JOHN FLETCHER AND OTHERS
-, hphxlPpn them' arose, writes Aubrey, from 'a wonderful I . He continues: '1 think they were both of Queens' College in Cambridge.'2 On this point Aubrey, who had not known The Move to Tragicomedy: the men perscnn.lly and '"vas ""vriting several decadeS after had T",'h.,... Dlo+-r>'ha.. ,.....,...".1 (\+-h~ .. ~ , died, was probably wrong. A youth cd1pcl John Fletcher who '.'lent to J V~H~ .1 ~'-l'-~lI.._~ c:U~U '-J l~lCl.:oJ Corpus Christi, Cambridge at the surprisingly but not impossibly I early age of II in r59I is likely to be the dramatist. Beaumont, younger by some five years, began his university career when he was vlIly vne year older, at Broadgates Bali - later Pembroke '-"Jll<'''''' Oxford, in I597. He left in the follo.,,,...... ,.ing year, after hia father I and continued his education at the Inner Temple in London. t Aubrey'S demonstrable errors and his reliance on gossip do not confidence, but at least he seems to have spoken to someone I who knew the men. 'I have smce
of Sarum, ~v"'\...ho kncvv'" say that ~Y1i BC
194 195 SHAKESPEARE AND CO. JOHN FLETCHER AND OTHERS
1606 and published in 1607, This 'li.ras a colln.boration vvith BfaUi1iont who had already, at the age of 22, written single-handed what is now his best-known work, The Knight ofthe Burning Pestle- a failure in its own time, perhaps because at its structural originality. Both plays quote from Shakcspeare to comic dfcd. The Knight of the Burmng Pestle, written for ~ boys' company, opens v",.ith an Induction in whi<.:h a Grocer, soon followed by his wife and his apprentice, R8Je (or Ralph), leaps upon the stage to hijack the play that the boys have been intending to give, demanding instead one that will glorify his trade. Offering her son as a substitute actor, the grocer's wife boasts that the lad
will act you sometimes at our house that all the neighbours cry out on him. He win fetch you up a couraging part so in the garret that we are all as feared, I Wflrrarrt you, that We quake again. 'we'U fear our chiidren With him it they be never so unruly. no hqr cry 'B~afe comef;, P",~fe comes!' tv theni aEJ be as quiet as lambs. (lines 66-72)
II. Francis Beaumont. This handsome engraving ofBeaumont is based on a This may only subliminally recall Bottom in /'1 lv1idsUirttner l~ight's [Jonrair by an unknown artIst. Dream 'I will roar that I will do any man's he:lrt !':ood to he2f me.
Cxc\.:ulIon or lVlary, ~ueen ot :>cots, eXhortmg her on the scatiold to 1 Will roar that I will make the Duke say "Let him roar again; let him return to the Protestant fold and praying for her soul before she was roar again!"'( I.2.66-9). Immediately after it, however, there is an beheaded. This was in I 'i 87, when the future playwright was 8 years undeniable Shake~reare quotation as the \X1ife, abettcd by the GWCel, old. Richard was a tough-minded preacher, militant in his faith, and instructs her son to demonstrate his mettle by speaking 'a hu ffine part', not afraid of rebuking even his Queen from the pulpit. Preaching whereupon Ralph launches into five lines only slightly misquoted from before Eiizabeth only a few days after the executlOn, he sternly a speech at Hotspur in one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, rebuked her far indu!gir~g in rcrr'torsc aiid caHc.d fOi- cVcl1 iHOfe 1igUl uu:; IIe.nry T\t, Part One: persecution of her Catholic enemie~. Tn spite of this his life C2me to 2 By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap peaceful if abrupt end. Smoking a pipe of tobacco in his house in To piuck bnght honour from the pale-faced moon, Chelsea on the evening of 15 June 1596 he said to his servant, 'Boy, Or dive lru0 the bOtt011l uf the sea, 1 die', and expired on the spot. His brother Giles, a poet and diplomat Where never f~thnTl')-line touched :.1ny ground, whv tJavdleJ LO lvloscow on a speciai mission in 1588 and wrote. a And pluck up drowned honour from the lake of hell.· book about his experiences n1any of them extremely trying an his return, took over the upbringing of the Bishop'S eight children, The nlisquot::ltion IT1:.1y imply that Beaumcnt thought he knew the including the future playwright. Giles's son Phineas (1582-165°) was lines well enough to quote them from memory. Later in thf' comedy also a clergyman and poet. So John Fletcher had every encouragement comes a burlesque episode which must recall the dead Banquo's to embark upon a iiterary career. appearance to Macbeth in the banquet scene. The apprentice Jasper, Thr. h~o~ ,,!~,. ;" ".,h;",\-. \-.~ ;~ !.-'''-''''., !-... ~!-" ,".L .. t..... ;-:::::::.-... :: ...... : ...... ~ ..... ~...... ~, ~J...,5UD1.,.." ~l.llU;')~;l (:1:> ill~ uwll gnosT In Woman Hater, or the Hungry Courtier, written for Paul's Boys around the attempt to frighten his master Venturewe11 into allowing him to
