9 Seeing and Recognizing in the Sacred and New: The Latin Scriptural Plays of Nicholas Grimald

Protestant place, Protestant props in the plays of Nicholas Grimald

“…Grimald's classical imitations include dramatic form and tropes -the five acts, the commentary of a Chorus, demons from the underworld, characters such as the cunning slave and the braggard soldier -as well as literary language: the Latin of these plays is classical Latin, and they often involve echoes of phrases, paraphrases, and extensive citation also from non-dramatic sources such as Virgil's Aeneid and Horace's Odes. 13 For Grimald, the genres of classical drama also offered some way of avoiding the temporal perils besetting Foxe and Bale: it is clear that, when the protagonist is dead, the tragedy is complete. Thus Archipropheta finishes with the Chorus lamenting the death of John the Baptist.…”