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Children Of Paul's
The Children of Paul's was the name of a troupe of boy actors in Elizabethan and Jacobean London. Along with the Children of the Chapel, they were an important component of the companies of boy players that constituted a distinctive feature of English Renaissance theatre. Education The youth who would become choirboys and boy players for the Children of Paul's ranged in age from six to their mid-teens. They would be educated and boarded at the choir school, trained in not only singing but in grammar and literacy. Although their basic needs were taken care of, choirboys sometimes made some money for themselves. When fashionably dressed men wearing spurs, which could be loud and distracting to other church-goers, would enter the chapel, the choirboys would sometimes demand money as a fee. This fee was called "spur money". Choirboys were allowed time to play on Thursday afternoons, and in one document from 1598, a verger named John Howe notes an occasion when the boys broke windows ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boy Player
Boy player refers to children who performed in Medieval and English Renaissance playing companies. Some boy players worked for the adult companies and performed the female roles as women did not perform on the English stage in this period. Others worked for children's companies in which all roles, not just the female ones, were played by boys. Children's companies In the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, troupes appeared that were composed entirely of boy players. They are famously mentioned in Shakespeare's ''Hamlet'', in which a group of travelling actors has left the city due to rivalry with a troupe of "little eyases" (II, ii, 339); the term "eyas" means an unfledged hawk. The children's companies grew out of the choirs of boy singers that had been connected with cathedrals and similar institutions since the Middle Ages. (Similar boy choirs exist to this day.) Thus the choir attached to St. Paul's Cathedral in London since the 12th century was in the 16th century ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endymion (play)
''Endymion, the Man in the Moon'' is an Elizabethan era comedy by John Lyly, written circa 1588. The action of the play centers around a young courtier, Endymion, who is sent into an endless slumber by Tellus, his former lover, because he has spurned her to worship the ageless Queen Cynthia. The prose is characterised by Euphuism, Lyly's highly ornate, formalised style, meant to convey the intelligence and wit of the speaker. ''Endymion'' has been called "without doubt, the boldest in conception and the most beautiful in execution of all Lyly's plays." Lyly makes allusions to ancient Greek and Roman texts and traditional English folklore throughout the play. While the title and characters are references to the myth of Endymion, the plot sharply deviates from the classical story and highlights contemporary issues in Elizabeth I's court through its allegorical framework. Characters * Endymion- a young man * Cynthia- the queen * Eumenides- Endymion's friend * Tellus- lady-in-w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
What You Will
''What You Will'' is a late Elizabethan comedy by John Marston, written in 1601 and probably performed by the Children of Paul's, one of the companies of boy actors popular in that period. The play was entered into the Stationers' Register on 6 August 1607, and was published later that year in a quarto printed by George Eld for the bookseller Thomas Thorpe. Inconsistencies in the names of the characters suggest that the play was revised between its stage premier in 1601 and its publication in 1607. The Induction that precedes the text mentions a small sized stage and candles for illumination, details that verify that the play was acted in a smaller "private" theatre rather than a large "public" one like the Globe or the Fortune. The play focuses on the relationship between two rival poets: the bitter, misanthropic satirist Lampatho Doria and the generous, lighthearted epicurean Quadratus. The play itself hardly has a plot, being more a series of comic vignettes and debat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Drum's Entertainment
''Jack Drum's Entertainment, or the Comedy of Pasquil and Katherine'' is a late English literature#Elizabethan era, Elizabethan play written by the dramatist and satirist John Marston (playwright), John Marston in 1600. It was first performed by the Children of Paul's, one of the troupes of boy player, boy actors popular in that era. The play can be dated to 1600 on internal evidence, including a reference to William Kempe's famous morris dance from Norwich to London in the early spring of that year. It was entered into the Stationers' Register by the bookseller Felix Norton on 8 September 1600 in literature, 1600. On 23 October the rights were transferred to Richard Olive (i.e., Oliff), and the first edition was printed for Oliff in 1601 in literature, 1601. A second edition, issued by Philip Knight, appeared in 1616, and was reprinted in 1618 by Nathaniel Fosbrooke. All three quartos are anonymous, but the play has long been attributed to Marston on stylistic grounds, and his au ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
War Of The Theatres
The War of the Theatres is the name commonly applied to a controversy from the later Elizabethan theatre; Thomas Dekker termed it the ''Poetomachia''. Because of an actual ban on satire in prose and verse publications in 1599 (the Bishops' Ban of 1599), the satirical urge had no other remaining outlet than the stage. The resulting controversy, which unfolded between 1599 and 1602, involved the playwright Ben Jonson on one side and his rivals John Marston and Thomas Dekker (with Thomas Middleton as an ancillary combatant) on the other. The role Shakespeare played in the conflict, if any, has long been a topic of dispute among scholars. Sequence of events The least disputed facts of the matter yield a schema like this: # In his play ''Histriomastix'' (1599), Marston satirized Jonson’s pride through the character Chrisoganus. # Jonson responded by satirizing Marston's wordy style in ''Every Man out of His Humour'' (1599), a play acted by the Lord Chamberlain's Men. (Note: the or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Middleton
