A Study of Dramatic Form and the Holidays

During Shakespeare's lifetime England became conscious of holiday custom as it had not been before. On the holidays you were released from what was normally expected of you, and Miss Rule could reign for a day. The traditional Saturnalian customs were kept up in the unself-conscious regions of the countryside. But attitudes that meant one thing in the static monolithic world of village and manner meant other things when continued in the many-minded world of city and court.