotype lawyer is usually pompous, verbose, and avaricious. The judge emerges as an individual when he is torn by conflict between his judicial duty and his personal desires, like Rochfort in The Fatal Dowry, Leontes in The Winter's Tale, Appius in Appius and Virginia, and Angelo in Measure for Measure.The trial in Renaissance drama owes little directly to its precursors in classical and medieval drama. The Passion plays of the mystery cycles present Christ as the archetype of the silent, suffering defendant, while in the moralities, the Debate of the Four Daughters of God allegorizes the conflict between mercy and justice. The set speeches of the trial are composed from the general storehouse of tropes, figures, and commonplaces. Portia's oration in The Merchant of Venice, IV.i, is exceptional because it raises the issue of mercy versus justice. The orations seem designed as much to impress the theater audience as to influence trial outcome. Viewed as a whole, the language of the trial falls into one of two patterns. In the monologue pattern of speech, one speaker dominates, creating either a static scene, as in Catiline, or a scene of verbal action, as in Volpone. In trial with the debate pattern, speeches of roughly equivalent length are divided among several speakers.The trial is a key scene in several structural patterns. Where the action rises to a climax at the denouement, the trial resolves either a single action plot or a multiple action. In the more common double plot plays the trial resolves either the subplot or the main plot, or more, rarely, both together. The trial also works in the structural pattern where the climax comes midway, as in The White Devil. Still another common structural pattern has two trials, usually in Acts III and V, reversing each other, as in Volpone.Although some critics hold that the law and legal procedure in Renaissance drama are closely patterned on that in real life, a comparison of the two shows that dramaturgical considerations and not a desire for realism shape the trial. In a more general way, however, the trial reflects some of the ideals of Renaissance society. |
