h the author and his readers were aware that the authors contributions to the work were slight. Margot Heinemann notes that a common assumption in literary history is that the critics against theater in Elizabethan England were Puritans (18). The term Puritan was first applied to men who sought the purist form of worship. As time passed, the term acquired a political significance, representing those who were contending the principles of liberty. It was also applied to men who protested against the immorality and corruption in church and state (Gildersleeve 215). Puritans were highly opposed to drama. They believed it was sinful, irreligious, and were determined to discipline it. On September 2, 1642, the Parliamentary Puritans issued the following edict:Whereas the distressed estate of Ireland, steeped in her own blood, and the distracted estate of England, threatened with a cloud of blood by a civil war, call for all possible means to appease and avert the wrath of God appearing in these judgments: amongst which fasting and prater, having been often tried to be very effectual, have been lately and are still enjoined: and whereas public sports do not well agree with public calamities, nor public stage-plays with the seasons of humiliation, this being an exercise of sad and pious solemnity, and the other being spectacles of pleasure, too commonly expressing lascivious mirth and levity: it is therefore thought fit and ordained by the Lords and Commons in this Parliament assembled, that while these sad causes and set-times of humiliation do continue, public stage plays shall cease and be forborne. Instead of which are recommended to the people of this land the profitable and seasonable considerations of repentance, reconciliation and peace with God, which probably will produce outward peace and prosperity, and bring again times of joy and gladness to these nations.(Gildersleeve 223)When the Puritans passed the law suppressing plays, plays ...