I9 6 I97 SHAKESPEARE AND CO. JOHN FLETCHER AND OTHERS marry his daughter, Luce. Entering 'with his face mealed', Jasper scene, for instance, the Satyr's exit couplet, 'I mnst go; T must r1m, ! threatens Venturewell: Swifter than the fiery sun', recalls Robin Goodfellow's 'Igo, I go look When thou art at thy table with thy friends, how I go, I Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow' (A Midsummer Merry in heart and filled with Night's Dream, 3.2.100-101). And only a few hnes iater the faithful o"v"cr come ill midst of ail thy pnde and shepherdess, grieving the grave of her dead lover, sl?eaks III vlsiLle to alliliell but of herself in lines that faintly recall Titania's memories of Indian i\nd 'Nhisoer such a sad tale in thine ear mother who 'being mortal, of that boy did die' 5) while Shall make thee let the cup fall from also trembling with echoes of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, as And stand as mute and as Death itself. ~~~'H""b' at least to a modern reader, Poor Torn in King Lear: 5, lines He was I And she that bore me mortal: prick my most popular play, Hamlet, provides the basis for a jest in The Woman Hater, or the Hungry Courtier, a delightful comedy And it wiil bieed; a fever shakes me, weii worthy of revivaLs An unusuai fish has been caught and, as 'a .ltnd the selfsame wind that ma.kes the YOlUlg lalI1b:, shrink 6 .. ~"~~ .... L_ L .. __J L __ L~~_ ' ___ .~~ ...... l L .. ~ "'''" ...... ,-1 ...... Makes me a-cold. laIC: , Un... 1ll.:.-dU lid.:') U~~ll d!-'!-)VIUl.I.,...U uy "VUHHallUl11\"'UL for thl' Dl1kl"~ own tahll' this dinnl'r'. L17arello, known as 'the hungry In his address 'To w.1.C Reader' of the publisheJ text? Flt:tcher describes courtier', goes to great lengths to manoeuvre an invitation to taste this playas 'a pastoraI tmgi-('omeciy' and says that it had its 'this sacred dish'. But disaster strikes, and Count Valore breaks the _:i first audiences when it was performed by the Children of the Queen's ut:w~ tU 111111 allU LUlll111CUl,') Ulin WllU lllH':,~ UUIIUWC:u HUH! ll!~ ' ..HIU~l Kevels In the Biacktnars because they had expected something more in Hamlet: robust 'a play of country hired shepherds in grey cloaks, with cur-tailed in strings, sometimes lallghing together, and sometimes VALORE ~I·.·. , LAZltREI.LO Let rnt; nor . one another'. The misfortune that both Beaumont and Fletcher [ am bound to hear! started their careers with solo-authored olavs that failed to theatre audiences may have VALORE SO art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear. that their I to sonie extclli lAJllHJ1t:;1J to The fish head is gone, and we know not whither. (2.·I.343-8) sncceed if worked in tandem, or v:ith ether than on their own. Indeed, this theory fits well enough with Aubrey's statement that The transference of the lines in which the Ghost of Hamlet's father Mr Beaumont's main business was 'to lop the overflowings of Mr prepares Bamiet for the information that he was murdered (Hamlet, Fletcher's luxuriant fancy and flowing wit'. I~ 5. to the trivial situati0i1 of the theft of a fish head is par~,dic, Fletcher's address to the reader continues With what has become hut thl' jokl' is on T.azarello rather than on Shakespeare. I the classic definition of a tragicomedy: There are hints of Shakespeare too in Fletcher's first solo-authored play, The Faithful Shepherdess, a pastoral written in a mixture A IS not called so in respect of mirth and killing, but in respect I w+J.icTI is CJl.(fugll lU IlJaKC: it 110 yet of blank and rhymed verse, probably in or 1608. Here the echoes are subiiminaL suggeS(illg that Fleicher has a\;:,ul bet.! built lilt:: it:: which is ~n()neh t() rn;.:\k~ it no c0m~dy, Y~lhic:b !!1ust be ~ cf :1nn t'hp 'f~tt~r nf Sh~k~~np.~r~~n !'("H:H~d\r so fllHv Dhr:::!ses I familiar oeoole. with such kind of trouble as no life be auestioned fthat is. float to the surface of his mind as he writes. In the with problems that are not life-threatenin!!l
1 99 SHAKESPEARE AND CO. JOHN FLETCHER AND OTHERS
It would be easy enough to apply this definition to previously written Marriage, successfully performed by the King's Men probably in plays that we are happy enough to call comedies without qualification. and as part-author, with John Day and William Rowley, of The In The Comedy of Errors, for example, Egeon comes close to death, Travels of the Three English Brothers. 8 Little is known of Wilkins's
t ~...,.,..." 'I .( 1 " as ClUes ftmomo III il7e lVlerCl7ant Venice, bulli ]Jlay~ uf lhc L 5~U~; early life, and all his kIl0wll belullg tu the pt:riod
1n ,h...,Ir,::.C',...... ,j!Jo""t'"'O't.~ ;lnd .L.L.L VLLl.4.L'I...... "y...... J...... v seventeenth-century play ,Arfeasure for ::lfter which he kept a London inn 'Nhich doubled :1S :1 brothel. He classed in the First Folio as a comedy, death looms even died in 16I8. in the threatened executions of Claudio and Barnardine and Wilkins was a violent character, frequently in court for a variety of the onstage presence of not only the executioner Abhorson but the in I612, as a witness in a lawsuit in which Shakespeare severed head ot the 'most notorious pIrate RaguslOe' (4.3.68). And aiso testified. Eight years prevlOusly, "f'p,.,h,," ...... • ahlluugL ~UI11C uf lilt: luw-life ,1i
