Abstract
The Renaissance with its enthusiasm for all things classical made a profound Impression on the literature of England. This is especially true in regard to drama. Plautus, Terence, and Seneca came to be studied in the English schools. Alexander Nowell who was a great headmaster of Westminister school about the middle of the sixteenth century made the reading of Terence a requirement and ruled that Latin plays be performed at Christmas. It is thus that Tudor boys acquired their ideas of dramatic art. They were indoctrinated with the Plautine and Terentian type of drama, and it became the accepted thing to write both comedies and tragedies in five acts. Horace, too, in Ars Poetlca had declared that a play must not be longer or shorter than five acts.