Thomas Dekker (c. 1572 – 25 August 1632) was an English

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 personific ...

dramatist and pamphleteer, a versatile and prolific writer, whose career spanned several decades and brought him into contact with many of the period's most famous dramatists.

Early life

Little is known of Dekker's early life or origins. From references in his pamphlets, Dekker is believed to have been born in London around 1572, but nothing is known for certain about his youth. His last name suggests Dutch ancestry, and his work, some of which is translated from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

, suggests that he attended

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...

Career

Dekker embarked on a career as a theatre writer in the middle 1590s. His handwriting is found in the manuscript of ''

Sir Thomas More Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lor ...

'', though the date of his involvement is undetermined. More certain is his work as a playwright for the

Admiral's Men The Admiral's Men (also called the Admiral's company, more strictly, the Earl of Nottingham's Men; after 1603, Prince Henry's Men; after 1612, the Elector Palatine's Men or the Palsgrave's Men) was a playing company or troupe of actors in the E ...

Philip Henslowe Philip Henslowe (c. 1550 – 6 January 1616) was an Elizabethan theatrical entrepreneur and impresario. Henslowe's modern reputation rests on the survival of his diary, a primary source for information about the theatrical world of Renaissanc ...

, in whose account book he is first mentioned in early 1598. While there are plays connected with his name performed as early as 1594, it is not clear that he was the original author; his work often involved revision and updating. Between 1598 and 1602, he was involved in about forty plays for Henslowe, usually in collaboration. To these years belong the collaborations with

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 ...

and John Marston, which presumably contributed to the War of the Theatres in 1600 and 1601. But Dekker is credited as the sole author of ''

The Shoemaker's Holiday ''The Shoemaker's Holiday or the Gentle Craft'' is an Elizabethan play written by Thomas Dekker. The play was first performed in 1599 by the Admiral's Men, and it falls into the subgenre of city comedy. The story features three subplots: an in ...

'' (1599), his acknowledged masterpiece – a boisterous, rowdy comedy of London life as seen through the eyes of a romanticist. Francis Meres includes Dekker in his list of notable playwrights in 1598. For Jonson, however, Dekker was a bumbling hack, a "dresser of plays about town"; Jonson lampooned Dekker as Demetrius Fannius in ''Poetaster'' and as Anaides in ''Cynthia's Revels''. Dekker's riposte, ''Satiromastix'', performed both by the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the child actors of Paul's, casts Jonson as an affected, hypocritical

Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...

. ''Satiromastix'' marks the end of the "poetomachia"; in 1603, Jonson and Dekker collaborated again, on a pageant for the Royal Entry, delayed from the

coronation of James I The coronation of James I and his wife Anne as King and Queen of England was held on 25 July 1603 at Westminster Abbey. James had reigned as King James VI of Scotland since 1567. Anne was anointed and consecrated with prayers alluding to Es ...

, for which Dekker also wrote the

festival book __NOTOC__ Festival books ( nl, feestboeken, es, libros de festivos) are books, often illustrated, that commemorate a notable event such as a royal entry, coronation or wedding. Funerals were also commemorated in similar fashion. The genre thr ...

''The Magnificent Entertainment''.special-1.bl.uk
/ref> After this commission, however, the early Jacobean period was notably mixed for the author. In late 1602, he appears to have broken his association with Henslowe, for unknown reasons. He wrote for

Worcester's Men The Earl of Worcester's Men was an acting company in Renaissance England. An early formation of the company, wearing the livery of William Somerset, 3rd Earl of Worcester, is among the companies known to have toured the country in the mid-sixtee ...

for a time, then returned to the

(now patronized by

Prince Henry Prince Henry (or Prince Harry) may refer to: People *Henry the Young King (1155–1183), son of Henry II of England, who was crowned king but predeceased his father *Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal (1394–1460) *Henry, Duke of Cornwall (Ja ...

