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Elizabethan Theatre
W. Shakespeare and his contemporaries
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Contents
Articles
Theatre Characteristics
English Renaissance theatre
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet Prologue
Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe
Benjamin Jonson
Ben Jonson
References
Article Sources and Contributors Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors
Article Licenses
License
Theatre Characteristics
English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre, also known as early modern English theatre, refers to the
theatre of England, largely based in London, which occurred between the Reformation and
the closure of the theatres in . It includes the drama of William Shakespeare, Christopher
Marlowe and many other famous playwrights. English Renaissance Theatre is sometimes
called quotElizabethan theatre.quot The term quotElizabethan theatrequot, however,
properly covers only the plays written and performed publicly in England during the reign of
Queen Elizabeth . As such, quotElizabethan theatrequot is distinguished from Jacobean
theatre associated with the reign of King James I, , and Caroline theatre associated with King
Charles I, until the closure of the theatres in . quotEnglish Renaissance theatrequot or
quotearly modern theatrequot refers to all three subclassifications taken together. Most
famous plays were written and performed during the Elizabethan era.
A sketch of a rehearsal in progress on the thrust stage of The Swan, a typical circular
Elizabethan openroof playhouse.
Background
Renaissance theatre derived from medieval theatre traditions, such as the mystery plays that
formed a part of religious festivals in England and other parts of Europe during the Middle
Ages. The mystery plays were complex retellings of legends based on biblical themes,
originally performed in Cathedrals, but later becoming more linked to the secular celebrations
that grew up around religious festivals. Other sources include the morality plays and the
quotUniversity dramaquot that attempted to recreate Greek tragedy. The Italian tradition of
commedia dellarte as well as the elaborate masques frequently presented at court also
contributed to the shaping of public theatre. Companies of players attached to households of
leading noblemen and performing seasonally in various locations existed before the reign of
Elizabeth I. These became the foundation for the professional players that performed on the
Elizabethan stage. The tours of these players gradually replaced the performances of the
mystery and morality plays by local players, and a law eliminated the remaining companies
lacking formal patronage by labeling them vagabonds. The performance of masques at court
by courtiers and other amateurs came to be replaced by the professional companies with
noble patrons, who grew in number and quality during Elizabeths reign. The City of London
authorities were generally hostile to public performances, but its hostility was overmatched
by the Queens taste for plays and the Privy Councils support. Theatres sprang up in
suburbs, especially in the liberty of Southwark, accessible across the Thames to city
dwellers, but beyond the authoritys control. The companies maintained the pretence that
their public performances were mere rehearsals for the frequent performances before the
Queen, but while the latter did grant prestige, the former were the real source of the income
professional players required.
English Renaissance theatre Along with the economics of the profession, the character of the
drama changed toward the end of the period. Under Elizabeth, the drama was a unified
expression as far as social class was concerned the Court watched the same plays the
commoners saw in the public playhouses. With the development of the private theatres,
drama became more oriented toward the tastes and values of an upperclass audience. By
the later part of the reign of Charles I, few new plays were being written for the public
theatres, which sustained themselves on the accumulated works of the previous decades.
Theatres
The establishment of large and profitable public theatres was an essential enabling factor in
the success of English Renaissance drama. Once they were in operation, drama could
become a fixed and permanent rather than a transitory phenomenon. Their construction was
prompted when the Mayor and Corporation of London first banned plays in as a measure
against the plague, and then formally expelled all players from the city in . This prompted the
construction of permanent playhouses outside the jurisdiction of London, in the liberties of
Halliwell/Holywell in Shoreditch and later the Clink, and at Newington Butts near the
established entertainment district of St. Georges Fields in rural Surrey. The Theatre was
constructed in Shoreditch in by James Burbage with his brotherinlaw John Brayne the owner
of the unsuccessful Red Lion playhouse of and the Newington Butts playhouse was set up,
probably by Jerome Savage, some time between and . The Theatre was rapidly followed by
the nearby Curtain Theatre , the Rose , the Swan , the Globe , the Fortune , and the Red Bull
. Archaeological excavations on the foundations of the Rose and the Globe in the late
twentieth century showed that all the London theatres had individual differences yet their
common function necessitated a similar general plan. The public theatres were three stories
high, and built around an open space at the centre. Usually polygonal in plan to give an
overall rounded effect though the Red Bull and the first Fortune were square, the three levels
of inwardfacing galleries overlooked the open center, into which jutted the stageessentially a
platform surrounded on three sides by the audience, only the rear being restricted for the
entrances and exits of the actors and seating for the musicians. The upper level behind the
stage could be used as a balcony, as in Romeo and Juliet or Antony and Cleopatra, or as a
position from which an actor could harangue a crowd, as in Julius Caesar. Usually built of
timber, lath and plaster and with thatched roofs, the early theatres were vulnerable to fire,
and were replaced when necessary with stronger structures. When the Globe burned down
in June , it was rebuilt with a tile roof when the Fortune burned down in December , it was
rebuilt in brick and apparently was no longer square. A different model was developed with
the Blackfriars Theatre, which came into regular use on a longterm basis in . The Blackfriars
was small in comparison to the earlier theatres and roofed rather than open to the sky it
resembled a modern theatre in ways that its predecessors did not. Other small enclosed
theatres followed, notably the Whitefriars and the Cockpit . With the building of the Salisbury
Court Theatre in near the site of the defunct Whitefriars, the London audience had six
theatres to choose from three surviving large openair quotpublicquot theatres, the Globe, the
Fortune, and the Red Bull, and three smaller enclosed quotprivatequot theatres, the
Blackfriars, the Cockpit, and the Salisbury Court. Audiences of the s benefited from a
halfcentury of vigorous dramaturgical development the plays of Marlowe and Shakespeare
and their contemporaries were still being performed on a regular basis mostly at the public
theatres, while the newest works of the newest playwrights were abundant as well mainly at
the private theatres. Around , when both the Theatre and the Curtain were full on summer
days, the total theatre capacity of London was about spectators. With the building of new
theatre facilities and the formation of new companies, the capitals total theatre capacity
exceeded , after . In , the poorest citizens could purchase admittance to the Curtain or the
Theatre for a penny in , their counterparts could gain admittance to the Globe, the Cockpit, or
the Red Bullfor exactly the same price. Ticket prices at the private theatres were five or six
times
English Renaissance theatre higher.
Performances
The acting companies functioned on a repertory system unlike modern productions that can
run for months or years on end, the troupes of this era rarely acted the same play two days in
a row. Thomas Middletons A Game at Chess ran for nine straight performances in August
before it was closed by the authoritiesbut this was due to the political content of the play and
was a unique, unprecedented, and unrepeatable phenomenon. Consider the season of Lord
Stranges Men at the Rose Theatre as far more representative between Feb. and June the
company played six days a week, minus Good Friday and two other days. They performed
different plays, some only once, and their most popular play of the season, The First Part of
Hieronimo, based on Kyds The Spanish Tragedy, times. They never played the same play
two days in a row, and rarely the same play twice in a week. The workload on the actors,
especially the leading performers like Edward Alleyn, must have been tremendous. One
distinctive feature of the companies was that they included only males. Until the reign of
Charles II, female parts were played by adolescent boy players in womens costume.
Costumes
Costumes were often bright in color and visually entrancing. Costumes were expensive,
however, so usually players wore contemporary clothing regardless of the time period of the
play. Occasionally, a lead character would wear a conventionalized version of more
historically accurate garb, but secondary characters would nonetheless remain in
contemporary clothing.
Playwrights
The growing population of London, the growing wealth of its people, and their fondness for
spectacle produced a dramatic literature of remarkable variety, quality, and extent. Although
most of the plays written for the Elizabethan stage have been lost, over remain. The men no
women were professional dramatists in this era who wrote these plays were primarily
selfmade men from modest backgrounds. Some of them were educated at either Oxford or
Cambridge, but many were not. Although William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson were actors,
the majority do not seem to have been performers, and no major author who came on to the
scene after is known to have supplemented his income by acting. Not all of the playwrights fit
modern images of poets or intellectuals. Christopher Marlowe was killed in an apparent
tavern brawl, while Ben Jonson killed an actor in a duel. Several probably were soldiers.
Playwrights were normally paid in increments during the writing process, and if their play was
accepted, they would also receive the proceeds from one days performance. However, they
had no ownership of the plays they wrote. Once a play was sold to a company, the company
owned it, and the playwright had no control over casting, performance, revision or
publication. The profession of dramatist was challenging and far from lucrative. Entries in
Philip Henslowes Diary show that in the years around Henslowe paid as little as or per play.
This was probably at the low end of the range, though even the best writers could not
demand too much more. A playwright, working alone, could generally produce two plays a
year at most in the s Richard Brome signed a contract with the Salisbury Court Theatre to
supply three plays a year, but found himself unable to meet the workload. Shakespeare
produced fewer than solo plays in a career that spanned more than two decades he was
financially successful because he was an actor and, most importantly, a shareholder in the
company for which he acted and in the theatres they used. Ben Jonson achieved success as
a purveyor of Court masques, and was talented at playing the patronage game that was an
important part of the social and economic life of the era. Those who were playwrights pure
and simple fared far less well the biographies of early figures like George Peele and Robert
Greene, and later ones like Brome and Philip
English Renaissance theatre Massinger, are marked by financial uncertainty, struggle, and
poverty. Playwrights dealt with the natural limitation on their productivity by combining into
teams of two, three, four, and even five to generate play texts the majority of plays written in
this era were collaborations, and the solo artists who generally eschewed collaborative
efforts, like Jonson and Shakespeare, were the exceptions to the rule. Dividing the work, of
course, meant dividing the income but the arrangement seems to have functioned well
enough to have made it worthwhile. The truism that says, diversify your investments, may
have worked for the Elizabethan play market as for the modern stock market. Of the plus
known works in the canon of Thomas Dekker, roughly are collaborations in a single year, ,
Dekker worked on collaborations for impresario Philip Henslowe, and earned , or a little
under shillings per weekroughly twice as much as the average artisans income of s. per day.
At the end of his career, Thomas Heywood would famously claim to have had quotan entire
hand, or at least a main fingerquot in the authorship of some plays. A solo artist usually
needed months to write a play though Jonson is said to have done Volpone in five weeks
Henslowes Diary indicates that a team of four or five writers could produce a play in as little
as two weeks. Admittedly, though, the Diary also shows that teams of Henslowes house
dramatistsAnthony Munday, Robert Wilson, Richard Hathwaye, Henry Chettle, and the
others, even including a young John Webstercould start a project, and accept advances on it,
yet fail to produce anything stageworthy. Modern understanding of collaboration in this era is
biased by the fact that the failures have generally disappeared with barely a trace for one
exception to this rule, see Sir Thomas More. . Shakespeare also often wrote in what is called
verse, of his written lines were in syllables. Bump,bump,bump,bump
bump,bump,bump,bump,bump,bump...egeach day still better others happiness. from
Shakespeares Richard The Second.
Genres
Genres of the period included the history play, which depicted English or European history.
Shakespeares plays about the lives of kings, such as Richard III and Henry V, belong to this
category, as do Christopher Marlowes Edward II and George Peeles Famous Chronicle of
King Edward the First. History plays dealt with more recent events, like A Larum for London
which dramatizes the sack of Antwerp in . Tragedy was a popular genre. Marlowes tragedies
were exceptionally popular, such as Dr. Faustus and The Jew of Malta. The audiences
particularly liked revenge dramas, such as Thomas Kyds The Spanish Tragedy. The four
tragedies considered to be Shakespeares greatest Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth
were composed during this period, as well as many others see Shakespearean tragedy.
Comedies were common, too. A subgenre developed in this period was the city comedy,
which deals satirically with life in London after the fashion of Roman New Comedy. Examples
are Thomas Dekkers The Shoemakers Holiday and Thomas Middletons A Chaste Maid in
Cheapside. Though marginalised, the older genres like pastoral The Faithful Shepherdess, ,
and even the morality play Four Plays in One, ca. could exert influences. After about , the
new hybrid subgenre of the tragicomedy enjoyed an efflorescence, as did the masque
throughout the reigns of the first two Stuart kings, James I and Charles I.
Printed texts
Only a minority of the plays of English Renaissance theatre were ever printed of Heywoods
plays noted above, only about were published in book form. A little over plays were published
in the period as a whole, most commonly in individual quarto editions. Larger collected
editions, like those of Shakespeares, Ben Jonsons, and Beaumont and Fletchers plays, were
a late and limited development. Through much of the modern era, it was thought that play
texts were popular items among Renaissance readers that provided healthy profits for the
stationers who printed and sold them. By the turn of the st century, the climate of scholarly
opinion shifted somewhat on this
English Renaissance theatre belief some contemporary researchers argue that publishing
plays was a risky and marginal business though this conclusion has been disputed by others.
Some of the most successful publishers of the English Renaissance, like William Ponsonby
or Edward Blount, rarely published plays. A small number of plays from the era survived not
in printed texts but in manuscript form.
Termination September ,
The rising Puritan movement was hostile toward theatre, as they felt that
quotentertainmentquot was sinful. Politically, playwrights and actors were clients of the
monarchy and aristocracy, and most supported the Royalist cause. The Puritan faction, long
powerful in London, gained control of the city early in the English Civil War, and on
September , ordered the closure of the London theatres. The theatres remained closed for
most of the next eighteen years, reopening after the Restoration of the monarchy in . The
reopened theatres performed many of the plays of the previous era, though often in adapted
forms new genres of Restoration comedy and spectacle soon evolved, giving English theatre
of the later seventeenth century its distinctive character.
List of playwrights
William Alabaster William Alley Robert Armin Thomas Ashton William Barksted Barnabe
Barnes Lording Barry Francis Beaumont Samuel Brandon Richard Brome Lodowick Carlell
William Cartwright William Cavendish Robert Chamberlain George Chapman Henry Chettle
John Clavell Robert Daborne Samuel Daniel William Davenant Robert Davenport John Day
Thomas Dekker Edward de Vere Michael Drayton Richard Edwardes Nathan Field John
Fletcher John Ford Abraham Fraunce Ulpian Fulwell Thomas Garter George Gascoigne
Henry Glapthorne Thomas Goffe Arthur Golding Robert Greene Richard Hathwaye William
Haughton Thomas Heywood Thomas Hughes Ben Jonson Henry Killigrew Thomas Killigrew
Thomas Kyd Thomas Legge Thomas Lodge Thomas Lupton John Lyly Gervase Markham
Thomas Nabbes Thomas Nashe Thomas Norton George Peele John Phillips John Pickering
Henry Porter Thomas Preston William Rankins Samuel Rowley William Rowley Joseph
Rutter Thomas Sackville William Sampson William Shakespeare Edward Sharpham Henry
Shirley James Shirley Mary Sidney Philip Sidney Wentworth Smith Sir John Suckling Robert
Tailor Thomas Tomkis Cyril Tourneur John Webster George Wilkins Arthur Wilson Robert
Wilson Steven Luxford
Sir William Berkeley Josefine Skauerud O.
Christopher Marlowe Shackerley Marmion John Marston Philip Massinger Thomas May
Thomas Middleton Anthony Munday
English Renaissance theatre
List of players
William Allen Edward Alleyn Robert Armin Richard Baxter Christopher Beeston Robert
Benfield Theophilus Bird Michael Bowyer Robert Browne Jacobean actor George Bryan
Richard Burbage Andrew Cane Hugh Clark Henry Condell Alexander Cooke Richard Cowley
Robert Dawes William Ecclestone Nathan Field Lawrence Fletcher Alexander Gough
Thomas Greene Richard Gunnell Charles Hart Stephen Hammerton John Heminges Thomas
Heywood John Honyman Will Kempe John Lowin William Ostler Richard Perkins Augustine
Phillips Thomas Pollard Thomas Pope Timothy Read William Robbins Richard Robinson
William Rowley William Shakespeare John Shank Richard Sharpe William Sly John Sumner
Eliard Swanston Richard Tarlton Joseph Taylor John Thompson Nicholas Tooley Anthony
Turner John Underwood Ellis Worth
Robert Browne Elizabethan actor
Andrew Pennycuicke
Playhouses
Newington Butts Theatre The Theatre The Curtain The Rose The Swan The Globe
Blackfriars Theatre The Fortune The Hope Red Bull Theatre Red Lion theatre Cockpit
Theatre Salisbury Court Theatre Whitefriars Theatre Innyard theatres
Playing companies
The Admirals Men The Children of Pauls The Children of the Chapel Queens Revels The
Kings Men Kings Revels Children Kings Revels Men Lady Elizabeths Men Leicesters Men
The Lord Chamberlains Men Oxfords Boys Oxfords Men Pembrokes Men Prince Charless
Men Queen Annes Men Queen Elizabeths Men Queen Henriettas Men Lord Stranges Men
later Derbys Men Sussexs Men Warwicks Men Worcesters Men
Significant others
Susan Baskervile, investor and litigant William Beeston, manager George Buc, Master of the
Revels Cuthbert Burbage, entrepreneur James Burbage, entrepreneur Ralph Crane, scribe
Philip Henslowe, entrepreneur Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels Edward Knight, prompter
Francis Langley, entrepreneur John Rhodes, manager Edmund Tilney, Master of the Revels
English Renaissance theatre
Collaborative play writing
Collaborative play writing in the style of English Renaissance theatre is available at
Wikiversity
Notes
Gurr, Shakespearean Stage, pp. . Fairman Ordish, Thomas , Early London Theatres In the
Fields http/ / www. archive. org/ details/ earlylondontheaordigoog, London Elliot Stock, p.,
Bowsher, Julian Miller, Pat . The Rose and the GlobePlayhouses of Shakespeares Bankside,
Southwark. Museum of London. p.. ISBN. Gladstone Wickham, Glynne William Berry,
Herbert Ingram, William , English professional theatre, http/ / books. google. co. uk/
booksidyYJPgksCamp pgPA, Cambridge University Press, p., ISBN, Ingram, William , The
business of playing the beginnings of the adult professional theater in Elizabethan London
http/ / books. google. co. uk/ booksidPqSqgTWVECamp pgPA, Cornell University Press, p.,
ISBN, A complete roster of what the Elizabethans called quotpublicquot theatres would
include the converted Boars Head Inn , and the Hope Theatre , neither of them major venues
for drama in the era. Gurr, pp. and . The Blackfriars site was used as a theatre in the period
but it became a regular venue for drama only later. Other quotprivatequot theatres of the era
included the theatre near St Pauls Cathedral used by the Children of Pauls and the
occasionallyused CockpitinCourt . Ann Jennalie Cook, The Privileged Playgoers of
Shakespeares London, , Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, pp. . Halliday,
Shakespeare Companion, p. Chambers, Elizabethan Stage, Vol. , p. , reflects earlier
interpretations of the identity of the Hieronimo play. A few aristocratic women engaged in
closet drama or dramatic translations. Chambers, Vol. , lists Elizabeth, Lady Cary Mary
Herbert, Countess of Pembroke Jane, Lady Lumley and Elizabeth Tudor. Halliday, pp. . Gurr,
Shakespearean Stage, p. . Halliday, pp. , , . Halliday, p. . Peter W. M. Blayney, quotThe
Publication of Playbooksquot, in A New History of Early English Drama, John D. Cox and
David Scott Kastan, eds. New York, Columbia University Press, pp. . Alan B Farmer and
Zachary Lesser, quotThe Popularity of Playbooks Revisitedquot, Shakespeare Quarterly
Spring , pp. . For examples, see Sir Thomas More, John of Bordeaux, Believe as You List,
and Sir John van Olden Barnavelt. http/ / en. wikiversity. org/ wiki/ Collaborativeplaywriting
References
Chambers, E. K. The Elizabethan Stage. Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, . Gurr,
Andrew. The Shakespearean Stage . Third edition, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
. Halliday, F. E. A Shakespeare Companion . Baltimore, Penguin, .
External links
Early Modern Drama database http//homepage.mac.com/tomdalekeever/earlymodern.html
Shakespeare and the Globe http//search.eb.com/shakespeare/index.html from Encyclopdia
Britannica a more comprehensive resource on the theatre of this period than its name
suggests. A Lecture on Elizabethan Theatre by Thomas Larque
http//shakespearean.org.uk/elizthea.htm A site discussing the influence of Ancient Rome on
English Renaissance Theatre http//www.pricejb.pwp. blueyonder.co.uk/Rome/Rome.html
Richard Southern archive at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection http//www.bris.ac.uk/
theatrecollection/richardsouthern.html, University of Bristol
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
The Chandos portrait, artist and authenticity unconfirmed. National Portrait Gallery, London.
Born Died Occupation Baptised April birth date unknownStratforduponAvon, Warwickshire,
England April aged StratforduponAvon, Warwickshire, England Playwright, poet, actor
Literary movement English Renaissance theatre Spouses Children Anne Hathaway m.
Susanna Hall Hamnet Shakespeare Judith Quiney John Shakespeare father Mary
Shakespeare mother
Relatives
Signature
William Shakespeare baptised April died April was an English poet and playwright, widely
regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the worlds preeminent dramatist.
He is often called Englands national poet and the quotBard of Avonquot. His surviving works,
including some collaborations, consist of about plays, sonnets, two long narrative poems,
and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language
and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare was born
and raised in StratforduponAvon. At the age of , he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he
had three children Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between and , he began a
successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called
the Lord Chamberlains Men, later known
William Shakespeare as the Kings Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around ,
where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeares private life survive, and there
has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance,
sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known work between and . His early plays were mainly
comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end
of the th century. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about , including Hamlet, King Lear,
Othello, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his
last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other
playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy
during his lifetime. In , two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a
collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised
as Shakespeares. Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his
reputation did not rise to its present heights until the th century. The Romantics, in particular,
acclaimed Shakespeares genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakespeare with a
reverence that George Bernard Shaw called quotbardolatryquot. In the th century, his work
was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and
performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed
and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.
Life
Early life
William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, a successful glover and alderman
originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer.
He was born in StratforduponAvon and baptised there on April . His actual birthdate remains
unknown, but is traditionally observed on April, St Georges Day. This date, which can be
traced back to an thcentury scholars mistake, has proved appealing to biographers, since
Shakespeare died April . He was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son.
Although no attendance records for the period survive, most biographers agree that
Shakespeare was probably educated at the Kings New School in Stratford, a free school
chartered in , about a quartermile from his home. Grammar schools varied in quality during
the Elizabethan era, but the curriculum was dictated by law throughout England, and the
school would have provided an intensive education in Latin grammar and the classics. At the
age of , Shakespeare married the yearold Anne Hathaway. The consistory court of the
Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence November . The next day two of Hathaways
neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage. The
ceremony may have been arranged in some haste, since the Worcester chancellor allowed
the marriage banns to be read once instead of the usual three times, and six months after
the John Shakespeares house, believed to be marriage Anne gave birth to a daughter,
Susanna, baptised May Shakespeares birthplace, in StratforduponAvon. . Twins, son
Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised February .
Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of and was buried August . After the birth of the
twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London
theatre scene in , and scholars refer to the years between and as Shakespeares quotlost
yearsquot. Biographers
William Shakespeare attempting to account for this period have reported many apocryphal
stories. Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeares first biographer, recounted a Stratford legend that
Shakespeare fled the town for London to escape prosecution for deer poaching in the estate
of local squire Thomas Lucy. Shakespeare is also supposed to taken his revenge on Lucy by
writing a scurrilous ballad about him. Another thcentury story has Shakespeare starting his
theatrical career minding the horses of theatre patrons in London. John Aubrey reported that
Shakespeare had been a country schoolmaster. Some thcentury scholars have suggested
that Shakespeare may have been employed as a schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of
Lancashire, a Catholic landowner who named a certain quotWilliam Shakeshaftequot in his
will. No evidence substantiates such stories other than hearsay collected after his death, and
Shakeshafte was a common name in the Lancashire area.
