''The Nice Valour, or The Passionate Madman'' is a Jacobean stage play of problematic date and authorship. Based on its inclusion in the two

Beaumont and Fletcher folios The Beaumont and Fletcher folios are two large folio collections of the stage plays of John Fletcher and his collaborators. The first was issued in 1647, and the second in 1679. The two collections were important in preserving many works of En ...

of 1647 and 1679 and two citations in 17th-century sources, the play has long held a place in the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators. Modern scholarship, however, has accumulated much internal evidence for the authorship of

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 Jac ...

. ''The Nice Valour'' is the shortest play in the Beaumont/Fletcher folios, and inconsistencies in the text (the setting shifts between France and Genoa with no explanation) suggest revision by a hand other than that of the original author. Early critics, observing obvious differences from the normal style of Fletcher and Beaumont, postulated the participation of Middleton and perhaps

William Rowley William Rowley (c. 1585 – February 1626) was an English Jacobean dramatist, best known for works written in collaboration with more successful writers. His date of birth is estimated to have been c. 1585; he was buried on 11 February 1626 in ...

; their twentieth-century successors were able to refine that determination with a close study of the play's stylistic and linguistic preferences.

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 (emerit ...

, in his massive study of authorship questions in the Fletcher canon, drew this division of authorship: :Middleton — Act III; Act V, scene 1; :Fletcher and Middleton — Acts I, II, and IV; Act V, scenes 2 and 3. David Lake, in his study of authorship problems in the Middleton canon, endorses Hoy's conclusion and supports it with additional evidence. The play's date remains uncertain, and has been placed anywhere from 1615 to 1625. Lake favours Baldwin Maxwell's date of c. 1615–16.

Synopsis

The court of the Duke of

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...

is populated with three unusual characters. One is Shamont, the Duke's favourite and the intended husband of the Duke's sister, the Lady. (Several significant characters in the play are not given personal names, but are known only by their roles—the Lady, the Soldier, etc.—a trait common in Middleton's work.) Shamont is abnormally touchy on points of honour; he has the "nice valour" (that is, finicky pride) of the title. (One unsympathetic courtier calls him a "vainglorious coxcomb"—though not to his face.) A second odd fellow is a kinsman of the Duke, who is subject to wild mood swings, from joy to love to melancholy to rage; he is the "passionate madman" of the subtitle. A modern psychotherapist might diagnose an extreme case of

bipolar disorder Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that last from days to weeks each. If the elevated mood is severe or associated with ...

, a case so severe that the man sometimes hallucinates, and courts, imaginary women. And the third odd duck is a courtier named Lapet, who is a coward; he endures physical abuse rather than fight back. Trouble is instigated by a visit from Shamont's brother, the Soldier. Shamont sees his brother in conversation with the Lady, and becomes jealous. Later the pair are intruded upon by the Duke's cousin, whose mentally disordered ramblings give the Soldier the impression that he's been insulted. Shamont is so distracted by his jealous imaginings that he fails to notice when the Duke is speaking to him; trying to catch his favourite's attention, the Duke touches Shamont with a riding crop. This is enough to provoke the most extreme reaction from Shamont's hypersensitive honour; convinced that he's been mortally insulted, Shamont vents his feelings and leaves the court. A second thread of the plot develops around the Duke's kinsman's affliction. The man has courted, seduced, and impregnated a young gentlewoman, but has failed to follow through on his commitment to marry her. Egged on by her brothers, the young woman disguises herself as a

Cupid In classical mythology, Cupid (Latin Cupīdō , meaning "passionate desire") is the god of desire, lust, erotic love, attraction and affection. He is often portrayed as the son of the love goddess Venus (mythology), Venus and the god of war Mar ...

among the court

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 ...

rs, as part of a plan to manipulate the "passionate madman" to the altar. (The cuts in the play's text prevent this subplot from developing into a coherent story.) The Soldier takes out his wounded pride on the Duke's cousin, assaulting the man at swordpoint, and is arrested for the crime. Shamont is summoned back to court to plead for his brother's pardon; the Duke is so pleased to see his favourite again that the pardon is quickly granted. The Duke's kinsman survives his wound, and the shock of his experience jolts him out of his mental state; he recovers his wits and acknowledges the young woman "Cupid" as his intended bride. In the middle and later portions of the play are scenes devoted to crude verbal and physical humour on the subject of beatings, being beaten, and physical abuse in general. The Duke's apology to Shamont after touching him with his whip is thought to represent an incident at court between King James and John Gibb.Swapan Chakravorty, ''Society and Politics in the Plays of Thomas Middleton'' (Oxford, 1996), pp. 112-3.

References

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