comedies that he wrote with Beaumont and in the LLd5"_Vl111' witnesses; Wilkins deposed that he would not have given more than that have come to be known as romances composed by ~nakespeare, I ;:':5 rur mt: gooos mey orougm WIth them. l''iotnmg emerges to hIS working in at least one of them along with Fletcher. discredit from this case, but on 3 March J6II he had been accused The first of Shakespeare's full-blown romances. Pericles. written in t of 'kicking a woman on the belly which was then great with child', or around I607, was ascribed only to him on its publication in I609, and a year later, three months before the Mountjoy hearing, he was I in a raggedly corrupt text, but its omission from the First Folio encour stated to have 'outrageously beaten one Judith Walton and stamped ages doubt about his sole authorship. So does the highly uneven upon ht:r so thac she was carried home in a chair'. ~
c, ~_~ ,,[ ~L., ~_._. ___ ~~ •._I:_L.~~ ~(. CL._l.A, ____~ \' _ [ ..... L Th1C ,..t;C'r~n"tl1-..,hlp -herl' ... ':::' ~,""H o:";c>.p.TY\ 1"1\ ...... ""..,.I~I,.,...,I ..... ,.., ..... 11""t...... __ ... ""'_ '.. UI LUI:; VU\; Ui. Un.. \.VIlllllVH\,..,;)l- \,.-ll",u\..-\) \,h, uU4l\.\..:)!-'",cl_Ll.. I """"" ...... _A ... k .... p ..... ~~ ...... _ .l-...Ol..LL ...... l.J..4>l1 ",,,,vl1-1. '"1..1 Ul.Ll.J.A,-,J.l \,..Vlla,.UV,ld.lV.l for I criticism is that hi!.' authentic voict> is not hf'~lrcl llnriI the sta rt of I respectable Master Shakespeare, but there is little douot the third act (Scene II in the Oxford edition). with Pericles's lines \ Wilkins was orincioallv resnonsible for the compositiu beginning: two acts ten scenes in the Oxford ,"'-'1LIVLLI and Shake speare for the rest ot the play, they worked closely on it together; The god of this great vast rebuke these surges 1 \'C'ilkins's first-haiid experience il1ay have COlllt ill hallJy ill {he:! l:om .. Which wash both heav'n and hell; and thou that hast position of the scenes set in a brothel, 10 He went on to exploit the Upon the winds command, bind them in brass, I collaboration by slinging together a prose romance called The Painful Havlllg caiied them from the deep. Adventures of Pericles Prince of Tyre (1608), described as 'the true ot the play of Pericles', which takes over speeches of the I part- woru.-, 11 I Perir:!P'8!~:,! !:~~'] ~f fl'~!"!"pm~~ It c:nh~pr~~ ;t"'! f'~nt!"~' ;-h~!'"~f"t'!'~,= to!"'. ;~_ whom we have encountered as the author of The Miseries of Enforced tensely 'painful adventures' such as imprisonment in a brothel, narrow
200 :201 SHAKESPEARE AND co. JOHN FLETCHER AND OTHERS
escape from assassination, threats of rape, burial alive at sea, and to the place of women in society that offered in The Taming of prolonged coma, while finally granting them miraculous restorations the Shrew. to happiness effected in part by supernatural agency. This is the first At the end of Shakespeare's play the shrew, Kate, has, it appears, of Shakc~pc:alc'~ to include a thecphn.!1Y the appearance of ~ been thor0nghly t~mpcl ::md f'xpresses her sense of wifely duty in a god - except for the underdf'vf'loped figure of Hymen who brings long speech of joyful submission which has stuck in the gullets of about the resolution of As You Like It. Pericles was immensely popu readers and spectators to such an extent that a century and more ago lar, and its success must have encouraged both Shakespeare and the Bernard Shaw declared: 'No man with any decency of feeling can sit Beaumont and Fletcher team to continue to write plays simiiariy it out in the company of a woman without being extremely ashamed
draw together greater extremes of emotional cXjJclICIKc thaa arc ...... £ .... t...... I",,_A: "'C ,...... ~ ...... """,...",1 ~....,. ... ~I;"'r~ ;...... rr'I'\CrTDt'" "nr~ "n~~rh t"'\'''tT VL 1.1J.\v J.Vl.U~Vl.-\""J..""a.\,,1V.l.l .l.l.lV,lU.l ,I.,L,l.1P,l.1\,..-\..L .1..1.... yYU.b~'" <..,...... """ wJ:..I'-''-' ...... t'1..4" a~~uLidicJ. with tbe cGnvcntiona! genres of and tr8.gedy.12 At into the woman's own mouth.'13 Some modern interpreters evade the the same time, howf'ver, the dramatists continued to work within implications of this speech by causing Kate to deliver it tongue in more traditional genres. There is no doubt that they interacted with cheek. Fletcher anticipated them. We gather from the opening scene each other, but absence of information about when were first of his play that Kate's submission had been far from totai, or at ieast performed, compounded with the fact that throughom the pecioJ thaI it had HUi.. lasi..c:d :t~0w she is dead tiild PetrucClo has Ielrlar many of them did lluL appcal' in prlot LiutH nIter they \vere ried even though, his say~ means that it is impossiblf' tn tell a straightforward story, and therefore that we are often unsure whether one came before another. ... the bare remembram.:e of hi~ first wife I tel! ye on my lrnrnulJPrlrrl" Nevertheless, it seems clear that within a year or two after the King's and a truth too Will make him start in's sleep, and very often Men pertormea YenCles rlCll:llCI i..alllC 1I1lV l;t for a woman-tamer', and who bears 'the feared name of a brave The epilogue written anonymously for the 3 revival points the I1 wife-breaker', will show that he is himself tamed. Friends bring sup moral of what has gone before: the play is 'meant/To teach both '! plies of food and wine to help the women to withstand a Other sexes due equality / And, as they stand bound, to love mutually 1 1 I 1 WI ves J011 [ LueHl, leu a