) to produce ''The Honest Whore'', an apparent success. But the failures of ''The Whore of Babylon'' (1607) and ''If This Be Not a Good Play, the Devil is in It'' (1611) left him crestfallen; the latter play was rejected by Prince Henry's Men before failing for

Queen Anne's Men Queen Anne's Men was a playing company, or troupe of actors, in Jacobean era London. In their own era they were known colloquially as the Queen's Men — as were Queen Elizabeth's Men and Queen Henrietta's Men, in theirs. Formation The group w ...

at the

Red Bull Theatre The Red Bull was an inn-yard conversion erected in Clerkenwell, London operating in the 17th century. For more than four decades, it entertained audiences drawn primarily from the City and its suburbs, developing a reputation over the years for ...

Legal troubles

In 1612, Dekker's lifelong problem with debt (he had earlier, 1599, been imprisoned in

Poultry Compter Poultry Compter (also known as Poultry Counter) was a small prison that stood at Poultry, part of Cheapside in the City of London. The compter was used to lock up minor criminals and prisoners convicted under civil law and was run by the ...

) reached a crisis when he was imprisoned in the King's Bench Prison on a debt of forty pounds to the father of

John Webster John Webster (c. 1580 – c. 1632) was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies '' The White Devil'' and '' The Duchess of Malfi'', which are often seen as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. His life and c ...

. He remained there for seven years, and despite the support of associates such as

Edward Alleyn Edward "Ned" Alleyn (; 1 September 156621 November 1626) was an English actor who was a major figure of the Elizabethan theatre and founder of the College of God's Gift in Dulwich. Early life Alleyn was born on 1 September 1566 in Bishop ...

and

Endymion Porter Sir Endymion Porter (1587–1649) was an English diplomat and royalist. Early life He was descended from Sir William Porter, sergeant-at-arms to Henry VII, and son of Edmund Porter, of Aston-sub-Edge in Gloucestershire, by his cousin Angela ...

, these years were difficult; Dekker reports that the experience turned his hair white. He continued as pamphleteer throughout his years in prison.

Later years

On release, he resumed writing plays, now with collaborators both from his generation ( John Day and

) and slightly younger writers (

John Ford John Martin Feeney (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973), known professionally as John Ford, was an American film director and naval officer. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of his generation. He ...

and Philip Massinger). Among these plays is one, ''Keep the Widow Waking'' (1624, with Ford, Webster, and

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 i ...

), which dramatized two recent murders in Whitechapel. In the latter half of the decade, Dekker turned once more to pamphlet-writing, revamping old work and writing a new preface to his most popular tract, ''The Bellman of London''.

Death

Dekker published no more work after 1632, and he is usually associated with the "Thomas Dekker, householder", who was buried at

St. James's St James's is a central district in the City of Westminster, London, forming part of the West End. In the 17th century the area developed as a residential location for the British aristocracy, and around the 19th century was the focus of the de ...

Clerkenwell Clerkenwell () is an area of central London, England. Clerkenwell was an ancient parish from the mediaeval period onwards, and now forms the south-western part of the London Borough of Islington. The well after which it was named was redis ...

that year.

Work

Drama

When Dekker began writing plays, Thomas Nashe and Thomas Lodge were still alive; when he died,

John Dryden '' John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the p ...

had already been born. Like most dramatists of the period, he adapted as well as he could to changing tastes; however, even his work in the fashionable Jacobean genres of satire and tragicomedy bears the marks of his Elizabethan training: its humour is genial, its action romantic. The majority of his surviving plays are comedies or tragicomedies. Houghton 14433

Most of Dekker's work is lost. His apparently disordered life, and his lack of a firm connection (such as

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 nation ...

or Fletcher had) with a single company, may have militated against the preservation or publication of manuscripts. Close to twenty of his plays were published during his lifetime; of these, more than half are comedies, with three significant tragedies: '' Lust's Dominion'' (presumably identical to ''The Spanish Moor's Tragedy'', written with Day, Marston, and William Haughton, 1600), '' The Witch of Edmonton'' (with Ford and Rowley, 1621), and ''

The Virgin Martyr ''The Virgin Martyr'' is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragedy written by Thomas Dekker and Philip Massinger, and first published in 1622. It constitutes a rare instance in Massinger's canon in which he collaborated with a member of the previo ...

