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The Lovers' Progress
''The Lovers' Progress,'' also known as ''The Wandering Lovers,'' or ''Cleander,'' or ''Lisander and Calista,'' is an early seventeenth-century stage play, a tragicomedy written by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger. As its multiple titles indicate, the play has a complex history and has been a focus of controversy among scholars and critics. Facts and conclusions The historical facts pertinent to the play, in chronological order, are these: * A play titled ''The Wandering Lovers'' was licensed for performance by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, on 6 December 1623, as a work by John Fletcher. It was acted at Court on 1 January 1634. No play with that title has survived. * A play by Massinger titled ''The Tragedy of Cleander'' was similarly licensed on 7 May 1634, and performed soon after by the King's Men at the Blackfriars Theatre. Queen Henrietta Maria saw it there on 13 May that year. (''The Lovers' Progress'' could be called a tragedy from the point of view of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tragicomedy
Tragicomedy is a literary genre that blends aspects of both tragedy, tragic and comedy, comic forms. Most often seen in drama, dramatic literature, the term can describe either a tragic play which contains enough comic elements to lighten the overall mood or a serious play with a happy ending. Tragicomedy, as its name implies, invokes the intended response of both the tragedy and the comedy in the audience, the former being a genre based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis and the latter being a genre intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter. In theatre Classical precedent There is no concise formal definition of tragicomedy from the classical antiquity, classical age. It appears that the Greek philosopher Aristotle had something like the Renaissance meaning of the term (that is, a serious action with a happy ending) in mind when, in ''Poetics (Aristotle), Poetics'', he discusses tragedy with a dual ending. In this respect, a number of An ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Very Woman
''A Very Woman, or The Prince of Tarent'' is an early seventeenth-century stage play, a tragicomedy written by Philip Massinger and John Fletcher. It was first published in 1655, fifteen and thirty years after the deaths of its authors. Date Scholars generally agree that the existing text of the play is a Massinger revision of an earlier work, though they disagree as to whether that earlier version was a Fletcher/Massinger collaboration or a work by Fletcher alone. (Cyrus Hoy favoured the latter view.) So the original must have predated Fletcher's death in 1625; lacking hard data on this point, scholars have estimated a date of authorship in the 1619–22 period. The play entered the historical record when it was licensed for performance by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, on 6 June 1634; it is not improbable that Massinger's revision of the text shortly preceded that licensing. No firm information on the play's early stage history has survived; it is more likely th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1617 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1617. Events *March 4 – Shrovetide riot of the London apprentices damages the Cockpit Theatre. Impresario Christopher Beeston rebuilds it, and christens it the Phoenix for its rebirth, perhaps to designs by Inigo Jones. *The collected works of John Calvin are published posthumously in Geneva. *Martin Opitz founds the Fruitbearing Society (Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft) at Weimar. *Alchemist–hermeticist Robert Fludd begins the publication of his life's work, the ''Utriusque Cosmi...Historia'', which in future years proliferates through multiple published Volumes, Tractates, Sections, and Portions, only to remain incomplete at the time of Fludd's death two decades later. *Two pseudonymous publications in the Joseph Swetnam anti-feminist controversy appear in 1617: ''Esther Hath Hang'd Haman'' by "Esther Sowernam", and ''The Worming of a Mad Dog'' by "Constantia Munda". Only Rachel Speght publishes h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1615 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1615. Events *January 6 – ''Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists'', a masque written by Ben Jonson and designed by Inigo Jones, is performed at Whitehall Palace in London. *January 13 – William Browne's masque ''Circe and Ulysses'' is staged at the Inner Temple in London. *January 23 – English poet John Donne becomes an ordained minister in the Church of England. *March 7– 11 – King James I of England and Prince Charles visit the University of Cambridge, the first royal visit there since the progress of Queen Elizabeth I in 1564. The university stages entertainments that include performances in Latin of Cecil's ''Aemilia'' (March 7), Ruggle's farce ''Ignoramus'' (March 8), Tomkis's comedy ''Albumazar'' (March 9), and Brooke's ''Melanthe'' (March 10). The royals leave Cambridge prior to the première of Fletcher's ''Sicelides, a Piscatory'' (March 13). King James enjoys ''Ignoramus'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyrus Hoy
Cyrus Henry Hoy (February 26, 1926 – April 27, 2010) was an American literary scholar of the English Renaissance stage who taught at the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University, and was the John B. Trevor Professor of English (emeritus, 1994) at the University of Rochester. He wrote and published on a wide range of topics in English literature, though he is best known for his works on William Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, and other figures in English Renaissance theatre. Probably his most frequently-cited work is his study of authorship problems in the Beaumont/Fletcher plays. Titled "The Shares of Fletcher and His Collaborators in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon," it was published in seven annual issues of the journal ''Studies in Bibliography,'' published by the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia (1956–62). Hoy identified specific linguistic markers for individual dramatists, most notably a highly distinctive pattern of preferences for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicholas Tooley