lat"U1Cl '$ wife WhlJ 'ftiyed he,: husband iii The \¥;'oman'$ Prize, or The Ta;;li::r TaffLed is an intriguilig illi.t:l' 11 her youth, and made! Reins of his hide to ride the Gaining vention in the sexual politics of thp il8C. is no that in ,I strength through numbers, they have a high old time in their fortress, it Fletcher stood in the relation of pupil or apprentice to Shakespeare. r singing a song dedicated 'To the woman that bears the sway / And Indeed it is fascinating that, only about twenty years after Shakespeare ~ wears the breeches', and dancing 'with their coats tucked up to their had given expression in The Taming of the Shrew to the orthodox bare breeches'. A truce IS subject to a of conditions: l'aLriarl.:hal view of The piace of women in marriage, Fietcher shouid c~~ "L,~h~~ ~. h,,_ I lvialla lliust have frecdoil1 to de; as she lL11\.- l,..dVLJ..l~;~ V1 11\.-1 produce so povterfu! nnd so independently plotted a COili1terblast to .... own I:rmtr l)! over tlv~ family financ('~, power to entertain as it, and especially that he should do so for Sh;Jkesp('::lfP',o; company •.r she wishes, new coaches and buildings, tapestries and horses, along and, it would seem, with his approval. It has been well said that 'If It with agreement that her younger sister shall not be forced to marry we ever needed proof (if his plays are somehow not .!' her will. Petruccio signs the agreement, but his troubles are Shakespeare had a sense of humour, then this is surely it',14 When the ...... 1 1 ... "".. 1 1 off 1 • • r not over. I nougn ne reJoms !VIana, wnom ne SUI! lOves, Hl a stnts 01 King's M:cn planned a at d,e Blal.:kfriars in 1633 iT was sup I episodes recaHing tho~e in Shakespeare's play in "\vhich Perruccio pressed hy thp Master of the Sir Henry Herbert, on the grounds ·~· tames Kate, she does not let him 'touch her all this night'; she orders 1: that he had received 'complaints of foul and offensive matters con __o'1:' clothes, horses and falcons, complains that their house tained therein', Rapidly purging it of'oaths, profaneness, and ribaldry' I· III IS I , 'stands m an air" and 'notnmg /jut a tHea fOg, ana renUKes nlIIl ~,o;; n.lUlUCU ;l lV l;,C p;aycL:>, allU a ltW weeKS later Tney perrormea It for the way he treated his first wife. Left alone, he expresses amaze back to back with The Taming of the Shrew at court before Charles I ment that after all he suffered from Kate he was so foolish as to marry I and his queen, Henrietta Maria.15 No such purgations were thought ~ and decides to pretend to be dying in the attempt to tame necessary when the play was what may well have been its next Maria. She joins gleefully in the game, clearing the house in the It performances, also along with Shakespeare's comedy, by the Royal pretence that he is suffering from the plague and having him seaied ,. Shakespeare CVilIpallY ill 2UU3. I w-ithin it in of all hjs protestations that he is in geed Tht:'re is something symbolic ~bcut Fletcher's successful conlp03 to '~.•.i hp"lth------~. ('biminI>------'0 th:.lt-- shp hilS heen a 'little .l.neevish' to him 'onlv•• trv irion of a Shakespeare sequel for the King's Men. It marks a point of •11 [his] tem per', she pretends distress that he will not accept her comfort transition. Shakespeare was in his mid-forties and his output was I and love. All this provokes him into paroxysms of abuse issuing in beginning to dwindle. With or without his approval, the other the threat that he will travel overseas, a plan ot whICh she thoroughiy members or his company may have begun to look to a future when ~.':~' I approves; as a dililaull.: Llil.:k he tv be dead aild has hiiiiself he \vould no !c!"lge!' be their principal dramatist. He had col1abofCited ,:C- brought before her in a coffin Now 8t last she considers that the with - should we even say, received help from? - Middleton on Timon " tamer is tamed: I··.~.·'·.······· Athens, perhaps in 1606 (this is one of the most difficult of his J. playsto date), and with Wilkins on Pericles a year or so later. Fletcher T j...,q!P Ann,::. rt"lH \;Unr..'T -:tl1ri h':lVP rr"! pnri .. I ...... '-'...... , ...... ) ,. '-'~'~~, ~~~ ...... - " ...... - ~~~,; -~~~, and his regular partner FranCIS Beaumont were newly established, I .. , I have tamed ye, cxtrciiiely hard-working young dramatists who alreaJy haJ a suing ·....·.·.·· And now am vowed your servant . I of sllcces"es to their names. both individua1!v and in !'0!hh0r:lt!nn \5+45-71 The genre of romantic tragicomedy which seems especially to have 204 205 SHAKESPEARE AND CO. JOHN FLETCHER AND OTHERS appealed to Fletcher is one that Shakespeare too found congenial in unexpected revelation. Although in many of his Elizabetbn comedies what turned out to be his last years. From about r602 onwards he characters disguised themselves, the audience was always let into the had been tentatively approaching it with his darker comedies, Measure secret. The only sudden revelation in any of these plays comes at the Measure and AU's Well Thm Ends committed dimax of The Comedy of written by I594, when the Abbess himself to it in Pericles. J;'\fter that aU his v"rith a comic structure turns out to be the long-lost Wife uf