'' (with Massinger, 1620). The first phase of Dekker's career is documented in Henslowe's diary. His name appears for the first time in connection with "fayeton" (presumably, Phaeton) in 1598. There follow, before 1599, payments for work on ''The Triplicity of Cuckolds'', ''The Mad Man's Morris'', and ''Hannibal and Hermes''. He worked on these plays with Robert Wilson,

Henry Chettle Henry Chettle (c. 1564 – c. 1606) was an English dramatist and miscellaneous writer of the Elizabethan era, best known for his pamphleteering. Early life The son of Robert Chettle, a London dyer, he was apprenticed in 1577 and became a ...

, and Michael Drayton. With Drayton, he also worked on history plays on the French civil wars,

Earl Godwin Godwin of Wessex ( ang, Godwine; – 15 April 1053) was an English nobleman who became one of the most powerful earls in England under the Danish king Cnut the Great (King of England from 1016 to 1035) and his successors. Cnut made Godwin the ...

, and others. In 1599, he wrote plays on Troilus and Cressida, Agamemnon (with Chettle), and ''Page of Plymouth''. In that year, also, he collaborated with Chettle, Jonson, and Marston on a play about Robert II. 1599 also saw the production of three plays that have survived. It was during this year that he produced his most famous work, ''

, or the Gentle Craft'', categorised by modern critics as citizen comedy. This play reflects his concerns with the daily lives of ordinary Londoners, and contains the poem The Merry Month of May. This play exemplifies his intermingling of everyday subjects with the fantastical, embodied in this case by the rise of a craftsman to Mayor and the involvement of an unnamed but idealised king in the concluding banquet. '' Old Fortunatus'' and '' Patient Grissel'', the latter on the folkloric theme treated by

Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...

in The Clerk's Tale. In 1600, he worked on ''The Seven Wise Masters'', ''Fortune's Tennis'', ''Cupid and Psyche'', and ''Fair Constance of Rome''. The next year, in addition to ''

Satiromastix ''Satiromastix, or The Untrussing of the Humorous Poet'' is a late Elizabethan stage play by Thomas Dekker, one of the plays involved in the Poetomachia or War of the Theatres. The play was entered into the Stationers' Register on 11 November ...

'', he worked on a play possibly about Sebastian of Portugal and ''

Blurt, Master Constable ''Blurt, Master Constable, or the Spaniards' Night Walk'' is a late Elizabethan comedy, printed anonymously in 1602 and usually attributed to either Thomas Middleton or Thomas Dekker. The subtitle of the play, "The Spaniards' Night Walk," tog ...

'', on which he may have worked with

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 ...

. In 1602 he revised two older plays, ''Pontius Pilate'' (1597) and the second part of '' Sir John Oldcastle''. He also collaborated on ''Caesar's Fall'', ''Jephthah'', ''A Medicine for a Curst Wife'', ''Sir Thomas Wyatt'' (on Wyatt's rebellion), and ''Christmas Comes But Once a Year''. Except for ''Blurt'', which was performed by the Blackfriars Children, the earlier of these works were performed at the Admiral's Fortune Theatre. After 1602, Dekker split his attention between pamphlets and plays; thus, his dramatic output decreased considerably. He and Middleton wrote ''

The Honest Whore ''The Honest Whore'' is an early Jacobean city comedy, written in two parts; ''Part 1'' is a collaboration between Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton, while ''Part 2'' is the work of Dekker alone. The plays were acted by the Admiral's Men. ...

'' for the Fortune in 1604, and Dekker wrote a sequel himself the following year. The Middleton/Dekker collaboration ''The Family of Love'' also dates from this general era. Dekker and Webster wrote '' Westward Ho'' and ''

Northward Ho ''Northward Ho'' (or ''Ho!'', or ''Hoe'') is an early Jacobean era stage play, a satire and city comedy written by Thomas Dekker and John Webster, and first published in 1607. ''Northward Ho'' was a response to ''Eastward Ho'' (1605) by Ben Jon ...

