Fletcher's Habits of Dramatic Collaboration

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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 advanced 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. We are thus reduced to one play in definite support of the theory of Beaumont's holding the earlier part of the play for himself. Nor do the other plays usually assigned to Beaumont and Fletcher alone but excluded here because not universally accepted äs such, do more to establish the theory, rational and probable äs it may seem in itself. Take for example —

*) Chronide of the English Drama I pp. 192—93. ») Engl Stud. V p. 76. ») Engl. Stud. XIV p. 92. 4) Francis Beaumont — A Critical Study — Appendix.

Brought to you by | University of Arizona Authenticated Download Date | 6/1/15 2:55 AM 224 O. L. HATCHER, The Knight of the Surning Pestle, popularly accepted äs the work of Beaumont and Fletcher. Fleay in bis latest utterance,1) assigns "all the scenes witk Humphrey and Merrythought's songs" to Fletcher, "the parts with Ralph and Mrs. Merrythought" to Beaumont, adding however that in many scenes, both hands are discernible. Boyle2) divides the play thus between Beaumont and Fletcher B— 3, 5 III 2, 4,5 IV 1,2, Vl,2,3 F —11,2,3 111,2, 4, l, - IV 3,4 Boyle's division therefore entirely reverses Mr. Thompson's theory, giving Fletcher the first act entire and Beaumont the last, and not bringing Beaumont into the play at all until the third scene of the second act. Macaulay and Oliphant give the play entire to Beaumont. Clearly there is no solid foundation for inferences here. In The Scornful Lady, there is a little more to support the theory under discussion, but too little for any weight of evidence. Fleay3) declares the greater part of the play to be Fletcher's, and reserves only I l and V 2 äs certainly Beaumont's. Boyle divides thus4) — B —II II (?)3 V 2, F — II 2, III l, 2 IV l, 2 V l, 3, 4 Oliphant thus6) — B — 11, 2 II l, V 2, F — II 2, 3 III l, 2 IV l, 2 V l, 3, 4 and Macaulay thus6) — B — I II III 2 (part) V 2, F - III l, 2 (part) IV V l, 3, 4. There is therefore agreement äs to 11, äs being Beaumont's and V l, 3 and 4 äs being Fletcher's, but Fleay differs from

J) Chronide of the English Drama I p. 184. *) Engl. Stud. V p. 80 and VII p. 86. a) Chron. of Engl Dr. I p. 181. *) Engl Stud. V p. 77. ·) Engl Stud. XIV p. 82. ') Francis Beaumont p. 195.

Brought to you by | University of Arizona Authenticated Download Date | 6/1/15 2:55 AM FLETCHER'S HABITS OF DRAMATIC COLLABOBATION. 225 the other three critics in giving Fletcher I 2; Boyle, Oliphant and Fleay give Fletcher 2 against Macaulay's assignment; Fleay and Oliphant give Fletcher 3 leaving Boyle in doubt, and Macaulay for Beaumont. All give V 2 to Beaumont. In general the tendency is to give Fletcher much the greater part of the play. It is worth noting too that even so ardent a champion of Beaumont äs Mr. Macaulay gives Fletcher, in writing with Beaumont alone, a part of 11 in Cupid's Eevenge and all of 11 in both The Coxcomb and The Captain, whereas Mr. Oliphant, who has put forward much the largest claim for Beaumont, gives Fletcher part in 11 of Philaster and Boyle finds him in the beginning of The Knight of the Buming Pestle. Generalisation seems impossible. Out of the number of plays at various tiines attributed to Beaumont and Fletcher alone, the number in which critics agree that Beaumont launched the play before Fletcher appeared, is far too small to serve äs evidence of a habit. At one time one method seems to obtain; at another, another. Nor can one feel that the ground is firmer for main- taining the second theory, that in collaborating with Massinger, Fletcher habitually left the beginning and end to Massinger and contented himself with fllling in most of the middle portion of the play, a division by structure, not by subject matter, being made between them. Here, äs in the other group, we are met at the outset by the difficulty that out of nearly twenty plays at various tiines assigned to Fletcher and Massinger alone, only a very small proportion of them, four, are agreed upon by critics äs theirs, and the field for generalisation is thus again limited to too narrow a ränge to be convincing. Of the five cited by Mr. Thompson in support of bis theory — The False One, The Eider Brother, The Spanish Gwrate, The Little French Lawyer and The Bloody Brother, the last named needs to be excluded from the evidence, Fleay assigning it to Fletcher, Massinger and Cart- wright; Boyle to Fletcher, Massinger, Field and possibly Daborne; and Oliphant to Beaumont or some one eise unknown, with a first revision by Fletcher, Jonson and Middleton, and a second by Massinger. Basis for Mr. Thompson's main in- ference is yet further narrowed by what he notes äs a Anglia. N. F. XXJ. 15