Egeon and rhe morher at the twin - The Winter's Tale. Cymbeline, The The Two Nohle Kins Ant1pholuses. This no parallel in Shakespeare's comedies u.ntil men, even the historical romance of All is True (Henry VIII), and the revelation in the last scene of The Winter's Tale that Hermione, presumably the lost Cardenio - whether or not they were written with dead, has been concealed for sixteen years and now poses fletcher, have clear athnities or direct connections with the younger as her own statue before being revealed to her husband, Leontes, J .' . ~ 1 UJ dllldllM ;s wurK. and her daughter, Perdita. In Shakespeare's tragedies, too, sudden i\!TIOng the ha!!nlarks of Be~unlont J,nd fletcher's ploys of this revelations arc raiC. there dfe SltlJHi::;..:s ~ll<.:h as O[heHo~s is a dependence for theatrical effectiveness on sudden reversals suicide and Lear's f'ntry (';:I.rrying Cordelia's corpse, they and unexpected revelations of the kind that, centuries later, W. S. strike us rather as inevitable plot developments than as authorial Gilbert was to parody in the Savoy operas. In A King and No King, manipulations. The most Fletcherian of Shakespeare's solo-authored for examnie. King Arbaces of Iberia faHs passionateiy in iove with plays, III style as well as in plotting, is Cymbeline, written probably Panthea, \'v·hom he believes to be his sister; and she returns his passion. afiel The Winter's Tale. The improbabiiities of its Tormented with apparently incestuous desire, he resolves to rape her ~"""'H'''' in derision: ~T c remark the folly of and then kill himself; but the necessity for so extreme a course of of the conduct. the confusion of the names actIOn IS happIly averted when we - and, more lmportantly, he -learn and manners of different times and the improbability of the events in that Panthea is not his sister after all, so they are free to marry. Rather any system of life, were to waste criticism upon unresisting imbecility, the climax of Philastercomes when the hero's page, Bellario, I upon failits too evident for and too gross for 116 reveals 'him'-self to be in reality a woman, Euphrasia, and so opens , Strictly, the death of one of the central characters, Cloten, the way to Philaster's marriage. fies Cymbeline as a tragicomedy, but this is more than amply compen Or takelhe Maid's Tragedy. In order to conceal his attair with sated for by the multiple resolutions of its final scene, in which happy ",L _ TJ"'" 1 _ _ ( ____ -' I' I" ,', ,J" ., 1 1 , UII;; 1'..1I1~ Ud;, IUll.CU 111~ 11ICUU nHl1IllVl LV 11IalTY Her allU LU enuings pile upon one another in miraculous muitipiIClty. the play break off his engagement to She falls into a and ;\ras probably performed a months after Phi/aster, a,nd Evadne, overcome with remorse, kills the King in a sensational bed some of the 'absurdity' of the 'conduct' finds p:uallf'h in that play.l? room scene - she ties his arms to the bed, and he thinks she's offering Its heroine, Arethusa, loves Philaster but her father has betrothed him kinky sex until she disillusions him and stabs him to death. Later her to the lecherous 'Prince of Popinjays' Pharamond, rather as in disguises herseif as a soidier and, in a finai if misjudged effort Cymbeime Innogen loves Posthumus but her father and mother wish to denl0nstrate her devotion to fights a duel \vith him in the hG' to marry the vicious dolt Clult:u. sends ro Phiiasrer a hope that she will die on his sword, a martyr to love. She falls pagehoy, Rellario, who iB ;:I('tl.lally a !!! disg!.!ise, [:lther::l~ "ilUU';':'<:ll Evadne kills herself, Aspatia drops her disguise, and Amin disguises herself as a boy after expelled from the court. (Shake tor too commits suicide. speare had already used the name Bellario in The Merchant of Venice Plot deVices such as these find paraiieis in ~hakespeare's late tor the imaginary who sends Portia, disguised as Balthasar, to . J ~ _L !~.. :; L.::. L -.A U:.- ,1. :L .. !""': .. !. .. ~ .. n,-"l;.:;:.;- ...... ~ ... --. .. __ ...... ~-" ... _""",-,-",-,-v-,-I",-OJ I.L"U..t.l. '.J.L .LJ ..... IU..l..lUJ LJ..l. relied rather on the creation and fulfilment of expectation than on Cymbeline.) Arethusa is accused of fornicating with her page, rather 2.06 2.°7 SHAKESPEARE AND CO. JOHN FLETCHER AND OTHERS as Giacomo claims to have seduced Innogen; and Philaster believes with any other writer from 1594 rill the composition of Timon of the accusations. rather as Posthumus believes Giacomo's. Bellario falls Athens, in 1606. A year or so later he worked with Wilkins in a forest and is found does in the on Pericles. For several years after this he returned to solo-authored Tl... ". lV/;...... ~ ...... ·' ... T .... 1.... r ...... _ Welsh hills is found J. ,"v"" "' .....<:.1 ~ ..L "",...c., ,,-,Y"j. The later stages of both plays include prison scenes, and a masque in Philaster has something of a counterpart in the appearance of Tuoiter and the dream vision of Gvmbeline. Both would seem, came Cardenio, which exists only in a end 111 contrived resolutions for the virtuous characters. rewritten version dating from 1728, well over a century T_: _ _I. _ ..•.•~ ....: ••: .. ~, _~ .• ~._[. c__ _t..._~~t..._I ___ r , ,u. 1,') \",Udl d\'" ll:'1 I.'