“Vice” and “Parasite.” A Note on the Evolution of the Elizabethan Villain

Extract

Buffoonery and rascality—the two outstanding qualities of the morality play “Vice”—led, under differing influences, to the Elizabethan clown and villain. In early Tudor times, “witty slave” and “parasite” came from the classical drama to an English stage which already knew a figure combining certain of their characteristics, and to an audience who recognized in them certain familiar features. The “Vice” was originally the agent or servant of the Seven Deadly Sins, and sought to entrap “Mankind”—by whatever name he was known—into the power of evil. In a sense, he was a kind of “parasite,” too, his reward depending on the success of his service, and he was the dynamic character in the old plays. Incidentally, he was also the source of much (if not all) the humor in the moralities, and was one of the first figures to reflect the life of the times in a drama which dealt chiefly with personified virtues and vices. He had, for obvious reasons, no virtue in his composition; but he was human, and his vitality gave him an attraction which has descended to some of the later representatives of this type.