Brought to you by | University of Arizona Authenticated Download Date | 6/1/15 2:55 AM 226 O. L. HATCHEB, departure froin custom, in The Spanish Curate and The Little French Lawyer, where he finds the division of labour to follow the lines of the double plot or the subject matter rather than the usual mechanical division by acts and scenes. His Unding here seems fully justified, for even without the aid of the metrical critics, any one familiär with Fletcher's separate comedies, with their spirit and movement, is ready to believe that he was responsible for the delicious broad comedy scenes of Tfo Spanish Curate and the many vagaries of the little French lawyer himself. By the exigencies of plot combination and the nature of the part so falling to Fletcher, it would happen that he did not appear at the very beginning of either play, but he naturally awaited the time when the more comic action and character were needed. Once into the play, these comedy elements follow their cue, appearing sometimes alone and at others with Massinger's more serious group. Massinger seems generally accredited with Act I in both plays, Fletcher with II in both, and both Massinger and Fletcher with a part in V, where in each play the two plots end together. In The Eider Brother there is agreement that Act I is Massinger's, but Boyle gives Fletcher all of V and Oliphant gives him a part of it. The False One is, of all the plays of this group, most definitely favourable to Mr. Thomson's views, being generally accepted äs by Fletcher and Massinger, and agreed upon by the main critics äs belonging to Massinger in I and V entire; to Fletcher in II, III and IV entire. Resorting again to the plays of more dubious authorship, we find much to suggest that Massinger frequently began the plays; for while the critics differ widely äs to the authors involved in the plays, there are various attributions of first acts to Massinger. Thus Fleay gives him Act I in The Beggar's Bush, I l in The Bloody Brother, The Queen of Corinth and others; Boyle gives him 11 in The LoveSs Progress, Beggar's Bush and A Very Woman; Oliphant gives him 11 in The Laws of Candy, The Fair Maid of the Inn, Beggar's Bush Act I entire, The Queen of Corinth I, The Double Marriage I, A Very Woman 11. On the other band, Fleay gives Fletcher I entire in The Custom of the Country, TheCaptain, The Prophetess, The Sea Voyage and The Maid in the Mill\ and in Thierry and

Brought to you by | University of Arizona Authenticated Download Date | 6/1/15 2:55 AM FLETCHER'S HABITS OF DRAMATIC COLLABORATION. 227 Theodoret 11 a to Fletcher and Massinger together, I Ib to Fletcher alone. Boyle gives him I äs well äs II in A New Way to Pay Old Debts, and The Prophetess and 11 in Thierry and Theodoret-, Oliphant gives him I entire in The Prophetess, The Sea Voyage, The Maid in the Mill and The Custom of the Country, besides part in I l of Thierry and Iheodoret, Two Noble Kinsmen and The Lover's Progress. This shows that Fletcher's band has been traced in the opening scenes of the partnership plays hardly less often than Massinger's. More than this, all the four main critics, especially Fleay and Oliphant, believe that Massinger revised many of the earlier so-called Beaumont and Fletcher plays, some perhaps by both these two last dramatists, others by Fletcher alone, and possibly one or two by Massinger alone. Fleay for example flnds Massinger revising the following plays without having had any hand in the original composition. — The Lover's Progress, The Eider Brother, The Double Marriage, Love's Cure, Cupid's Bevenge and The Coxcomb, and finds him altering or re-writing scenes to which Fletcher had already given form and words. Thus he says of The Coxcombs, — "Massinger's alterations are most extensive in II, 2 a, III l a, IV l, V l, 3, which are nearly re-written. The lower strata of Fletcher's work crops out all through, but the main part now extant is Massinger's".1) Oliphant, believing Massinger the alterer of earlier Beaumont, Fletcher, or Beaumont-Fletcher plays traces bis hand in plays. In several cases the critics refuse to attempt distribution in the parts altered, because the confusion of influences seems to make the task hopeless. The bearing of these facts on our discussion ought to be clear. If a considerable proportion of plays in which Massinger's hand appears were not the result of his actual collaboration with Fletcher, but were merely altered by him later from Fletcher's earlier work, to suit the shifting fashions of the stage, it is obvious * that no inferences can be made from these plays äs to Fletcher's habits of collaborating with him. Fletcher had done his work, sometimes long before, without the aid of Massinger. Later Mas-

