''Histriomastix'' or ''The Player Whipped'' is a late

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personifi ...

play, written by the satirist John Marston and acted in 1599. It was previously thought that the play was likely acted by the

Children of Paul's The Children of Paul's was the name of a troupe of boy actors in Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it a ...

, one of the companies of boy actors active at the time; but more recent research suggests that ''Histriomastix'' was performed at the 1598–9 Christmas revels of the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn an ...

. (Plays acted at the

Inns of Court The Inns of Court in London are the professional associations for barristers in England and Wales. There are four Inns of Court – Gray's Inn, Lincoln's Inn, Inner Temple and Middle Temple. All barristers must belong to one of them. They have ...

could take an approach opposite to that of the professionals, maximizing rather than minimizing the number of roles to make room for enthusiastic amateurs. Without doubling, a production of ''Histriomastix'' could accommodate as many as 120 performers. The play's rich texture of legal humor also suggests an Inns of Court performance.) The play was entered into the

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 print ...

on 31 October 1610 and printed anonymously in the same year by

George Eld George Eld (died 1624) was a London printer of the Jacobean era, who produced important works of English Renaissance drama and literature, including key texts by William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, and Thomas Middleton. Eld w ...

for the publisher

Thomas Thorpe Thomas Thorpe ( 1569 – 1625) was an English publisher, most famous for publishing Shakespeare's sonnets and several works by Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson. His publication of the sonnets has long been controversial. Nineteenth-century ...

. Marston's connection with the play is accepted unanimously, though scholars and critics have disputed the extent of Marston's authorship, some holding that Marston revised an older play that originated around 1589.

E. K. Chambers Sir Edmund Kerchever Chambers, (16 March 1866 – 21 January 1954), usually known as E. K. Chambers, was an English literary critic and Shakespearean scholar. His four-volume work on ''The Elizabethan Stage'', published in 1923, remains a s ...

, ''The Elizabethan Stage,'' 4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923; Vol. 4, pp. 17-19. The play is a moral

allegory As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...

about human nature that shows through a series of symbolic scenes how society is led into war and destruction through pride, greed, and sloth. Among other specific targets of satire (such as women), the play targets professional actors (as the subtitle indicates) — which is consistent with the view that it was acted by nonprofessionals. The earlier version of the play, if indeed it existed, may have been a work performed at one of the Universities or Inns of Court. The play was the opening installment in the

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 ...

of 1599–1601.

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 t ...

, Marston's rival in that controversy, is lampooned as the character Chrisoganus.

References

External links

''Histriomastix; or The Player Whipped''
facsimile text at

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

. Plays by John Marston 1599 plays {{17thC-play-stub