!) I.H ... Vl .'!)Cdl\...,ll lU.l lHdl. ll1'- lel.'!)!. arler rne came imo being. There are two pieces of evidence of hi, Thp whil" ;~clnntinv manv nf thf> -- •.. _ 1 Ci' I th~t 3. of thi$ U:1me \V:lC in existence by . On 1..0 1\1.a1' of that narrative conventions of dramatic romance, totally rejects its year the Privy Council authorized payment to John,Heminges, acting structure. Reverting to the neo-c1assical form of The Comedy of as payee of the King's Men, for presentation at court of six plays, one the action of which takes place on a single day, possibly in the of them listed as Cm·denno. Less than two months later, on 9 July, same wwn square, he ailows (he swry or evems (ha( LOok place over Heminges received £6. 13S. 4d. for his company's performance before ~ per!!)d af sixteen ye~rs to unfold in retrospect, initially through the ambassador vf the Duke of of a play (called Cdfdeiliid'. The t> : Prospero's long narrative in which he tells his daughter, Miranda, of name of the play derives from the cha r::Jcter Cardenio in the nrst t l. what had happened in 'the dark backward and abyss of time' since part of Cervantes' Don Quixote, which had appeared in English f· they were shipwrecked on the island where the action takes place. translation in the previous year. Fletcher was to draw extensively on i • ~ 1..1..1'1".. 1:-'1.(-1, l'VJ 1.1U", VILll .. u ..... -"L".I.LJ. • lJV" ~u'""v,e;; d1!U VJ1 \.~el vdHle, .L""e;;rrtpu;.u y 1 Ute<::. HI W.lCl play~. 1 'IV story is laid out from start to finish its concerns with courtly corrup f.,..·• author is named in these entries, but forty years later, on 9 September tion, with the dramatic opposition of innocence with evil, its privileg :t r653, a London bookseller, Humphrey Moseley, who in 1647 had ing of symbolical fantasy over psychological plausibility, and its :1: published the first Folio edition of previously unpublished plays by inherent pastoraiism, aii of which link it with plays of this period Bea)lmont and Fletcher, entered tor publication on the Stationers' ~.~ ...; ....+,.... ¥ .. l.... , D,.... ,.,~ ...... "...._ ... "' ...... l hn,... "" ...... "'" ,...... _.0...... C"... ~ .. ;"" "., ...... "...... 1 VVJ..1L1.., ...... U lIy 1.1 ...... aUiU\.1111. ..:1.U\.! IJ ...... I..rVJU ...... U,I;'}'UJ.\...UL. I.JV.t,,- lJ .1.I.(..4"-\...... I.U.1 : Registel d Ddt...:h uf playS w!.idl iududed 'The of Cardenia, tb1t, :lS the younger men grew in maturity and in experience as house t .. by Mr Fletcher and As Conde!! bd dramatists for the King's Men, Shakespeare should have found , , omitted several plays in which Shakespeare is now believed to have Fletcher, at least, a particularly congenial colleague. i had a hand - Edward III, Sir Thomas More and The Two As we have seen, collaboration was not a new activity tor Shake Noble Kitlsmenl~ - from the First the fact that they also omitted 1 1'1 . _ .• _ C 1.:_ speare. In his earliest years as a 111:: llKC 111V~l Vi Ul~ Cardenio cannot be as evidence It rhOllo,h ro;;) l~,c~r ~vt~t1r rh~n m{)(.;;t .... ".. "" ..... tJ... '" ~ ... , ".. " ..... ~..,-~ -~ ..'"'-.... ~ ~~~ ..~~~ ~~~-~- it seems, occasion- is 1TICre surpris!ag that did nct include it in the Beaumont with George Peele on Titus which includes much work Part One, and with and William someone unknown on Edward III He had alreadv written or in this case the the first two these (he rime 1-.,... t...... " ..... !".... "',.....i"'.. ,...... t'::>~hC> .... r\! ..hn T "'\t"~ rh","",ht:)rl..,;n'('I I\I1.on in IH.... 1.I\..o\-..:1.Jd.1\..o a 1.VULlU\."L 1IH... lllL''''1 Vl \"1..1.,.. A...iV,L'\J 'I.-IJ.,Luu·.l"",...I..lU.l.l.. v .IT..L'-'... .l .. .I..I..l (HI a T -94. From then with a sigh of relief, he became I ,l.rhf)Se his own master. There is no reason to believe that he collaborated was to appear years 2.08 209 SHAKESPEARE AND CO. JOHN FLETCHER AND OTHERS put into print a play certainly based on the story of Cardenio and called Double Falsehood, or the Distrest Lovers, which he said he had 'revised and adapted' from one 'written originally by W. Shakespeare'. AA...lthough the !anguagc dGes not scen1 partiLuhLdy Shakespearian, it is a tragicomedy which, like- Cymbeline, has a disguised heroine wronged by her lover, and in which, as in all Shakespeare's romances, parents are reunited and reconciled with their children. Theobald himself said that some of his contemporaries thought the dialogue of the original sounded more iike Fietcher than Shakespeare. It is p,erfectly pDssib!e thut he somchovv" acquired d manuscript of the vIa)' ptrfurrned the King's Men in ThT3 :lnrl :lsnibl:'a in 1653 to Fletcher and Shakespeare and rewrote it to suit the taste of his own times. He claimed to own several manuscripts of a play by Shakespeare, but when he came to edit the Complete Plays he included only those of the fif5t folio, HOi evel1 aJJillg Pericles and The Two Nobie Kinsmen f'Ven though he believed both of them to be partly by Shakespeare. If he was telling the truth, what happened to the original manuscript? I2. The Two Noble Kinsmen. The title Page ofthe first edition is um~qui1!ocal about who wrote the In I770 a newspaper reported that it was 'treasured up in the Museum u; ":.ovelll \Jamen naynouse . .tIre aestroyea the theatre and Its lIbrary with their Georges and Garter, the Guards with their embroidered coats, and in 1808, so probably it went up in smoke.20 Theobald's play is a the like: sufficient in truth within a while to make greatness very familiar, if performable if undistinguished tragicomedy which had a successful t not ridiculous. Now, King Henry making a masque at the Cardinal Wolsey'S production at Drury Lane before its publication and subsequently.21 llOuM-', alld ~t:f[ain chambers being shot off at hIS entry, some of the paper or Only a few weeks after Heminges was paid for the court performance _ .. ""L _.1 • t 1 othpr '=.fllff u"hpr,:llurlt'h Ant;::>. r.