*) So, in the same way Fletcher's Night Walker is said to have been "corrected by Shirley"; see Engl. Drama I p. 786. 15*

Brought to you by | University of Arizona Authenticated Download Date | 6/1/15 2:55 AM 228 O. L. HATCHER, singer had changed Fletcher's work at bis pleasure. Not that one can speak with finality of most of these supposed alterations, for here äs elsewhere there is much confusion; but the general fact of Massinger's having altered some of the plays admits of practically no denial, and that habit once granted, leaves one in doubt äs to how many of the plays originally not Massinger's at all, were re-shaped by him. This increases the difflculty in any distribution of parts, Massinger's work probably often overlaying that of Fletcher. 1t becomes natural too, aside from other reasons, that Mas- singer's band should often appear at the beginning, äs it did frequently in the middle and more or less often at the end. These were the high points of interest and would naturally be regarded in a play of which a revision had been ordered. As to Massinger's having habitually ended the play, there is not much proof in the testimony of the accepted critics. The proportion of plays in which Act V does not seem to critics to show Fletcher's band is very small. In a good many of the plays he is agreed upon äs having brought the action to a close, and there are still other plays in which Massinger may have had no part in the original ending, but may merely have reworked what Fletcher left. The truth is that beyond personal conjecture, frankly stated äs such, we cannot do much more to solve this problem of the collaborations of Fletcher with Massinger or indeed with Beaumont. Critical assignments do not bear out the theory that Massinger habitually began and ended the plays, Fletcher working only on.the middle portion, nor does there seem on the face of things any reason why such a division of labour should have been effected. Beaumont had a more virile dramatic instinct than Fletcher's was, and was earlier to mature, so that one — drifting into the world of conjecture — might easily believe that in their flrst collaborations, Fletcher deferred to Beaumont, following bis lead in dramatic construction, and yielding him the more prominent parts of the play. But the case was different in bis collaborations with Massinger, and it is hard to believe that the dramatist of larger genius, larger fame and higher social distinction would have accepted any habit of collaboration which thrust

Brought to you by | University of Arizona Authenticated Download Date | 6/1/15 2:55 AM FLETCHEtt'S HABITS OF DRAMATIC COLLABOKAT1ON. 229 him into so unflattering and subordinate a background. Fleteher was already one of the darlings of the London dramatic world before Massinger became conspicuous, and if he at times yielded to Massinger the more prominent portions of the work, the arrangement is likely to be ex- plicable by special reasons of expediency in the given plays rather than by any agreement upon mechanical divisions. Indeed the paramount difficulty in accepting the theory under discussion lies in the necessity for believing that men of the fine dramatic calibre of Beaumont, Fleteher and even Mas- singer would have adopted with any of the permanence of habit, so mechanical a division of parts äs that which deals out acts and scenes, regardless of subject matter or relation of parts. There must, of course, have been at the beginning of such partnerships, some experimental division of labour, and if no other plan suggested itself then, that of assignment by acts or scenes might have been adopted temporarily, but it seems inconceivable that the dramatists should not soon have left behind them so dull and wooden a device. High pressure of want and Henslowe's tyranny of haste may have driven less fortunate dramatists than Beaumont and Fleteher to habitual shifts such äs these, and we all remember the pathetic note to which Massinger's name is signed and in which reference is made to the play of "Mr. Fleteher and ours"; but in the main Beaumont and Fleteher were fortunate in the companies for which they wrote, and they must usually have written with some sense of artistic fltness, if not of actual leisure. How often Massinger wrote with either or both of them, is, äs we have said an open problem, and where he was merely the reviser there would be no question of division of parts between himself and Fleteher. Certainly if we must have a theory äs to Fletcher's habits of cpllaboration, that of division by subject matter has every advantage over the more mechanical method, but it seems most unlikely that Fleteher, versatile, eclectic and variety loving äs he was, held himself to one method in collaboration any more than in bis plays of single authorship. He was proving in these latter plays of probable collaboration with Massinger his skill in comedy, tragedy, tragic-comedy, masque and pastoral. His power of adaptation and his

