inces of tragedy and comedy become more clearly defined and
more generally respected, and for the first time the distinction
between a narrative and a dramatic fable gains positive recog-
nition.

During this transitional period when the drama was thus
changing in tone and progressing in technic, the tragicomic
tradition of the past, denied expression in romance, to some
extent found a continued development in the new prevailing
types. Domestic comedy frequently dealt with tragic events,
problematic reconciliation plays became popular, while the
satirical comedy of manners adapted from romantic plots gave
equal opportunity for tragedy and for comedy. Moreover,
tragicomedy by name was gaining headway as a result of direct
foreign influence. All these several developments of the first
seven or eight years of the century deserve some notice as
leading up to the real outburst of English tragicomedy in the
work of Beaumont and Fletcher.

Turning first to the purely domestic drama of the time,
we encounter at least one well-defined group of plays belonging
to the sphere of intermediate drama. A neutral tone is the
universal characteristic of plays turning on the theme of the
faithful wife and prodigal husband, or some variation of the
same popular motive, which, beginning with Patient Grissel
(1599), runs thru quite a series of later productions. ² All are
reconciliation dramas, but range in tone from simple pathos
untouched by tragic impulse, as in "Patient Grissel" or the
"Wise Woman of Hogsdon" (c. 1604), to the dignity of
actual tragedy as in A Woman Killed with Kindness (1607).
As standing between these two extremes, may be considered
three plays, all of uncertain authorship and all repetitions of
the same stock theme: "How a Man may Choose a Good

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