Conclusion

Abstract

Playgoing in early modem England constituted a departure or diversion from work and everyday life, and as such was liable to incur strict censure from antitheatrical polemicists. Travel was similarly subjected to moral opposition from writers who feared that unregulated, idle voyaging would result in cultural degeneration and the adoption of Continental vices. Such fears concerning the threat of foreign influence were particularly prevalent in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, when the English nation state was in its formative stages and the question of national identity was at stake. As the century wore on, and touring the Continent became increasingly affordable and acceptable, the affinity grew stronger between these two pastimes, playgoing and travelling, as forms of otium for the masses. The nexus of these diversions from negotium was voyage drama.