+ f-ht:...... 'Uu....• ,..t;.J _ .~ __"__•• ~ .' _____ ""_'" ...... ""'- ...... ~"'''''''''';l,J. ""«.,, UIU Vll t..JIC Ul.a ll",:U, wnere of Gardenia rhe King's Men gave for the first time a piay based on the , . ·.1·.·.·.· being thought at first but an idle smoke, and their eye, morp :>.!'tenrive to the cf Queen El1zabeth's father, '/111, -whi..:h, unlike: CutJeniu, show, it kindled inwardly and ran round like a train, consuming within less was to be included in the First Folio. Om' of its e"r\iest performances, , '·1.' than an hour the whole house to the very grounds. This was the fatal period given on the sunny afternoon of 29 June I6I3, is more circumstantially .. 1 of that virtuous fabrIC, wherein yet nothing did perish but wood and straw recorded than that of any other Shakespeare play because it literally and a fc;v forsaken cloaks, (Hlly vue tHan had his breeches set on fire, that brought the house down. The fullest account of the disaster is given ~ would perhaps have hroilecl him if he h"d not by the benefit cf a providztit in a letter Vvi;tteH thH':t Jays later by Sir Henry w'otton, traveiier, wit put it out with bottle ale. 22 linelJlstj diplomat and poet, to his nephe~.v Sir Edmund Bacon: i . '. I. If Wotton W;:J~ n0t h_imself present :at the event it is clear that he had to leI matters of state I win entertain you at the present with I talked to someone who was, and luckily several other docllm("llts VVh2t h2~ h3.ppe~ed thi~ \"/eek at the Bank::;idc. The had d Dew confirm what he wrote and provide additional details, such as the called All is True, representing some principal pieces of thp rpign of I intormation that 'the people escaped all without hurt except one man Henry VIII, which was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of I ...1.'_: ","~'" =::.~ __ .: -.-.-:::-... ~!"'ue ::""'~) U~l',",J.HU.1UJ.5 HI u.] ;:)dVC d L~lil(.i wiu<..Il pomp and majesty, even to the matting at the stage; the Knights of the Order otherwise had been burnt'. This comes in a letter from :l young london 2JO 2JI SHAKESPEARE AND CO. JOHN FLETCHER AND OTHERS merchant, Henrv Bluett, which both tells us that this was one of the In their I e:rllbf;;H,,;e I [Bent as grew I rogeth J er play's earliest performances and confirms the tide under which it was (1.1.10) acted: 'On Tuesday last there was acted at the Globe a new play <.:alletl All is True which had been acted not passing two or three Ne3.rly a centurl !atcr, in 1849, anuther ~cholar, Charies Knight, tinles before.' This title is clear too from an eight-stanza ballad which observed 'repeated inst~ncts in \vhich the lines are so constructed that is probably one of two entered for publication thf' day after the fire. it is impossible to read them with the slightest pause at thl" ~nd of Neither survives in print, but one of them exists in an early manuscript. each line'. Neither Roderick nor Knight connected their observations It is printed in full (see Documents below, pp. 242-3) as it is a document to doubts about Shakespeare's sole authorship, but only a year after of exceptional interest which is not easily available (and which is some KIllghI wrote, James Spedding, editor and biographer of Francis . ". _. t 11' 1 (" •• 1 1 r • Bacon, fc!lcv/ed up their remarks in aH cirl.ll:le ,aBed ~Who W'rote tJJlleS gl '-CUlll uvwwenzeu wrm, omlrrtng rne stanza tnat rerers to PISS '\iVives). BaHads such as these, 'Nhich circulated nevvs 'vvhilc at the Shakspere's Henry VIIl?'2S in which he expressed his conviction that same time turning it into entertainment, were sung in the streets and in the play had at least two different authors, and that 'they had worked, ale-houses, as we have seen with Keep the Widow Waking (p. 126), as not together, but alternately upon distinct portions of it'.26 His argu well as being plastered all over the city in the same manner as playbills.23 ments were both impressionistic and analytical, drawing on statistics The obvious explanation for the piay's bemg caBed Henry VlII in the concerning the play's versificadon.. First FoEo is to its title in line "'with those of 8.11 the other English As rimf' passed scholars applied more complex and sophisticated history plays, which are mlml"d after the kings whose reigns tests both to Shakespeare's and Fletcher's plays and, for the sake of dramatize. The original title is restored in the Oxford edition of the , comparison, to those of other dramatists. It emerged, for instance, that Complete Works, and