London and theatrical career
quotAll the worlds a stage, and all the men and women merely players they have their exits
and their entrances and one man in his time plays many parts...quot As You Like It, Act II,
Scene , .
It is not known exactly when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions and
records of performances show that several of his plays were on the London stage by . He
was well enough known in London by then to be attacked in print by the playwright Robert
Greene in his GroatsWorth of Wit ...there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers,
that with his Tigers heart wrapped in a Players hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast
out a blank verse as the best of you and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own
conceit the only Shakescene in a country. Scholars differ on the exact meaning of these
words, but most agree that Greene is accusing Shakespeare of reaching above his rank in
trying to match universityeducated writers, such as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe and
Greene himself. The italicised phrase parodying the line quotOh, tigers heart wrapped in a
womans hidequot from Shakespeares Henry VI, Part , along with the pun
quotShakescenequot, identifies Shakespeare as Greenes target. Here Johannes
FactotumquotJack of all tradesquot means a secondrate tinkerer with the work of others,
rather than the more common quotuniversal geniusquot. Greenes attack is the earliest
surviving mention of Shakespeares career in the theatre. Biographers suggest that his career
may have begun any time from the mids to just before Greenes remarks. From ,
Shakespeares plays were performed only by the Lord Chamberlains Men, a company owned
by a group of players, including Shakespeare, that soon became the leading playing
company in London. After the death of Queen Elizabeth in , the company was awarded a
royal patent by the new king, James I, and changed its name to the Kings Men. In , a
partnership of company members built their own theatre on the south bank of the River
Thames, which they called the Globe. In , the partnership also took over the Blackfriars
indoor theatre. Records of Shakespeares property purchases and investments indicate that
the company made him a wealthy man. In , he bought the secondlargest house in Stratford,
New Place, and in , he invested in a share of the parish tithes in Stratford. Some of
Shakespeares plays were published in quarto editions from . By , his name had become a
selling point and began to appear on the title pages. Shakespeare continued to act in his own
and other plays after his success as a playwright. The edition of Ben Jonsons Works names
him on the cast lists for Every Man in His Humour and Sejanus His Fall . The absence of his
name from the cast list for Jonsons Volpone is taken by some scholars as a sign that his
acting career was nearing its end. The First Folio of ,
William Shakespeare however, lists Shakespeare as one of quotthe Principal Actors in all
these Playsquot, some of which were first staged after Volpone, although we cannot know for
certain which roles he played. In , John Davies of Hereford wrote that quotgood Willquot
played quotkinglyquot roles. In , Rowe passed down a tradition that Shakespeare played the
ghost of Hamlets father. Later traditions maintain that he also played Adam in As You Like It
and the Chorus in Henry V, though scholars doubt the sources of the information.
Shakespeare divided his time between London and Stratford during his career. In , the year
before he bought New Place as his family home in Stratford, Shakespeare was living in the
parish of St. Helens, Bishopsgate, north of the River Thames. He moved across the river to
Southwark by , the year his company constructed the Globe Theatre there. By , he had
moved north of the river again, to an area north of St Pauls Cathedral with many fine houses.
There he rented rooms from a French Huguenot called Christopher Mountjoy, a maker of
ladies wigs and other headgear.
Later years and death
Rowe was the first biographer to pass down the tradition that Shakespeare retired to
Stratford some years before his death but retirement from all work was uncommon at that
time, and Shakespeare continued to visit London. In he was called as a witness in a court
case concerning the marriage settlement of Mountjoys daughter, Mary. In March he bought a
gatehouse in the former Blackfriars priory and from November he was in London for several
weeks with his soninlaw, John Hall. After , Shakespeare wrote fewer plays, and none are
attributed to him after . His last three plays were collaborations, probably with John Fletcher,
who succeeded him as the house playwright for the Kings Men. Shakespeare died on April
and was survived by his wife and two daughters. Susanna had married a physician, John
Hall, in , and Judith had married Thomas Quiney, a vintner, two months before
Shakespeares death. In his will, Shakespeare left the bulk of his large estate to his elder
daughter Susanna. The terms instructed that she pass it down intact to quotthe first son of
her bodyquot. The Quineys had three children, all of whom died without marrying. The Halls
had one child, Elizabeth, who married twice but died without children in , ending
Shakespeares direct line. Shakespeares will scarcely mentions his wife, Anne, who was
probably entitled to one third of his estate automatically. He did make a point, however, of
leaving her quotmy second best bedquot, a bequest that has led to much speculation. Some
scholars see the bequest as an insult to Anne, whereas others believe that the secondbest
bed would have been the matrimonial bed and therefore rich in significance.
Shakespeares funerary monument in StratforduponAvon.
Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church two days after his death.
The epitaph carved into the stone slab covering his grave includes a curse against moving
his bones, which was carefully avoided during restoration
of the church in
William Shakespeare
Good frend for Iesvs sake forbeare, To digg the dvst encloased heare. Bleste be ye man yt
spares thes stones, And cvrst be he yt moves my bones. Modern spelling quotGood friend,
for Jesus sake forbear,quot quotTo dig the dust enclosed here.quot quotBlessed be the man
that spares these stones,quot quotAnd cursed be he who moves my bones.quot
Shakespeares grave.
Sometime before , a funerary monument was erected in his memory on the north wall, with a
halfeffigy of him in the act of writing. Its plaque compares him to Nestor, Socrates, and Virgil.
In , in conjunction with the publication of the First Folio, the Droeshout engraving was
published. Shakespeare has been commemorated in many statues and memorials around
the world, including funeral monuments in Southwark Cathedral and Poets Corner in
Westminster Abbey.
Plays
Most playwrights of the period typically collaborated with others at some point, and critics
agree that Shakespeare did the same, mostly early and late in his career. Some attributions,
such as Titus Andronicus and the early history plays, remain controversial, while The Two
Noble Kinsmen and the lost Cardenio have wellattested contemporary documentation.
Textual evidence also supports the view that several of the plays were revised by other
writers after their original composition. The first recorded works of Shakespeare are Richard
III and the three parts of Henry VI, written in the early s during a vogue for historical drama.
Shakespeares plays are difficult to date, however, and studies of the texts suggest that Titus
Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew and The Two Gentlemen of
Verona may also belong to Shakespeares earliest period. His first histories, which draw
heavily on the edition of Raphael Holinsheds Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland,
dramatise the destructive results of weak or corrupt rule and have been interpreted as a
justification for the origins of the Tudor dynasty. The early plays were influenced by the works
of other Elizabethan dramatists, especially Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe, by the
traditions of medieval drama, and by the plays of Seneca. The Comedy of Errors was also
based on classical models, but no source for The Taming of the Shrew has been found,
though it is related to a separate play of the same name and may have derived from a folk
story. Like The Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which two friends appear to approve of rape,
the Shrews story of the taming of a womans independent spirit by a man sometimes troubles
modern critics and directors.
William Shakespeare
Shakespeares early classical and Italianate comedies, containing tight double plots and
precise comic sequences, give way in the mids to the romantic atmosphere of his greatest
comedies. A Midsummer Nights Dream is a witty mixture of romance, fairy magic, and comic
lowlife scenes. Shakespeares next comedy, the equally romantic Merchant of Venice,
contains a portrayal of the vengeful Jewish moneylender Shylock, which reflects Elizabethan
views but may appear derogatory to modern audiences. The wit and wordplay of Much Ado
About Nothing, the charming rural setting of As You Like Oberon, Titania and Puck with
Fairies Dancing. By William Blake, c. . Tate Britain. It, and the lively merrymaking of Twelfth
Night complete Shakespeares sequence of great comedies. After the lyrical Richard II,
written almost entirely in verse, Shakespeare introduced prose comedy into the histories of
the late s, Henry IV, parts and , and Henry V. His characters become more complex and
tender as he switches deftly between comic and serious scenes, prose and poetry, and
achieves the narrative variety of his mature work. This period begins and ends with two
tragedies Romeo and Juliet, the famous romantic tragedy of sexually charged adolescence,
love, and death and Julius Caesarbased on Sir Thomas Norths translation of Plutarchs
Parallel Liveswhich introduced a new kind of drama. According to Shakespearean scholar
James Shapiro, in Julius Caesar quotthe various strands of politics, character, inwardness,
contemporary events, even Shakespeares own reflections on the act of writing, began to
infuse each otherquot. In the early th century, Shakespeare wrote the socalled quotproblem
playsquot Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida, and Alls Well That Ends Well and a
number of his best known tragedies. Many critics believe that Shakespeares greatest
tragedies represent the peak of his art. The titular hero of one of Shakespeares most famous
tragedies, Hamlet, has probably been discussed more than any other Shakespearean
character, especially for his famous soliloquy quotTo be or not to be that is the questionquot.
Unlike the introverted Hamlet, whose fatal flaw is hesitation, the heroes of the tragedies that
followed, Hamlet, Horatio, Marcellus, and the Ghost of Othello and King Lear, are undone by
hasty errors of judgement. Hamlets Father. Henry Fuseli, . The plots of Shakespeares
tragedies often hinge on such fatal errors or Kunsthaus Zrich. flaws, which overturn order
and destroy the hero and those he loves. In Othello, the villain Iago stokes Othellos sexual
jealousy to the point where he murders the innocent wife who loves him. In King Lear, the old
king commits the tragic error of giving up his powers, initiating the events which lead to the
murder of his daughter and the torture and blinding of the Earl of Gloucester. According to
the critic Frank Kermode, quotthe play offers neither its good characters nor its audience any
relief from its crueltyquot. In Macbeth, the shortest and most compressed of Shakespeares
tragedies, uncontrollable ambition incites Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, to murder the
rightful king and usurp the throne, until their own guilt destroys them in turn. In this play,
Shakespeare adds a supernatural element to the tragic structure. His last major tragedies,
Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus, contain some of Shakespeares finest poetry and were
considered his most successful tragedies by the poet and critic T. S. Eliot. In his final period,
Shakespeare turned to romance or tragicomedy and completed three more major plays
Cymbeline, The Winters Tale and The Tempest, as well as the collaboration, Pericles, Prince
of Tyre. Less bleak than the tragedies, these four plays are graver in tone than the comedies
of the s, but they end with reconciliation and the forgiveness of potentially tragic errors. Some
commentators have seen this change in mood as evidence of a more serene view of life on
Shakespeares part, but it may merely reflect the theatrical fashion of the day. Shakespeare
collaborated on two further surviving plays, Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen,
William Shakespeare probably with John Fletcher.
Performances
It is not clear for which companies Shakespeare wrote his early plays. The title page of the
edition of Titus Andronicus reveals that the play had been acted by three different troupes.
After the plagues of , Shakespeares plays were performed by his own company at The
Theatre and the Curtain in Shoreditch, north of the Thames. Londoners flocked there to see
the first part of Henry IV, Leonard Digges recording, quotLet but Falstaff come, Hal, Poins,
the rest...and you scarce shall have a roomquot. When the company found themselves in
dispute with their landlord, they pulled The Theatre down and used the timbers to construct
the Globe Theatre, the first playhouse built by actors for actors, on the south bank of the
Thames at Southwark. The Globe opened in autumn , with Julius Caesar one of the first
plays staged. Most of Shakespeares greatest post plays were written for the Globe, including
Hamlet, Othello and King Lear. After the Lord Chamberlains Men were renamed the Kings
Men in , they entered a special relationship with the new King James. Although the
performance records are patchy, the Kings Men performed seven of Shakespeares plays at
court between November and October , including two performances of The Merchant of
Venice. After , they performed at the indoor Blackfriars Theatre during the winter and the
Globe during the summer. The indoor setting, combined with the Jacobean fashion for
lavishly staged masques, allowed Shakespeare to introduce more elaborate stage devices.
In Cymbeline, for example, Jupiter descends quotin thunder and lightning, sitting upon an
eagle he throws a
The reconstructed Globe Theatre, London.
thunderbolt. The ghosts fall on their knees.quot The actors in Shakespeares company
included the famous Richard Burbage, William Kempe, Henry Condell and John Heminges.
Burbage played the leading role in the first performances of many of Shakespeares plays,
including Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear. The popular comic actor Will Kempe
played the servant Peter in Romeo and Juliet and Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing,
among other characters. He was replaced around the turn of the th century by Robert Armin,
who played roles such as Touchstone in As You Like It and the fool in King Lear. In , Sir
Henry Wotton recorded that Henry VIII quotwas set forth with many extraordinary
circumstances of pomp and ceremonyquot. On June, however, a cannon set fire to the
thatch of the Globe and burned the theatre to the ground, an event which pinpoints the date
of a Shakespeare play with rare precision.
Textual sources
In , John Heminges and Henry Condell, two of Shakespeares friends from the Kings Men,
published the First Folio, a collected edition of Shakespeares plays. It contained texts,
including printed for the first time. Many of the plays had already appeared in quarto
versionsflimsy books made from sheets of paper folded twice to make four leaves. No
evidence suggests that Shakespeare approved these editions, which the First Folio
describes as quotstoln and surreptitious copiesquot. Alfred Pollard termed some of them
quotbad quartosquot because of their adapted, paraphrased or garbled texts, which may in
places have been reconstructed from memory. Where several versions of a play survive,
each differs from the other. The differences may stem from copying or printing errors, from
notes by actors or audience members, or from Shakespeares own papers. In some cases,
for example Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida and Othello, Shakespeare could have revised the
texts between the quarto and folio editions. In the case of King Lear, however, while most
modern additions do conflate them, the folio version is so different from the quarto, that the
Oxford Shakespeare prints them both, arguing that they cannot be conflated without
confusion.
William Shakespeare
Poems
In and , when the theatres were closed because of plague, Shakespeare published two
narrative poems on erotic themes, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. He
dedicated them to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. In Venus and Adonis, an
innocent Adonis rejects the sexual advances of Venus while in The Rape of Lucrece, the
virtuous wife Lucrece is raped by the lustful Tarquin. Influenced by Ovids Metamorphoses,
the poems show the guilt and moral confusion that result from uncontrolled lust. Both proved
popular and were often reprinted during Shakespeares lifetime. A third narrative poem, A
Lovers Complaint, in which a young woman laments her seduction by a persuasive suitor,
was printed in the first edition of the Sonnets in . Most scholars now accept that Shakespeare
wrote A Lovers Complaint. Critics consider that its fine qualities are marred by leaden effects.
The Phoenix and the Turtle, printed in Robert Chesters Loves Martyr, mourns the deaths of
the legendary phoenix and his lover, the faithful turtle dove. In , two early drafts of sonnets
and appeared in The Passionate Pilgrim, published under Shakespeares name but without
his permission.
Sonnets
Published in , the Sonnets were the last of Shakespeares nondramatic works to be printed.
Scholars are not certain when each of the sonnets was composed, but evidence suggests
that Shakespeare wrote sonnets throughout his career for a private readership. Even before
the two unauthorised sonnets appeared in The Passionate Pilgrim in , Francis Meres had
referred in to Shakespeares quotsugred Sonnets among his private friendsquot. Few
analysts believe that the published collection follows Shakespeares intended sequence. He
seems to have planned two contrasting series one about uncontrollable lust for a married
woman of dark complexion the quotdark ladyquot, and one about conflicted love for a fair
young man the quotfair youthquot. It remains unclear if these figures represent real
individuals, or if the authorial quotIquot who addresses them represents Shakespeare
himself, though Wordsworth believed that with the sonnets quotShakespeare unlocked his
heartquot. The edition was dedicated to a quotMr. W.H.quot, credited as quotthe only
begetterquot of the poems.
Title page from edition of ShakeSpeares Sonnets.
quotShall I compare thee to a summers day Thou art more lovely and more temperate...quot
Lines from Shakespeares Sonnet .
It is not known whether this was written by Shakespeare himself or by the publisher, Thomas
Thorpe, whose initials appear at the foot of the dedication page nor is it known who Mr. W.H.
was, despite numerous theories, or whether Shakespeare even authorised the publication.
Critics praise the Sonnets as a profound meditation on the nature of love, sexual passion,
procreation, death, and time.
Style
Shakespeares first plays were written in the conventional style of the day. He wrote them in a
stylised language that does not always spring naturally from the needs of the characters or
the drama. The poetry depends on extended, sometimes elaborate metaphors and conceits,
and the language is often rhetoricalwritten for actors to declaim rather than speak. The grand
speeches in Titus Andronicus, in the view of some critics, often hold up the action, for
example and the verse in The Two Gentlemen of Verona has been described as stilted.
William Shakespeare Soon, however, Shakespeare began to adapt the traditional styles to
his own purposes. The opening soliloquy of Richard III has its roots in the selfdeclaration of
Vice in medieval drama. At the same time, Richards vivid selfawareness looks forward to the
soliloquies of Shakespeares mature plays. No single play marks a change from the
traditional to the freer style. Shakespeare combined the two throughout his career, with
Romeo and Juliet perhaps the best example of the mixing of the styles. By the time of
Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, and A Midsummer Nights Dream in the mids, Shakespeare had
begun to write a more natural poetry. He increasingly tuned his metaphors and images to the
needs of the drama itself. Shakespeares standard poetic form was blank verse, composed in
iambic pentameter. In practice, this meant that his verse was usually unrhymed and
consisted of ten syllables to a line, spoken with a stress on every second syllable. The blank
verse of his early plays is quite different from that of his later ones. It is often beautiful, but its
sentences tend to start, pause, and finish at the end of lines, with the risk of monotony. Once
Shakespeare mastered traditional blank verse, he began to interrupt and vary its flow. This
technique releases the new power and flexibility of the poetry in plays such as Julius Caesar
and Hamlet. Shakespeare uses it, for example, to convey the turmoil in Hamlets mind Sir, in
my heart there was a kind of fighting That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay Worse
than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly And praisd be rashness for itlet us know Our
indiscretion sometimes serves us well... Hamlet, Act , Scene , After Hamlet, Shakespeare
varied his poetic style further, particularly in the more emotional passages of the late
tragedies. The literary critic A. C. Bradley described this style as quotmore concentrated,
rapid, varied, and, in construction, less regular, not seldom twisted or ellipticalquot. In the last
phase of his career, Shakespeare adopted many techniques to achieve these effects. These
included runon lines, irregular pauses and stops, and extreme variations in sentence
structure and length. In Macbeth, for example, the language darts from one unrelated
metaphor or simile to another quotwas the hope drunk/ Wherein you dressed yourselfquot ..
quot...pity, like a naked newborn babe/ Striding the blast, or heavens cherubim, horsd/ Upon
the sightless couriers of the air...quot ... The listener is challenged to complete the sense.
The late romances, with their shifts in time and surprising turns of plot, inspired a last poetic
style in which long and short sentences are set against one another, clauses are piled up,
subject and object are reversed, and words are omitted, creating an effect of spontaneity.
Shakespeare combined poetic genius with a practical sense of the theatre. Like all
playwrights of the time, he dramatised stories from sources such as Plutarch and Holinshed.
He reshaped each plot to create several centres of interest and to show as many sides of a
narrative to the audience as possible. This strength of design ensures that a Shakespeare
play can survive translation, cutting and wide interpretation without loss to its core drama. As
Shakespeares mastery grew, he gave his characters clearer and more varied motivations
and distinctive patterns of speech. He preserved aspects of his earlier style in the later plays,
however. In Shakespeares late romances, he deliberately returned to a more artificial style,
which emphasised the illusion of theatre.
Pity by William Blake, , Tate Britain, is an illustration of two similes in Macbeth quotAnd pity,
like a naked newborn babe, / Striding the blast, or heavens cherubim, horsd / Upon the
sightless couriers of the airquot.
William Shakespeare
Influence
Shakespeares work has made a lasting impression on later theatre and literature. In
particular, he expanded the dramatic potential of characterisation, plot, language, and genre.
Until Romeo and Juliet, for example, romance had not been viewed as a worthy topic for
tragedy. Soliloquies had been used mainly to convey information about characters or events
but Shakespeare used them to explore characters minds. His work heavily influenced later
poetry. The Romantic poets attempted to revive Shakespearean verse drama, though with
little success. Critic George Steiner described all English verse dramas from Coleridge to
Tennyson as quotfeeble variations on Shakespearean themes.quot Shakespeare influenced
novelists such as Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner, and Charles Dickens. The American
novelist Herman Melvilles soliloquies owe much to Shakespeare his Captain Ahab in
Macbeth Consulting the Vision of the Armed MobyDick is a classic tragic hero, inspired by
King Lear. Scholars Head. By Henry Fuseli, . Folger have identified , pieces of music linked
to Shakespeares works. Shakespeare Library, Washington. These include two operas by
Giuseppe Verdi, Otello and Falstaff, whose critical standing compares with that of the source
plays. Shakespeare has also inspired many painters, including the Romantics and the
PreRaphaelites. The Swiss Romantic artist Henry Fuseli, a friend of William Blake, even
translated Macbeth into German. The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud drew on
Shakespearean psychology, in particular that of Hamlet, for his theories of human nature. In
Shakespeares day, English grammar, spelling and pronunciation were less standardised
than they are now, and his use of language helped shape modern English. Samuel Johnson
quoted him more often than any other author in his A Dictionary of the English Language, the
first serious work of its type. Expressions such as quotwith bated breathquot Merchant of
Venice and quota foregone conclusionquot Othello have found their way into everyday
English speech.
Critical reputation
quotHe was not of an age, but for all time.quot Ben Jonson
Shakespeare was not revered in his lifetime, but he received his share of praise. In , the
cleric and author Francis Meres singled him out from a group of English writers as quotthe
most excellentquot in both comedy and tragedy. And the authors of the Parnassus plays at
St Johns College, Cambridge, numbered him with Chaucer, Gower and Spenser. In the First
Folio, Ben Jonson called Shakespeare the quotSoul of the age, the applause, delight, the
wonder of our stagequot, though he had remarked elsewhere that quotShakespeare wanted
artquot.
William Shakespeare
Between the Restoration of the monarchy in and the end of the th century, classical ideas
were in vogue. As a result, critics of the time mostly rated Shakespeare below John Fletcher
and Ben Jonson. Thomas Rymer, for example, condemned Shakespeare for mixing the
comic with the tragic. Nevertheless, poet and critic John Dryden rated Shakespeare highly,
saying of Jonson, quotI admire him, but I love Shakespearequot. For several decades,
Rymers view held sway but during the th century, critics began to respond to Shakespeare
on his own terms and acclaim what they termed his natural genius. A series of scholarly
editions of his work, notably those of Samuel Johnson in and Edmond Malone in , added to
his growing reputation. By , he was firmly enshrined as the national poet. In the th and th
centuries, his reputation also spread abroad. Among those who championed him were the
writers Voltaire, Goethe, Stendhal and Victor Hugo. During the Romantic era, Shakespeare
was praised by the poet and literary philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the critic
August Wilhelm Schlegel translated his plays in the spirit of German Romanticism. In the th
century, critical admiration for Shakespeares genius often bordered on adulation. quotThat
King Shakespeare,quot the essayist Thomas Carlyle wrote in , A recently garlanded statue of
William Shakespeare in Lincoln Park, Chicago, typical of many created in the quotdoes not
he shine, in crowned sovereignty, over us all, as the th and early th century. noblest,
gentlest, yet strongest of rallying signs indestructiblequot. The Victorians produced his plays
as lavish spectacles on a grand scale. The playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw
mocked the cult of Shakespeare worship as quotbardolatryquot. He claimed that the new
naturalism of Ibsens plays had made Shakespeare obsolete. The modernist revolution in the
arts during the early th century, far from discarding Shakespeare, eagerly enlisted his work in
the service of the avantgarde. The Expressionists in Germany and the Futurists in Moscow
mounted productions of his plays. Marxist playwright and director Bertolt Brecht devised an
epic theatre under the influence of Shakespeare. The poet and critic T. S. Eliot argued
against Shaw that Shakespeares quotprimitivenessquot in fact made him truly modern. Eliot,
along with G. Wilson Knight and the school of New Criticism, led a movement towards a
closer reading of Shakespeares imagery. In the s, a wave of new critical approaches
replaced modernism and paved the way for quotpostmodernquot studies of Shakespeare. By
the eighties, Shakespeare studies were open to movements such as structuralism, feminism,
New Historicism, African American studies, and queer studies.
Speculation about Shakespeare
Authorship
Around years after Shakespeares death, doubts began to be expressed about the authorship
of the works attributed to him. Proposed alternative candidates include Francis Bacon,
Christopher Marlowe, and Edward de Vere, th Earl of Oxford. Several quotgroup
theoriesquot have also been proposed. Only a small minority of academics believe there is
reason to question the traditional attribution, but interest in the subject, particularly the
Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship, continues into the st century.
William Shakespeare
Religion
Some scholars claim that members of Shakespeares family were Catholics, at a time when
Catholic practice was against the law. Shakespeares mother, Mary Arden, certainly came
from a pious Catholic family. The strongest evidence might be a Catholic statement of faith
signed by John Shakespeare, found in in the rafters of his former house in Henley Street.
The document is now lost, however, and scholars differ as to its authenticity. In the
authorities reported that John Shakespeare had missed church quotfor fear of process for
debtquot, a common Catholic excuse. In the name of Williams daughter Susanna appears on
a list of those who failed to attend Easter communion in Stratford. Scholars find evidence
both for and against Shakespeares Catholicism in his plays, but the truth may be impossible
to prove either way.
Sexuality
Few details of Shakespeares sexuality are known. At , he married the yearold Anne
Hathaway, who was pregnant. Susanna, the first of their three children, was born six months
later on May . However, over the centuries readers have pointed to Shakespeares sonnets
as evidence of his love for a young man. Others read the same passages as the expression
of intense friendship rather than sexual love. At the same time, the socalled quotDark
Ladyquot sonnets, addressed to a married woman, are taken as evidence of heterosexual
liaisons.
Portraiture
There is no written description of Shakespeares physical appearance and no evidence that
he ever commissioned a portrait, so the Droeshout engraving, which Ben Jonson approved
of as a good likeness, and his Stratford monument provide the best evidence of his
appearance. From the th century, the desire for authentic Shakespeare portraits fuelled
claims that various surviving pictures depicted Shakespeare. That demand also led to the
production of several fake portraits, as well as misattributions, repaintings and relabelling of
portraits of other people.
List of works
Classification of the plays
Shakespeares works include the plays printed in the First Folio of , listed below according to
their folio classification as comedies, histories and tragedies. Two plays not included in the
First Folio, The Two Noble Kinsmen and Pericles, Prince of Tyre, are now accepted as part
of the canon, with scholars agreed that Shakespeare made a major contribution to their
composition. No Shakespearean poems were included in the First Folio. In the late th
century, Edward Dowden classified four of the late comedies as romances, and though many
scholars prefer to call them The Plays of William Shakespeare. By Sir John tragicomedies,
his term is often used. These plays and the Gilbert, . associated Two Noble Kinsmen are
marked with an asterisk below. In , Frederick S. Boas coined the term quotproblem playsquot
to describe four plays Alls Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida
and Hamlet. quotDramas as singular in theme and temper cannot be strictly called comedies
or tragediesquot, he wrote. quotWe may therefore borrow a convenient phrase from the
theatre of today and class them together as Shakespeares problem plays.quot The term,
much debated and sometimes applied to other plays, remains in use, though Hamlet is
definitively classed as a tragedy. The other problem plays are marked below with a double
dagger .
William Shakespeare Plays thought to be only partly written by Shakespeare are marked with
a dagger below. Other works occasionally attributed to him are listed as apocrypha.
Works
Comedies Alls Well That Ends Well As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Loves Labours
Lost Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor A
Midsummer Nights Dream Much Ado About Nothing Pericles, Prince of Tyre The Taming of
the Shrew The Tempest Twelfth Night The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Two Noble
Kinsmen The Winters Tale Histories King John Richard II Henry IV, Part Henry IV, Part
Henry V Henry VI, Part Henry VI, Part Henry VI, Part Richard III Henry VIII Tragedies Romeo
and Juliet Coriolanus Titus Andronicus Timon of Athens Julius Caesar Macbeth Hamlet
Troilus and Cressida King Lear Othello Antony and Cleopatra Cymbeline
Poems
Lost plays
Apocrypha Arden of Faversham The Birth of Merlin Edward III Locrine The London Prodigal
The Puritan The Second Maidens Tragedy Sir John Oldcastle Thomas Lord Cromwell A
Yorkshire Tragedy Sir Thomas More
Shakespeares sonnets Venus and Adonis The Rape of Lucrece The Passionate Pilgrim The
Phoenix and the Turtle A Lovers Complaint
Loves Labours Won Cardenio
Notes
Dates follow the Julian calendar, used in England throughout Shakespeares lifespan, but
with the start of year adjusted to January see Old Style and New Style dates. Under the
Gregorian calendar, adopted in Catholic countries in , Shakespeare died on May
Schoenbaum , xv. Greenblatt , Bevington , Wells , . Dobson , The quotnational cultquot of
Shakespeare, and the quotbardquot identification, dates from September , when the actor
David Garrick organised a weeklong carnival at Stratford to mark the town council awarding
him the freedom of the town. In addition to presenting the town with a statue of Shakespeare,
Garrick composed a doggerel verse, lampooned in the London newspapers, naming the
banks of the Avon as the birthplace of the quotmatchless Bardquot McIntyre , . The exact
figures are unknown. See Shakespeares collaborations and Shakespeare Apocrypha for
further details. Craig , . Shapiro , xviixviii Schoenbaum , , , , , Taylor , , , Chambers , Vol.
Taylor , . Individual play dates and precise writing span are unknown. See Chronology of
Shakespeares plays for further details. Bertolini , . Schoenbaum , . Schoenbaum , .
Schoenbaum , , Honan , .
William Shakespeare
Schoenbaum , . Schoenbaum , Ackroyd , Wells et al. , xvxvi Baldwin , . Baldwin , Cressy , , .
Schoenbaum , . Wood , Schoenbaum , . Schoenbaum , . Schoenbaum , . Schoenbaum , .
Schoenbaum , . Schoenbaum , Rowe . Schoenbaum , . Schoenbaum , . Honigmann , Wells
et al. , xvii Honigmann , Wood , . Wells et al. , Chambers , Vol. , Greenblatt , . Greenblatt ,
Schoenbaum , . Ackroyd , . Schoenbaum , Wells , Schoenbaum , Chambers , Vol. .
Schoenbaum , . Chambers , . Chambers , Vol. . Bentley , . Schoenbaum , Kastan , Knutson ,
Adams , Wells , . Schoenbaum , . Schoenbaum , . Rowe . Ackroyd , Wells et al. , xxii
Schoenbaum , . Honan , . Shapiro , . Honan , Greenblatt , . Ackroyd , . Honan , . Honan ,
Ackroyd , . Schoenbaum , . Honan , . Schoenbaum , . Honan , . Schoenbaum , .
Schoenbaum , , . Schoenbaum , . Schoenbaum , , . Schoenbaum , . Honan , . Chambers ,
Vol. , , Schoenbaum , . Chambers , Vol. , , Schoenbaum , , . Charles Knight, , in his notes on
Twelfth Night, quoted in Schoenbaum , . Ackroyd , Frye , Greenblatt , . Schoenbaum , .
Schoenbaum , Wells et al. , xviii
quotBards cursed tomb is revampedquot http/ / news. bbc. co. uk/ / hi/ uknews/ england/
coventrywarwickshire/ . stm, BBC News, May . Retrieved April . Schoenbaum , .
William Shakespeare
Schoenbaum , . National Portrait Gallery, Searching for Shakespeare, NPG publications,
Thomson, Peter, quotConventions of Playwritingquot. in Wells amp Orlin , . Frye , Honan , .
Schoenbaum , Frye , . Dutton amp Howard , . Ribner , . Frye , Ribner , Cheney , . Honan ,
Schoenbaum , . Frye , Honan , Werner , . Friedman , . Ackroyd , . Wood , . Wood , Honan , .
Ackroyd , . Ackroyd , . Shapiro , Gibbons , Ackroyd , . Wood , Honan , . Ackroyd , , Shapiro , .
Shapiro , . Bradley , Muir , . Bradley , .
Bradley , . Bradley , , . Bradley , , , Greenblatt , . Bradley , Ackroyd , Kermode , . McDonald ,
. Bradley , . Ackroyd , McDonald , Eliot , . Dowden , . Dowden , Frye , McDonald , . Wells et
al. , , Wells et al. , xx Wells et al. , xxi Shapiro , . Foakes , Shapiro , . Foakes , Nagler ,
Shapiro , . Wells et al. , xxii Foakes , . Ackroyd , Holland , xli. Ringler , . Schoenbaum ,
Chambers , Vol. . Shapiro , . Wells et al. , Wells et al. , xxxvii Wells et al. , xxxiv Pollard , xi.
Wells et al. , xxxiv Pollard , xi Maguire , . Bowers , Wells et al. , xxxivxxxv Wells et al. , ,
Rowe , . Frye , . Rowe , , . Rowe , Jackson , Honan , . Rowe , Honan , Schoenbaum , . Wood
, Schoenbaum , . Honan , . Schoenbaum , . Honan , Schoenbaum , .
William Shakespeare
Shakespeare . Schoenbaum , . Wood , . Clemen a, . Frye , , Clemen b, . Brooke, Nicholas,
quotLanguage and Speaker in Macbethquot, and Bradbrook, M.C., quotShakespeares
Recollection of Marlowequot, both in Edwards, Ewbank amp Hunter . Clemen b, . Frye , .
Wright , . Bradley , . McDonald , . McDonald , , , . Gibbons , . Gibbons , . Gibbons , , .
McDonald , Meagher , . Chambers , . Levenson , . Clemen , . Steiner , . Bryant , . Gross,
John, quotShakespeares Influencequot in Wells amp Orlin , .. Paraisz , . Cercignani . Crystal
, , . Wain , . Johnson , Crystal , . Jonson , . Dominik , Grady b, . Grady b, Greer , . Grady b, .
Grady b, . Dryden , . Grady b, Levin , . Dobson Cited by Grady b, . Grady cites Voltaires
Philosophical Letters Goethes Wilhelm Meisters Apprenticeship Stendhals twopart pamphlet
Racine et Shakespeare and Victor Hugos prefaces to Cromwell and William Shakespeare .
Grady b, . Levin , . Sawyer , . Carlyle , . Schoch , . Grady b, . Grady a, . Grady a, . Grady a, .
Drakakis , , McMichael amp Glenn . Gibson , , , . McMichael amp Glenn , p.. Did He or Didnt
He That Is the Question http/ / www. nytimes. com/ / / / education/ edlife/
shakespearesurvey. htmlr, New York Times, April Kathman, David, quotThe Question of
Authorshipquot in Wells amp Orlin , , Love , Schoenbaum , . Pritchard , . Wood , Ackroyd , .
Wood , Ackroyd , Schoenbaum , , . Wilson , Shapiro , . Casey Pequigney Evans , . Fort , .
William Shakespeare
Tarnya Cooper, Searching for Shakespeare, National Portrait Gallery, Yale University Press,
, pp. . Pressly, William L. quotThe Ashbourne Portrait of Shakespeare Through the Looking
Glass.quot Shakespeare Quarterly. pp. . David Piperquot O Sweet Mr. Shakespeare Ill Have
His Picture The Changing Image of Shakespeares Person, , National Portrait Gallery,
Pergamon Press, . Boyce , , , .. Kathman, David, quotThe Question of Authorshipquot in
Wells amp Orlin , Boyce , . Edwards , Snyder amp CurrenAquino . Schanzer , . Boas , .
Schanzer , Bloom , Berry , . The Passionate Pilgrim, published under Shakespeares name in
without his permission, includes early versions of two of his sonnets, three extracts from
Loves Labours Lost, several poems known to be by other poets, and eleven poems of
unknown authorship for which the attribution to Shakespeare has not been disproved Wells
et al. ,
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search engine and concordance Open Shakespeare http//www.openshakespeare.org/
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National Archives Free scores by William Shakespeare in the Choral Public Domain Library
ChoralWiki Works by or about William Shakespeare http//worldcat.org/identities/lccnn in
libraries WorldCat catalog Shakespeare Research Guide
http//uiuc.libguides.com/shakespeare/ LibGuide resources from the University of Illinois at
UrbanaChampaign Library William Shakespeare
http//www.dmoz.org/Arts/Literature/WorldLiterature/British/Shakespeare/ at the Open
Directory Project
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare
about two young quotstarcrossd loversquot whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding
families. It was among Shakespeares most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage
lovers. Romeo and Juliet belongs to a tradition of tragic romances stretching back to
antiquity. Its plot is based on an Italian tale, translated into verse as The Tragical History of
Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke in and retold in prose in Palace of Pleasure by William
Painter in . Shakespeare borrowed heavily from both but, to expand the plot, developed
supporting characters, particularly Mercutio and Paris. Believed written between and , the
play was first published in a quarto version in . This text was of poor quality, and later
editions corrected it, bringing it more in line with Shakespeares original. Shakespeares use of
dramatic structure, especially effects such as switching between comedy and tragedy to
heighten tension, his expansion of minor characters, and his use of subplots to embellish the
story, has been praised as an early sign of his dramatic skill. The play ascribes different
poetic forms to different characters, sometimes changing the form as the character develops.
Romeo, for example, grows more adept at the sonnet over the course of the play. Romeo
and Juliet has been adapted numerous times for stage, film, musical and opera. During the
Restoration, it was revived and heavily revised by William Davenant. David Garricks
thcentury version also modified several scenes, removing material then considered indecent,
and Georg Bendas operatic adaptation omitted much of the action and added a happy
ending. Performances in the th century, including Charlotte Cushmans, restored the original
text, and focused on greater realism. John Gielguds version kept very close to Shakespeares
text, and used Elizabethan costumes and staging to enhance the drama. In the th century the
play has been adapted in versions as diverse as MGMs comparatively faithful film, the s
stage musical West Side Story, and s MTVinspired Romeo Juliet.
An oil painting by Ford Madox Brown depicting Romeo and Juliets famous balcony scene
Title page of the first edition
Romeo and Juliet
Characters
Ruling house of Verona House of Montague Montague is the patriarch of the house of
Montague. Lady Montague is the matriarch of the house of Montague. Romeo is the son of
Montague and Lady Montague and the plays male protagonist. Benvolio is Romeos cousin
and best friend. Abram and Balthasar are servants of the Montague household. Prince
Escalus is the ruling Prince of Verona Count Paris is a kinsman of Escalus who wishes to
marry Juliet. Mercutio is another kinsman of Escalus, and a friend of Romeo.
House of Capulet Capulet is the patriarch of the house of Capulet. Lady Capulet is the
matriarch of the house of Capulet. Juliet is the daughter of the Capulets, and is the plays
female protagonist. Tybalt is a cousin of Juliet, and the nephew of Lady Capulet. The Nurse
is Juliets personal attendant and confidante. Peter, Sampson and Gregory are servants of
the Capulet household.
Others Friar Laurence is a Franciscan friar, and is Romeos confidant. A Chorus reads a
prologue to each of the first two acts. Friar John is sent to deliver Friar Laurences letter to
Romeo. An Apothecary who reluctantly sells Romeo poison.
Synopsis
The play, set in Verona, begins with a street brawl between Montague and Capulet
supporters who are sworn enemies. The Prince of Verona intervenes and declares that
further breach of the peace will be punishable by death. Later, Count Paris talks to Capulet
about marrying his daughter, but Capulet is wary of the request because Juliet is only
thirteen. Capulet asks Paris to wait another two years and invites him to attend a planned
Capulet ball. Lady Capulet and Juliets nurse try to persuade Juliet to accept Pariss courtship.
Meanwhile, Benvolio talks with his cousin Romeo, Lord Montagues son, about Romeos
recent depression. Benvolio discovers that it stems from unrequited infatuation for a girl
named Rosaline, one of Capulets nieces. Persuaded by Benvolio and Mercutio, Romeo
attends the ball at the Capulet house in hopes of meeting Rosaline. However, Romeo
instead meets and falls in love with Juliet. After the ball, in what is now called the
quotbalcony scenequot, Romeo sneaks into the Capulet courtyard and overhears Juliet on
her balcony vowing her love to him Lultimo bacio dato a Giulietta da Romeo by in spite of her
familys hatred of the Montagues. Romeo makes himself Francesco Hayez. Oil on canvas, .
known to her and they agree to be married. With the help of Friar Laurence, who hopes to
reconcile the two families through their childrens union, they are secretly married the next
day. Juliets cousin Tybalt, incensed that Romeo had sneaked into the Capulet ball,
challenges him to a duel. Romeo, now considering Tybalt his kinsman, refuses to fight.
Mercutio is offended by Tybalts insolence, as well as Romeos quotvile submission,quot and
accepts the duel on Romeos behalf. Mercutio is fatally wounded when Romeo attempts to
break up the fight. Griefstricken and wracked with guilt, Romeo confronts and slays Tybalt.
Montague argues that Romeo has justly executed Tybalt for the murder of Mercutio. The
Prince, now having lost a kinsman in the warring families feud, exiles Romeo from Verona
and declares that if Romeo returns, quotthat hour is his last.quot Romeo secretly spends the
night in Juliets chamber, where they consummate their marriage. Capulet, misinterpreting
Juliets grief, agrees to marry her to Count Paris and threatens to disown her when she
refuses to become Pariss quotjoyful bride.quot When she then pleads for the marriage to be
delayed, her mother rejects her.
Romeo and Juliet Juliet visits Friar Laurence for help, and he offers her a drug that will put
her into a deathlike coma for quottwo and forty hours.quot The Friar promises to send a
messenger to inform Romeo of the plan, so that he can rejoin her when she awakens. On the
night before the wedding, she takes the drug and, when discovered apparently dead, she is
laid in the family crypt. The messenger, however, does not reach Romeo and, instead, he
learns of Juliets apparent death from his servant Balthasar. Heartbroken, Romeo buys
poison from an apothecary and goes to the Capulet crypt. He encounters Paris who has
come to mourn Juliet privately. Believing Romeo to be a vandal, Paris confronts him and, in
the ensuing battle, Romeo kills Paris. Still believing Juliet to be dead, he drinks the poison.
Juliet then awakens and, finding Romeo dead, stabs herself with his dagger. The feuding
families and the Prince meet at the tomb to find all three dead. Friar Laurence recounts the
story of the two quotstarcrossd loversquot. The families are reconciled by their childrens
deaths and agree to end their violent feud. The play ends with the Princes elegy for the
lovers quotFor never was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.quot
Sources
Romeo and Juliet borrows from a tradition of tragic love stories dating back to antiquity. One
of these is Pyramus and Thisbe, from Ovids Metamorphoses, which contains parallels to
Shakespeares story the lovers parents despise each other, and Pyramus falsely believes his
lover Thisbe is dead. The Ephesiaca of Xenophon of Ephesus, written in the rd century, also
contains several similarities to the play, including the separation of the lovers, and a potion
that induces a deathlike sleep. One of the earliest references to the names Montague and
Capulet is from Dantes Divine Comedy, who mentions the Montecchi Montagues and the
Cappelletti Capulets in canto six of Purgatorio Come and see, you who are negligent,
Montagues and Capulets, Monaldi and Filippeschi One lot already grieving, the other in fear.
Dante, Divine Comedy Purgatorio, canto VI, ll. .
Title page of Arthur Brookes poem, Romeus and Juliet.
However, the reference is part of a polemic against the moral decay of Florence, Lombardy
and the Italian Peninsula as a whole Dante, through his characters, chastizes Albert of
Hapsburg for neglecting his responsibilities as temporal ruler of Christendom in the continent
quotyou who are negligentquot, and successive Popes for their encroachment from purely
spiritual affairs, thus leading to a climate of incessant bickering and warfare between rival
political parties in Lombardy. Historicity records the name of the family Montagues as being
lent to such a political party in Verona, but that of the Capulets as from a Cremonese family,
both of whom play out their conflict in Lombardy as a whole, rather than within the confines
of Verona. Allied to rival political factions, the parties are grieving quotOne lot already
grievingquot because their endless warfare has led to the destruction of both parties, rather
than a grief from the loss of their illfated offspring as the play sets forth, which appears to be
a solely poetic creation within this context. The earliest known version of the Romeo and
Juliet tale akin to Shakespeares play is the story of Mariotto and Gianozza by Masuccio
Salernitano, in the rd novel of his Il Novellino published in . Salernitano sets the story in
Siena and insists its events took place in his own lifetime. His version of the story includes
the secret
Romeo and Juliet marriage, the colluding friar, the fray where a prominent citizen is killed,
Mariottos exile, Gianozzas forced marriage, the potion plot, and the crucial message that
goes astray. In this version, Mariotto is caught and beheaded and Gianozza dies of grief.
Luigi da Porto adapted the story as Giulietta e Romeo and included it in his Historia
novellamente ritrovata di due Nobili Amanti published in . Da Porto drew on Pyramus and
Thisbe and Boccacios Decameron. He gave it much of its modern form, including the names
of the lovers, the rival families of Montecchi and Capuleti, and the location in Verona. He also
introduces characters corresponding to Shakespeares Mercutio, Tybalt, and Paris. Da Porto
presents his tale as historically true and claims it took place in the days of Bartolomeo II della
Scala a century earlier than Salernitano. In da Portos version Romeo takes poison and
Giulietta stabs herself with his dagger. In , Matteo Bandello published the second volume of
his Novelle, which included his version of Giuletta e Romeo. Bandello emphasises Romeos
initial depression and the feud between the families, and introduces the Nurse and Benvolio.
Bandellos story was translated into French by Pierre Boaistuau in in the first volume of his
Histories Tragiques. Boaistuau adds much moralising and sentiment, and the characters
indulge in rhetorical outbursts. In his narrative poem The Tragical History of Romeus and
Juliet, Arthur Brooke translated Boaistuau faithfully, but adjusted it to reflect parts of
Chaucers Troilus and Criseyde. There was a trend among writers and playwrights to publish
works based on Italian novellesItalian tales were very popular among theatregoersand
Shakespeare may well have been familiar with William Painters collection of Italian tales
titled Palace of Pleasure. This collection included a version in prose of the Romeo and Juliet
story named quotThe goodly History of the true and constant love of Rhomeo and
Juliettaquot. Shakespeare took advantage of this popularity The Merchant of Venice, Much
Ado About Nothing, Alls Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, and Romeo and Juliet
are all from Italian novelle. Romeo and Juliet is a dramatisation of Brookes translation, and
Shakespeare follows the poem closely, but adds extra detail to both major and minor
characters in particular the Nurse and Mercutio. Christopher Marlowes Hero and Leander
and Dido, Queen of Carthage, both similar stories written in Shakespeares day, are thought
to be less of a direct influence, although they may have helped create an atmosphere in
which tragic love stories could thrive.
Romeo and Juliet
Date and text
It is unknown when exactly Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet. Juliets nurse refers to an
earthquake she says occurred years ago. This may refer to the Dover Straits earthquake of ,
which would date that particular line to . Other earthquakesboth in England and in
Veronahave been proposed in support of different dates. But the plays stylistic similarities
with A Midsummer Nights Dream and other plays conventionally dated around , place its
composition sometime between and . One conjecture is that Shakespeare may have begun a
draft in , which he completed in . Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet was published in two
quarto editions prior to the publication of the First Folio of . These are referred to as Q and Q.
The first printed edition, Q, appeared in early , printed by John Danter. Because its text
contains numerous differences from the later editions, it is labelled a bad quarto the
thcentury editor T. J. B. Spencer described it as quota detestable text, probably a Title page
of the Second Quarto of Romeo and reconstruction of the play from the imperfect memories
of one or two Juliet published in of the actorsquot, suggesting that it had been pirated for
publication. An alternative explanation for Qs shortcomings is that the play like many others
of the time may have been heavily edited before performance by the playing company. In
any event, its appearance in early makes the latest possible date for the plays composition.
The superior Q called the play The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedie of Romeo and
Juliet. It was printed in by Thomas Creede and published by Cuthbert Burby. Q is about lines
longer than Q. Its title page describes it as quotNewly corrected, augmented and
amendedquot. Scholars believe that Q was based on Shakespeares preperformance draft
called his foul papers, since there are textual oddities such as variable tags for characters
and quotfalse startsquot for speeches that were presumably struck through by the author but
erroneously preserved by the typesetter. It is a much more complete and reliable text, and
was reprinted in Q, Q and Q. In effect, all later Quartos and Folios of Romeo and Juliet are
based on Q, as are all modern editions since editors believe that any deviations from Q in the
later editions whether good or bad are likely to arise from editors or compositors, not from
Shakespeare. The First Folio text of was based primarily on Q, with clarifications and
corrections possibly coming from a theatrical promptbook or Q. Other Folio editions of the
play were printed in F, F, and F. Modern versionsthat take into account several of the Folios
and Quartosfirst appeared with Nicholas Rowes edition, followed by Alexander Popes
version. Pope began a tradition of editing the play to add information such as stage
directions missing in Q by locating them in Q. This tradition continued late into the Romantic
period. Fully annotated editions first appeared in the Victorian period and continue to be
produced today, printing the text of the play with footnotes describing the sources and culture
behind the play.
Themes and motifs
Scholars have found it extremely difficult to assign one specific, overarching theme to the
play. Proposals for a main theme include a discovery by the characters that human beings
are neither wholly good nor wholly evil, but instead are more or less alike, awaking out of a
dream and into reality, the danger of hasty action, or the power of tragic fate. None of these
has widespread support. However, even if an overall theme cannot be found it is clear that
the play is full of several small, thematic elements that intertwine in complex ways. Several of
those most often
Romeo and Juliet debated by scholars are discussed below.
Love
quotRomeo If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this My
lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. Juliet
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this For
saints have hands that pilgrims hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers kiss.quot
Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene V
Romeo and Juliet is sometimes considered to have no unifying theme, save that of young
love. Romeo and Juliet have become emblematic of young lovers and doomed love. Since it
is such an obvious subject of the play, several scholars have explored the language and
historical context behind the romance of the play. On their first meeting, Romeo and Juliet
use a form of communication recommended by many etiquette authors in Shakespeares day
metaphor. By using metaphors of saints and sins, Romeo was able to test Juliets feelings for
him in a nonthreatening way. This method was recommended by Baldassare Castiglione
whose works had been translated into English by this time. He pointed out that if a man used
a metaphor as an invitation, the woman could pretend she did not understand him, and he
could retreat without losing honour. Juliet, however, participates in the metaphor and
expands on it. The religious metaphors of quotshrinequot, quotpilgrimquot and quotsaintquot
were fashionable in the poetry of the time and more likely to be understood as romantic
rather than blasphemous, as the concept of sainthood was associated with the Catholicism
of an earlier age. Later in the play, Shakespeare removes the more daring allusions to
Christs resurrection in the tomb he found in his source work Brookes Romeus and Juliet. In
the later balcony scene, Shakespeare has Romeo overhear Juliets soliloquy, but in Brookes
version of the story her declaration is done alone. By bringing Romeo into the scene to
eavesdrop, Shakespeare breaks from the normal sequence of courtship. Usually a woman
was required to be modest and shy to make sure that her suitor was sincere, but breaking
this rule serves to speed along the plot. The lovers are able to skip a lengthy part of wooing,
and move on to plain talk about their relationshipdeveloping into an agreement to be married
after knowing each other for only one night. In the final suicide scene, there is a contradiction
in the messagein the Catholic religion, suicides were often thought to be condemned to hell,
whereas people who die to be with their loves under the quotReligion of Lovequot are joined
with their loves in paradise. Romeo and Juliets love seems to be expressing the quotReligion
of Lovequot view rather than the Catholic view. Another point is that although their love is
passionate, it is only consummated in marriage, which prevents them from losing the
audiences sympathy. The play arguably equates love and sex with death. Throughout the
story, both Romeo and Juliet, along with the other characters, fantasise about it as a dark
being, often equating it with a lover. Capulet, for example, when he first discovers Juliets
faked death, describes it as having deflowered his daughter. Juliet later erotically compares
Romeo and death. Right before her suicide she grabs Romeos dagger, saying quotO happy
dagger This is thy sheath. There rust, and let me die.quot
Romeo and Juliet
Fate and chance
quotO, I am fortunes foolquot Romeo, Act III Scene I
Scholars are divided on the role of fate in the play. No consensus exists on whether the
characters are truly fated to die together or whether the events take place by a series of
unlucky chances. Arguments in favour of fate often refer to the description of the lovers as
quotstarcrossdquot. This phrase seems to hint that the stars have predetermined the lovers
future. John W. Draper points out the parallels between the Elizabethan belief in the four
humours and the main characters of the play for example, Tybalt as a choleric. Interpreting
the text in the light of humours reduces the amount of plot attributed to chance by modern
audiences. Still, other scholars see the play as a series of unlucky chancesmany to such a
degree that they do not see it as a tragedy at all, but an emotional melodrama. Ruth Nevo
believes the high degree to which chance is stressed in the narrative makes Romeo and
Juliet a quotlesser tragedyquot of happenstance, not of character. For example, Romeos
challenging Tybalt is not impulsive it is, after Mercutios death, the expected action to take. In
this scene, Nevo reads Romeo as being aware of the dangers of flouting social norms,
identity and commitments. He makes the choice to kill, not because of a tragic flaw, but
because of circumstance.
Duality light and dark
quotO brawling love, O loving hate, O any thing of nothing first create O heavy lightness,
serious vanity, Misshapen chaos of wellseeming forms, Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold
fire, sick health, Stillwaking sleep, that is not what it isquot Romeo, Act I Scene I
Scholars have long noted Shakespeares widespread use of light and dark imagery
throughout the play. Caroline Spurgeon considers the theme of light as quotsymbolic of the
natural beauty of young lovequot and later critics have expanded on this interpretation. For
example, both Romeo and Juliet see the other as light in a surrounding darkness. Romeo
describes Juliet as being like the sun, brighter than a torch, a jewel sparkling in the night, and
a bright angel among dark clouds. Even when she lies apparently dead in the tomb, he says
her quotbeauty makes This vault a feasting presence full of light.quot Juliet describes Romeo
as quotday in nightquot and quotWhiter than snow upon a ravens back.quot This contrast of
light and dark can be expanded as symbolscontrasting love and hate, youth and age in a
metaphoric way. Sometimes these intertwining metaphors create dramatic irony. For
example, Romeo and Juliets love is a light in the midst of the darkness of the hate around
them, but all of their activity together is done in night and darkness, while all of the feuding is
done in broad daylight. This paradox of imagery adds atmosphere to the moral dilemma
facing the two lovers loyalty to family or loyalty to love. At the end of the story, when the
morning is gloomy and the sun hiding its face for sorrow, light and dark have returned to their
proper places, the outward darkness reflecting the true, inner darkness of the family feud out
of sorrow for the lovers. All characters now recognise their folly in light of recent events, and
things return to the natural order, thanks to the love of Romeo and Juliet. The quotlightquot
theme in the play is also heavily connected to the theme of time, since light was a convenient
way for Shakespeare to express the passage of time through descriptions of the sun, moon,
and stars.
Romeo and Juliet
Time
quotThese times of woe afford no time to woo.quot Paris, Act III Scene IV
Time plays an important role in the language and plot of the play. Both Romeo and Juliet
struggle to maintain an imaginary world void of time in the face of the harsh realities that
surround them. For instance, when Romeo swears his love to Juliet by the moon, she
protests quotO swear not by the moon, thinconstant moon, / That monthly changes in her
circled orb, / Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.quot From the very beginning, the
lovers are designated as quotstarcrossdquot referring to an astrologic belief associated with
time. Stars were thought to control the fates of humanity, and as time passed, stars would
move along their course in the sky, also charting the course of human lives below. Romeo
speaks of a foreboding he feels in the stars movements early in the play, and when he learns
of Juliets death, he defies the stars course for him. Another central theme is haste
Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet spans a period of four to six days, in contrast to Brookes
poems spanning nine months. Scholars such as G. Thomas Tanselle believe that time was
quotespecially important to Shakespearequot in this play, as he used references to
quotshorttimequot for the young lovers as opposed to references to quotlongtimequot for the
quotolder generationquot to highlight quota headlong rush towards doomquot. Romeo and
Juliet fight time to make their love last forever. In the end, the only way they seem to defeat
time is through a death that makes them immortal through art. Time is also connected to the
theme of light and dark. In Shakespeares day, plays were often performed at noon in broad
daylight. This forced the playwright to use words to create the illusion of day and night in his
plays. Shakespeare uses references to the night and day, the stars, the moon, and the sun
to create this illusion. He also has characters frequently refer to days of the week and
specific hours to help the audience understand that time has passed in the story. All in all, no
fewer than references to time are found in the play, adding to the illusion of its passage.
Criticism and interpretation
Critical history
The earliest known critic of the play was diarist Samuel Pepys, who wrote in quotit is a play
of itself the worst that I ever heard in my life.quot Poet John Dryden wrote years later in
praise of the play and its comic character Mercutio quotShakespear showd the best of his
skill in his Mercutio, and he said himself, that he was forcd to kill him in the third Act, to
prevent being killed by him.quot Criticism of the play in the th century was less sparse, but no
less divided. Publisher Nicholas Rowe was the first critic to ponder the theme of the play,
which he saw as the just punishment of the two feuding families. In midcentury, writer
Charles Gildon and philosopher Lord Kames argued that the play was a failure in that it did
not follow the classical rules of drama the tragedy must occur because of some character
flaw, not an accident of fate. Writer and critic Samuel Johnson, however, considered it one of
Shakespeares quotmost pleasingquot plays. In the later part of the th and through the th
century, criticism centred on debates over the moral message of the play. Actor and
playwright David Garricks adaptation excluded Rosaline Romeo abandoning her for Juliet
was seen as fickle and reckless. Critics such as Charles Dibdin argued that Rosaline had
been purposely included in the play to show how reckless the hero was, and that this was the
reason for his tragic end. Others argued that Friar Laurence might be Shakespeares
spokesman in his warnings against undue haste. With the advent of the th century, these
moral arguments were disputed by critics such as Richard Green Moulton he argued that
accident, and not some character flaw, led to the lovers deaths.
Romeo and Juliet
Dramatic structure
In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare employs several dramatic techniques that have garnered
praise from critics most notably the abrupt shifts from comedy to tragedy an example is the
punning exchange between Benvolio and Mercutio just before Tybalt arrives. Before
Mercutios death in Act three, the play is largely a comedy. After his accidental demise, the
play suddenly becomes serious and takes on a tragic tone. When Romeo is banished, rather
than executed, and Friar Laurence offers Juliet a plan to reunite her with Romeo, the
audience can still hope that all will end well. They are in a quotbreathless state of
suspensequot by the opening of the last scene in the tomb If Romeo is delayed long enough
for the Friar to arrive, he and Juliet may yet be saved. These shifts from hope to despair,
reprieve, and new hope, serve to emphasise the tragedy when the final hope fails and both
the lovers die at the end. Shakespeare also uses subplots to offer a clearer view of the
actions of the main characters. For example, when the play begins, Romeo is in love with
Rosaline, who has refused all of his advances. Romeos infatuation with her stands in
obvious contrast to his later love for Juliet. This provides a comparison through which the
audience can see the seriousness of Romeo and Juliets love and marriage. Paris love for
Juliet also sets up a contrast between Juliets feelings for him and her feelings for Romeo.
The formal language she uses around Paris, as well as the way she talks about him to her
Nurse, show that her feelings clearly lie with Romeo. Beyond this, the subplot of the
MontagueCapulet feud overarches the whole play, providing an atmosphere of hate that is
the main contributor to the plays tragic end.
Language
Shakespeare uses a variety of poetic forms throughout the play. He begins with a line
prologue in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet, spoken by a Chorus. Most of Romeo and
Juliet is, however, written in blank verse, and much of it in strict iambic pentameter, with less
rhythmic variation than in most of Shakespeares later plays. In choosing forms, Shakespeare
matches the poetry to the character who uses it. Friar Laurence, for example, uses sermon
and sententiae forms, and the Nurse uses a unique blank verse form that closely matches
colloquial speech. Each of these forms is also moulded and matched to the emotion of the
scene the character occupies. For example, when Romeo talks about Rosaline earlier in the
play, he attempts to use the Petrarchan sonnet form. Petrarchan sonnets were often used by
men to exaggerate the beauty of women who were impossible for them to attain, as in
Romeos situation with Rosaline. This sonnet form is used by Lady Capulet to describe Count
Paris to Juliet as a handsome man. When Romeo and Juliet meet, the poetic form changes
from the Petrarchan which was becoming archaic in Shakespeares day to a then more
contemporary sonnet form, using quotpilgrimsquot and quotsaintsquot as metaphors. Finally,
when the two meet on the balcony, Romeo attempts to use the sonnet form to pledge his
love, but Juliet breaks it by saying quotDost thou love mequot By doing this, she searches for
true expression, rather than a poetic exaggeration of their love. Juliet uses monosyllabic
words with Romeo, but uses formal language with Paris. Other forms in the play include an
epithalamium by Juliet, a rhapsody in Mercutios Queen Mab speech, and an elegy by Paris.
Shakespeare saves his prose style most often for the common people in the play, though at
times he uses it for other characters, such as Mercutio. Humour, also, is important scholar
Molly Mahood identifies at least puns and wordplays in the text. Many of these jokes are
sexual in nature, especially those involving Mercutio and the Nurse.
Psychoanalytic criticism
Early psychoanalytic critics saw the problem of Romeo and Juliet in terms of Romeos
impulsiveness, deriving from quotillcontrolled, partially disguised aggressionquot, which
leads both to Mercutios death and to the double suicide. Romeo and Juliet is not considered
to be exceedingly psychologically complex, and sympathetic psychoanalytic readings of the
play make the tragic male experience equivalent with sicknesses. Norman Holland, writing in
, considers Romeos dream as a realistic quotwish fulfilling fantasy both in terms of Romeos
adult world and his
Romeo and Juliet hypothetical childhood at stages oral, phallic and oedipalquot while
acknowledging that a dramatic character is not a human being with mental processes
separate from those of the author. Critics such as Julia Kristeva focus on the hatred between
the families, arguing that this hatred is the cause of Romeo and Juliets passion for each
other. That hatred manifests itself directly in the lovers language Juliet, for example, speaks
of quotmy only love sprung from my only hatequot and often expresses her passion through
an anticipation of Romeos death. This leads on to speculation as to the playwrights
psychology, in particular to a consideration of Shakespeares grief for the death of his son,
Hamnet.
Feminist criticism
Feminist literary critics argue that the blame for the family feud lies in Veronas patriarchal
society. For Copplia Kahn, for example, the strict, masculine code of violence imposed on
Romeo is the main force driving the tragedy to its end. When Tybalt kills Mercutio, Romeo
shifts into this violent mode, regretting that Juliet has made him so quoteffeminatequot. In
this view, the younger males quotbecome menquot by engaging in violence on behalf of their
fathers, or in the case of the servants, their masters. The feud is also linked to male virility,
as the numerous jokes about maidenheads aptly demonstrate. Juliet also submits to a
female code of docility by allowing others, such as the Friar, to solve her problems for her.
Other critics, such as Dympna Callaghan, look at the plays feminism from a historicist angle,
stressing that when the play was written the feudal order was being challenged by
increasingly centralised government and the advent of capitalism. At the same time,
emerging Puritan ideas about marriage were less concerned with the quotevils of female
sexualityquot than those of earlier eras, and more sympathetic towards lovematches when
Juliet dodges her fathers attempt to force her to marry a man she has no feeling for, she is
challenging the patriarchal order in a way that would not have been possible at an earlier
time.
Queer theory
Critics utilizing queer theory have examined the sexuality of Mercutio and Romeo, comparing
their friendship with sexual love. Mercutio, in friendly conversation, mentions Romeos
phallus, suggesting traces of homoeroticism. An example is his joking wish quotTo raise a
spirit in his mistress circle ... letting it there stand / Till she had laid it and conjured it
down.quot Romeos homoeroticism can also be found in his attitude to Rosaline, a woman
who is distant and unavailable and brings no hope of offspring. As Benvolio argues, she is
best replaced by someone who will reciprocate. Shakespeares procreation sonnets describe
another young man who, like Romeo, is having trouble creating offspring and who may be
seen as being a homosexual. Gender critics believe that Shakespeare may have used
Rosaline as a way to express homosexual problems of procreation in an acceptable way. In
this view, when Juliet says quot...that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell
as sweetquot, she may be raising the question of whether there is any difference between
the beauty of a man and the beauty of a woman.
Romeo and Juliet
Legacy
Shakespeares day
Romeo and Juliet ranks with Hamlet as one of Shakespeares mostperformed plays. Its many
adaptations have made it one of his most enduring and famous stories. Even in
Shakespeares lifetime it was extremely popular. Scholar Gary Taylor measures it as the sixth
most popular of Shakespeares plays, in the period after the death of Christopher Marlowe
and Thomas Kyd but before the ascendancy of Ben Jonson during which Shakespeare was
Londons dominant playwright. The date of the first performance is unknown. The First
Quarto, printed in , says that quotit hath been often and with great applause plaid
publiquelyquot, setting the first performance prior to that date. The Lord Chamberlains Men
were certainly the first to perform it. Besides their strong connections with Shakespeare, the
Second Quarto actually names one of its actors, Will Kemp, instead of Peter in a line in Act
five. Richard Burbage was probably the first Romeo, being the companys leading actor, and
Master Robert Goffe a boy Richard Burbage, probably the first actor to the first Juliet. The
premiere is likely to have been at quotThe Theatrequot, portray Romeo with other early
productions at quotThe Curtainquot. Romeo and Juliet is one of the first Shakespearean
plays to have been performed outside England a shortened and simplified version was
performed in Nrdlingen in .
Restoration and thcentury theatre
All theatres were closed down by the puritan government on September . Upon the
restoration of the monarchy in , two patent companies the Kings Company and the Dukes
Company were established, and the existing theatrical repertoire divided between them. Sir
William Davenant of the Dukes Company staged a adaptation in which Henry Harris played
Romeo, Thomas Betterton Mercutio, and Bettertons wife Mary Saunderson Juliet she was
probably the first woman to play the role professionally. Another version closely followed
Davenants adaptation and was also regularly performed by the Dukes Company. This was a
tragicomedy by James Howard, in which the two lovers survive. Thomas Otways The History
and Fall of Caius Marius, one of the more extreme of the Restoration adaptations of
Shakespeare, debuted in . The scene is shifted from Renaissance Verona to ancient Rome
Romeo is Marius, Juliet is Lavinia, the feud is between patricians and plebeians Juliet/Lavinia
wakes from her potion before Romeo/Marius dies. Otways version was a hit, and was acted
for the next seventy years. His innovation in the closing scene was even more enduring, and
was used in adaptations throughout the next years Theophilus Cibbers adaptation of , and
David Garricks of
Mary Saunderson, probably the first woman to play Juliet professionally
Romeo and Juliet both used variations on it. These versions also eliminated elements
deemed inappropriate at the time. For example, Garricks version transferred all language
describing Rosaline to Juliet, to heighten the idea of faithfulness and downplay the
loveatfirstsight theme. In a quotBattle of the Romeosquot began, with Spranger Barry and
Susannah Maria Arne Mrs. Theophilus Cibber at Covent Garden versus David Garrick and
George Anne Bellamy at Drury Lane. The earliest known production in North America was an
amateur one on March , a physician named Joachimus Bertrand placed an advertisement in
the Gazette newspaper in New York, promoting a production in which he would play the
apothecary. The first professional performances of the play in North America were those of
the Hallam Company.
thcentury theatre
Garricks altered version of the play was very popular, and ran for nearly a century. Not until
did Shakespeares original return to the stage in the United States with the sisters Susan and
Charlotte Cushman as Juliet and Romeo, respectively, and then in in Britain with Samuel
Phelps at Sadlers Wells Theatre. Cushman adhered to Shakespeares version, beginning a
string of eightyfour performances. Her portrayal of Romeo was considered genius by many.
The Times wrote quotFor a long time Romeo has been a convention. Miss Cushmans
Romeo is a creative, a living, breathing, animated, ardent human being.quot Queen Victoria
wrote in her journal that quotnoone would ever have imagined she was a womanquot.
Cushmans success broke the Garrick tradition and paved the way for later performances to
return to the original storyline. Professional performances of Shakespeare in the midth
century had The American Cushman sisters, Charlotte and Susan, as Romeo and Juliet in
two particular features firstly, they were generally star vehicles, with supporting roles cut or
marginalised to give greater prominence to the central characters. Secondly, they were
quotpictorialquot, placing the action on spectacular and elaborate sets requiring lengthy
pauses for scene changes and with the frequent use of tableaux. Henry Irvings production at
the Lyceum Theatre with himself as Romeo and Ellen Terry as Juliet is considered an
archetype of the pictorial style. In , Sir Johnston ForbesRobertson took over from Irving, and
laid the groundwork for a more natural portrayal of Shakespeare that remains popular today.
ForbesRobertson avoided the showiness of Irving and instead portrayed a downtoearth
Romeo, expressing the poetic dialogue as realistic prose and avoiding melodramatic flourish.
American actors began to rival their British counterparts. Edwin Booth brother to John Wilkes
Booth and Mary McVicker soon to be Edwins wife opened as Romeo and Juliet at the
sumptuous Booths Theatre with its Europeanstyle stage machinery, and an air conditioning
system unique in New York on February . Some reports said it was one of the most elaborate
productions of Romeo and Juliet ever seen in America it was certainly the most popular,
running for over six weeks and earning over ,. The programme noted that quotThe tragedy
will be produced in strict accordance with historical propriety, in every respect, following
closely the text of Shakespeare.quot The first professional performance of the play in Japan
may have been George Crichton Milns companys production, which toured to Yokohama in .
Throughout the th century, Romeo and Juliet had been Shakespeares most popular play,
measured by the number of professional performances. In the th century it would become the
second most popular, behind Hamlet.
Romeo and Juliet
thcentury theatre
In , the play was revived by actress Katharine Cornell and her director husband Guthrie
McClintic and was taken on a sevenmonth nationwide tour throughout the United States. It
starred Orson Welles, Brian Aherne and Basil Rathbone. The production was a modest
success, and so upon the return to New York, Cornell and McClintic revised it and for the first
time, the play was presented with almost all the scenes intact, including the Prologue. The
new production opened in December with Ralph Richardson as Mercutio and Maurice Evans
as Romeo. Critics wrote that Cornell was quotthe finest Juliet of her time,quot quotendlessly
haunting,quot and quotthe most lovely and enchanting Juliet our presentday theatre has
seen.quot John Gielguds New Theatre production in featured Gielgud and Laurence Olivier
as Romeo and Mercutio, exchanging roles six weeks into the run, with Peggy Ashcroft as
Juliet. Gielgud used a scholarly combination of Q and Q texts, and organised the set and
costumes to match as closely as possible to the Elizabethan period. His efforts were a huge
success at the box office, and set the stage for increased historical realism in later
productions. Olivier later compared his performance and Gielguds quotJohn, all spiritual, all
spirituality, all beauty, all abstract things and myself as all earth, blood, humanity ... Ive
always felt that John missed the lower half and that made me go for the other ... But
whatever it was, when I was playing Romeo I was carrying a torch, I was trying to sell realism
in Shakespeare.quot Peter Brooks version was the beginning of a different style of John
Gielgud, who was among the more famous Romeo and Juliet performances. Brook was less
concerned with thcentury actors to play Romeo, Friar realism, and more concerned with
translating the play into a form that Laurence and Mercutio on stage could communicate with
the modern world. He argued, quotA production is only correct at the moment of its
correctness, and only good at the moment of its success.quot Brook excluded the final
reconciliation of the families from his performance text. Throughout the century, audiences,
influenced by the cinema, became less willing to accept actors distinctly older than the
teenage characters they were playing. A significant example of more youthful casting was in
Franco Zeffirellis Old Vic production in , with John Stride and Judi Dench, which would serve
as the basis for his film. Zeffirelli borrowed from Brooks ideas, altogether removing around a
third of the plays text to make it more accessible. In an interview with The Times, he stated
that the plays quottwin themes of love and the total breakdown of understanding between
two generationsquot had contemporary relevance. Recent performances often set the play in
the contemporary world. For example, in the Royal Shakespeare Company set the play in
modern Verona. Switchblades replaced swords, feasts and balls became drugladen rock
parties, and Romeo committed suicide by hypodermic needle. In , the Folger Shakespeare
Theatre produced a version set in a typical suburban world. Romeo sneaks into the Capulet
barbecue to meet Juliet, and Juliet discovers Tybalts death while in class at school. The play
is sometimes given a historical setting, enabling audiences to reflect on the underlying
conflicts. For example, adaptations have been set in the midst of the IsraeliPalestinian
conflict, in the apartheid era in South Africa, and in the aftermath of the Pueblo Revolt.
Similarly, Peter Ustinovs comic adaptation, Romanoff and Juliet, is set in a fictional
midEuropean country in the depths of the Cold War. A mockVictorian revisionist version of
Romeo and Juliets final scene with a happy ending, Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio and Paris
restored to life, and Benvolio revealing that he is Pariss love, Benvolia, in disguise forms part
of the stageplay The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Shakespeares RampJ, by
Joe Calarco, spins the classic
Romeo and Juliet in a modern tale of gay teenage awakening. A recent comedic musical
adaptation was The Second Citys The Second Citys Romeo and Juliet Musical The People
vs. Friar Laurence, the Man Who Killed Romeo and Juliet, set in modern times. In the th and
th century, Romeo and Juliet has often been the choice of Shakespeare plays to open a
classical theatre company, beginning with Edwin Booths inaugural production of that play in
his theatre in , the newly reformed company of the Old Vic in with John Gielgud, Martita Hunt
and Margaret Webster, as well as the Riverside Shakespeare Company in its founding
production in New York City in , which used the film of Franco Zeffirellis production as its
inspiration.
Music
quotRomeo loved Juliet Juliet felt the same When he put his arms around her He said Juliet,
baby, youre my flame Thou givest fever...quot Peggy Lees rendition of quotFeverquot.
At least operas have been based on Romeo and Juliet. The earliest, Romeo und Julie in , a
Singspiel by Georg Benda, omits much of the action of the play and most of its characters,
and has a happy ending. It is occasionally revived. The bestknown is Gounods Romo et
Juliette libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carr, a critical triumph when first performed and
frequently revived today. Bellinis I Capuleti e i Montecchi is also revived from time to time,
but has sometimes been judged unfavourably because of its perceived liberties with
Shakespeare however, Bellini and his librettist, Felice Romani, worked from Italian
sourcesprincipally Romanis libretto for an opera by Nicola Vaccairather than directly adapting
Shakespeares play. Among later operas there is Heinrich Sutermeisters work Romeo und
Julia. Romo et Juliette by Berlioz is a quotsymphonie dramatiquequot, a large scale work in
three parts for mixed voices, chorus and orchestra, which premiered in . Tchaikovskys
Romeo and Juliet FantasyOverture , revised and is a long symphonic poem, containing the
famous melody known as the quotlove themequot. Tchaikovskys device of repeating the
same musical theme at the ball, in the balcony scene, in Juliets bedroom and in the tomb has
been used by subsequent directors for example Nino Rotas love theme is used in a similar
way in the film of the play, as is Desrees Kissing You in the film. Other classical composers
influenced by the play include Svendsen Romeo og Julie, , Delius A Village Romeo and
Juliet, and Stenhammar Romeo och Julia, . The bestknown ballet version is Prokofievs
Romeo and Juliet. Originally commissioned by the Kirov Ballet, it was rejected by them when
Prokofiev attempted a happy ending, and was rejected again for the experimental nature of
its music. It has subsequently attained an quotimmensequot reputation, and has been
choreographed by John Cranko and Kenneth MacMillan among others. The play influenced
several jazz works, including Peggy Lees quotFeverquot. Duke Ellingtons Such Sweet
Thunder contains a piece entitled quotThe StarCrossed Loversquot in which the pair are
represented by tenor and alto saxophones critics noted that Juliets sax dominates the piece,
rather than offering an image of equality. The play has frequently influenced popular music,
including works by The Supremes, Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift, Tom Waits and Lou
Reed. The most famous such track is Dire Straits quotRomeo and Julietquot. The most
famous musical theatre adaptation is West Side Story with music by Leonard Bernstein and
lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. It dbuted on Broadway in and in the West End in , and became
a popular film in . This version updated the setting to midth century New York City, and the
warring families to ethnic gangs. Other musical adaptations include Terrence Manns rock
musical William Shakespeares Romeo and
Romeo and Juliet Juliet, cowritten with Jerome Korman, Grard Presgurvics Romo et Juliette,
de la Haine lAmour and Riccardo Cocciantes Giulietta amp Romeo.
Literature and art
Romeo and Juliet had a profound influence on subsequent literature. Before then, romance
had not even been viewed as a worthy topic for tragedy. In Harold Blooms words,
Shakespeare quotinvented the formula that the sexual becomes the erotic when crossed by
the shadow of death.quot Of Shakespeares works, Romeo and Juliet has generated the
mostand the most variedadaptations, including prose and verse narratives, drama, opera,
orchestral and choral music, ballet, film, television and painting. The word quotRomeoquot
has even become synonymous with quotmale loverquot in English. Romeo and Juliet was
parodied in Shakespeares own lifetime Henry Porters Two Angry Women of Abingdon and
Thomas Dekkers Blurt, Master Constable both contain balcony scenes in which a virginal
heroine engages in bawdy wordplay. The play directly influenced later literary works. For
example the preparations for a performance form a major plot arc in Charles Dickens
Nicholas Nickleby.
Romeo at Juliets Deathbed, Henry Fuseli,
Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeares mostillustrated works. The first known illustration
was a woodcut of the tomb scene, thought to be by Elisha Kirkall, which appeared in
Nicholas Rowes edition of Shakespeares plays. Five paintings of the play were
commissioned for the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery in the late th century, one representing
each of the five acts of the play. The th century fashion for quotpictorialquot performances
led to directors drawing on paintings for their inspiration, which in turn influenced painters to
depict actors and scenes from the theatre. In the th century, the plays most iconic visual
images have derived from its popular film versions.
Screen
For a comprehensive list, see Romeo and Juliet films. Romeo and Juliet may be the
mostfilmed play of all time. The most notable theatrical releases were George Cukors
multiOscarnominated production, Franco Zeffirellis version, and Baz Luhrmanns
MTVinspired Romeo Juliet. The latter two were both, in their time, the highestgrossing
Shakespeare film ever. Romeo and Juliet was first filmed in the silent era, by Georges Mlis,
although his film is now lost. The play was first heard on film in The Hollywood Revue of , in
which John Gilbert recited the balcony scene opposite Norma Shearer. Shearer and Leslie
Howard, with a combined age over , played the teenage lovers in George Cukors MGM film
version. Neither critics nor the public responded enthusiastically. Cinemagoers considered
the film too quotartyquot, staying away as they had from Warners A Midsummer Night Dream
a year before leading to Hollywood abandoning the Bard for over a decade. Renato
Castellani won the Grand Prix at the Venice Film Festival for his film of Romeo and Juliet. his
Romeo, Laurence Harvey, was already an experienced screen actor. By contrast, Susan
Shentall, as Juliet, was a secretarial student who was discovered by the director in a London
pub, and was cast for her quotpale sweet skin and honeyblonde hairquot. Stephen Orgel
describes Franco Zeffirellis Romeo and Juliet as being quotfull of beautiful young people,
and the camera, and the lush technicolour, make the most of their sexual energy and good
looks.quot Zeffirellis teenage
Romeo and Juliet leads, Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, had virtually no previous acting
experience, but performed capably and with great maturity. Zeffirelli has been particularly
praised, for his presentation of the duel scene as bravado getting outofcontrol. The film
courted controversy by including a nude weddingnight scene while Olivia Hussey was only
fifteen. Baz Luhrmanns Romeo Juliet and its accompanying soundtrack successfully targeted
the quotMTV Generationquot a young audience of similar age to the storys characters. Far
darker than Zeffirellis version, the film is set in the quotcrass, violent and superficial
societyquot of Verona Beach and Sycamore Grove. Leonardo DiCaprio was Romeo and
Claire Danes was Juliet. The play has been widely adapted for TV and film. In , Peter
Ustinovs coldwar stage parody, Romanoff and Juliet was filmed. The film of West Side
Storyset among New York gangsfeatured the Jets as white youths, equivalent to
Shakespeares Montagues, while the Sharks, equivalent to the Capulets, are Puerto Rican.
The film The Punk uses both the rough plot outline of Romeo and Juliet and names many of
the characters in ways that reflect the characters in the play. In , Disneys High School
Musical made use of Romeo and Juliets plot, placing the two young lovers in rival high
school cliques instead of feuding families. Filmmakers have frequently featured characters
performing scenes from Romeo and Juliet. The conceit of dramatising Shakespeare writing
Romeo and Juliet has been used several times, including John Maddens Shakespeare in
Love, in which Shakespeare writes the play against the backdrop of his own doomed love
affair. An anime series produced by Gonzo and SKY Perfect Well Think, called Romeo x
Juliet, was made in its plot was an edited version of the original storys, and had many new
supporting characters whose names were often derived from those of characters in other
Shakespeare works.
Modern social media
In April and May the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Mudlark Production Company
presented a version of the play, entitled Such Tweet Sorrow, as an improvised, realtime
series of tweets on Twitter. The production used RSC actors who engaged with the audience
as well each other, performing not from a traditional script but a quotGridquot developed by
the Mudlark production team and writers Tim Wright and Bethan Marlow. The performers
also make use of other media sites such as YouTube for pictures and video.
References
Notes
All references to Romeo and Juliet, unless otherwise specified, are taken from the Arden
Shakespeare second edition Gibbons, based on the Q text of , with elements from Q of .
Under its referencing system, which uses Roman numerals, II.ii. means act , scene , line ,
and a in place of a scene number refers to the prologue to the act.
Romeo and Juliet, I... Levenson defines quotstarcrossdquot as quotthwarted by a malign
starquot. Romeo and Juliet, Act , Scene , Line . Romeo and Juliet, Act , Scene , Line .
Romeo and Juliet, Act , Scene , Line . Romeo and Juliet, Act , Scene , Line . Romeo and
Juliet, Act , Scene , Lines . Halio . Gibbons . Moore . Higgins . Higgins Hosley . Gibbons
Levenson . Moore .
Romeo and Juliet
Gibbons . Gibbons . Gibbons . Keeble . Roberts Gibbons , Levenson . Romeo and Juliet
I.iii.. Gibbons . Gibbons . As well as A Midsummer Nights Dream, Gibbons draws parallels
with Loves Labours Lost and Richard II. Gibbons . Spencer . Halio . Gibbons . Gibbons ix.
Halio . Bowling . Halio . Romeo and Juliet, I.v.. Honegger . Groves . Groves Siegel . Romeo
and Juliet, II.v.. Romeo and Juliet, V.iii.. MacKenzie . Romeo and Juliet, III.i.. Evans . Draper
. Nevo . Romeo and Juliet, I.i.. Parker . Romeo and Juliet, II.ii. Romeo and Juliet, I.v.. Romeo
and Juliet, I.v.. Romeo and Juliet, II.ii.. Romeo and Juliet, I.v.. Romeo and Juliet, III.ii.. Halio .
Tanselle . Romeo and Juliet, III.iv.. Romeo and Juliet, II.ii. Muir . Lucking . Halio Driver . Scott
. Scott . Scott . Shapiro . Bonnard . Halio . Halio . Halio . Halio . Romeo and Juliet, II.ii.. Halio
. Levin . Halio .
Halio . Bloom . Wells .
Romeo and Juliet
Halio quoting Karl A. Meningers Man Against Himself. Appelbaum . Romeo and Juliet V.i..
Halio , . Romeo and Juliet I.v.. Halio . Halio . Romeo and Juliet, III.i.. Kahn Halio . Halio .
Halio . Romeo and Juliet, II.i. Rubinstein Romeo and Juliet, II.ii.. Goldberg . Halio . Halio ix.
Taylor . The five more popular plays, in descending order, are Henry VI, Part , Richard III,
Pericles, Hamlet and Richard II. Levenson . Dawson Marsden . Van Lennep .
Halio . Levenson . Marsden . Branam Stone . Pedicord . Morrison . Morrison . Gay . Halliday
, , . The Times December , cited by Gay . Potter . Levenson Schoch . Halio . Winter , .
Booths Romeo and Juliet was rivalled in popularity only by his own quothundred night
Hamletquot at The Winter Garden of four years before. First page of the program for the
opening night performance of Romeo and Juliet at Booths Theatre, February . Holland
Levenson . Tad Mosel, quotLeading Lady The World and Theatre of Katharine Cornell,quot
Little, Brown amp Co., Boston Smallwood . Halio . Smallwood . Halio . Levenson . Holland .
The Times September , cited by Levenson . Halio . Halio . Pape . Quince . Lujan . Howard .
Edgar . Marks . Houlihan Mary, quotWherefore Art Thou, Romeo To Make Us Laugh at Navy
Pierquot, Chicago SunTimes May , http/ / www. secondcity. com/ idtouring/ theatricals/
romeo/ reviewsamp reviewid
Romeo and Juliet
Barranger . New York Times . Buhler Sanders . Meyer . Sadie Holden . Collins . Sanders .
Stites . Romeo and Juliet I.v, II.ii, III.v, V.iii. Sanders . Sanders . Nestyev . Sanders Sanders .
Romeo and Juliet I... Sanders . Sanders Buhler Sanders . Ehren . Arafay . Levenson .
Bloom . Levenson , crediting this list of genres to Stanley Wells. quotRomeoquot,
MerriamWebster Online. Bly Muir . Fowler Romeo and Juliet V.iii. Fowler . Fowler . Fowler
Orgel . Brode . Rosenthal . Brode . Brode . Tatspaugh . Brode Brode quoting Renato
Castellani. Orgel . Brode Rosenthal . For example, by Anthony West of Vogue and Mollie
PanterDownes of The New Yorker, cited by Brode . Brode . Romeo and Juliet, III.v.
Rosenthal . Tatspaugh . Tatspaugh . Rosenthal . Daily Mail quotDisneys teenage musical
phenomenon premieres in Londonquot http/ / www. dailymail. co. uk/ tvshowbiz/ article/
DisneysteenagemusicalphenomenonpremieresLondon. html. Daily Mail. September , . .
Retrieved . McKernan and Terris list instances of uses of Romeo and Juliet, not including
films of the play itself. Lanier McKernan and Terris . Howard Rosenthal . quotModern take for
Shakespeare play Romeo and Julietquot http/ / news. bbc. co. uk/ / hi/ entertainment/
artsandculture/ . stm. BBC News. April . . Retrieved April . Gibbons vii.
Romeo and Juliet
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Romeo and Juliet And His Function as A Counsellor. Munich Grin. ISBN. Bloom, Harold .
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An Excellent Dumb Discourse. Cambridge Cambridge University Press. ISBN. Buhler,
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Halio, Jay . Romeo and Juliet A Guide to the Play. Westport Greenwood Press. ISBN.
Halliday, F.E. . A Shakespeare Companion . Baltimore Penguin. Higgins, David H., ed . The
Divine Comedy. Oxford World Classics. translated by C. H. Sisson. Oxford University Press.
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Sarah. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage. Cambridge Cambridge
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OClock Shadow, and Other Wondersquot http//query.
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External links
Romeo and Juliet http//www.gutenberg.org/etext/ Plain vanilla text from Project Gutenberg
Romeo and Juliet http//shakespeare.mit.edu/romeojuliet/ HTML version at MIT Romeo and
Juliet http//www.shakespeareonline.com/plays/romeoscenes.html HTML Annotated Play
Romeo and Juliet http//romeoandjuliet.publicliterature.org/ Full text with audio.
Prologue
Prologue
A prologue Greek prologos, from , pro fore, and lgos, word is an opening to a story that
establishes the setting and gives background details, often some earlier story that ties into
the main one, and other miscellaneous information. The Greek prologos included the modern
meaning of prologue, but was of wider significance, embracing any kind of preface, like the
Latin praefatio. In a book, the prologue is a part of the front matter which is in the voice of
one of the books characters rather than in that of the author.
Use in drama
Early prologues were composed to introduce a drama.
Greek
In Attic Greek drama, a character in the play, as very often a deity, stood forward or
appeared from a machine before the action of the play began, and made from the empty
stage such statements necessary for the audience to hear so that they might appreciate the
ensuing drama. It was the early Greek custom to dilate in great detail on everything that had
led up to the play, the latter being itself, as a rule merely the catastrophe which had inevitably
to ensue on the facts related in the prologue. The importance, therefore, of the prologue in
Greek drama was very great it sometimes almost took the place of a romance, to which, or to
an episode in which, the play itself succeeded.
LateHellenistic relief honouring tragedy writer Euripides, Istanbul Archaeological Museum
It is believed that the prologue in this form was practically the invention of Euripides, and with
him, as has been said, it takes the place of an explanatory first act. This may help to modify
the objection which criticism has often brought against the Greek prologue, as an
impertinence, a useless growth prefixed to the play, and standing as a barrier between us
and our enjoyment of it. The point precisely is that, to an Athenian audience, it was useful
and pertinent, as supplying just what they needed to make the succeeding scenes intelligible.
But it is difficult to accept the view that Euripides invented the plan of producing a god out of
a machine to justify the action of deity upon man, because it is plain that he himself disliked
this interference of the supernatural and did not believe in it. He seems, in such a typical
prologue as that to the Hippolytus, to be accepting a conventional formula, and employing it,
almost perversely, as a medium for his ironic rationalismo.
Prologue
Latin
Many of the existing Greek prologues may be later in date than the plays they illustrate, or
may contain large interpolations. On the Latin stage the prologue was often more elaborate
than it was in Athens, and in the careful composition of the poems which Plautus prefixes to
his plays we see what importance he gave to this portion of the entertainment sometimes, as
in the preface to the Rudens, Plautus rises to the height of his genius in his adroit and
romantic prologues, usually placed in the mouths of persons who make no appearance in the
play itself. Molire revived the Plautian prologue in the introduction to his Amphitryon. Racine
introduced Piety as the speaker of a prologue which opened his choral tragedy of Esther.
The tradition of the ancients vividly affected our own early dramatists. Not only were the
mystery plays and miracles of the Middle Ages begun by a homily, but when the drama in its
modern sense was inaugurated in the reign of Elizabeth, the prologue came with it, directly
adapted from the practice of Euripides and Terence. Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, prepared a
sort of prologue in dumb show for his Gorboduc of and he also wrote a famous Induction,
which is, practically, a prologue, to a miscellany of short romantic epics by diverse hands.
Plautus
Elizabethan
Though less prevalent in the Elizabethan than in the Classical or Restoration periods,
prologues of Renaissance plays are an interesting composite of styles and forms. As a direct
audience from one actor to the assembled audience, the functions of the prologue were to
quieten and appease the audience, introduce the themes and particulars of the play they are
about to hear, and beg their indulgence for any imperfections in the writing and/or
performance. Bruster and Weimann further argue that the prologue of the Early Modern
period serves as a liminal entity. Firstly, a prologue is at once the text which is spoken, the
actor who speaks that text, and the performance given by Title page of printing of Every Man
in His Humour, a play by the English playwright the actor in speaking. Secondly, in ushering
the audience from the Ben Jonson. The play belongs to the subgenre of real world into the
world of the play, the prologue straddles boundaries the quothumours comedyquot between
audience, actors, characters, playwrights, the fiction of the play, the physical theatre and the
outside world. Ben Jonson has been credited with using the prologue as a means to remind
the audience of the complex relationships between themselves and all aspects of the
performance they are about to view. In performance, the actor appeared dressed all in black.
This is in contrast to the costume of the play proper, where elaborate and colourful costumes
were worn, in the fashion of the day. The prologue removed his hat and wore no makeup. He
probably carried a book or scroll, or a placard displaying the title of the play. He was
introduced by three short trumpet calls, on the third of which he entered and took a position
downstage. He made three bows in the current fashion of the court, and then addressed the
audience. The Elizabethan prologue was unique in incorporating aspects of both classical
and medieval
Prologue traditions. In the classical tradition, the prologue conformed to one of four
subgenres the sustatikos, which recommends either the play or the poet the epitimetikos, in
which a curse is given against a rival, or thanks given to the audience dramatikos, in which
the plot of the play is explained and mixtos, which contains all of these things. In the
medieval tradition, expressions of morality and modesty are seen, as well as a metatheatrical
selfconsciousness, and an unabashed awareness of the financial contract engaged upon by
paid actors and playwrights, and a paying audience.
Use in fiction
Prologues have long been used in nondramatic fiction, since at least the time of Chaucers
Canterbury Tales, although Chaucer had prologues to many of the tales, rather than one at
the front of the book.
References
Bruster, Douglas, and Robert Weimann, Prologues to Shakespeares Theatre, . Bruster,
Douglas, and Robert Weimann, Prologues to Shakespeares Theatre, . Bruster, Douglas, and
Robert Weimann, Prologues to Shakespeares Theatre, . Cave, Richard, Elizabeth Schafer
and Brian Wooland, Ben Jonson and Theatre, . White, Martin, Renaissance Drama in Action,
.
Bruster, Douglas, and Robert Weimann, Prologues to Shakespeares Theatre, . Bruster,
Douglas, and Robert Weimann, Prologues to Shakespeares Theatre, . Bruster, Douglas, and
Robert Weimann, Prologues to Shakespeares Theatre, . Bruster, Douglas, and Robert
Weimann, Prologues to Shakespeares Theatre, . Bruster, Douglas, and Robert Weimann,
Prologues to Shakespeares Theatre, . Bruster, Douglas, and Robert Weimann, Prologues to
Shakespeares Theatre, . Books.Google.com http/ / books. google. com. au/
booksidhXCiDViuqwCamp pgPRamp dqprologueamp sourcegbsselectedpagesamp cad
Chisholm, Hugh, ed . quotProloguequot. Encyclopdia Britannica Eleventh ed.. Cambridge
University Press. This articleincorporates text from a publication now in the public
domainChisholm, Hugh, ed . Encyclopdia Britannica Eleventh ed.. Cambridge University
Press.
Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe
An anonymous portrait in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge believed to show Christopher
Marlowe. Born Died Occupation Nationality Period Literary movement Notable works
Baptized February Canterbury, England May agedDeptford, England Playwright, poet
English circa English Renaissance theatre quotHero and Leanderquot the Tragical History of
Doctor Faustus
Signature
Christopher Marlowe baptised February died May was an English dramatist, poet and
translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian, next to William
Shakespeare, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his
mysterious death. A warrant was issued for Marlowes arrest on May . No reason for it was
given, though it was thought to be connected to allegations of blasphemya manuscript
believed to have been written by Marlowe was said to contain quotvile heretical
conceiptsquot. He was brought before the Privy Council for questioning on May, after which
he had to report to them daily. Ten days later, he was stabbed to death by Ingram Frizer.
Whether the stabbing was connected to his arrest has never been resolved.
Christopher Marlowe
Early life
Marlowe was born to a shoemaker in Canterbury named John Marlowe and his wife
Catherine. His date of birth is not known, but he was baptised on February , and is likely to
have been born a few days before. Thus he was just two months older than his
contemporary Shakespeare, who was baptised on April in StratforduponAvon. Marlowe
attended The Kings School, Canterbury where a house is now named after him and Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge on a scholarship and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in . In
the university hesitated to award him his masters degree because of a rumour that he had
converted to Roman Catholicism and intended to go to the English college at Rheims to
prepare for the priesthood. However, his degree was awarded on schedule when the Privy
Council intervened on his behalf, commending him for his quotfaithful dealingquot and
quotgood servicequot to the Queen. The nature of Marlowes service was not specified by the
Council, but its letter to the Cambridge authorities has provoked much speculation, notably
the theory that Marlowe was operating as a secret agent working for Sir Francis
Walsinghams intelligence service. No direct evidence supports this theory, although the
Councils letter is evidence that Marlowe had served the government in some capacity.
Literary career
Dido, Queen of Carthage was Marlowes first drama, and is believed to have been performed
by the Children of the Chapel, a company of boy actors, between and . The play was first
published in the title page attributes the play to Marlowe and Thomas Nashe. Marlowes first
play performed on the regular stage in London, in , was Tamburlaine, about the conqueror
Timur, who rises from shepherd to warrior. It is among the first English plays in blank verse,
and, with Thomas Kyds The Spanish Tragedy, generally is considered the beginning of the
mature phase of the Elizabethan theatre. Tamburlaine was a success, and was followed with
Tamburlaine Part II. The two parts of Tamburlaine were published in all Marlowes other
works were published posthumously. The sequence of the writing of his other four plays is
unknown all deal with controversial themes. The Jew of Malta, about a Maltese Jews
barbarous revenge Canterbury. against the city authorities, has a prologue delivered by a
character representing Machiavelli. It was probably written in or , and was first performed in .
It was a success, and remained popular for the next fifty years. The play was entered in the
Stationers Register on May , , but the earliest surviving printed edition is from . Edward the
Second is an English history play about the deposition of King Edward II by his barons and
the Queen, who resent the undue influence the kings favourites have in court and state
affairs. The play was entered into the Stationers Register on July , , five weeks after
Marlowes death. The full title of the earliest extant edition, of , is quotThe Troublesome Reign
and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England, with the Tragical Fall of
Proud Mortimer.quot The play was first acted in or .
Marlowe was christened at St. Georges Church, in
Christopher Marlowe The Massacre at Paris is a short and luridly written work, the only
surviving text of which was probably a reconstruction from memory of the original
performance text, portraying the events of the Saint Bartholomews Day Massacre in , which
English Protestants invoked as the blackest example of Catholic treachery. It features the
silent quotEnglish Agentquot, whom subsequent tradition has identified with Marlowe himself
and his connections to the secret service. The Massacre at Paris is considered his most
dangerous play, as agitators in London seized on its theme to advocate the murders of
refugees from the low countries and, indeed, it warns Elizabeth I of this possibility in its last
scene. The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, based on the German Faustbuch, was the
first dramatised version of the Faust legend of a scholars dealing with the devil. While
versions of quotThe Devils Pactquot can be traced back to the th century, Marlowe deviates
significantly by having his hero unable to quotburn his booksquot or repent to a merciful God
in order to have his contract annulled at the end of the play. Marlowes protagonist is instead
torn apart by demons and dragged off screaming to hell. Dr Faustus is a textual problem for
scholars as it was highly edited and possibly censored and rewritten after Marlowes death.
Two versions of the play exist the quarto, also known as the A text, and the quarto or B text.
Many scholars believe that the A text is more representative of Marlowes original because it
contains irregular character names and idiosyncratic spelling the hallmarks of a text that
used the authors handwritten manuscript, or quotfoul papersquot, as a major source.
Marlowes plays were enormously successful, thanks in part, no doubt, to the imposing stage
presence of Edward Alleyn. Alleyn was unusually tall for the time, and the haughty roles of
Tamburlaine, Faustus, and Barabas were probably written especially for him. Marlowes plays
were the foundation of the repertoire of Alleyns company, the Admirals Men, throughout the
s. Marlowe also wrote the poem Hero and Leander published with a continuation by George
Chapman in , the popular lyric The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, and translations of
Ovids Amores and the first book of Lucans Pharsalia. In , his translation of Ovid was banned
and copies publicly burned as part of Archbishop Whitgifts crackdown on offensive material.
The legend
As with other writers of the period, little is known about Marlowe. What little evidence there is
can be found in legal records and other official documents. This has not stopped writers of
both fiction and nonfiction from speculating about his activities and character. Marlowe has
often been described as a spy, a brawler, a heretic and a homosexual, as well as a
quotmagicianquot, quotduellistquot, quottobaccouserquot, quotcounterfeiterquot and
quotrakehellquot. J. A. Downie and Constance Kuriyama have argued against the more lurid
speculation, but J.B. Steane remarked, quotit seems absurd to dismiss all of these
Elizabethan rumours and accusations as the Marlowe mythquot.
Christopher Marlowe
Spying
Marlowe is often alleged to have been a government spy Park Honans biography even had
quotSpyquot in its title The author Charles Nicholl speculates this was the case and suggests
that Marlowes recruitment took place when he was at Cambridge. Surviving college records
from the period indicate Marlowe had a series of unusually lengthy absences from the
university much longer than permitted by university regulations that began in the academic
year . Surviving college buttery dining room accounts indicate he began spending lavishly on
food and drink during the periods he was in attendance more than he could have afforded on
his known scholarship income. As noted above, in the Privy Council ordered Cambridge
University to award Marlowe his MA, denying rumours that he intended to go to the English
Catholic college in Rheims, saying instead that he had been engaged in unspecified
quotaffairesquot on quotmatters touching the benefit of his countryquot. This is from a
document dated June , from the Public Records Office Acts of Privy Council.
Title page of the earliest published text of Edward II It has sometimes been theorised that
Marlowe was the quotMorleyquot who was tutor to Arbella Stuart in . This possibility was first
raised in a TLS letter by E. St John Brooks in in a letter to Notes and Queries, John Baker
has added that only Marlowe could be Arbellas tutor due to the absence of any other known
quotMorleyquot from the period with an MA and not otherwise occupied. If Marlowe was
Arbellas tutor, and some biographers think that the quotMorleyquot in question may have
been a brother of the musician Thomas Morley it might indicate that he was a spy, since
Arbella, niece of Mary, Queen of Scots, and cousin of James VI of Scotland, later James I of
England, was at the time a strong candidate for the succession to Elizabeths throne.
In Marlowe was arrested in the town of Flushing in the Netherlands for his alleged
involvement in the counterfeiting of coins, presumably related to the activities of seditious
Catholics. He was sent to be dealt with by the Lord Treasurer Burghley but no charge or
imprisonment resulted. This arrest may have disrupted another of Marlowes spying missions
perhaps by giving the resulting coinage to the Catholic cause he was to infiltrate the followers
of the active Catholic plotter William Stanley and report back to Burghley.
Christopher Marlowe
Arrest and death
In early May several bills were posted about London threatening Protestant refugees from
France and the Netherlands who had settled in the city. One of these, the quotDutch church
libel,quot written in blank verse, contained allusions to several of Marlowes plays and was
signed, quotTamburlainequot. On May the Privy Council ordered the arrest of those
responsible for the libels. The next day, Marlowes colleague Thomas Kyd was arrested. Kyds
lodgings were searched and a fragment of a heretical tract was found. Kyd asserted that it
had belonged to Marlowe, with whom he had been writing quotin one chamberquot some two
years earlier. At that time they had both been working for an aristocratic patron, probably
Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange. Marlowes arrest was ordered on May, when the Privy
Council apparently knew that he might be found staying with Thomas Walsingham, whose
father was a first cousin of the late Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeths principal secretary in
the s and a man more deeply involved in state espionage than any other member of the Privy
Council. Marlowe duly appeared before the Privy Council on May and was instructed to
quotgive his daily attendance on their Lordships, until he shall be licensed to the
contraryquot. On Wednesday May Marlowe was killed.
Marlowe was buried in an unmarked grave in the churchyard of St Nicholas, Deptford. The
plaque shown here is modern.
Various accounts of Marlowes death were current over the next few years. Francis Meres
says Marlowe was quotstabbed to death by a bawdy servingman, a rival of his in his lewd
lovequot as punishment for his quotepicurism and atheism.quot In , in the Dictionary of
National Biography, Sir Sidney Lee wrote that Marlowe was killed in a drunken fight, and this
is still often stated as fact today. The official account came to light only in when the scholar
Leslie Hotson discovered the coroners report of the inquest on Marlowes death, held two
days later on Friday June . Marlowe had spent all day in a house in Deptford, owned by the
widow Eleanor Bull, and together with three men Ingram Frizer, Nicholas Skeres and Robert
Poley. All three had been employed by one or other of the Walsinghams. Skeres and Poley
had helped snare the conspirators in the Babington plot and Frizer was manager of Thomas
Walsinghams business affairs and occasional intermediary with his intelligence agents.
These witnesses testified that Frizer and Marlowe had argued over the bill now famously
known as the Reckoning exchanging quotdivers malicious wordsquot while Frizer was sitting
at a table between the other two and Marlowe was lying behind him on a couch. Marlowe
snatched Frizers dagger and wounded him on the head. In the ensuing struggle, according to
the coroners report, Marlowe was stabbed above the right eye, killing him instantly. The jury
concluded that Frizer acted in selfdefence, and within a month he was pardoned. Marlowe
was buried in an unmarked grave in the churchyard of St. Nicholas, Deptford immediately
after the inquest, on June . Marlowes death is alleged by some to be an assassination for the
following reasons . The three men who were in the room with him when he died were all
connected both to the state secret service and to the London underworld. Frizer and Skeres
also had a long record as loan sharks and conmen, as shown by court records. Bulls house
also had quotlinks to the governments spy networkquot. . Their story that they were on a
days pleasure outing to Deptford is alleged to be implausible. In fact, they spent the whole
day together. Also, Robert Poley was carrying urgent and confidential despatches to the
Queen, who was at her residence Nonsuch Palace in Surrey, but instead of delivering them,
he spent the day with Marlowe and the other two, and didnt in fact hand them in until well
over a week later, on June.
Christopher Marlowe . It seems too much of a coincidence that Marlowes death occurred
only a few days after his arrest, apparently for heresy. . The manner of Marlowes arrest is
alleged to suggest causes more tangled than a simple charge of heresy would generally
indicate. He was released in spite of prima facie evidence, and even though other
accusations about him received within a few days, as described below, implicitly connected
Sir Walter Raleigh and the Earl of Northumberland with the heresy. Thus, some contend it to
be probable that the investigation was meant primarily as a warning to the politicians in the
quotSchool of Nightquot, or that it was connected with a power struggle within the Privy
Council itself. . The various incidents that hint at a relationship with the Privy Council see
above, and by the fact that his patron was Thomas Walsingham, Sir Franciss second cousin
once removed, who had been actively involved in intelligence work. For these reasons and
others, Charles Nicholl in his book The Reckoning on Marlowes death argues there was
more to Marlowes death than emerged at the inquest. There are different theories of some
degree of probability. Since there are only written documents on which to base any
conclusions, and since it is probable that the most crucial information about his death was
never committed to writing at all, it is unlikely that the full circumstances of Marlowes death
will ever be known.
Atheism
Marlowe was reputed to be an atheist which, at that time, held the dangerous implication of
being an enemy of God. Some modern historians, however, consider that his professed
atheism, as with his supposed Catholicism, may have been no more than an elaborate and
sustained pretence adopted to further his work as a government spy. Contemporary
evidence comes from Marlowes accuser in Flushing, an informer called Richard Baines. The
governor of Flushing had reported that each of the men had quotof malicequot accused the
other of instigating the counterfeiting, and of intending to go over to the Catholic
quotenemyquot such an action was considered atheistic by the Protestants, who constituted
the dominant religious faction in England at that time. Following Marlowes arrest in , Baines
submitted to the authorities a quotnote containing the opinion of one Christopher Marly
concerning his damnable judgment of religion, and scorn of Gods word.quot Baines
attributes to Marlowe a total of eighteen items which quotscoff at the pretensions of the Old
and New Testamentquot such as, quotChrist was a bastard and his mother dishonest
unchastequot, quotthe A foul sheet from Marlowes writing of The woman of Samaria and her
sister were whores and that Christ knew Massacre at Paris . Reproduced from Folger
Shakespeare Library Ms.J.b. them dishonestlyquot, and, quotSt John the Evangelist was
bedfellow to Christ and leaned always in his bosomquot cf. John , and, quotthat he used him
as the sinners of Sodomquot. He also implies that Marlowe had Catholic sympathies. Other
passages are merely sceptical in tone quothe persuades men to atheism, willing them not to
be afraid of bugbears and hobgoblinsquot. The final paragraph of Baines document reads
These thinges, with many other shall by good amp honest witnes be aproved to be his
opinions and Comon Speeches, and that this Marlow doth not only hould them himself, but
almost into every Company he Cometh he perswades men to Atheism willing them not to be
afeard of bugbeares and hobgoblins, and vtterly scorning both god and his ministers as I
Richard Baines will Justify amp approue both by mine oth and the testimony of many honest
men, and almost al men with whome he hath Conversed any time will
Christopher Marlowe testify the same, and as I think all men in Cristianity ought to indevor
that the mouth of so dangerous a member may be stopped, he saith likewise that he hath
quoted a number of Contrarieties oute of the Scripture which he hath giuen to some great
men who in Convenient time shalbe named. When these thinges shalbe Called in question
the witnes shalbe produced. Similar examples of Marlowes statements were given by
Thomas Kyd after his imprisonment and possible torture see above both Kyd and Baines
connect Marlowe with the mathematician Thomas Harriot and Walter Raleighs circle. Another
document claimed at around the same time that quotone Marlowe is able to show more
sound reasons for Atheism than any divine in England is able to give to prove divinity, and
that ... he hath read the Atheist lecture to Sir Walter Raleigh and others.quot Some critics
believe that Marlowe sought to disseminate these views in his work and that he identified
with his rebellious and iconoclastic protagonists. However, plays had to be approved by the
Master of the Revels before they could be performed, and the censorship of publications was
under the control of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Presumably these authorities did not
consider any of Marlowes works to be unacceptable apart from the Amores.
Sexuality
Like his contemporary William Shakespeare, Marlowe is sometimes described today as
homosexual. The question of whether an Elizabethan was gay or homosexual in a modern
sense is anachronistic for the Elizabethans, what is often today termed homosexual or
bisexual was more likely to be recognised as a sexual act, rather than an exclusive sexual
orientation and identity. Some scholars argue that the evidence is inconclusive and that the
reports of Marlowes homosexuality may simply be exaggerated rumours Poster for WPA
performance of Marlowes Faustus, New produced after his death. Richard Baines reported
Marlowe York, circa as saying quotAll they that love not Tobacco and Boys are foolsquot.
David Bevington and Eric Rasmussen describe Bainess evidence as quotunreliable
testimonyquot and make the comment quotThese and other testimonials need to be
discounted for their exaggeration and for their having been produced under legal
circumstances we would regard as a witchhuntquot. One critic, J.B. Steane, remarked that
he considers there to be quotno evidence for Marlowes homosexuality at all.quot Other
scholars, however, point to homosexual themes in Marlowes writing in Hero and Leander,
Marlowe writes of the male youth Leander, quotin his looks were all that men desirequot and
that when the youth swims to visit Hero at Sestos, the sea god Neptune becomes sexually
excited, quotimagining that Ganymede, displeasd ... the lusty god embracd him, calld him
love ... and steal a kiss ... upon his breast, his thighs, and every limb ... and talk of lovequot,
while the boy, naive and unaware of Greek love practices, said that, quotYou are deceivd, I
am no woman, I ... Thereat smild Neptune.quot
Christopher Marlowe
Reputation among contemporary writers
Whatever the particular focus of modern critics, biographers and novelists, for his
contemporaries in the literary world, Marlowe was above all an admired and influential artist.
Within weeks of his death, George Peele remembered him as quotMarley, the Muses
darlingquot Michael Drayton noted that he quotHad in him those brave translunary things /
That the first poets hadquot, and Ben Jonson wrote of quotMarlowes mighty linequot.
Thomas Nashe wrote warmly of his friend, quotpoor deceased Kit Marlowequot. So too did
the publisher Edward Blount, in the dedication of Hero and Leander to Sir Thomas
Walsingham. Among the few contemporary dramatists to say anything negative about
Marlowe was the anonymous author of the Cambridge University play The Return From
Parnassus who wrote, quotPity it is that wit so ill should dwell, / Wit lent from heaven, but
vices sent from hell.quot The most famous tribute to Marlowe was paid by Shakespeare in
As You Like It, where he not only quotes a line from Hero and Leander Dead Shepherd, now
I find thy saw of might, quotWho ever loved that loved not at first sightquot but also gives to
the clown Touchstone the words quotWhen a mans verses cannot be understood, nor a
mans good wit seconded with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead
than a great reckoning in a little room.quot This appears to be a reference to Marlowes
murder which involved a fight over the quotreckoningquot, the bill, as well as to a line in
Marlowes Jew of Malta quotInfinite riches in a little roomquot. Shakespeare was heavily
influenced by Marlowe in his work, as can be seen in the reusing of Marlovian themes in
Antony and Cleopatra, The Merchant of Venice, Richard II, and Macbeth Dido, Jew of Malta,
Edward II and Dr Faustus respectively. In Hamlet, after meeting with the travelling actors,
Hamlet requests the Player perform a speech about the Trojan War, which at .. has an echo
of Marlowes Dido, Queen of Carthage. In Loves Labours Lost Shakespeare brings on a
character quotMarcadequot three syllables in conscious acknowledgement of Marlowes
character quotMercuryquot, also attending the King of Navarre, in Massacre at Paris. The
significance, to those of Shakespeares audience who had read Hero and Leander, was
Marlowes identification of himself with the god Mercury.
As Shakespeare
Given the murky inconsistencies concerning the account of Marlowes death, a theory has
arisen centered on the notion that Marlowe may have faked his death and then continued to
write under the assumed name of William Shakespeare. However, academic consensus
rejects alternative candidates for authorship, including Marlowe.
Works
The dates of composition are approximate.
Plays
Dido, Queen of Carthage c. possibly cowritten with Thomas Nashe Tamburlaine, part c.
Tamburlaine, part c. The Jew of Malta c. Doctor Faustus c., or, c. Edward II c. The Massacre
at Paris c.
The play Lusts Dominion was attributed to Marlowe upon its initial publication in , though
scholars and critics have almost unanimously rejected the attribution.
Christopher Marlowe
Poetry
Translation of Book One of Lucans Pharsalia date unknown Translation of Ovids Elegies c. s
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love pre because it is constantly referred to in his own
plays we can presume an early date of mids Hero and Leander c. , unfinished completed by
George Chapman,
Fictional works about Marlowe
Philip Lindsays One Dagger for Two, fictionalised account of Marlowes life . Novel Leo
Rosts Marlowe, stage musical based on Rosts book. Louise Welshs Tamburlaine Must Die,
about the last two weeks of Marlowes life. Novel Anthony Burgess A Dead Man in Deptford
fictionalised account of Marlows death. Novel Peter Whelans The School of Night about
Marlowes playwriting career after his faked death at Deptford. Play
References
quotChristopher Marlowe was baptised as Marlow, but he spelled his name Marley in his
one known surviving signature.quot David Kathman. quotThe Spelling and Pronunciation of
Shakespeares Name Pronunciation.quot http/ / shakespeareauthorship. com/ name. html
Robert A. Logan, Shakespeares Marlowe p.. quotDuring Marlowes lifetime, the popularity of
his plays, Robert Greenes...remarks...including the designation quotfamous,quot and the
many imitations of Tamburlaine suggest that he was for a brief time considered Englands
foremost dramatist.quot Nicholl, Charles . quotBy my onely meanes sett downe The Texts of
Marlows Atheismquot, in Kozuka, Takashi and Mulryne, J.R. Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson
new directions in biography. Ashgate Publishing, p. . This is commemorated by the name of
the towns main theatre, the Marlowe Theatre, and by the town museums. However, St.
Georges was gutted by fire in the Baedeker raids and was demolished in the postwar period
only the tower is left, at the south end of Canterburys High Street http/ / www. digiserve. com/
peter/ cantsgm. htm Marlowe, Christopher http/ / venn. lib. cam. ac. uk/ cgibin/ search.
plsuramp surocamp firamp firocamp citamp citocamp callamp texMRLWCamp syeamp
eyeamp colallamp maxcount in Venn, J. amp J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge
University Press, vols, . For a full transcript, see Peter Fareys Marlowe page http/ / www.
prstz. demon. co. uk/ pccert. htm He died in a deadly brawl.Hutchinson, Robert . Elizabeths
Spy Master Francis Walsingham and the secret war that saved England. London Weidenfeld
amp Nicolson. p.. ISBN . http/ / www. wwnorton. com/ college/ english/ nael/ century/ topic/
welcome. htm See especially the middle section in which the author shows how another
Cambridge graduate, Thomas Preston makes his title character express his love in a popular
play written around and compares that quotclumsyquot lines with Doctor Faustus addressing
Helen of Troy. Deats, Sarah Munson . quotDido Queen of Carthage and The Massacre at
Parisquot. In Cheney, Patrick. The Cambridge Companion to Christopher Marlowe.
Cambridge, England Cambridge University Press. p.. ISBN. Wilson, Richard . quotTragedy,
Patronage and Powerquot. in Cheney, Patrick, , p. Nicholl, Charles . quotLibels and
Heresiesquot. The Reckoning The Murder of Christopher Marlowe. London Jonathan Cape.
p.. ISBN. Hoenselaars, A. J. . quotEnglishmen abroad quot. Images of Englishmen and
Foreigners in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries. Madison, New Jersey
Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. pp.. ISBN. J. A. Downie in his and J. T. Parnells
Constructing Christopher Marlowe and Constance Kuriyama in her Christopher Marlowe A
Renaissance Life . J. B. Steane was a Scholar of Jesus College, Cambridge, where he read
English. He is the author of Marlowe A Critical Study and he edited and wrote an introduction
to the Penguin English Library edition of Christopher Marlowe The Complete Plays. Steane,
J.B. . Introduction to Christopher Marlowe The Complete Plays. Aylesbury, UK Penguin.
ISBN. Park Honan, Christopher Marlowe Poet and Spy, . Nicholl, Charles . quotquot. The
Reckoning The Murder of Christopher Marlowe. London Jonathan Cape. ISBN. He was
described by Arbellas guardian, the Countess of Shrewsbury, as having hoped for an annuity
of some from Arbella, his being quotso much damnified i.e. having lost this much by leaving
the University.quot BL Lansdowne MS ,f..and Charles Nicholl, The Reckoning , pp. . John
Baker, letter to Notes and Queries . , pp. Constance Kuriyama, Christopher Marlowe A
Renaissance Life , p. . Also in Handovers biography of Arbella, and Nicholl, The Reckoning,
p. .
Christopher Marlowe
Elizabeth I and James VI and I http/ / www. history. ac. uk/ ihr/ Focus/ Elizabeth/ index. html,
History in Focus http/ / www. history. ac. uk/ . For a full transcript, see Peter Fareys Marlowe
page http/ / www. prstz. demon. co. uk/ flushing. htm Nicholl A Libell, fixte vpon the French
Church Wall, in London http/ / www. prstz. demon. co. uk/ libell. htm For a full transcript, see
Peter Fareys Marlowe page http/ / www. prstz. demon. co. uk/ kyd. htm Mulryne, J. H.
quotThomas Kyd.quot Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford Oxford University
Press, . Haynes, Alan. The Elizabethan Secret Service. London Sutton, . Palladis Tamia.
London, vr. The Coroners Inquisition Translation http/ / www. prstz. demon. co. uk/ inquis.
htm Honan http/ / www. deptfordchurch. org Seaton, Ethel. quotMarlowe, Robert Poley, and
the Tippings.quot Review of English Studies . Greenblatt, Stephen Will in the World. New
York W.W. Norton amp Company, Inc., . Nicholl Gray, Austin. quotSome Observations on
Christopher Marlowe, Government Agent.quot PMLA . Stanley, Thomas . The history of
philosophy . quoted in Oxford English Dictionary. Riggs, David . Cheney, Patrick. ed. The
Cambridge Companion to Christopher Marlowe. Cambridge, England Cambridge University
Press. p.. ISBN. The Baines Note http/ / www. prstz. demon. co. uk/ baines. htm http/ / www.
biblegateway. com/ cgibin/ biblepassageJOHNBAamp showfnonamp showxrefonamp
languageenglishamp versionKJVamp xamp y quotThe Baines Notequot http/ / www. prestel.
co. uk/ rey/ baines. htm. . Retrieved . Kyds Accusations http/ / www. prstz. demon. co. uk/
kyd. htm Kyds letter to Sir John Puckering http/ / www. prstz. demon. co. uk/ kyd. htm The
socalled Remembrances against Richard Cholmeley. For a full transcript, see Peter Fareys
Marlowe page http/ / www. prstz. demon. co. uk/ chumley. htm Waith, Eugene. The
Herculean Hero in Marlowe, Chapman, Shakespeare, and Dryden. London Chatto and
Windus, . The idea is commonplace, though by no means universally accepted. Smith, Bruce
R. March . Homosexual desire in Shakespeares England. Chicago, Illinois University of
Chicago Press. p.. ISBN. Doctor Faustus and Other Plays, pp. viii ix White, Paul Whitfield,
ed. . Marlowe, History and Sexuality New Critical Essays on Christopher Marlowe. New York
AMS Press. Hero and Leander, see Project Gutenberg http/ / www. gutenberg. org/ files/ / h/
h. htm. Hero and Leander, . Hero and Leander, . Wilson, Richard . quotWorthies away the
scene begins to cloud in Shakespeares Navarrequot. In Mayer, JeanChristophe.
Representing France and the French in early modern English drama. Newark, DE University
of Delaware Press. pp.. ISBNX. Kathman, David , quotThe Question of Authorshipquot, in
Wells, Stanley Orlin, Lena C., Shakespeare an Oxford Guide, Oxford University Press, pp. ,
ISBN
Further reading
Brooke, C.F. Tucker. The Life of Marlowe and quotThe Tragedy of Dido, Queen of
Carthage.quot London Methuen, . pp., , , Bevington, David and Eric Rasmussen, Doctor
Faustus and Other Plays, OUP, ISBN Burgess, Anthony, A Dead Man in Deptford, Carroll
amp Graf, . novel about Marlowe based on the version of events in The Reckoning ISBN
Marlow, Christopher. Complete Works. Vol. Edward II. Ed. R. Rowland. Oxford Clarendon
Press, . pp. xxiixxiii Downie, J. A. and J. T. Parnell, eds., Constructing Christopher Marlowe,
Cambridge . ISBN X Honan, Park. Christopher Marlowe Poet and Spy Oxford University
Press, ISBN Kuriyama, Constance. Christopher Marlowe A Renaissance Life. Cornell
University Press, . ISBN Logan, Robert A. Shakespeares Marlowe The Influence of
Christopher Marlowe on Shakespeares Artistry. Aldershot, Hants Ashgate, . ISBN
Christopher Marlowe Nicholl, Charles. The Reckoning The Murder of Christopher Marlowe,
Vintage, revised edition ISBN Parker, John. The Aesthetics of Antichrist From Christian
Drama to Christopher Marlowe. Cornell University Press, . ISBN Riggs, David. quotThe
World of Christopher Marlowequot, Henry Holt and Co., ISBN Shepard, Alan. quotMarlowes
Soldiers Rhetorics of Masculinity in the Age of the Armadaquot, Ashgate, . ISBN X Trow, M.
J. Who Killed Kit Marlowe, Sutton, ISBN Ule, Louis. Christopher Marlowe A Biography,
Carlton Press, . ISBN Welsh, Louise. quotTamburlaine Must Diequot, novella based on the
build up to Marlowes death. Wraight, A.D. and Virginia F. Stern, In Search of Christopher
Marlowe A Pictorial Biography, Macdonald, London
External links
The Marlowe Society http//www.marlowesociety.org The works of Marlowe at Perseus
Project http//www.perseus.tufts.edu/Texts/Marlowe.html Works by Christopher Marlowe
http//www.classicistranieri.com/english/indexes/authm.htm in ebook BBC audio file
http//www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/pkd. In Our Time Radio discussion programme on
Marlowe and his work http//www.themarlowestudies.org The Marlowe Studies, an online
library of books concerning Christopher Marlowe Works by or about Christopher Marlowe
http//worldcat.org/identities/lccnn in libraries WorldCat catalog
Benjamin Jonson
Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson, after Abraham Blyenberch, c. . Born Died c. June Westminster, London,
England August aged Westminster, London, England
Occupation Dramatist, poet and actor
Benjamin Jonson c. June August was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A
contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly
Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric
poems. A man of vast reading and a seemingly insatiable appetite for controversy, Jonson
had an unparalleled breadth of influence on Jacobean and Caroline playwrights and poets.
Biography
Early life
Although he was born in Westminster, London, Jonson claimed his family was of Scottish
Border country descent, and this claim may have been supported by the fact that his coat of
arms bears three spindles or rhombi, a device shared by a Borders family, the Johnstones of
Annandale. His father died a month before Bens birth, and his mother remarried two years
later, to a master bricklayer. Jonson attended school in St. Martins Lane, and was later sent
to Westminster School, where one of his teachers was William Camden. Jonson remained
friendly with Camden, whose broad scholarship evidently influenced his own style, until the
latters death in . On leaving, Jonson was once thought to have gone on to the University of
Cambridge, but Jonson himself contradicts this, saying that he did not go to university, but
was put to a trade, probably bricklaying, immediately a legend recorded by Thomas Fuller
indicates that he worked on a garden wall in Lincolns Inn. He soon had enough of the trade
and spent some
Ben Jonson time in the Low Countries as a volunteer with the regiments of Francis Vere. In
conversations with poet William Drummond of Hawthornden, subsequently published as the
Hawthornden Manuscripts, Jonson reports that while in the Netherlands he killed an
opponent in single combat and stripped him of his weapons. Jonson married, some time
before , a woman which he described to Drummond as quota shrew, yet honest.quot His wife
has not been definitively identified, but she is sometimes identified as the Ann Lewis who
married a Benjamin Jonson at St MagnustheMartyr, near London Bridge. The registers of St.
Martins Church state that his eldest daughter Mary died in November , when she was six
months old. His eldest son Benjamin died of the plague ten years later Jonsons epitaph to
him On My First Sonne was written shortly after, and a second Benjamin died in . For five
years somewhere in this period, Jonson lived separately from his wife, enjoying the
hospitality of Lord Aubigny.
Career
By summer , Jonson had a fixed engagement in the Admirals Men, then performing under
Philip Henslowes management at The Rose. John Aubrey reports, on uncertain authority,
that Jonson was not successful as an actor whatever his skills as an actor, he was evidently
more valuable to the company as a writer. By this time Jonson had begun to write original
plays for the Lord Admirals Men in he was mentioned by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia
as one of quotthe best for tragedy.quot None of his early tragedies survives, however. An
undated comedy, The Case is Altered, may be his earliest surviving play. In a play which he
cowrote with Thomas Nashe, The Isle of Dogs, was suppressed after causing great offence.
Arrest warrants for Jonson and Nashe were issued by Elizabeths socalled interrogator,
Richard Topcliffe. Jonson was jailed in Marshalsea Prison and charged with quotLeude and
mutynous behaviorquot, while Nashe managed to escape to Great Yarmouth. A year later,
Jonson was again briefly imprisoned, this time in Newgate Prison, for killing another man, an
actor Gabriel Spenser, in a duel on September in Hogsden Fields, today part of Hoxton.
Tried on a charge of manslaughter, Jonson pleaded guilty but was subsequently released by
benefit of clergy, a legal ploy through which he gained leniency by reciting a brief bible verse
the neckverse, forfeiting his goods and chattels and being branded on his left thumb. In
Jonson produced his first great success, Every Man in his Humour, capitalising on the vogue
for humour plays which George Chapman had started with An Humorous Days Mirth. William
Shakespeare was among the first cast. Jonson followed the next year with Every Man Out of
His Humour, a pedantic attempt to imitate Aristophanes. It is not known whether this was a
success on stage, but when published, it proved popular and went through several editions.
Jonsons other work for the theater in the last years of Elizabeth Is reign was unsurprisingly
marked by fighting and controversy. Cynthias Revels was produced by the Children of the
Chapel Royal at Blackfriars Theatre in . It satirized both John Marston, who Jonson believed
had accused him of lustfulness, probably in HistrioMastix, and Thomas Dekker, against
whom Jonsons animus is not known. Jonson attacked the two poets again in s Poetaster.
Dekker responded with Satiromastix, subtitled quotthe untrussing of the humorous poetquot.
The final scene of this play, whilst certainly not to be taken at face value as a portrait of
Jonson, offers a caricature that is recognisable from Drummonds report boasting about
himself and condemning other poets, criticising performances of his plays, and calling
attention to himself in any available way. This quotWar of the Theatresquot appears to have
ended with reconciliation on all sides. Jonson collaborated with Dekker on a pageant
welcoming James I to England in although Drummond reports that Jonson called Dekker a
rogue. Marston dedicated The Malcontent to Jonson and the two collaborated with Chapman
on Eastward Ho, a play whose antiScottish sentiment briefly landed both authors in jail.
Ben Jonson
Royal Patronage
At the beginning of the reign of James I of England in Jonson joined other poets and
playwrights in welcoming the new king. Jonson quickly adapted himself to the additional
demand for masques and entertainments introduced with the new reign and fostered by both
the king and his consort Anne of Denmark. In addition to his popularity on the public stage
and in the royal hall, he enjoyed the patronage of aristocrats such as Elizabeth Sidney
daughter of Sir Philip Sidney and Lady Mary Wroth. This connection with the Sidney family
provided the impetus for one of Jonsons most famous lyrics, the country house poem To
Penshurst. In Thomas Overbury reported that Jonson was living on Aurelian Townsend and
quotscorning the world.quot Perhaps this explains why his his trouble with English authorities
continued. That same year he was questioned by the Privy Council about Sejanus, a
politicallythemed play about corruption in the Roman Empire. He was again in trouble for
topical allusions in a play, now lost, in which he took part. After the discovery of the
Gunpowder Plot, he appears to have been asked by the Privy Council to attempt to prevail
on a certain priest to cooperate with the government the priest he found was Father Thomas
Wright, who heard Fawkess confession Teague, . At the same time, Jonson pursued a more
prestigious career, writing masques for James court. The Satyr and The Masque of
Blackness are two of about two dozen masques which Jonson wrote for James or for Queen
Anne The Masque of Blackness was praised by Algernon Charles Swinburne as the
consummate example of this nowextinct genre, which mingled speech, dancing, and
spectacle. On many of these projects he collaborated, not always peacefully, with designer
Inigo Jones. For example, Jones designed the scenery for Jonsons masque Oberon, the
Faery Prince performed at Whitehall on January , in which Prince Henry, eldest son of James
I, appeared in the title role. Perhaps partly as a result of this new career, Jonson gave up
writing plays for the public theaters for a decade. He later told Drummond that he had made
less than two hundred pounds on all his plays together. In Jonson received a yearly pension
of marks about , leading some to identify him as Englands first Poet Laureate. This sign of
royal favour may have encouraged him to publish the first volume of the folio collected
edition of his works that year. Other volumes followed in and . See Ben Jonson folios
Title page of The Workes of Beniamin Ionson , the first folio publication that included stage
plays
In Jonson set out for his ancestral Scotland on foot. He spent over a year there, and the
bestremembered hospitality which he enjoyed was that of the Scottish poet, Drummond of
Hawthornden, in April of , sited on the River Esk. Drummond undertook to record as much of
Jonsons conversation as he could in his diary, and thus recorded aspects of Jonsons
personality that would otherwise have been less clearly seen. Jonson delivers his opinions,
in Drummonds terse reporting, in an expansive and even magisterial mood. Drummond
noted he was quota great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of
othersquot. In Edinburgh, Jonson is recorded as staying with a John Stuart of Leith. While
there he was made an honorary citizen of Edinburgh. On returning to England, he was
awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree from Oxford University. From Edinburgh he
travelled west and lodged with the Duke of Lennox where he wrote a play based on Loch
Lomond.
Ben Jonson The period between and may be viewed as Jonsons heyday. By he had
produced all the plays on which his present reputation as a dramatist is based, including the
tragedy Catiline acted and printed , which achieved limited success, and the comedies
Volpone, acted and printed in , Epicoene, or the Silent Woman , The Alchemist ,
Bartholomew Fair and The Devil is an Ass . The Alchemist and Volpone were immediately
successful. Of Epicoene, Jonson told Drummond of a satirical verse which reported that the
plays subtitle was appropriate, since its audience had refused to applaud the play i.e.,
remained silent. Yet Epicoene, along with Bartholomew Fair and to a lesser extent The Devil
is an Ass have in modern times achieved a certain degree of recognition. While his life during
this period was apparently more settled than it had been in the s, his financial security was
still not assured.
Decline and death
Jonson began to decline in the s. He was still wellknown from this time dates the prominence
of the Sons of Ben or the quotTribe of Benquot, those younger poets such as Robert Herrick,
Richard Lovelace, and Sir John Suckling who took their bearing in verse from Jonson.
However, a series of setbacks drained his strength and damaged his reputation. He resumed
writing regular plays in the s, but these are not considered among his best. They are of
significant interest, however, for their portrayal of Charles Is England. The Staple of News,
for example, offers a remarkable look at the earliest stage of English journalism. The
lukewarm reception given that play was, however, nothing compared to the dismal failure of
The New Inn the cold reception given this play prompted Jonson to write a poem
condemning his audience the Ode to Myself, which in turn prompted Thomas Carew, one of
the quotTribe of Ben,quot to respond in a poem that asks Jonson to recognize his own
decline. The principal factor in Jonsons partial eclipse was, however, the death of James and
the accession of King Charles I in . Jonson felt neglected by the new court. A decisive
quarrel with Jones harmed his career as a writer of court masques, although he continued to
entertain the court on an irregular basis. For his part, Charles displayed a certain degree of
care for the great poet of his fathers day he increased Jonsons annual pension to and
included a tierce of wine. Despite the strokes that he suffered in the s, Jonson continued to
write. At his death in he seems to have been working on another play, The Sad Shepherd.
Though only two acts are extant, this represents a remarkable new direction for Jonson a
move into pastoral drama. During the early s he also conducted a correspondence with
James Howell, who warned him about disfavour at court in the wake of his dispute with
Jones. Jonson died on August and his funeral was held on August. He is buried in the north
aisle of the Nave in Westminster Abbey, with the inscription quotO Rare Ben Johnsonquot
sic set in the slab over his grave. It has been suggested that this could be read quotOrare
Ben Jonsonquot pray for Ben Jonson, which would indicate a deathbed return to Catholicism,
but the carving shows a distinct space between quotOquot and quotrarequot. Researchers
suggest that the tribute came from William DAvenant, Jonsons successor as Poet Laureate,
as the same phrase appears on DAvenants nearby gravestone. The fact that he was buried
in an upright grave could be an indication of his reduced circumstances at the time of his
death, although it has also been written that Jonson asked for a grave exactly inches square
from the monarch and received an upright grave to fit in the requested space. The same
source claims that the epitaph came from the remark of a passerby to the grave.
His work
Drama
Apart from two tragedies, Sejanus and Catiline, that largely failed to impress Renaissance
audiences, Jonsons work for the public theatres was in comedy. These plays vary in some
respects. The minor early plays, particularly those written for boy players, present somewhat
looser plots and lessdeveloped characters than those written later, for adult companies.
Already in the plays which were his salvos in the Poets War, he displays the keen eye for
absurdity
Ben Jonson and hypocrisy that marks his bestknown plays in these early efforts, however,
plot mostly takes second place to variety of incident and comic setpieces. They are, also,
notably illtempered. Thomas Davies called Poetaster quota contemptible mixture of the
seriocomic, where the names of Augustus Caesar, Maecenas, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and
Tibullus, are all sacrificed upon the altar of private resentment.quot Another early comedy in
a different vein, The Case is Altered, is markedly similar to Shakespeares romantic comedies
in its foreign setting, emphasis on genial wit, and loveplot. Henslowes diary indicates that
Jonson had a hand in numerous other plays, including many in genres such as English
history with which he is not otherwise associated. The comedies of his middle career, from
Eastward Ho to The Devil is an Ass are for the most part city comedy, with a London setting,
themes of trickery and money, and a distinct moral ambiguity, despite Jonsons professed
aim in the Prologue to Volpone to quotmix profit with your pleasurequot. His late plays or
quotdotagesquot, particularly The Magnetic Lady and The Sad Shepherd, exhibit signs of an
accommodation with the romantic tendencies of Elizabethan comedy. Within this general
progression, however, Jonsons comic style remained constant and easily recognizable. He
announces his programme in the prologue to the folio version of Every Man in His Humour
he promises to represent quotdeeds, and language, such as men do use.quot He planned to
write comedies that revived the classical premises of Elizabethan dramatic theoryor rather,
since all but the loosest English comedies could claim some descent from Plautus and
Terence, he intended to apply those premises with rigour. This commitment entailed
negations after The Case is Altered, Jonson eschewed distant locations, noble characters,
romantic plots, and other staples of Elizabethan comedy, focussing instead on the satiric and
realistic inheritance of new comedy. He set his plays in contemporary settings, peopled them
with recognizable types, and set them to actions that, if not strictly realistic, involved
everyday motives such as greed and jealousy. In accordance with the temper of his age, he
was often so broad in his characterisation that many of his most famous scenes border on
the farcical as William Congreve, for example, judged Epicoene. He was more diligent in
adhering to the classical unities than many of his peersalthough as Margaret Cavendish
noted, the unity of action in the major comedies was rather compromised by Jonsons
abundance of incident. To this classical model Jonson applied the two features of his style
which save his classical imitations from mere pedantry the vividness with which he depicted
the lives of his characters, and the intricacy of his plots. Coleridge, for instance, claimed that
The Alchemist had one of the three most perfect plots in literature.
Poetry
Jonsons poetry, like his drama, is informed by his classical learning. Some of his
betterknown poems are close translations of Greek or Roman models all display the careful
attention to form and style that often came naturally to those trained in classics in the
humanist manner. Jonson largely avoided the debates about rhyme and meter that had
consumed Elizabethan classicists such as Thomas Campion and Gabriel Harvey. Accepting
both rhyme and stress, Jonson used them to mimic the classical qualities of simplicity,
restraint, and precision. Epigrams published in the folio is an entry in a genre that was
popular among lateElizabethan and Jacobean audiences, although Jonson was perhaps the
only poet of his time to work in its full classical range. The epigrams explore various
attitudes, most from the satiric stock of the day complaints against women, courtiers, and
spies abound. The condemnatory poems are short and anonymous Jonsons epigrams of
praise, including a famous poem to Camden and lines to Lucy Harington, are longer and are
mostly addressed to specific individuals. Although it is an epigram in the classical sense of
the genre, quotOn My First Sonnequot is neither satirical nor very short the poem, and others
like it, resemble what a later age sometimes called quotlyric poetryquot, and it is almost in
the form of a Sonnet, however there are some elements missing. It is possible that the title
symbolizes this with the spelling of son as Sonne. Johnsons poems of The Forest also
appeared in the first folio. Most of the fifteen poems are addressed to Jonsons aristocratic
supporters, but the most famous are his countryhouse poem To Penshurst and the poem To
Celia Come, my Celia, let us prove that appears also in Volpone.
Ben Jonson Underwood, published in the expanded folio of , is a larger and more
heterogeneous group of poems. It contains A Celebration of Charis, Jonsons most extended
effort at love poetry various religious pieces encomiastic poems including the poem to
Shakespeare and a sonnet on Mary Wroth the Execration against Vulcan and others. The
volume also contains three elegies which have often been ascribed to Donne one of them
appeared in Donnes posthumous collected poems.