'' for Paul's Boys. The failures of the anti-Catholic ''Whore of Babylon'' and tragicomic ''If This Be Not...'' have already been noted. ''

The Roaring Girl ''The Roaring Girl'' is a Jacobean stage play, a comedy written by Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker 1607–1610. The play was first published in quarto in 1611, printed by Nicholas Okes for the bookseller Thomas Archer. The title page o ...

'', a city comedy that incorporates the real-life contemporary figure 'Moll Cutpurse', otherwise known as Mary Frith, was a collaboration with Middleton in 1611. In the same year, he also wrote another tragicomedy called '' Match Me in London''. During his imprisonment, Dekker did not write plays. After his release, he collaborated with Day on ''Guy of Warwick'' (1620), ''The Wonder of a Kingdom'' (1623), and ''The Bellman of Paris'' (1623). With Ford, he wrote '' The Sun's Darling'' (1624), ''

The Fairy Knight ''The Fairy Knight, or Oberon the Second'' is an early Stuart era stage play, a comedy of uncertain and problematic authorship. Never published in its historical period, the play existed only in a manuscript, which is noMS. V.a.128in the collect ...

'' (1624), and ''The Bristow Merchant'' (1624). He also wrote the tragicomedy '' The Noble Spanish Soldier'' (1622) and later reworked material from this play into a comedic form to produce ''The Welsh Ambassador'' (1623). Another play, ''The Late Murder of the Son upon the Mother, or

Keep the Widow Waking ''Keep the Widow Waking'' is a lost Jacobean play, significant chiefly for the light it throws on the complexities of collaborative authorship in English Renaissance drama. ''A Late Murder of the Son Upon the Mother, or Keep the Widow Waking'' ...

'', a dramatization of two recent murders in Whitechapel, occasioned a suit for slander heard in the

Star Chamber The Star Chamber (Latin: ''Camera stellata'') was an English court that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster, from the late to the mid-17th century (c. 1641), and was composed of Privy Counsellors and common-law judges, to supplement the ju ...

. That play is lost. Dekker's plays of the 1620s were staged at the large amphitheatres on the north side of London, most commonly at the Red Bull; only two of his later plays were seen at the more exclusive, indoor Cockpit Theatre, and these two were presumably produced by

Christopher Beeston Christopher Beeston (c. 1579 – c. 15 October 1638) was a successful actor and a powerful theatrical impresario in early 17th century London. He was associated with a number of playwrights, particularly Thomas Heywood. Early life Little is kno ...

, who operated both the Red Bull and the Cockpit. By the 1620s, the

Shoreditch Shoreditch is a district in the East End of London in England, and forms the southern part of the London Borough of Hackney. Neighbouring parts of Tower Hamlets are also perceived as part of the area. In the 16th century, Shoreditch was an imp ...

amphitheaters had become deeply identified with the louder and less reputable categories of play-goers, such as apprentices. Dekker's type of play appears to have suited them perfectly. Full of bold action, careless about generic differences, and always (in the end) complementary to the values and beliefs of such audiences, his drama carried some of the vigorous optimism of Elizabethan dramaturgy into the Caroline era.

Prose

He exhibited a similar vigour in his pamphlets, which span almost his whole writing career, and which treat a great variety of subjects and styles. Dekker's first spate of pamphleteering began in 1603, perhaps during a period when

plague Plague or The Plague may refer to: Agriculture, fauna, and medicine *Plague (disease), a disease caused by ''Yersinia pestis'' * An epidemic of infectious disease (medical or agricultural) * A pandemic caused by such a disease * A swarm of pes ...

had closed the theaters. His first was '' The Wonderfull Yeare'', a journalistic account of the death of Elizabeth, accession of James I, and the 1603 plague, that combined a wide variety of literary genres in an attempt to convey the extraordinary events of that year ('wonderful' meaning astonishing, not excellent). It succeeded well enough to prompt two more plague pamphlets, ''News From Gravesend'' and ''The Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinary''. ''The Double PP'' (1606) is an anti-Catholic tract written in response to the Gunpowder Plot. '' News From Hell'' (1606) is an homage to and continuation of Nash's ''

Pierce Penniless ''Pierce Penniless his Supplication to the Divell'' is a tall tale, or a prose satire, written by Thomas Nashe and published in London in 1592. It was among the most popular of the Elizabethan pamphlets. It was reprinted in 1593 and 1595,Harris ...