Thomas Middleton (baptised 18 April 1580 – July 1627; also spelt ''Midleton'') was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. He, with John Fletcher and Ben Jonson, was among the most successful and prolific of playwrights at work in the Jacobean period, and among the few to gain equal success in comedy and tragedy. He was also a prolific writer of masques and pageants. Life Middleton was born in London and baptised on 18 April 1580. He was the son of a bricklayer, who had raised himself to the status of a gentleman and owned property adjoining the Curtain Theatre in Shoreditch. Middleton was five when his father died and his mother's subsequent remarriage dissolved into a 15-year battle over the inheritance of Thomas and his younger sister – an experience that informed him about the legal system and may have incited his repeated satire against the legal profession. Middleton attended The Queen's College, Oxford, matriculating in 1598, but he did not graduate. Before he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Chapman
George Chapman (Hitchin, Hertfordshire, – London, 12 May 1634) was an English dramatist, translator and poet. He was a classical scholar whose work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman has been speculated to be the Rival Poet of Shakespeare's sonnets by William Minto, and as an anticipator of the metaphysical poets of the 17th century. Chapman is best remembered for his translations of Homer's '' Iliad'' and '' Odyssey'', and the Homeric '' Batrachomyomachia''. Life and work Chapman was born at Hitchin in Hertfordshire. There is conjecture that he studied at Oxford but did not take a degree, though no reliable evidence affirms this. Very little is known about Chapman's early life, but Mark Eccles uncovered records that reveal much about Chapman's difficulties and expectations. In 1585 Chapman was approached in a friendly fashion by John Wolfall Sr., who offered to supply a bond of surety for a loan to furnish Chapman money "for his proper use in Attendance upon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Marston (poet)
John Marston (baptised 7 October 1576 – 25 June 1634) was an English playwright, poet and satirist during the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods. His career as a writer lasted only a decade. His work is remembered for its energetic and often obscure style, its contributions to the development of a distinctively Jacobean style in poetry, and its idiosyncratic vocabulary. Life Marston was born to John and Maria Marston ''née'' Guarsi, and baptised 7 October 1576, at Wardington, Oxfordshire. His father was an eminent lawyer of the Middle Temple who first argued in London and then became the counsel to Coventry and ultimately its steward. John Marston entered Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1592 and received his BA in 1594. By 1595, he was in London, living in the Middle Temple, where he had been admitted a member three years previously. He had an interest in poetry and play writing, although his father's will of 1599 expresses the hope that he would give up such vaniti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Wisdom Of Doctor Dodypoll
''The Wisdom of Doctor Dodypoll'' is a later Elizabethan stage play, an anonymous comedy first published in 1600. It is illustrative of the type of drama staged by the companies of child actors when they returned to public performance in that era. Date, performance, publication ''The Wisdom of Doctor Dodypoll'' was entered into the Stationers' Register on 7 October 1600, and was published before the end of that year, in a quarto printed by Thomas Creede for the bookseller Richard Olive. This was the only edition of the play prior to the nineteenth century. The title page states the drama had been acted by the Children of Paul's, the troupe of boy actors that had resumed public dramatic performances in 1599 or 1600 after a decade's absence. Various internal features in the play point to a date of authorship in the 1599–1600 interval. Like many plays of the children's companies, ''Doctor Dodypoll'' parodies the works of the established adult companies, including those of Will ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Maid's Metamorphosis
''The Maid's Metamorphosis'' is a late Elizabethan stage play, a pastoral first published in 1600. The play, "a comedy of considerable merit," was published anonymously, and its authorship has been a long-standing point of dispute among scholars. Date, performance, publication ''The Maid's Metamorphosis'' was entered into the Stationers' Register on 24 July 1600, and published later that year in a quarto printed by Thomas Creede for the bookseller Richard Olive. The title page of the first edition states that the play was acted by the Children of Paul's, one of the companies of boy actors popular at the time. That company resumed dramatic performances in 1599, and the play itself refers to a leap year and a year of drought, which was true only of 1600 in the relevant period – indicating that the play was performed in that year. Authorship The earliest attribution of authorship was on Edward Archer's play list of 1656, which assigned the play to John Lyly. The play is writte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marprelate Controversy
The Marprelate Controversy was a war of pamphlets waged in England and Wales in 1588 and 1589, between a puritan writer who employed the pseudonym Martin Marprelate, and defenders of the Church of England which remained an established church. Character and reception Martin's tracts are characterised by mockery of Anglican dignitaries and satire against the corruptions of the Church of England. The style is 'a heady mixture of nonsense, satire, protest, irony and gossip', combined with pungent wit, 'full of the language of the street'. While Martin maintained puritan doctrines as a whole, the special point of his attack was the episcopacy. The pamphlets were printed at a secret press established by John Penry, a Welsh puritan, with the help of the printer Robert Waldegrave, about midsummer 1588, for the issue of puritan literature was forbidden by the authorities. The first tract by "Martin Marprelate," known as the ''Epistle'', was printed at the home of Mistress Crane at East Mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
