Publisher's Synopsis
The two authors depended on a variety of earlier works and writers for source material and precedents, including the Trionfi of Petrarch, the novels of Giovanni Boccaccio and Matteo Bandello (sometimes through English translations and adaptations, as in The Palace of Pleasure by William Painter), and "The Franklin's Tale" in The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer. The four "triumphs" in Four Plays in One show a strong influence from the morality plays of the later Middle Ages, combined with influences from the Jacobean masque and the pageants and processions that were an important part of public life in Jacobean England. This combination of influences from morality play and masque makes Four Plays in One a highly unusual work for its era; for a rare similar work, consider the "moral masque" The Sun's Darling in the next generation (1625). The "triumphs" in Four Plays in One are rich in processions, dumbshows, music, and "special effects."