Brought to you by | University of Arizona Authenticated Download Date | 6/1/15 2:55 AM 230 0. L. HATCHER, marvellous facility were a large portion of bis dramatic power, and in spite of bis many conventions of plot and character, he eludes us when we seek to stereotype bis actual processes and forms of work. — In several of the plays in which he collaborated with Massinger he certainly seems to have centered bis interest about the comedy portions. In others he seems to have been pre-occupied with the more serious happenings, and in some of the plays critics have found traces of bim here and there throughout the five acts, more or less at random, äs though he had dropped in a fragment, whenever the mood seized him äs they wrote together. But this again may be chiefly seeming. Perhaps the primary aim of the present article is to ask how much certainty has come out of all the effort to separate the work of Beaumont, Fletcher and Massinger done in collaboration. Undoubtedly the individuality of each dramatist has come more clearly into view, certain tendencies of each in versiflcation, point of view and style have been discovered and helpful classifications of the plays by authorship have resulted from the preponderance of critical opinion, and within given plays there has been valuable work done in the attribution of parts, moreover there has been agreement enough among those doing the work to convince any fair judge that there is substantial basis for the tests used in separating the writing of the three dramatists, and the tests have been set forth so clearly and simply that any thoughtful reader can apply them for himself to the more strikingly different parts of a play. All this is a great gain. This is far, however, from meaning that the collaboration involved has revealed or even promised to reveal all its secrets. The verse tests are frequently convincing to the individual and not quite infrequently to a group of critics, but based äs they are on tendencies and general proportions they are often not applicable to shorter passages and for this reason and others, a large share of any joint play must remain forever in the limbo of doubt when it comes to a fully detailed assignment of parts. It could not be otherwise when our chief authorities so frequently differ from each other and indeed from themselves. Nobody can censure even Mr. Fleay for the honesty with

Brought to you by | University of Arizona Authenticated Download Date | 6/1/15 2:55 AM FLETCHER'S HABITS OF DRAMATIC COLLABORATION. 231 which he retracts in Englische Studien some of the assignments made in bis paper read before the New Shakespeare Society, or even for bis later changes of opinion recorded in bis History of the London Stage and bis Chronicle History of the Drama\ nor can we find fault with Mr. Boyle for cor- recting in both Englische Studien and tbe New Shakespeare Society Pullications, assignments he had at first published in füll confidence. So with Mr. Thorndike's em-them test which he first thought distinguished the work of Fletcher clearly from that of Massinger, but later withdrew äs untenable.!) The problem is too intricate and delicate a one for even the individual critic to be able to satisfy himself permanently with all of the ascriptions that occur to him, at any given time and to one attempting to trace critical opinions äs to the part of each dramatist in the several plays, the record seems one of endless permutation. Such shifting impressions cannot yield a safe basis for generalisations äs to definite habits of work on the part of the collaborators, although they stimulate to conjecture äs to the terms of the partnership. Unless critics agree äs to the assignment of entire plays and of a due proportion of them, we have no safe foundation for inferences äs to the habits of the partnerships, and the danger is lest we shall build one uncertainty upon another, and so confound confusion.

') The Influence of Beaumont and Fktcfar on Shakespere, 1901, p. 24. BRYN MAWR COLLEGE. 0. L. HATCHER.

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