The Significance of Heywood’s Interludes

Abstract This chapter looks back over the previous seven chapters, drawing together a synoptic account of the nature and significance of Heywood’s distinct and coherent body of dramatic compositions. It argues for the formal innovation of the Heywoodian interlude, which draws its inspiration equally from the humanist dialogue, the Erasmian colloquy, Chaucerian satire, and farce, creating in the process a form like no drama before or since. It offers a nuanced account of the cultural work to which Heywood put these plays in troubled times, suggesting that they allowed him, in the spirit of the classical satirist Lucian, to talk about a number of otherwise taboo subjects before audiences in the royal court, the More–Rastell family circle, and the Inns of Court, who would otherwise not have had the licence to acknowledge the novelty, internal contradictions, and frequent absurdities of developments in Church and State.