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The Country Captain
''The Country Captain,'' alternatively known as ''Captain Underwit,'' is a Caroline era stage play written by William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle, and first published in 1649. It has attracted critical attention primarily for the question of James Shirley's participation in its authorship. Date and performance The play's date of authorship and its performance history are not known in detail; it was performed at the Blackfriars Theatre by the King's Men, and is plausibly dated to c. 1639–40. ''The Country Captain'' was revived early in the Restoration period. Samuel Pepys saw it performed on 21 October 1661. In his Diary he called it "so silly a play as in all my life I never saw" – though this negative verdict did not prevent Pepys from seeing the play again on 25 November that year, on 14 August 1667 and on 14 May 1668. Texts The play was first printed in a duodecimo volume that included Newcastle's play ''The Variety,'' issued by the booksellers Humphrey Moseley ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literature In English
English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines English literature more narrowly as, "the body of written works produced in the English language by inhabitants of the British Isles (including Ireland) from the 7th century to the present day. The major literatures written in English outside the British Isles are treated separately under American literature, Australian literature, Canadian literature, and New Zealand literature." However, despite this, it includes literature from the Republic of Ireland, "Anglo-American modernism", and discusses post-colonial literature. ; See also full articles on American literature and other literatures in the English language. The English language has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Fri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stationers' Register
The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including printers, bookbinders, booksellers, and publishers in England. The Register itself allowed publishers to document their right to produce a particular printed work, and constituted an early form of copyright law. The company's charter gave it the right to seize illicit editions and bar the publication of unlicensed books. For the study of English literature of the later sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries—for the Elizabethan era, the Jacobean era, the Caroline era, and especially for English Renaissance theatre—the Stationers' Register is an crucial and essential resource: it provides factual information and hard data that is available nowhere else. Together with the records of the Master of the Revels (which relate to dramatic perform ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sons Of Ben (literary Group)
Sons of Ben were followers of Ben Jonson in English poetry and drama in the first half of the seventeenth century. These men followed Ben Jonson's philosophy and his style of poetry. Unlike Jonson, they were loyal to the king. Sons of Ben were the dramatists who were overtly and admittedly influenced by Jonson's drama, his most distinctive artistic achievement. Joe Lee Davis listed eleven playwrights in this group: Richard Brome, Thomas Nabbes, Henry Glapthorne Henry Glapthorne (baptised, 28 July 1610 – c. 1643) was an English dramatist and poet, baptized in Cambridgeshire, the son of Thomas Glapthorne and Faith ''née'' Hatcliff. His father was a bailiff of Lady Hatton, the wife of Sir Edward Co ..., Thomas Killigrew, Sir William Davenant, William Cartwright, Shackerley Marmion, Jasper Mayne, Peter Hausted, Thomas Randolph, and William Cavendish. The term, or the alternative "Tribe of Ben," was a self-description by some of the Cavalier poets who admired and w ... [...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] |
1646 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1646. Events *March 24 – The King's Men petition Parliament for three-and-a-half years' back pay, even though the London theatres officially remained closed through the middle 1640s. No details of their activities in these years survive. *May 5 – Martin Llewellyn's drama ''The King Found at Southwell'' is performed at Oxford; it is the last stage piece presented in the city before its surrender to Parliamentary forces in the English Civil War on June 22–24. *July – John Lilburne is placed in the Tower of London for denouncing his former commander the Earl of Manchester as a traitor. *September 6 – The Biblioteca Palafoxiana is established in Puebla, Mexico, through the donation of books by Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, perhaps the earliest public library in the American colonies. *''unknown dates'' **Henry Burkhead's closet drama ''Cola's Fury, or Lirenda's Misery'', based on the Iris ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Bird In A Cage
''The Bird in a Cage, or The Beauties'' is a Caroline era comedy written by James Shirley, first published in 1633. The play is notable, even among Shirley's plays, for its lushness — what one critic has called "gay romanticism run mad." History The play was licensed for performance, under the title ''The Beauties,'' by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, on 21 January 1633. It was published in quarto in the same year, printed by B. Alsop and T. Fawcet for the bookseller William Cooke. The title page of the 1633 quarto states that the play was acted at the Phoenix, or Cockpit Theatre, which means it was played by Queen Henrietta's Men, as was standard for Shirley plays of that time. The play was ironically dedicated to William Prynne, the Puritan author and religious controversialist who published his wide-ranging attack on stage drama and actors, ''Histriomastix,'' in the previous year, 1632. Among other things, ''Histriomastix'' was perceived as an attack on Qu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Triumph Of Peace
