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1597 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1597. Events *February – Pembroke's Men contract with Francis Langley to play the next year at his new Swan Theatre in London. *By March – ''Romeo and Juliet'' becomes the first of Shakespeare's plays to be published as a "bad quarto". *March 17 – After the death of William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham on March 5, his place as Lord Chamberlain of England is taken by George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon, son of a previous Lord Chamberlain. Lord Hunsdon reverses Cobham's policy of hostility toward the actors in English Renaissance theatre and returns to his father's policy of general tolerance and patronage. The playing company under his patronage, which includes William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage, becomes the Lord Chamberlain's Men. *April 23 – The feast for the Order of the Garter at the Palace of Whitehall in London is a likely occasion for the first performance of Shakespeare's comedy ''The Me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pembroke's Men
The Earl of Pembroke's Men was an Elizabethan era playing company, or troupe of actors, in English Renaissance theatre. They functioned under the patronage of Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. Early and equivocal mentions of a Pembroke's company reach as far back as 1575; but the company is known for certain to have been in existence in 1592. In that year, a share in the company was valued at £80 (more than William Shakespeare would pay for New Place in Stratford-upon-Avon five years later). Shakespeare Some think that Shakespeare spent time as both an actor and writer for Pembroke's Men in the early 1590s. Two of the earliest quarto publications of individual Shakespearean plays are both linked to this company: the title page of the earliest text of ''Henry VI, Part 3'' (1595) states that the play was performed by Pembroke's Men, while the title page of Q1 of ''Titus Andronicus'' (1594) states that that play was acted by three companies, Pembroke's Men, Derby's Men, and Susse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Merry Wives Of Windsor
''The Merry Wives of Windsor'' or ''Sir John Falstaff and the Merry Wives of Windsor'' is a comedy by William Shakespeare first published in 1602, though believed to have been written in or before 1597. The Windsor of the play's title is a reference to the town of Windsor, also the location of Windsor Castle, in Berkshire, England. Though nominally set in the reign of Henry IV or early in the reign of Henry V, the play makes no pretence to exist outside contemporary Elizabethan-era English middle-class life. It features the character Sir John Falstaff, the fat knight who had previously been featured in ''Henry IV, Part 1'' and '' Part 2''. It has been adapted for the opera at least ten times. The play is one of Shakespeare's lesser-regarded works among literary critics. Tradition has it that ''The Merry Wives of Windsor'' was written at the request of Queen Elizabeth I. After watching ''Henry IV Part I'', she asked Shakespeare to write a play depicting Falstaff in love. Char ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marshalsea Prison
The Marshalsea (1373–1842) was a notorious prison in Southwark, just south of the River Thames. Although it housed a variety of prisoners, including men accused of crimes at sea and political figures charged with sedition, it became known, in particular, for its incarceration of the poorest of London's debtors. Over half the population of England's prisoners in the 18th century were in jail because of debt. Run privately for profit, as were all English prisons until the 19th century, the Marshalsea looked like an Oxbridge college and functioned as an extortion racket. Debtors in the 18th century who could afford the prison fees had access to a bar, shop and restaurant, and retained the crucial privilege of being allowed out during the day, which gave them a chance to earn money for their creditors. Everyone else was crammed into one of nine small rooms with dozens of others, possibly for years for the most modest of debts, which increased as unpaid prison fees accumulated. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Topcliffe
Richard Topcliffe (14 November 1531 – late 1604)Richardson, William. "Topcliffe, Richard (1531–1604)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, « Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edn, January 2008. Accessed 26 July 2013. was a priest hunter and practitioner of torture during the reign of Elizabeth I of England. A landowner and Member of Parliament, he became notorious as the government's chief enforcer of the penal laws against the practice of Catholicism. Early life Topcliffe was the eldest son of Robert Topcliffe of Somerby, Lincolnshire, and his wife, Margaret, daughter of Thomas Burgh, 1st Baron Burgh of Gainsborough, who had been chamberlain of the household to queen Anne Boleyn. His uncle Edward Burgh was queen Katherine Parr's first husband — so Topcliffe was extremely well-connected. When his father died in 1544, the twelve-year-old Topcliffe became the ward of his uncle, Sir Anthony Neville. In 1548, aged sixteen, like other well-to-do yo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elizabeth I Of England
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was List of English monarchs, Queen of England and List of Irish monarchs, Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, his second wife, who was executed when Elizabeth was two years old. Anne's marriage to Henry was annulled, and Elizabeth was for a time declared Royal bastard, illegitimate. Her half-brother Edward VI ruled until his death in 1553, bequeathing the crown to Lady Jane Grey and ignoring the claims of his two half-sisters, the Catholic Church, Catholic Mary I of England, Mary and the younger Elizabeth, in spite of Third Succession Act, statute law to the contrary. Edward's will was set aside and Mary became queen, deposing Lady Jane Grey. During Mary's reign, Elizabeth was imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant reb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Nashe
