Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/377

Rh

My reading of the genealogy of the English epic drama is the meeting of two forces, Pagan and Christian, resulting in the concession of the miracle-play and mystery; that alongside the miracle-plays, the traditional embryonic drama continued to exist, competition with which led eventually to mixing or debasing the miracle-play representations and ultimately to their abolition; that at the Renaissance the popular actors became provided with written secular plays founded partly on traditional subjects; that in the composition of pageants or masques the popular pagan traditions became combined with reproductions of Greek and Roman Rh