''The Triumph of Peace'' was a Caroline era masque, "invented and written" by James Shirley, performed on 3 February 1634 and published the same year. The production was designed by Inigo Jones. Inspiration The masque was lavishly sponsored by the four Inns of Court, through a political and social motive. In 1632 the Puritan controversialist William Prynne (himself an Inns of Court man) had dedicated his anti-theatre diatribe ''Histriomastix'' to the Inns; since ''Histriomastix'' was perceived as insulting to Queen Henrietta Maria, the masque was the Inns' signal of their total rejection of any connection with Prynne's book or his views. Shirley was chosen to write the masque because he was a member of Gray's Inn. He was not a law student or a lawyer; rather, he was a gentleman boarder, an arrangement preferred by some literary figures of the time. (John Ford was another gentleman boarder). Shirley produced an acceptable text – though he was bold enough to offer some tactful ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Triumph Of Beauty
''The Triumph of Beauty'' is a Literature in English#Caroline and Cromwellian literature, Caroline era masque, written by James Shirley and first published in 1646 in literature, 1646. The masque shows a strong influence of William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's ''A Midsummer Night's Dream.'' The plot of the masque draws upon one of the most famous tales of Greek mythology, the Judgement of Paris; Shirley derives some material from the ''Dialogues'' of Lucian. (Shirley had previously used the same subject matter in the masque in Act V of his 1640 in literature, 1640 play ''The Constant Maid.'') The cast includes all the principals of the story, with the divinities occurring in their Roman versions: Paris (mythology), Paris, Hera, Juno, Aphrodite, Venus, and Athena, Pallas all appear, along with Mercury (mythology), Mercury, Cupid, Hymenaios, Hymen, the Charites, Graces, the Horae, Hours, and a personified Hedone, Delight. (The three Hours, Eunomia (goddess), Eunomia, Dike (mythology), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masque
The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment that flourished in 16th- and early 17th-century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio (a public version of the masque was the pageant). A masque involved music, dancing, singing and acting, within an elaborate stage design, in which the architectural framing and costumes might be designed by a renowned architect, to present a deferential allegory flattering to the patron. Professional actors and musicians were hired for the speaking and singing parts. Masquers who did not speak or sing were often courtiers: the English queen Anne of Denmark frequently danced with her ladies in masques between 1603 and 1611, and Henry VIII and Charles I of England performed in the masques at their courts. In the tradition of masque, Louis XIV of France danced in ballets at Versailles with music by Jean-Baptiste Lully. Development The masque tradition developed from the elaborate pageants and cou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1635 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1635. Events *February 22 – In Paris, the Académie française is founded. *May 6 – The King's Men perform ''Othello'' at the Blackfriars Theatre in London. *July 16 – Birth of René Descartes' daughter, Francine, at Deventer. *August 23 – A few days before his death, beset by family troubles, Lope de Vega writes his last poems. *Ottoman Turkish poet Nef'i is garroted in the grounds of the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul for his satirical verses. *Wallachian statesman Udriște Năsturel pays lyrical tribute to Prince Matei Basarab, his brother-in-law. Though composed and published in Slavonic, this is the first blason in Romanian literature, and by some accounts the first-ever Romanian poem. New books Prose *Sir Kenelm Digby – ''A Conference with a Lady about choice of a Religion'' *Thomas Heywood – ''The Hierarchy of the Blessed Angels'' *Tirso de Molina – ''Deleitar aprovechando'' *John ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Traitor (play)
''The Traitor'' is a Caroline era stage play, a tragedy written by James Shirley. Along with ''The Cardinal,'' ''The Traitor'' is widely considered to represent the finest of Shirley's efforts in the genre, and to be among the best tragedies of its period. "It is impossible to find a more successful drama of its type than Shirley's ''Traitor''." ''The Traitor'' was licensed for performance by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, on 4 May 1631, and was acted by Queen Henrietta's Men at the Cockpit Theatre. The play was entered in the Stationers' Register on 30 November 1634, and published in 1635 by the printer William Cooke, with a dedication by Shirley to William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle. In creating the character of Sciarrha, Shirley may have been influenced by Foreste in Sir William Davenant's ''The Cruel Brother'' (1627). Shirley's source for the play's subplot was the account of the murder of Buondelmonte in ''Le istoire fiorentine'' by Niccolò Machiavell ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthony Wood (antiquary)
Anthony Wood (17 December 1632 – 28 November 1695), who styled himself Anthony à Wood in his later writings, was an English antiquary. He was responsible for a celebrated ''Hist. and Antiq. of the Universitie of Oxon''. Early life Anthony Wood was born in Oxford on 17 December 1632, as the fourth son of Thomas Wood (1581–1643), BCL of Oxford, and his second wife, Mary (1602–1667), daughter of Robert Pettie and Penelope Taverner. Wood was sent to New College School in 1641, and at the age of twelve was removed to the free Lord Williams's School at Thame, where his studies were interrupted by Civil War skirmishes. He was then placed under the tuition of his brother Edward (1627–1655), of Trinity College, and, as he tells us, "while he continued in this condition his mother would alwaies be soliciting him to be an apprentice which he could never endure to heare of". He was entered at Merton College in 1647, and made postmaster, a type of scholar at Merton. In 1652 Woo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