Thomas Nashe (baptised November 1567 – c. 1601; also Nash) was an Elizabethan playwright, poet, satirist and a significant pamphleteer. He is known for his novel ''The Unfortunate Traveller'', his pamphlets including ''Pierce Penniless,'' and his numerous defences of the Church of England. Life Nashe was the son of the parson William Nashe and Janeth (née Witchingham). He was born and baptised in Lowestoft, on the coast of Suffolk, where his father, William Nashe, or Nayshe as it is recorded, was curate. Though his mother bore seven children, only two survived childhood: Israel (born in 1565) and Thomas.Nicholl, Charles. ''A Cup of News: The Life of Thomas Nashe''. Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1984. The family moved to West Harling, near Thetford, in 1573 after Nashe's father was awarded the living there at the church of All Saints. Around 1581 Thomas went up to St John's College, Cambridge, as a sizar, gaining his bachelor's degree in 1586. From references in his own polemics ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for the satirical plays ''Every Man in His Humour'' (1598), '' Volpone, or The Fox'' (c. 1606), '' The Alchemist'' (1610) and '' Bartholomew Fair'' (1614) and for his lyric and epigrammatic poetry. "He is generally regarded as the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I." Jonson was a classically educated, well-read and cultured man of the English Renaissance with an appetite for controversy (personal and political, artistic and intellectual) whose cultural influence was of unparalleled breadth upon the playwrights and the poets of the Jacobean era (1603–1625) and of the Caroline era (1625–1642)."Ben Jonson", ''Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge'', volume 10, p. 388. His ancestor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Isle Of Dogs (play)
''The Isle of Dogs'' is a play by Thomas Nashe and Ben Jonson which was performed in 1597. It was immediately suppressed, and no copy of it is known to exist. The play The play was performed, probably by Pembroke's Men, at the Swan Theatre in Bankside in the last week of July 1597. A satirical comedy, it was reported to the authorities as a "lewd plaie" full of seditious and "slanderous matter". While extant records do not indicate what gave offence, a reference in '' The Returne from Parnassus (II)'' suggests that the Queen herself was satirised. Other evidence suggests that Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham may have been the target. The Isle of Dogs is a location in London on the opposite bank of the Thames to Greenwich, home of a royal palace, Placentia, where indeed the Privy Council met. It was also believed to be where the queen kennelled her dogs, hence the name. David Riggs suggests that the satire might have been related to portrayal of the queen's councillors as lap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Rose (theatre)
The Rose was an Elizabethan theatre. It was the fourth of the public theatres to be built, after The Theatre (1576), the Curtain (1577), and the theatre at Newington Butts (c. 1580?) – and the first of several playhouses to be situated in Bankside, Southwark, in a liberty outside the jurisdiction of the City of London's civic authorities. Its remains were excavated by archaeologists in 1989 and are listed by Historic England as a Scheduled Monument. History The Rose was built in 1587 by Philip Henslowe and by a grocer named John Cholmley. It was the first purpose-built playhouse to ever stage a production of any of Shakespeare's plays. The theatre was built on a messuage called the "Little Rose," which Henslowe had leased from the parish of St. Saviour, Southwark in 1585. The Rose was the first of several theatres to be situated in Bankside, Southwark near the south shore of the River Thames. The area was known for its leisure attractions such as bear/bull-baitings, gam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Admiral's Men
The Admiral's Men (also called the Admiral's company, more strictly, the Earl of Nottingham's Men; after 1603, Prince Henry's Men; after 1612, the Elector Palatine's Men or the Palsgrave's Men) was a playing company or troupe of actors in the Elizabethan and Stuart eras. It is generally considered the second most important acting troupe of English Renaissance theatre (after the company of Shakespeare, the Lord Chamberlain's or King's Men). Beginnings They were first known as the Lord Howard's Men, named after their patron Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham. The company played once at Court on December 1576 (the play was called ''Tooley''), again on 17 February 1577 (''The Solitary Knight''), and a third time the following Christmas season, 5 January 1578 (all dates new style). They toured widely, from Bath to Nottingham, in the years 1577–79. A powerful patron like Howard could make a great difference in a company's fortunes. Though there is little evidence that he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comedy Of Humours
The comedy of humours is a genre of dramatic comedy that focuses on a character or range of characters, each of whom exhibits two or more overriding traits or 'humours' that dominates their personality, desires and conduct. This comic technique may be found in Aristophanes, but the English playwrights Ben Jonson and George Chapman popularised the genre in the closing years of the sixteenth century. In the later half of the seventeenth century, it was combined with the comedy of manners in Restoration comedy. In Jonson’s ''Every Man in His Humour'' (acted 1598), which made this type of play popular, all the words and acts of Kitely are controlled by an overpowering suspicion that his wife is unfaithfulGeorge Downright a country squire, must be "frank" above all things; the country gull in town determines his every decision by his desire to "catch on" to the manners of the city gallant. In his Induction to ''Every Man out of His Humour'' (1599) Jonson explains his character-formu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
An Humorous Day's Mirth
''An Humorous Day's Mirth'' is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy by George Chapman, first acted in 1597 and published in 1599. Algernon Charles Swinburne called Chapman's play All Fools one of the finest comedies in English. "The plot is intricate and ingenious and shows that Chapman had been taking lessons of Jonson's masters, Plautus and Terence." Performance ''An Humorous Day's Mirth'' was performed by the Admiral's Men at the Rose Theatre; it has been identified with the "Humours" play that the company acted on Thursday 11 May 1597, as described in a contemporary letter to Dudley Carleton from John Chamberlain. Philip Henslowe's diary, which covers performances at the Rose at this time, marks the play as 'ne' on this date while Chamberlain's comment that he had been drawn to the play by the 'common applause' suggests that he saw one of the five performances between 11 May and before the writing of the letter which is dated 11 June 1597. Chamberlain described the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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