Topics
so far –
Now
–
11.
Shakespeare’s Contemporaries
Next
–
12.
Shakespeare’s Successors
13.
The Closing of the Theatres
14.
Literature under Charles I and the Commonwealth
11. Shakespeare’s
Contemporaries
Shakespeare’s contemporaries wrote plays
mostly in collaboration with their peers. The prominent contemporaries of
Shakespeare are –
George Chapman
Ben Jonson
John Marston
Thomas Dekker
Thomas Heywood
Thomas Middleton
Cyril Tourneur
John Webster
John Fletcher
George Chapman
Dramatist, poet,
and distinguished translator, George Chapman embodied the Renaissance ideal of
the sophisticated man of letters. Many critics consider his translations of
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey his most important achievement.
With Prince Henry
as his patron, Chapman continued composing dramas, including his last major
comedy, Eastward Ho, [written in
collaboration with Ben Jonson and John Marston]. The play’s sarcastic political
insults against policies favored by James I resulted in swift imprisonment for
Chapman and Jonson, though both were soon released. Afterward, Chapman turned
to writing tragedy. His best-known works from this period are Bussy D’Ambois and the two-part The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke
of Byron.
His translation
of the first twelve books of the Iliad
appeared in 1609, prefaced by a dedication to Prince Henry, who had endorsed
the work with a promise of three hundred pounds and a pension. However, when
the young prince died suddenly in 1612, the prince’s father failed to fulfill
Henry’s promise to Chapman.
Chapman’s first
comedy, The Blind Beggar of Alexandria,
is specifically modeled on the low comic theater of Plautus. It is an
irreverent sexual farce wherein the title character succeeds in seducing a
series of women through role-playing and manipulation. Certain critics consider
the play the first example of the ‘‘Comedy of Humours,’’ a type of comedy
traditionally attributed to Ben Jonson. Also considered an example of low
comedy, A Humorous Day’s Mirth
features a plot of great complexity that revolves around the clever romantic
intrigues of a courtier named Lemot. All
Fools, [an adaptation of Terence’s Heauton
Timoroumenos], is similarly a romantic farce focusing on the rituals of
courtship and marriage.
Eastward Ho is perhaps
Chapman’s best-known dramatic achievement. Produced in 1604 and intended to
capitalize on the success of Thomas Dekker and John Webster’s Westward Ho, the play explores the
social milieu of London’s middle class and is considered an excellent example
of the city-comedy genre. Chapman’s last non-collaborative comedy, The Gentleman Usher, is cited by many
commentators as his finest work in that genre.
Chapman
influenced later generations, particularly the Romantic poets, especially John
Keats, who immortalized Chapman’s work in the well-known sonnet ‘‘On First
Looking into Chapman’s Homer.’’
Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson was a
prolific Elizabethan dramatist and a man of letters who profoundly influenced
the coming Augustan age through his emphasis on the principles of Horace,
Aristotle, and other classical thinkers.
In 1598 the
earliest of his extant works, Every Man
in His Humour, was produced by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men with William Shakespeare – [who became
Jonson’s close friend] - in the cast.
That same year, Jonson fell into further trouble after killing actor Gabriel
Spencer in a duel, narrowly escaping the gallows by claiming benefit of clergy
(meaning he was shown leniency for proving that he was literate and educated).
‘War of the Theaters’: Shortly
thereafter, writing for the Children of Queen’s Chapel, Jonson became embroiled
in a public feud with playwrights John Marston and Thomas Dekker. In Cynthia’s Revels (1601) and Poetaster (1601), Jonson portrayed
himself as the impartial, well-informed judge of art and society and wrote unflattering
portraits of these men, who counterattacked with a satiric portrayal of Jonson
in the play Satiromastix; or, The
Untrussing of the Humorous Poet (1602). This brief dispute became known as
the ‘‘War of the Theaters’’; interestingly, scholars speculate that the dispute
was mutually contrived in order to further the respective authors’ careers. In
any event, Jonson later reconciled with Marston and collaborated with him and
George Chapman in writing Eastward Hoe
(1605). A joke at the king’s expense in this play landed him once again, along
with his coauthors, in prison. Once freed, however, Jonson entered a period of
good fortune and productivity. He had many friends at court, and James I valued
learning highly—in a society where most art depended heavily on the patronage
of the wealthy and powerful, this meant quite a bit. Jonson was frequently
called upon to write his popular, elegant masques, such as the Masque of Blacknesse (1605). During
this period, he also produced his most successful comedies, including The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fayre (1614).
Although later
writers like John Dryden are often credited with innovating what we now call
‘‘literary criticism’’—a critical analysis of the merits, demerits, and meanings
of any piece of literature—Jonson is now seen as the first major figure to work
in the genre.