Nicholas Tooley (c. 1583 – June 1623) was a Renaissance actor in the King's Men, the acting company of William Shakespeare. Recent research has shown that Tooley was born in late 1582 or early 1583; his birth name was not Tooley but Wilkinson. (In 1623 he signed a codicil to his last will and testament "Nicholas Wilkinson, ''alias'' Tooley.")Edwin Nunzeger, ''A Dictionary of Actors and of Other Persons Associated with the Public Representation of Plays in England Before 1642'', New Haven, Yale University Press, 1929; pp. 374–5. He has been associated with the "Nick" in the surviving "plot" of ''The Seven Deadly Sins'', dated c. 1591. The association, if accurate, indicates that he began as a boy player. He was apprenticed to Richard Burbage, and may have followed that actor to the Lord Chamberlain's Men when that company re-formed in 1594. Tooley is mentioned in a letter of Joan Alleyn, Edward Alleyn's wife, in 1603, and he received a 20-shilling bequest in Augustine Ph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Thompson (actor)
John Thompson (died December 1634) was a noted boy player acting women's roles in English Renaissance theatre. He served in the King's Men, the acting troupe formerly of William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage. Thompson's career is notable for his length. Some boy actors, like John Honyman and Stephen Hammerton, filled female roles for only three to five years before switching to male roles; others, like Richard Sharpe, appear to have continued in women's roles for a decade. Thompson is known to have played women for at least ten years, if not more. Beginnings Thompson began as an apprentice of veteran comedian and teacher John Shank. In 1636, Shank claimed in legal testimony to have spent £40 to acquire Thompson as an apprentice. (Apprentices' contracts were sometimes purchased from their "masters," as with the case of Stephen Hammerton.) According to the cast list in the 1623 first edition of Webster's ''The Duchess of Malfi'', Thompson played Julia, the "Cardinals Mis." T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King's Men Personnel
King's Men personnel were the people who worked with and for the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the King's Men (for all practical purposes a single continuous theatrical enterprise) from 1594 to 1642 (and after). The company was the major theatrical enterprise of its era and featured some of the leading actors of their generation – Richard Burbage, John Lowin, and Joseph Taylor among other – and some leading clowns and comedians, like Will Kempe and Robert Armin. The company benefitted from the services of William Shakespeare, John Fletcher, and Philip Massinger as regular dramatists. The actors who performed the plays have left the most evidence of their lives and activities; but they were supported by musicians and other functionaries, and were enabled by managers and financial backers like Cuthbert Burbage. For more information on specific individuals, see individual entries: Robert Armin, Christopher Beeston, Robert Benfield, etc. Terms * "Sharer" – an actor who was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Sharpe (actor)
Richard Sharpe (c. 1602 – January 1632) was an actor with the King's Men, the leading theatre troupe of its time and the company of William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage. Sharpe began his career as a boy player acting female roles, then switched to male roles in his young adulthood. ''The Duchess of Malfi'' Sharpe's earliest known role was, arguably, both his most significant and his most controversial. The first edition of John Webster's ''The Duchess of Malfi'', printed in 1623, contains the earliest cast list in English Renaissance drama. The list states that Sharpe originated the title role of the Duchess. The 1623 cast list actually covers two separate productions, the premiere staging and a later revival. * The original starred Richard Burbage and is usually dated to c. 1614. It must have occurred prior to William Ostler's death in December 1614, since Ostler played the role of Antonio. * The revival production starred Burbage's replacement Joseph Taylor, and s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Pollard
Thomas Pollard (1597 – 1649×1655) was an actor in the King's Men – a prominent comedian in the acting troupe of William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage. Thomas Pollard was christened on 11 December 1597 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. His date of death is not known. Career Pollard starting as a boy player specializing in women's roles. He was trained by John Shank, a noted comic actor; and after he matured and left female roles behind, Pollard acquired his own reputation as a gifted comic performer. His most notable part was the title role in Fletcher's ''The Humorous Lieutenant''. He had the comical role of Timentes the cowardly general in Arthur Wilson's '' The Swisser''. He played Silvio in Webster's ''The Duchess of Malfi'', in the productions of c. 1614 and c. 1621. He appeared in Shakespeare's '' Henry VIII'', probably in the 1628 revival at the Globe Theatre. Pollard played the role of Pinac in ''The Wild Goose Chase'' in the 1632 revival, and was in a numb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Underwood (actor)
John Underwood (died October 1624) was an early 17th-century actor, a member of the King's Men, the theatrics company of William Shakespeare. Career Underwood began as a boy player with the Children of the Chapel, and was cast in that company's productions of Ben Jonson's '' Cynthia's Revels'' (1600) and ''The Poetaster'' (1601). In 1608 or soon after, he joined the King's Men along with William Ostler, another former member of the Chapel Children troupe. Underwood was a member of the cast of the King's Men's production of Jonson's ''The Alchemist'' in 1610, and was in the casts of many productions that followed, including Jonson's ''Catiline'' (1611) and John Webster's ''The Duchess of Malfi'' (the revival of c. 1621). In the 25 cast lists added to plays in the second Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1679, Underwood is mentioned in the casts of 18 dramas: * '' Bonduca'' * ''The Custom of the Country'' * '' The Double Marriage'' * ''The False One'' * ''The Humorous Lieutena ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Benfield
Robert Benfield (died July 1649) was a seventeenth-century actor, noted for his longtime membership in the King's Men in the years and decades after William Shakespeare's retirement and death. Nothing is known of Benfield's early life. He was most likely with the Lady Elizabeth's Men in 1613, and acted in their productions of Fletcher's ''The Coxcomb'' and the Fletcher/Massinger play ''The Honest Man's Fortune'' in that year. Benfield soon joined the King's Men, possibly to replace William Ostler, who died unexpectedly in December 1614. He acted in the company's production of John Webster's ''The Duchess of Malfi'' c. 1621. He was a shareholder in the company by 1619, when he is listed in the renewed patent for the King's Men issued in that year. Benfield also eventually became a sharer in both the Globe and Blackfriars theatres, but only after a conflict: in 1635 he was one of three King's Men (the others were Thomas Pollard and Eliard Swanston) who petitioned the Lord Chamber ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |