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Fletcher's Habits of Dramatic Collaboration FLETCHER'S HABITS OF DRAMATIC COLLABORATION. In an extremely interesting and suggestive article entitled Elizabethan Dramatic Collaboration, Mr. E. N. S. Thompson (Englische Studien, 40. band, 1. heft, 1908) proposes certain methods of literary partnership which he thinks Fletcher followed in collaborating with Beaumont, and others slightly different used by him in writing later with Massinger.1) His plan, äs announced, is to begin with plays which critics agree are either by Fletcher and Beaumont alone, or by Fletcher and Massinger alone, and in which there is also critical agreement äs to the part taken by each of the two collaborators in the composition of the plays.2) He then seeks for the motives prompting the dramatists in dividing the work, and the habits of collaboration to which they led, and arrives at the following conclusions: — (1) As to the Fletcher-Beaumont plays — "According to the terms of the partnership, Fletcher was usually exempt from the responsibilities of the first act (He notes three exceptions here). But in the majority of plays attributable to Beaumont and Fletcher alone, Fletcher's band is not apparent until the play is well advanced" (p. 36). !) He suggests also the division of labour made in the Middleton- Rowley collahoration, but this article is concerned only with that part relating to Fletcher. a) " What Fleay, Boyle, Oliphant, Macaulay and Miss Wiggin (for the Middleton-Rowley plays) have done in this way we shall not amplify or review. Instead, accepting the conclusions on which they agree and to which other critics have yielded assent, we hope in part to ascertain the motives and methods of the playwrights in their joint labonrs." p. 33. Brought to you by | University of Arizona Authenticated Download Date | 6/1/15 2:55 AM 220 0. L. HATCHER, (2) As to the Fletcher-Massinger plays — "A somewhat different plan was followed by Fletcher and Massinger, Massinger customarily taking the first and last acts, and Fletcher the major part of the three intervening" (p. 37). (3) u In the continuous co-operation of Fletcher with Beaumont and of Fletcher with Massinger, a fixed method of collaboration, based on a structural division (that is, one by acts and scenes) rather than a division of subject matter, was held to pretty consistently. p. 36. Under neither arrangement was it usual for one author to have exclusive Charge of a separate plot or character, äs Ford did in The Witch of Edmonton. Fletcher simply brought to completion a plot already far ad- vanced by Beaumont, or carried on a story begun by Massinger and to be flnished by him" (p. 37). Mr. Thompson does not furnish a list of the plays and the assignments within them which he accepts äs agreed on by critics, and äs being therefore safe foundations for his work; but at one point and another in his article, he cites the following plays äs establishing his views:J) — (1) As Fletcher-Beaumont plays — Thierry and Theodoret, The Prophetess, The Coxcomb,*) Philaster, A hing and No Jcing, An Honest Man's Fortune, The Maitfs Tragedy. (2) As Fletcher-Massinger plays — The False One, The Eider Brother, The Spanish Unräte, The Little French Lawyer, The Bloody Brother. J) In a letter written after the present article was coinposed, Mr. Thompson makes a few supplementary explanations which I am glad to place before the reader. He thmks A Maid's Tragedy, Philaster, A King andno king and Four Plays in One give the clearest jjroof that Fletcher took an inconsiderable part of the plot and that mainly in the fourth and fifth acts, and he notes The Scornfut Lady äs a marked exception to this rule, with- drawing several others in which a third author has been found by some. He cites äs the foundation for his theory äs to the Fletcher-Massinger Collaboration, The Eider Brother, A Very Woman, The False One, The Spanish Curate and The Little French Lawyer, and grants that The Prophetess shows a reversal of the plan suggested in his article. *) These first three are the exceptions noted above in his conclusions. Brought to you by | University of Arizona Authenticated Download Date | 6/1/15 2:55 AM FLETCHER'S HABITS OF DRAMATIC COLLABORATION. 221 The present article will concern itself chiefly with these plays but will cite various others which have been at times attributed to one or the other group. The article under review seemed so natural an advance upon the conclusions of the metrical critics and contained such interesting generalisations, that the present writer was led to look further for the reflex influence of Fletcher's collaborators upon him. A beginning was made by re-examining the conclusions of the critics whom Mr. Thompson cites äs his guiding authorities — Fleay, Boyle, Oliphant, and Macaulay — äs also those of Dyce, Bullen etc., and it was unfor- tunately discovered that the chosen critics frequently differed not only from others but among themselves, äs to the plays cited by him; and that they often differed not only äs to what part should be assigned to Fletcher and what to Beaumont in the Fletcher·Beaumont plays, or what to Fletcher and what to Massinger in the Fletcher - Massinger group, but äs to the actuai authors involved at all in the plays in question; and thus reduced the problem of collaboration to its first stage of uncertainty, whereas Mr. Thompson had passed on to the third, assuming agreement in the two lower stages. For clearness we may subject the two groups of plays cited above to the two tests of agreement among critics: — (1) As to whether the play is by Fletcher and Beaumont alone, or in the second group, by Fletcher and Mas- singer alone. (2) As to the part of each of the two dramatists involved in any given play passing the first test. Following the order observed in citing the plays before, — Thierry and Theodoret is given by Fleay1) to Fletcher, Massinger and Field (?); by Boyle2) to Fletcher and Massinger l) The refereiice here is to Fleay's latest assignments, in The Chronide of the English Drama l 205. Fleay makes the part of Field doubtful. *) Boyle gives the play to Fletcher and Massinger and a third author, and refuses to recognise it äs that of Beaumont-Middleton, Rowley, Dekker or Field, Fletcher's more natural partners (JSngl Stud. V p. 93). Later still (Engl Stud. VIII, 57—61 Boyle gives Beaumont 430 lines, Fletcher 250, and the rest to the 3rd unknown hand. Brought to you by | University of Arizona Authenticated Download Date | 6/1/15 2:55 AM 222 O. L. HATCHER, and later to a third collaborator whom he cannot identify; by Macaulay1), to Beaumont andFletcher; and by Oliphant2) to Beaumont, Fletcher and Massinger. The Proplietess is usually classed in general terms äs Fletcher's and Massinger's jointly, but Fleay, Boyle and Oliphant all detect in it traces of an earlier play not by either Fletcher or Massinger; so that all really imply triple authorship and the play cannot be safely included in the purely Fletcher- Massinger group. The Coxcomb — given by Fleay and Macaulay to Beaumont and Fletcher; thought by Boyle, at one stage of his conclusions, to be a third author's revision of a Beaumont-Fletcher play and then too much altered to warrant attribution of parts; called also by Oliphant the work of three dramatists. Philaster — given by Macaulay to Beaumont alone. The Honest Man's Fortune — assigned by Fleay to Fletcher, Massinger, Field, and Daborne; by Boyle, to Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger and Tourneur; by Oliphant to four authors, — Field, Fletcher, Massinger and a fourth not named; and by Macaulay to Fletcher and a second author not named. By the disagreement of the chief critics therefore, äs regards the authors collaborating in the plays of the first group named by Mr. Thompson, only two of the seven cited remain after even the first test is applied, these two being A king and No king and The Maid's Tragedy. Out of 14 or more plays, at various times assigned to Beaumont and Fletcher together, two make a small basis for generalisations äs to method, but even here some disagreement among critics is to be reckoned with, if we apply the second test. — In A king and No king the four main critics are sub- stantially in accord, assigning parts to Beaumont and Fletcher äs follows B — I, II, , IV 4, V 2, 4. F — IV l, 2, 3, VI, 3, *) Francis Beaumont A Critical Study 1888. p. 196. *) Engl Mud. XV, 352. Brought to you by | University of Arizona Authenticated Download Date | 6/1/15 2:55 AM FLETCHER'S HABITS OF DRAMATIC COLLABOBATION. 223 and the agreement is entirely in favour of Mr. Thompson's theory that Fletcher did not usually begin his part of the play until it was well under way. For The Maiffs Tragedy the critical assignments are these: — Fleay:*) B — 11, II l, 2, 3 III l, 2 IV 2V 2b, 4 F^-I 2 IV l, VI, 2a, 3, Boyle:2) B — 11, 2 (part) l, III l, 2 IV 2 V 4 F — (?)2 IV l, V 2, 3, Oliphant: 3) B — 11, 2 II l, III l, 2 IV 2V 2b, 4 F— II 2 IV l, VI, 2a, 3, Macaulay:4) B — I II III 4 IV 2 V 4 F — IV l, V l, 2, 3, There is evidently considerable agreement here, but the differences are signiflcant. Macaulay, favouring Mr. Thompson's idea, gives Beaumont I and II entire, but Fleay finds I 2 to be Fletcher's, Boyle and Oliphant give him II 2, so that there is some presumption in favour of his having worked on that play in its very early stages, and by one or another critic, if not by all, his band is found, in each act of the play, in such an occasional way that it is hard to trace any guiding principle.
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