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Thomas d'Urfey (a.k.a. Tom Durfey; 165326 February 1723) was an
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
writer and wit. He wrote
plays Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * P ...
, songs, jokes, and poems. He was an important innovator and contributor in the evolution of the
ballad opera The ballad opera is a genre of English stage entertainment that originated in the early 18th century, and continued to develop over the following century and later. Like the earlier '' comédie en vaudeville'' and the later ''Singspiel'', its dist ...
.


Life

D'Urfey was born in Devonshire and began his professional life as a scrivener, but quickly turned to the theatre. In personality, he was considered so affable and amusing that he could make friends with nearly everyone, including such disparate characters as Charles II of England and his brother James II, and in all layers of society. D'Urfey lived in an age of self-conscious elitism and anti-egalitarianism, a reaction against the "leveling" tendencies of the previous
Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...
reign during the Interregnum. D'Urfey participated in the Restoration's dominant atmosphere of social climbing: he claimed to be of French
Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...
descent, though he might not have been; and he added an apostrophe to the plain English name Durfey when he was in his 30s. He wrote 500 songs, and 32 plays, starting with ''The Siege of Memphis, or the Ambitious Queen'' in 1676. This first play was a failure, but he responded in the following year (1677) with a comedy, ''
Madam Fickle ''Madam Fickle; Or, The Witty False One'' is a 1676 comedy play by the English writer Thomas D'Urfey. It was first staged at the Dorset Garden Theatre by the Duke's Company. The original cast included Thomas Betterton as Lord Bellamore, Willia ...
'', which proved more successful. His plays include ''
A Fond Husband ''A Fond Husband; Or, The Plotting Sisters'' also known as ''The Fond Husband'' is a 1677 comedy play by the English writer Thomas D'Urfey. It was first staged by the Duke's Company at London's Dorset Garden Theatre with a cast that included Wil ...
'' (1676), '' The Virtuous Wife'' (1680), and '' Wonders in the Sun, or, The Kingdom of the Birds'' (1706). In 1698 he wrote ''The Campaigners'' as a reply and
satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...
of
Jeremy Collier Jeremy Collier (; 23 September 1650 – 26 April 1726) was an English theatre critic, non-juror bishop and theologian. Life Born Jeremiah Collier, in Stow cum Quy, Cambridgeshire, Collier was educated at Caius College, University of Cambridg ...
's
anti-theatrical Antitheatricality is any form of opposition or hostility to theater. Such opposition is as old as theater itself, suggesting a deep-seated ambivalence in human nature about the dramatic arts. Jonas Barish's 1981 book, ''The Antitheatrical Prejudice ...
scourges. When it was performed
Mary Lindsey Mary Lindsey known as Mrs Lindsey (fl. 1697 – 1713) was a British singer. She specialised in comedic roles particularly opposite Richard Leveridge. She appeared in the first all-sung operas in the UK in English. Life Her birth and education ...
took the part of the nurse although her major contribution was to sing a comedic ballad. His multi-volume ''
Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy ''Wit and Mirth: Or Pills to Purge Melancholy'' is the title of a large collection of songs by Thomas d'Urfey, published between 1698 and 1720, which in its final, six-volume edition held over 1,000 songs and poems. The collection started as a sin ...
'', written between 1698 and 1720, is a collection of songs and
ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...
s. d'Urfey's play ''The Injured Princess'' is an adaptation of
Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
's ''
Cymbeline ''Cymbeline'' , also known as ''The Tragedie of Cymbeline'' or ''Cymbeline, King of Britain'', is a play by William Shakespeare set in Ancient Britain () and based on legends that formed part of the Matter of Britain concerning the early Celti ...
''. Durfey wrote widely in a witty, satirical vein, usually from a courtly point of view, and his works are a compendium of comedic ideas with brisk, complicated plots carried out in lively dialogue. His songs, which were often introduced into his plays, generally fell into three types: court songs, political songs (such as "
Joy to Great Caesar Joy to Great Caesar was a Royalist and anti-Catholic political song written by Thomas D'Urfey during the reign of Charles II of England. D'Urfey, a Tory by sympathies, set his own lyrics to the tune of Farinel's Ground by Michel Farinelli, in wh ...
