''An Humorous Day's Mirth'' is an

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 Roman symbol of Britannia (a female per ...

era stage play, a

comedy Comedy is a genre of dramatic works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. Origins Comedy originated in ancient Greec ...

George Chapman George Chapman ( – 12 May 1634) was an English dramatist, translator and poet. He was a classical scholar whose work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman is seen as an anticipator of the metaphysical poets of the 17th century. He is ...

, first acted in 1597 and published in 1599. Algernon Charles Swinburne called Chapman's play All Fools one of the finest comedies in English. "The plot is intricate and ingenious and shows that Chapman had been taking lessons of Jonson's masters,

Plautus Titus Maccius Plautus ( ; 254 – 184 BC) was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by Livius Andro ...

and

Terence Publius Terentius Afer (; – ), better known in English as Terence (), was a playwright during the Roman Republic. He was the author of six Roman comedy, comedies based on Greek comedy, Greek originals by Menander or Apollodorus of Carystus. A ...

Performance

''An Humorous Day's Mirth'' was performed by 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 Eli ...

at the Rose Theatre; it has been identified with the "Humours" play that the company acted on Thursday 11 May 1597, as described in a contemporary letter to Dudley Carleton from John Chamberlain. Philip Henslowe's diary, which covers performances at the Rose at this time, marks the play as 'ne' on this date while Chamberlain's comment that he had been drawn to the play by the 'common applause' suggests that he saw one of the five performances between 11 May and before the writing of the letter which is dated 11 June 1597. Chamberlain described the play as being 'in very great request' but his own impression of it differed. He draws on an agricultural colloquialism to inform Carleton that, in his opinion, '(as the fellow saide of the shearing of hogges), that there was a great crie for so litle wolle.' A 1598 inventory of the Admiral's properties lists items of clothing in the costumes of specific characters in the play.

Publication

The 1599

quarto Quarto (abbreviated Qto, 4to or 4º) is the format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produc ...

, the only edition of the play in the seventeenth century, was printed and published by Valentine Simmes, who is generally recognized as one of the best London printers of his generation; Simmes printed nine

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 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 ...

quartos in the 1597–1604 period. The quality of Simmes's work is evident in the Chapman volume: "A shop proofreader was especially careful in correcting the first quarto edition...."

Text

Yet if the printer did a good job of printing his text, the text he had to work with possessed significant deficiencies. "The text...is so corrupt, and the stage directions are so infrequent and confusing, that it is extremely difficult to follow the story." The play was probably "altered and published without the author's supervision." T. M. Parrott, in his Introduction to his edition of ''All Fools'' and ''The Gentleman Usher''. Boston, D. C. Heath, 1907; p. xx. In the first edition of a later Chapman comedy, '' All Fools'' ( 1605), the dedication indicates that Chapman oversaw the printing of that play, to prevent a version "patch'd with others' wit" from reaching the public. This has been taken to indicate that the printed versions of Chapman's earliest plays, ''

The Blind Beggar of Alexandria ''The Blind Beggar of Alexandria'' is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy written by George Chapman. It was the first of Chapman's plays to be produced on the stage; its success inaugurated his career as a dramatist. Performance and publ ...

'' and ''Humorous Day's Mirth'', were corrupted and adulterated by other hands.

Humours

Chapman's play was the first Elizabethan ''humors'' comedy, drawing its material from the traditional theory of human physiology and psychology. The subgenre would gain its greatest prominence in the works of

Ben Jonson Benjamin Jonson ( 11 June 1572 – ) was an English playwright, poet and actor. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence on English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for the satire, satirical ...

– most notably in '' Every Man in His Humour'' ( 1598) and ''

Every Man Out of His Humour ''Every Man out of His Humour'' (also spelled ''Humor'' in some early editions) is a satirical comedy play written by English playwright Ben Jonson, acted in 1599 by the Lord Chamberlain's Men. The play The play is a conceptual sequel to his 15 ...

'' (1599), but through his later works too. Other dramatists of the era also worked in the humors vein, like John Fletcher in ''The Humorous Lieutenant'' (c. 1619) and

James Shirley James Shirley (or Sherley) (September 1596 – October 1666) was an English dramatist. He belonged to the great period of English dramatic literature, but, in Charles Lamb (writer), Charles Lamb's words, he "claims a place among the worthies of ...

in '' The Humorous Courtier'' ( 1631). In the prevailing theory, the physically and emotionally healthy human being has his or her "humors" in a general balance; Chapman's comic characters illustrate various extremes of imbalance of humors. Dowsecer is melancholic and misanthropic; Dariotto is a fashion-obsessed courtier; Florilla is a

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should b ...

wife whose Puritanism quickly fails the test; Cornelius is an upstart gentleman jealous of his wife. These and other characters show their vulnerability to folly by the end of the play. Chapman's protagonist Lemot acts as something like a circus ringmaster, presiding over the fun.

References

External links

The play text online.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Humorous Day's Mirth, An Plays by George Chapman English Renaissance plays 1597 plays