''The Fair Penitent'' is Nicholas Rowe's stage adaptation of the tragedy '' The Fatal Dowry,'' the

Philip Massinger Philip Massinger (1583 – 17 March 1640) was an English dramatist. His finely plotted plays, including '' A New Way to Pay Old Debts'', '' The City Madam'', and '' The Roman Actor'', are noted for their satire and realism, and their pol ...

and

Nathan Field Nathan Field (also spelled Feild occasionally; 17 October 1587 – 1620) was an English dramatist and actor. Life His father was the Puritan preacher John Field, and his brother Theophilus Field became the Bishop of Llandaff. One of his brothe ...

collaboration first published in 1632. Rowe's adaptation, premiered onstage in 1702 and first published in 1703, was a great popular success through much of the 18th century, and was praised by critics as demanding as

Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford D ...

("There is scarcely any work of any poet so interesting by the fable and so delightful in the language"). In making his adaptation, Rowe eliminated characters and simplified the action "to create a more focused play than the original." He pursued "neoclassical simplicity" but in the process sacrificed the "underlying moral principles" of the original. Rowe shifted the setting from

Dijon Dijon (, , ) (dated) * it, Digione * la, Diviō or * lmo, Digion is the prefecture of the Côte-d'Or department and of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in northeastern France. the commune had a population of 156,920. The earl ...

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Regions of Italy, 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 t ...

, and changed the main characters' names:

Characters

Rowe also accentuated the role of the female protagonist, making the play much more a vehicle for a female star performer, a "better acting piece" for a prominent actress. Where the original "concentrates largely on the legal and political affairs of the cuckolded husband," Rowe focused far more directly on the domestic tragedy of Calista's infidelity. The original

Lincoln's Inn Fields Lincoln's Inn Fields is the List of city squares by size, largest public square in London. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entreprene ...

cast included John Bowman as Sciolto,

John Verbruggen John Baptista Verbruggen, d. 1708, was an English actor working in London. Verbruggen is first mentioned as a member of the United Company in a Lord Chamberlain's warrant in 1688. His name does not appear in any cast lists until October 1690. T ...

as Altamont,

Thomas Betterton Thomas Patrick Betterton (August 1635 – 28 April 1710), the leading male actor and theatre manager during Restoration England, son of an under-cook to King Charles I, was born in London. Apprentice and actor Betterton was born in August 16 ...

as Horatio, George Powell as Lothario and

Elizabeth Barry Elizabeth Barry (1658 – 7 November 1713) was an English actress of the Restoration period. Elizabeth Barry's biggest influence on Restoration drama was her presentation of performing as the tragic actress. She worked in large, prestigious ...

as Calista. The play was revived at both of the major London theatres of the era, Drury Lane and

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist sit ...

; the former production starred

Mrs. Siddons Sarah Siddons (''née'' Kemble; 5 July 1755 – 8 June 1831) was a Welsh actress, the best-known tragedienne of the 18th century. Contemporaneous critic William Hazlitt dubbed Siddons as "tragedy personified". She was the elder sister of J ...

as Calista. The 1703 first edition was dedicated to the

Duchess of Ormond The peerage title Earl of Ormond and the related titles Duke of Ormonde and Marquess of Ormonde have a long and complex history. An earldom of Ormond has been created three times in the Peerage of Ireland. History of Ormonde titles The earldo ...

—but did not credit the original authors of ''The Fatal Dowry,'' leading to later critics' accusations of

plagiarism Plagiarism is the fraudulent representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 '' Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close imitation of the language and though ...

against Rowe, as in

William Gifford William Gifford (April 1756 – 31 December 1826) was an English critic, editor and poet, famous as a satirist and controversialist. Life Gifford was born in Ashburton, Devon, to Edward Gifford and Elizabeth Cain. His father, a glazier and ...

's edition of Massinger's works.

Legacy

The

eponym An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Usage of the word The term ''epon ...

Lothario Lothario is a male given name that came to suggest an unscrupulous seducer of women, based upon a character in '' The Fair Penitent'', a 1703 tragedy by Nicholas Rowe.

," meaning "a man who seduces women," stems from the character in this play. However, a character named Lothario as a seducer predates the play. It first appeared in 1605 in

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 know ...

novel ''

Don Quixote is a Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, its full title is ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'' or, in Spanish, (changing in Part 2 to ). A founding work of Wester ...

''. In this story Lothario is urged by his lifelong friend Anselmo to attempt to seduce his wife in order to test her faithfulness. At first most unwilling, he eventually enters into the scheme with skill and success.

Malcolm Goldstein Malcolm Goldstein (born March 27, 1936 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American-Canadian composer, violinist and improviser who has been active in the presentation of new music and dance since the early 1960s. He received an M.A. in music composit ...

edited ''The Fair Penitent'' for a modern edition in 1969. Critics, both traditional and modern, have debated whether Calista is actually "penitent" for her infidelity.Freeman, p. 261.

Notes

Sources

* Brawley, Benjamin Griffith. ''A Short History of English Drama.'' New York, Harcourt, Brace, 1921. * Freeman, Lisa A. ''Character's Theater: Genre and Identity on the Eighteenth-Century English Stage.'' Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. * Goldstein, Malcolm, ed. ''The Fair Penitent.'' Regents Restoration Drama series; Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1969. * Howe, Elizabeth. ''The First English Actresses: Women and Drama 1660–1700.'' Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992. * Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S. Smith, eds. ''The Later Jacobean and Caroline Dramatists: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama.'' Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1978. * Marsden, Jean I. ''Fatal Desire: Women, Sexuality, and the English Stage, 1660–1720.'' Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 2006. {{DEFAULTSORT:Fair Penitent, The 1702 plays Works involved in plagiarism controversies Tragedy plays English plays West End plays Plays by Nicholas Rowe