"), and country songs—the latter tending to be more than a little bawdy. ("The Fart" was one of his hits; ''The Lusty Young Smith'' was another.) Over forty different composers set his lyrics to music, including
Ed McCurdy Edward Potts McCurdy (January 11, 1919 – March 23, 2000) was an American folk singer, songwriter, and television actor. His most well-known song was the anti-war " Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream", written in 1950. Career Born to ...
and Henry Purcell. Purcell composed music for D'Urfey's play ''
The Comical History of Don Quixote ''The Comical History of Don Quixote'' is a three-part dramatization of Miguel de Cervantes's celebrated novel'' Don Quixote''. It was written in 1694, only seventy-eight years after the death of Cervantes, by Thomas D'Urfey. It is one of the first ...
'' (1694), one of the first dramatisations of
Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists. He is best kno ...
' celebrated novel. D'Urfey wrote tunes himself as well, although he admitted that they were not very good. Many of the songs' lyrics in ''Wit and Mirth'' are preceded by their melodies written in musical notation. He was a friend of the great essayists
Joseph Addison Joseph Addison (1 May 1672 – 17 June 1719) was an English essayist, poet, playwright and politician. He was the eldest son of The Reverend Lancelot Addison. His name is usually remembered alongside that of his long-standing friend Richar ...
and
Richard Steele Sir Richard Steele (bap. 12 March 1672 – 1 September 1729) was an Anglo-Irish writer, playwright, and politician, remembered as co-founder, with his friend Joseph Addison, of the magazine ''The Spectator''. Early life Steele was born in D ...
; but, as was not atypical of the time, he also quarreled energetically with other poets and writers. He wrote parodies, and was parodied in return. He stuttered slightly—except, it was said, when he sang or swore. At one point in his career, a jealous rival would respond to D'Urfey's play '' Love for Money'' with a parody called ''Wit for Money, or, Poet Stutterer''. D'Urfey's songs met with royal approval. Addison (in ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'') related that he remembered seeing Charles II leaning on Tom d'Urfey’s shoulder and humming a song with him. Even William III liked to hear him sing his songs, and as a strong
Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...
he was sure of the favour of
Princess Anne Anne, Princess Royal (Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise; born 15 August 1950), is a member of the British royal family. She is the second child and only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and the only sister of K ...
, who is said to have given Tom fifty
guineas The guinea (; commonly abbreviated gn., or gns. in plural) was a coin, minted in Great Britain between 1663 and 1814, that contained approximately one-quarter of an ounce of gold. The name came from the Guinea region in West Africa, from where m ...
for a song on the
Electress Sophia Sophia of Hanover (born Princess Sophia of the Palatinate; 14 October 1630 – 8 June 1714) was the Electress of Hanover by marriage to Elector Ernest Augustus and later the heiress presumptive to the thrones of England and Scotland (later Gre ...
, then the next heir in succession to the crown. Although he was poor in his old age, his friends revived ''A Fond Husband'' in 1713, with a prologue written by
Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...
, which seems to have eased his difficulties.


Death

He was buried on the day of his death at the fashionable church of St James's, Piccadilly, in London. His lasting achievement lay in his best songs: 10 of the 68 songs in ''
The Beggar's Opera ''The Beggar's Opera'' is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satiri ...
'' were D'Urfey's.


Selected plays


References


Further reading

*Cyrus Lawrence Day, ''The Songs of Thomas D'Urfey'', Volume IX, Harvard Studies in English, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1933. *Thomas D'Urfey, ''Lewd Songs and Low Ballads of the Eighteenth Century: Bawdy Songs From Thomas D'urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719),'' Boulder, Colorado, Bartholomew Press, 1991. *Thomas D'Urfey, The Comical History of Don Quixote, Part I, with Introduction, Critical Edition and Notes by Luca Baratta, Spanish Translation by Aaron M. Kahn and Vicente Chacón Carmona, Presentation by Rafael Portillo García, Research Coordinator Agapita Jurado Santos, Firenze, Società Editrice Fiorentina, 2019 .


External links

* * * Digitised copy o
Wit and mirth, or, Pills to purge melancholy
in six volumes from National Library of Scotland. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Durfey, Thomas 1653 births 1723 deaths English dramatists and playwrights Writers from Devon English male dramatists and playwrights English male poets