Jonson’s Criticism: Poet
William Drummond became acquainted with Ben Jonson and recorded a number of
Jonson’s observations regarding poetry and poets of his day in his text Conversations. Drummond’s notes offer
many insights into Jonson’s views of poetry and other poets. In one moment,
Jonson memorably remarked ‘‘That Shaksperr wanted [i.e., lacked] Arte’’— one of
several assessments of others that helped define his own ideals.
A Resurgence among the Modernists:
T. S. Eliot, writing in 1919, praised Jonson’s artistry, arguing that Jonson’s
reputation had been unfairly damaged by critics who, while acknowledging his
erudition, ignored the power of his work.
John Marston
Marston, a member
of the Senecan school, specialized in violent and melodramatic tragedies, which
do not lack a certain impressiveness, but which are easily parodied and no less
easily lead to abuse. They impressed his own generation, who rated him with
Jonson. For a later age they are spoiled to a great extent by exaggeration,
rant, and excessive speeches. Typical of them are Antonio and Mellida (1599) and Antonio's
Revenge (1602), which were ridiculed by Jonson in The Poetaster.
Thomas Dekker
They have a
sweetness, an arch sentimentality, and an intimate knowledge of common men and
things that have led to his being called the Dickens of the Elizabethan stage.
His plots are chaotic, and his blank verse, which very frequently gives place
to prose, is weak and sprawling. The best of his plays are Old Fortunatus (1599), The
Shoemaker's Holiday (1599), and Satiromastix
(1602). He collaborated with other playwrights, including Ford and Rowley,
with whom he wrote The Witch of Edmonton
(1621), and Massinger, in The Virgin
Martyr (c. 1620).
Thomas Heywood
He himself
asserts that he had a hand in two hundred and twenty plays, of which
twenty-three survive.
Like so many more
dramatists of the time, he excelled in his pictures of London life and manners.
He was a rapid and light impoviser, an expert contriver of stage situations,
but otherwise content with passable results, and caring little about the higher
flights of the dramatist. His best play is A
Woman Killed with Kindnesse (1603), which contains some strongly pathetic
scenes; The English Traveller (1633)
is only slightly inferior. Other plays of his are The Royall King and the Loyall Subject (1602), The Captives (1624), and a series of clumsy historical dramas,
including King Edward the Fewth
(1594-97).
Thomas Middleton
Thomas Middleton
was a prolific Jacobean dramatist whose plays today are regarded as ranking
just below those of William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson on the early stage. For
twenty years at the beginning of the seventeenth century, only a few
playwrights rivaled him. He is one of the most equable and literary of the
dramatists of the age; he has a decided fanciful turn; he is a close observer
and critic of the life of the time, and a dramatist who on a few occasions can
rise to the heights of greatness. His most powerful play, which has been much
praised by Lamb and others, is The
Changeling (1624); others are Women
beware Women (1622), The Witch,
which bears a strong resemblance to Macbeth,
and The Spanish Gipsy (1623), a romantic comedy suggesting As You Like
It.
Along with Dekker
he wrote The Roaring Girle, or Moll
Cutpurse (1611), which is a close dramatic parallel to the earliest novels.
One of the most popular kinds of plays in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
was the morality play. Middleton gave in to common demands and wrote several of
them.
He
collaborated with William Rowley on several plays, notably the tragicomedy The
Changeling (1622), one of his most respected
tragedies.
His famous contemporaries include - Rene Descartes (1596–1650): The
French philosopher and mathematician known as ‘‘The Father of Modern Philosophy’’
for his profound influences on subsequent generations of thinkers, and John Milton (1608–1674): An English
poet and essayist, he is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost.
Cyril Tourneur
In the work of
Tourneur, another and cruder follower of the 'Revenge' tradition, we have horrors
piled on horrors. His two plays The
Revenger's Tragedy (1600) and The Atheist's
Tragedy (1607-11) are melodramatic to the highest degree. He attempts much,
but achieves little. He is weakest where Webster is strongest.
John Webster
Critics often
rank British author John Webster second only to William Shakespeare among
Jacobean tragedians. His two major works, The
White Devil (1612) and The Duchess
of Malfi (1614), are more frequently revived on stage than any plays of the
period other than Shakespeare’s.
Webster’s first
independent work was The White Devil,
apparently performed in 1612. This play, with Webster’s next drama, The Duchess of Malfi (1614), established
a reputation for the dramatist that has sustained itself for four centuries.
Last Known Contributions:
Webster also contributed thirty-two character sketches to the sixth edition of Thomas
Overbury’s New and Choice Characters, of
Several Authors (1615). In addition, Webster continued to collaborate on
plays, including Appius and Virginia,
perhaps written with Heywood around 1634. Other plays attributed either wholly
or partially to Webster include several lost works and A Cure for a Cuckold (1624 or 1625).
