Paradigm of the Prodigal Son

subplot in almost forty plays, it germinates in The Interlude of Youth (Anon., ca. 1513) and is last found in the Frederick subplot of Shirley's The Lady of Pleasure (1635) .* Many of these plays, and certainly the best ones, were written during the greatest years of English drama, with at least fifteen coming from between 1593 and 1610. Except for Lyly and Peele, every important known comic playwright had a hand in at least one prodigal-son comedy. Shakespeare, in fact, used the archetypal story in six plays: The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Proteus), The Taming of