''. ''The Seven Deadly Sins of London'' (1606) is another plague pamphlet. After 1608, Dekker produced his most popular pamphlets: a series of "cony-catching" pamphlets that described the various tricks and deceits of confidence-men and thieves, including

thieves' cant Thieves' cant (also known as thieves' argot, rogues' cant, or peddler's French) is a cant, cryptolect, or argot which was formerly used by thieves, beggars, and hustlers of various kinds in Great Britain and to a lesser extent in other English- ...

. These pamphlets, which Dekker often updated and reissued, include ''The Belman of London'' (1608, now ''The Bellman of London''), ''Lanthorne and Candle-light'', ''Villainies Discovered by Candlelight'', and ''English Villainies''. They owe their form and many of their incidents to similar pamphlets by Robert Greene. Other pamphlets are journalistic in form and offer vivid pictures of Jacobean London. ''The Dead Term'' (1608) describes

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, B ...

during summer vacation. ''The Guls Horne-Booke'' (1609, now ''The Gull's Hornbook'') describes the life of city gallants, including a valuable account of behaviour in the London theatres. ''Work for Armourers'' (1609) and ''The Artillery Garden'' (1616) (the latter in verse) describe aspects of England's military industries. ''London Look Back'' (1630) treats 1625, the year of James's death, while ''Wars, Wars, Wars'' (1628) describes European turmoil. As might be expected, Dekker turned his experience in prison to profitable account. ''Dekker His Dreame'' (1620) is a long poem describing his despairing confinement; he contributed six prison-based sketches to the sixth edition (1616) of Sir Thomas Overbury's ''Characters''; and he revised ''Lanthorne and Candlelight'' to reflect what he had learned in prison. Dekker's pamphlets, even more than his plays, reveal signs of hasty and careless composition. Yet the best of them can still entertain, and almost all of them offer valuably precise depictions of everyday life in the Jacobean period. Dekker's poetry entered into modern popular song (although almost unnoticeably) when some of the lyrics of the poem "Golden Slumbers", from Dekker's play '' Patient Grissel'', were included by

Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...

the Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...

' 1969 song " Golden Slumbers".

References

*Bednarz, James P. ''Shakespeare and the Poets' War''. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. *Bowers, F. – ‘The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker’, In 4 Volumes – Cambridge University Press – 1961 *Chapman, L.S. – ‘Thomas Dekker and the Traditions of the English Drama’ – Lang – 1985 *Gasper, J. – ‘The Dragon and the Dove: The Plays of Thomas Dekker’ – Oxford: Clarendon – 1990. *Gregg, Kate. ''Thomas Dekker: A Study in Economic and Social Backgrounds''. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1924. * G.R. Hibbard, ed., ''Three Elizabethan pamphlets'' by Robert Greene, Thomas Nash, Thomas Dekker (Folcroft, PA: Folcroft Library Editions, 1972). *Hunt, Mary. ''Thomas Dekker: A Study''. New York: Columbia University Press, 1911. *McLuskie, Kathleen. ''Dekker and Heywood: Professional Dramatists''. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993. *Wilson, F. P, editor. ''The Plague Pamphlets of Thomas Dekker''. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925.

References

External links

* * *
''The Noble Spanish Soldier'' (1622)
at

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''The Wonderful Year'' (1603)
at University of Oregon
''A Knight's Conjuring'' (1607)
at

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''The Gull's Hornbook'' (1609, modern spelling)
at Big Wind

(1609, orig. spelling) at Renascence Editions * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dekker, Thomas 1570s births 1632 deaths 16th-century male writers 17th-century English male writers 16th-century English dramatists and playwrights 17th-century English dramatists and playwrights English people of Dutch descent English Renaissance dramatists English pamphleteers People imprisoned for debt 16th-century English writers