Both The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, as period
tragicomedies, express the influence of a pessimistic worldview. Both reflect a
sense of darkness encompassing human existence and a profound consciousness of evil
and suffering in the world.
The White Devil relates a
complex tale of love, adultery, murder, and revenge. It centers on the
adulterous passion between the Duke of Brachiano and Vittoria Corombona, who
together plot and direct the murders of their spouses. Some scholars and
critics maintain that the absence of any positive, truly moral figure makes the
world presented in the play one of unrelieved bleakness.
The Duchess of Malfi is widely acclaimed as Webster’s masterpiece.
The widowed duchess, against the wishes of her brothers, secretly marries her
servant Antonio. The brothers—the fanatical Ferdinand and the scheming
Cardinal—plant a spy, Bosola, in their sister’s household. When Bosola uncovers
the truth about the duchess’s marriage, her brothersruthlessly harass her,
drive her from her home, and eventually imprison her. In a famous scene, she is
tormented by madmen performing a stylized dance around her, and she is
ultimately murdered. Scholars agree that the duchess herself is one of the
greatest tragic heroines of the period. As she resigns herself to a Christian
stance in the face of her brothers’ vicious cruelty, she is filled with a profound
dignity: the depiction of her murder is commonly judged one of the most moving
scenes in all of Jacobean drama.
Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
combined to produce a great number of plays, said to be fifty-two in all. The
elder, Fletcher, was a cousin of Giles and Phineas Fletcher and was born at
Rye, Sussex. He may have been educated at Cambridge, and he lived the life of a
London literary man. He died of the plague in 1625. His colleague Beaumont, who
was probably the abler of the two, was the son of a judge. Sir Francis
Beaumont, was educated at Oxford, and entered the Inner Temple (1600), but was
captivated by the attractions of a literary life. He died almost within a month
of Shakespeare, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
A study of the
style enables us to distinguish fairly clearly between the regular and flexible
blank verse of Beaumont and the irregular verse of Fletcher, with its fondness
for the extra syllable at the end of a line which is frequently end-stopped.
Typical comedies are A King and No King (1611),
esteemed by Dryden as the best of them all, The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607), a very agreeable farce,
and The Scornful Lady (1613-16).
Their tragedies, such as The Maid's Tragedy
(1610), Philaster (1611), which is
very reminiscent of Twelfth Night,
and The Faithful Shepherdess (by
Fletcher alone), are not too tragical, and they are diversified by attractive
incidents and descriptions.
Points to Ponder
Like John Webster,
here are a few works by writers who also present themes of good exposed to
evil.
A Clockwork Orange (1962), a
novel by Anthony Burgess. In this futuristic work, the powers that be devise
select ways for treating the truants and thugs in the small gang called the
Droogs. Crime and Punishment (1866),
a novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. This novel of good and evil presented through a plot
that turns on moral dilemmas was first published in serial form. The Darkness and the Light (2001), a
poetry collection by Anthony Hecht. In this work, the Nobel Prize–winning American
exposes the technical, intellectual, and emotional terrors of the Holocaust and
World War II. Othello (1604), a
tragedy by William Shakespeare. This play includes a character whom many
scholars have named the most evil in all of literature: Iago.
Chapman, Ben Jonson,
and John Marston were imprisoned for their play Eastward Ho.
The picaresque
novel was a popular early subgenre of prose fiction. The writing is typically
satirical and features a picaro, a scoundrel or rogue, who moves through
adventures tricking people and living on his wits. Middleton play such as Father Hubbard’s Tale.
In Women Beware Women, Middleton makes
famous use of the game of chess as a metaphor. Many other authors have featured
chess prominently in their works. Examples include –
The Defense (1930), a novel
by Vladimir Nabokov. Nabokov, himself a chess master, here presents the tale of
an awkward young boy who discovers his enormous talent at the game of chess. Chess (1986), a musical by Tim Rice,
Bjorn Ulvaeus, and Benny Andersson. Several songs from this musical became hit
singles. The plot centers on a love triangle between major players in the world
of chess championships. The Flanders
Panel (1990), a novel by Arturo Perez-Reverte. This novel centers on a
mystery hidden in a fifteenth-century Flemish painting titled ‘‘The Chess
Game.’’ The Yiddish Policeman’s Union
(2007), a novel by Michael Chabon. This detective novel is set in an
alternate-reality future in which Jewish refugees set up a settlement in Alaska
after World War II. Chess figures prominently in the novel, both in the youth
of the homicide detective and in clues surrounding a mystery he must solve.
Sources
English Literature by Edward
Albert [Revised by J. A. Stone]
History of English Literature,
by Legouis and Cazamian
The Routledge History of Literature in English: Britain
and Ireland, by Ronald Carter and John McRae
Gale’s Contextual Encyclopedia of World Literature
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