Relationship with Shakespeare
There are many legends about Jonsons rivalry with Shakespeare, some of which may be
true. Drummond reports that during their conversation, Jonson scoffed at two apparent
absurdities in Shakespeares plays a nonsensical line in Julius Caesar, and the setting of The
Winters Tale on the nonexistent seacoast of Bohemia. Drummond also reported Jonson as
saying that Shakespeare quotwanted i.e. lacked art.quot Whether Drummond is viewed as
accurate or not, the comments fit well with Jonsons wellknown theories about literature. In
Timber, which was published posthumously and reflects his lifetime of practical experience,
Jonson offers a fuller and more conciliatory comment. He recalls being told by certain actors
that Shakespeare never blotted i.e., crossed out a line when he wrote. His own response,
quotWould he had blotted a thousand,quot was taken as malicious. However, Jonson
explains, quotHe was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature, had an excellent
phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that
sometimes it was necessary he should be stoppedquot. Jonson concludes that quotthere
was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned.quot Also when Shakespeare died
he said quotHe was not of an age, but for all time.quot Thomas Fuller relates stories of
Jonson and Shakespeare engaging in debates in the Mermaid Tavern Fuller imagines
conversations in which Shakespeare would run rings around the more learned but more
ponderous Jonson. That the two men knew each other personally is beyond doubt, not only
because of the tone of Jonsons references to him but because Shakespeares company
produced a number of Jonsons plays, at least one of which Every Man in his Humour
Shakespeare certainly acted in. However, it is now impossible to tell how much personal
communication they had, and tales of their friendship cannot be substantiated in the present
state of knowledge. Jonsons most influential and revealing commentary on Shakespeare is
the second of the two poems that he contributed to the prefatory verse that opens
Shakespeares First Folio. This poem, quotTo the memory of my beloved, The AUTHOR, Mr.
William Shakespeare And what he hath left us,quot did a good deal to create the traditional
view of Shakespeare as a poet who, despite quotsmall Latine, and lesse Greekequot, had a
natural genius. The poem has traditionally been thought to exemplify the contrast which
Jonson perceived between himself, the disciplined and erudite classicist, scornful of
ignorance and skeptical of the masses, and Shakespeare, represented in the poem as a kind
of natural wonder whose genius was not subject to any rules except those of the audiences
for which he wrote. But the poem itself qualifies this view Yet must I not give Nature all Thy
Art, My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part. Some view this elegy as a conventional
exercise, but others see it as a heartfelt tribute to the quotSweet Swan Of Avon,quot the
quotSoul of the Agequot It has been argued that Jonson helped to edit the First Folio, and he
may have been inspired to write this poem, surely one of his greatest, by reading his fellow
playwrights works, a number of which had been previously either unpublished or available in
less satisfactory versions, in a relatively complete form.
Ben Jonson
Reception and influence
During most of the th century Jonson was a towering literary figure, and his influence was
enormous. Before the English Civil War, the quotTribe of Benquot touted his importance, and
during the Restoration Jonsons satirical comedies and his theory and practice of quothumour
charactersquot which are often misunderstood see William Congreves letters for clarification
was extremely influential, providing the blueprint for many Restoration comedies. In the th
century Jonsons status began to decline. In the Romantic era, Jonson suffered the fate of
being unfairly compared and contrasted to Shakespeare, as the taste for Jonsons type of
satirical comedy decreased. Jonson was at times greatly appreciated by the Romantics, but
overall he was denigrated for not writing in a Shakespearean vein. In the th century, Jonsons
status rose significantly.
Drama
As G. E. Bentley notes in Shakespeare and Jonson Their Reputations in the Seventeenth
Century Compared, Jonsons reputation was in some respects equal to Shakespeares in the
th century. After the English theatres were reopened on the Restoration of Charles II,
Jonsons work, along with Shakespeares and Fletchers work, formed the initial core of the
Restoration repertory. It was not until after that Shakespeares plays ordinarily in heavily
revised forms were more frequently performed than those of his Renaissance
contemporaries. Many critics since the th century have ranked Jonson below only
Shakespeare among English Renaissance dramatists. Critical judgment has tended to
emphasize the very qualities that Jonson himself lauds in his prefaces, in Timber, and in his
scattered prefaces and dedications the realism and propriety of his language, the bite of his
satire, and the care with which he plotted his comedies. For some critics, the temptation to
contrast Jonson representing art or craft with Shakespeare representing nature, or untutored
genius has seemed natural Jonson himself may be said to initiate this interpretation in the
second folio, and Samuel Butler drew the same comparison in his commonplace book later
in the century. At the Restoration, this sensed difference became a kind of critical dogma.
Charles de Saintvremond placed Jonsons comedies above all else in English drama, and
Charles Gildon called Jonson the father of English comedy. John Dryden offered a more
common assessment in the Essay of Dramatic Poesie, in which his Avatar Neander
compares Shakespeare to Homer and Jonson to Virgil the former represented profound
creativity, the latter polished artifice. But quotartificequot was in the th century almost
synonymous with quotartquot Jonson, for instance, used quotartificerquot as a synonym for
quotartistquot Discoveries, . For Lewis Theobald, too, Jonson owed all his Excellence to his
Art, in contrast to Shakespeare, the natural genius. Nicholas Rowe, to whom may be traced
the legend that Jonson owed the production of Every Man in his Humour to Shakespeares
intercession, likewise attributed Jonsons excellence to learning, which did not raise him quite
to the level of genius. A consensus formed Jonson was the first English poet to understand
classical precepts with any accuracy, and he was the first to apply those precepts
successfully to contemporary life. But there were also more negative spins on Jonsons
learned art for instance, in the s, Edward Young casually remarked on the way in which
Jonsons learning worked, like Samsons strength, to his own detriment. Earlier, Aphra Behn,
writing in defence of female playwrights, had pointed to Jonson as a writer whose learning
did not make him popular unsurprisingly, she compares him unfavorably to Shakespeare.
Particularly in the tragedies, with their lengthy speeches abstracted from Sallust and Cicero,
Augustan critics saw a writer whose learning had swamped his aesthetic judgment. In this
period, Alexander Pope is exceptional in that he noted the tendency to exaggeration in these
competing critical portraits quotIt is ever the nature of Parties to be in extremes and nothing
is so probable, as that because Ben Johnson had much the most learning, it was said on the
one hand that Shakespear had none at all and because Shakespear had much the most wit
and fancy, it was retorted on the other, that Johnson wanted both.quot For the most part, the
th century consensus remained committed to the division that Pope doubted as late as the s,
Sarah Fielding could put a brief recapitulation of this analysis in the mouth of a quotman of
sensequot encountered by David Simple.
Ben Jonson Though his stature declined during the th century, Jonson was still read and
commented on throughout the century, generally in the kind of comparative and dismissive
terms just described. Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg translated parts of Peter Whalleys
edition into German in . Shortly before the Romantic revolution, Edward Capell offered an
almost unqualified rejection of Jonson as a dramatic poet, who he writes quothas very poor
pretensions to the high place he holds among the English Bards, as there is no original
manner to distinguish him, and the tedious sameness visible in his plots indicates a defect of
Genius.quot The disastrous failures of productions of Volpone and Epicoene in the early s no
doubt bolstered a widespread sense that Jonson had at last grown too antiquated for the
contemporary public if he still attracted enthusiasts such as Earl Camden and William
Gifford, he all but disappeared from the stage in the last quarter of the century. The romantic
revolution in criticism brought about an overall decline in the critical estimation of Jonson.
Hazlitt refers dismissively to Jonsons laborious caution. Coleridge, while more respectful,
describes Jonson as psychologically superficial He was a very accurately observing man but
he cared only to observe what was open to, and likely to impress, the senses. Coleridge
placed Jonson second only to Shakespeare other romantic critics were less approving. The
early th century was the great age for recovering Renaissance drama. Jonson, whose
reputation had survived, appears to have been less interesting to some readers than writers
such as Thomas Middleton or John Heywood, who were in some senses discoveries of the
th century. Moreover, the emphasis which the romantic writers placed on imagination, and
their concomitant tendency to distrust studied art, lowered Jonsons status, if it also
sharpened their awareness of the difference traditionally noted between Jonson and
Shakespeare. This trend was by no means universal, however William Gifford, Jonsons first
editor of the th century, did a great deal to defend Jonsons reputation during this period of
general decline. In the next era, Swinburne, who was more interested in Jonson than most
Victorians, wrote, The flowers of his growing have every quality but one which belongs to the
rarest and finest among flowers they have colour, form, variety, fertility, vigour the one thing
they want is fragrance by fragrance, Swinburne means spontaneity. In the th century,
Jonsons body of work has been subject to a more varied set of analyses, broadly consistent
with the interests and programmes of modern literary criticism. In an essay printed in The
Sacred Wood, T.S. Eliot attempted to repudiate the charge that Jonson was an arid classicist
by analysing the role of imagination in his dialogue. Eliot was appreciative of Jonsons overall
conception and his quotsurface,quot a view consonant with the modernist reaction against
Romantic criticism, which tended to denigrate playwrights who did not concentrate on
representations of psychological depth. Around midcentury, a number of critics and scholars
followed Eliots lead, producing detailed studies of Jonsons verbal style. At the same time,
study of Elizabethan themes and conventions, such as those by E. E. Stoll and M. C.
Bradbrook, provided a more vivid sense of how Jonsons work was shaped by the
expectations of his time. The proliferation of new critical perspectives after midcentury
touched on Jonson inconsistently. Jonas Barish was the leading figure among critics who
appreciated Jonsons artistry. On the other hand, Jonson received less attention from the new
critics than did some other playwrights and his work was not of programmatic interest to
psychoanalytic critics. But Jonsons career eventually made him a focal point for the revived
sociopolitical criticism. Jonsons works, particularly his masques and pageants, offer
significant information regarding the relations of literary production and political power, as do
his contacts with and poems for aristocratic patrons moreover, his career at the centre of
Londons emerging literary world has been seen as exemplifying the development of a fully
commodified literary culture. In this respect he is seen as a transitional figure, an author
whose skills and ambition led him to a leading role both in the declining culture of patronage
and in the rising culture of mass consumption.
Ben Jonson
Poetry
If Jonsons reputation as a playwright has traditionally been linked to Shakespeare, his
reputation as a poet has, since the early th century, been linked to that of John Donne. In this
comparison, Jonson represents the cavalier strain of poetry, emphasizing grace and clarity of
expression Donne, by contrast, epitomized the metaphysical school of poetry, with its
reliance on strained, baroque metaphors and often vague phrasing. Since the critics who
made this comparison Herbert Grierson for example, were to varying extents rediscovering
Donne, this comparison often worked to the detriment of Jonsons reputation. In his time
Jonson was at least as influential as Donne. In , historian Edmund Bolton named him the
best and most polished English poet. That this judgment was widely shared is indicated by
the admitted influence he had on younger poets. The grounds for describing Jonson as the
quotfatherquot of cavalier poets are clear many of the cavalier poets described themselves
as his quotsonsquot or his quottribe.quot For some of this tribe, the connection was as much
social as poetic Herrick described meetings at quotthe Sun, the Dog, the Triple Tunne.quot
All of them, including those like Herrick whose accomplishments in verse are generally
regarded as superior to Jonsons, took inspiration from Jonsons revival of classical forms and
themes, his subtle melodies, and his disciplined use of wit. In these respects Jonson may be
regarded as among the most important figures in the prehistory of English neoclassicism.
The best of Jonsons lyrics have remained current since his time periodically, they experience
a brief vogue, as after the publication of Peter Whalleys edition of . Jonsons poetry continues
to interest scholars for the light which it sheds on English literary history, such as politics,
systems of patronage, and intellectual attitudes. For the general reader, Jonsons reputation
rests on a few lyrics that, though brief, are surpassed for grace and precision by very few
Renaissance poems quotOn My First Sonnequot quotTo Celiaquot quotTo Penshurstquot
and the epitaph on boy player Solomon Pavy.
Jonsons works
Plays
A Tale of a Tub, comedy ca. revised performed printed The Case is Altered, comedy ca.
printed , with Henry Porter and Anthony Munday Every Man in His Humour, comedy
performed printed Every Man out of His Humour, comedy performed printed Cynthias Revels
performed printed The Poetaster, comedy performed printed Sejanus His Fall, tragedy
performed printed Eastward Ho, comedy performed and printed , a collaboration with John
Marston and George Chapman Volpone, comedy ca. printed Epicoene, or the Silent Woman,
comedy performed printed The Alchemist, comedy performed printed Catiline His
Conspiracy, tragedy performed and printed Bartholomew Fair, comedy performed October
printed The Devil is an Ass, comedy performed printed The Staple of News, comedy
performed Feb. printed The New Inn, or The Light Heart, comedy licensed January printed
The Magnetic Lady, or Humors Reconciled, comedy licensed October printed The Sad
Shepherd, pastoral ca. , printed , unfinished Mortimer his Fall, history printed , a fragment
Ben Jonson
Masques
The Coronation Triumph, or The Kings Entertainment performed March printed with Thomas
Dekker A Private Entertainment of the King and Queen on MayDay The Penates May printed
The Entertainment of the Queen and Prince Henry at Althorp The Satyr June printed The
Masque of Blackness January printed Hymenaei January printed The Entertainment of the
Kings of Great Britain and Denmark The Hours July printed The Masque of Beauty January
printed The Masque of Queens February printed The Hue and Cry after Cupid, or The
Masque at Lord Haddingtons Marriage February printed ca. The Entertainment at Britains
Burse April lost, rediscovered The Speeches at Prince Henrys Barriers, or The Lady of the
Lake January printed Oberon, the Faery Prince January printed Love Freed from Ignorance
and Folly February printed Love Restored January printed A Challenge at Tilt, at a Marriage
December / January printed The Irish Masque at Court December printed Mercury
Vindicated from the Alchemists January printed The Golden Age Restored January printed
Christmas, His Masque Christmas printed The Vision of Delight January printed Lovers Made
Men, or The Masque of Lethe, or The Masque at Lord Hays February printed Pleasure
Reconciled to Virtue January printed The masque was a failure Jonson revised it by placing
the antimasque first, turning it into For the Honour of Wales February printed News from the
New World Discovered in the Moon January printed The Entertainment at Blackfriars, or The
Newcastle Entertainment May MS Pans Anniversary, or The Shepherds HolyDay June
printed The Gypsies Metamorphosed and August printed The Masque of Augurs January
printed Time Vindicated to Himself and to His Honours January printed Neptunes Triumph for
the Return of Albion January printed The Masque of Owls at Kenilworth August printed The
Fortunate Isles and Their Union January printed Loves Triumph Through Callipolis January
printed Chloridia Rites to Chloris and Her Nymphs February printed The Kings Entertainment
at Welbeck in Nottinghamshire May printed Loves Welcome at Bolsover July printed
Ben Jonson
Other works
Epigrams The Forest , including To Penshurst A Discourse of Love Barclays Argenis,
translated by Jonson The Execration against Vulcan Horaces Art of Poetry, translated by
Jonson , with a commendatory verse by Edward Herbert Underwood English Grammar
Timber, or Discoveries, a commonplace book On My First Sonne , elegy To Celia Drink to
Me Only With Thine Eyes, poem As with other English Renaissance dramatists, a portion of
Ben Jonsons literary output has not survived. In addition to The Isle of Dogs , the records
suggest these lost plays as wholly or partially Jonsons work Richard Crookback Hot Anger
Soon Cold , with Porter and Henry Chettle Page of Plymouth , with Dekker and Robert II,
King of Scots , with Chettle and Dekker. Several of Jonsons masques and entertainments
also are not extant The Entertainment at Merchant Taylors The Entertainment at Salisbury
House for James I and The May Lord . Finally, there are questionable or borderline
attributions. Jonson may have had a hand in Rollo, Duke of Normandy, or The Bloody
Brother, a play in the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators. The comedy The Widow
was printed in as the work of Thomas Middleton, Fletcher and Jonson, though scholars have
been intensely skeptical about Jonsons presence in the play. A few attributions of
anonymous plays, such as The London Prodigal, have been ventured by individual
researchers, but have met with cool responses.
Biographies of Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson His Life and Work by Rosalind Miles Ben Jonson His Craft and Art by Rosalind
Miles Ben Jonson A Literary Life by W. David Kay Ben Jonson A Life by David Riggs
References
Evans, Robert C . quotJonsons critical heritagequot. In Harp, Richard Stewart, Stanley. The
Cambridge companion to Ben Jonson. Cambridge, England Cambridge University Press.
ISBN. Robert Chambers, Book of Days Drummond, William . Heads of a conversation
betwixt the famous poet Ben Johnson and William Drummond of Hawthornden, January http/
/ books. google. com/ booksidubHPBcMkOMCamp printsecfrontcoveramp dqquotWilliam
Drummondquot jonsonamp asbrramp eiSPASPTGYiwGjjPTsDQamp clientfirefoxaPPA,M. .
Encyclopedia biography http/ / www. encyclopedia. org/ BenJonson Maclean, p.
quotMonuments amp Gravestones Ben Jonsonquot http/ / web. archive. org/ web/ / http/ /
www. westminsterabbey. org/ historyresearch/ monumentsgravestones/ people/ .
Westminster Abbey to today. Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey. Archived from the
original http/ / www. westminsterabbey. org/ historyresearch/ monumentsgravestones/
people/ on . . Retrieved . Adams, J. Q. The Jonson Allusion Book. New Haven Yale
University Press, . pp. Dunton, Larkin . The World and Its People. Silver, Burdett. p.. Doran,
ff Gutenberg.org http/ / www. gutenberg. org/ dirs/ etext/ dscvh. htmfootnote W.T. Baldwin s
William Shaksperes Smalle Latine and Lesse Greeke, http/ / durer. press. uiuc. edu/ baldwin/
vol. / html/ . html Alexander Pope, ed. Works of Shakespeare London, , p.
Ben Jonson
Quoted in Craig, D. H., ed. Jonson The Critical Heritage London Routledge, . p. Logan and
Smith, pp.
Bentley, G. E. Shakespeare and Jonson Their Reputations in the Seventeenth Century
Compared. Chicago University of Chicago Press, Bush, Douglas. English Literature in the
Earlier Seventeenth Century, . Oxford History of English Literature. Oxford Clarendon Press,
Butler, Martin. quotJonsons Folio and the Politics of Patronage.quot Criticism Chute,
Marchette. quotBen Jonson of Westminster.quot New York E.P. Dutton, Doran, Madeline.
Endeavors of Art. Madison, Wis. University of Wisconsin Press, Eccles, Mark. quotJonsons
Marriage.quot Review of English Studies Eliot, T.S. quotBen Jonson.quot The Sacred Wood.
London Methuen, Jonson, Ben. Discoveries , ed. G. B. Harrison. New York Barnes amp
Noble, Knights, L. C. Drama and Society in the Age of Jonson. London Chatto and Windus,
Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S. Smith. The New Intellectuals A Survey and Bibliography
of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama. Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska
Press, MacLean, Hugh, editor. Ben Jonson and the Cavalier Poets. New York Norton Press,
Ceri Sullivan, The Rhetoric of Credit. Merchants in Early Modern Writing Madison/London
Associated University Press, Teague, Frances. quotBen Jonson and the Gunpowder
Plot.quot Ben Jonson Journal . pp. Thorndike, Ashley. quotBen Jonson.quot The Cambridge
History of English and American Literature. New York Putnam,
External links
Digitized Facsimiles of Jonsons second folio, / Jonsons second folio, /
http//www.johngeraghty. com/books/index.phpcat Video interview with scholar David
Bevington The Collected Works of Ben Jonson http//research.uchicago.
edu/highlights/item.phpid Audio resources on Ben Jonson at TheEnglishCollection.com
http//www.engelsklenker.com/englishsearch.
phpsearchtermbenjonsonamphislitLiteratureamplistedsitesListedSearch Poems by Ben
Jonson at PoetryFoundation.org http//www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet. htmlid Works
by Ben Jonson http//www.gutenberg.org/author/BenJonson at Project Gutenberg Works of
Ben Jonson http//hollowaypages.com/Jonson.htm Ben Jonson at FindAGrave
http//www.findagrave.com/cgibin/fg.cgipagegrampGRid Audio Robert Pinsky reads quotHis
Excuse For Lovingquot http//poemsoutloud.net/blog/archive/ benjonsonspeakshismind/ by
Ben Jonson Audio Robert Pinsky reads quotMy Picture Left in Scotlandquot
http//poemsoutloud.net/blog/archive/ mymountainbellyandmyrockyface/ by Ben Jonson Free
scores by Ben Jonson in the Choral Public Domain Library ChoralWiki
Article Sources and Contributors
Article Sources and Contributors
English Renaissance theatre Source http//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.phpoldid Contributors
April, A More Perfect Onion, AJokinen, Adam Bishop, Addihockey, Addshore, Advance, After
Midnight, Alansohn, Alexius, Allstarecho, Andre Engels, AndyJones, Anetode,
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glasgow, Dougofborg, Drosdaf, Dspradau, Easwarno, Edgar, EdwardBoswell, Eeekster, El
C, Eliyahu S, Elizabeyth, Elwright, Epbr, Epicman, Escape Orbit, Eupolis, Europus,
Everyking, Explicate, Falcon, FeanorStar, Fielddaysunday, FinnWiki, Firegonegrey, Fratrep,
Fredrik, Fwappler, GBH, Ganymead, Geaked, Genuis, GreatWhiteNortherner, Grimey,
Grunt, Harry, Herculean Sisyphean, I dream of horses, II MusLiM HyBRiD II, J.delanoy,
JLaTondre, Jagun, Jahsonic, Javert, Jdrohloff, JetLover, Jlittlet, Joanenglish, Joeyarwood,
Jojhutton, Josiah Rowe, Jtdirl, Jymlarin, Katieh, Kbdank, Kbhrd, Kbthompson, Keegan,
Kidbb, Kingpin, KnowledgeOfSelf, Kusma, Kwamikagami, LAX, LOL, Le Deluge,
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Rror, S.Camus, Saddhiyama, Sango, Sannse, Sciurin, Seaphoto, Shanes, Shinkangae,
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Sophie.e.allen, Spitfire, Stephen Gilbert, Stephenb, Sverdrup, Swatmajor, Sweettart,
SwickRogue, Tassedethe, Tckma, Tellyaddict, The Singing Badger, The Thing That Should
Not Be, TheFailPandav, Theseeker, Theya, ThomasL, ThomasPusch, Tide rolls, Tom
harrison, Tommy, Ttwaring, Tweetybaby, Ugajin, Ulric, Uncle Dick, Utcursch,
Wantsgainsqwert, Wareh, Wetman, Why Not A Duck, WikiSlasher, Wikipedius, Wikipelli,
Wimt, Xover, YULYYZ, Yamaguchi, YengWangYeh, ZX, Zalasaki, Zenlax, ZooFari,
anonymous edits William Shakespeare Source http//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.phpoldid
Contributors seakinggirl, , April, Majestic, andersonh, thNight, ...xxx, ...xxx, ...xxx, ...xxx,
...xxx, orto, lz, spike, ...xxx, ...xxx, afraidof, , A Merchant, A Softer Answer, A Aardvark, Ar,
Ahol, ACEOREVIVED, AHLU, AJR, AKMask, ALpHatheONE, AP, Aaron Schulz,
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Alex S, Alex, AlexOUK, Alexpope, Alexsaidani, Alias, Alientraveller, Allen, Almostcrime,
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