was emblazoned on great gates at the back of llCl";1CI 1:' Illure HKClY 10 use em' tnan 'them', 'has' than 'hath' and 'ye' the stage in Gregory Doran's RSC production. than 'you', and that Shakespeare in his late work is more likely to use None of the contemporary account,> of thl" fire at the Globe says I colloquial contractions than FletcherY These are only self'C'tl"d mark who wrote the play that caused it. It is obviously the play printed in I ers, and signs of authorship can be confused or obliterated by, for the First Folio as Henry VIII. There is no external evidence to call instance, the personal habits of scribes who may have copied the play bc[vre iI was primed, or of the printers themselves. Moreover, the very ~hakespeare's sole authorship into question, but as early as 1758 a Ri<.:haru Roderick, in what has been I essence of the dramatist's art, as of the :ic~ iu uverlaying per 24 sonal characteristics with those of thf' pl"rsona Nevertheless descflbed as 'the firsr serious diSCUSSIon of Sh~kespeare's verse I drew attention to ways in which the versification in it differs from I no Jekyll totally transforms himself into Hyde, and although other Shakespeare's usual practice, noting particularly the frequency with candidatures have been advanced, and some scholars continued to which blank verse lines end with a redundant syllable. He quotes the maintain that Shakespeare wrote the play alone, the overwhelming I current conSCli5US, bdSed 01.1 a 111a~sive accumuiation of evidence, IS foiiowing iines: " ,; thatShakespearf' 212 21 3 SHAKESPEARE AND CO. JOHN FLETCHER AND OTHERS independently of the arguments about this play, produced a classic dependent on 'loss of her that' - exemplifies what Lamh says of description of the difference between Fletcher's and Shakespeare's Fletcher. The second, with its multiple its self-interruptions, characteristic styles which relates especially to Shakespeare's late elliptical constructions - 'a pity [that] I Would' - run-over lines and Fietcher, he wrore, 'iays iine upon Ene, making up one after SelIlem.c ~lrudure, is far more characteristic of Shakespeare's ;lr1other, irnage to inlage so dclibcratcty that - 2 14 21 5 r~ SHAKESPEARE AND CO, JOHN Fl.ETCHER AND OTHERS II· {~ It is not only the passage of time that makes this hard to follow. beest-eating Clown; and next, the Fool; / The babion [baboonl with Understandably, some ot the passages from tius piay that have long tail and eke long tool ...' (3.5.I27-34). The same characters become best-known in their own right - the Duke of Buckingham's figure in an episode of Beaumont's Masque of the Inner Temple and speeches as he goes to execution (2..1.56-1361, the song 'Orpheus Gra)J's inn '.;vhich had been performed before James I at ~ThitchaH with his lute' (3.1.3 Cardinal Wolsey's lines beginning 'Farewell, t Palace on 2.0 February 1613. On that occasion the dance went down a long farewell to all my greatness' (3.2.352-73), and Queen Kather so well with the aristocratic and royal spectators, and even with the ine's vision and death (4.2) are among those most confidently himself, that 'It pleased his Majesty to call for it again at the cn,nlr.a.n rtf' h,,:::,1" l''"1n.1'';crn _ 'Tn hp1" rJ.")vc p'\rpT'lT L-L ...J>.1.\...., ...... vp .... "'...... LL'Iv .... L/ ...... ~"' ..~H..... L ...-.1.;0...... OA.J'" ...... "J I part decided to exploiL iL~ Sl1<.:cess and make it available to the man shall eat in safetv I Under his own vine what he plants' - as well £:~ner~ 1 plJ blic recycling it in the play \vr~tten soon afrcr<\,y,rards. as the egregious and sycophantic flattery of King James, patron of the Mention in the Prologue to The Two Noble Kinsmen of 'our losses' King's Men: seems to refer to the burning of the Globe in June 1613, so this is probably the last play in which Shakespeare had a hand. Both the So shall she leave her blessedness to one, eIlLry of the play on the Stationers' Register of ~ April 1634 and the When heaven shall call her from this cloud of darkness, titie page of the first editk:n in the same year unequivocally attribute 1t Who from the sacred ashes of her honour to Fletcher and Shakespeare (giving them equal billing in alphabetical ShaH star-like rise as greal iu [alHe as she W'."iS, order). A.nd so stand fixed. Peace, plenty, love, terrQr, Like Pericles, also of mixed authorship (though not avowedly so That were the servants to this chosen infant, ...... #. :~'-" :'.LU't. t'l,..I.:""~J\.",auvu" ~:,/c;, ;wtJ ~XV~H::; L\,f..IL:>I1H:5n llau UlH UCt::H .l:'rUHCU like a vine, grow to him, in the First Folio. But while Pericles, with five others, was added to sun of heaven shall Wherever the the third Folio of when it was reissued the following year, His honour and the gre8.tn~ss of hi" n~mf' I and was soon accepted into the Shakespeare canon, The Two Noble Shall be, and make new nations. He shalllluuu,ll, I' Kinsmen's first reprint was in the 1679 second edition of the Beaumont And like a mountain cedar reach his branches and Fletcher Folio, and it cOJJ.tinued to Lt: reg,ar<.h:u more readiiy To all the olains about him. Our children's children I as part of the Rf'::Jllmnnt ::Joel Fk·tcher than of the Shakespe:::re c:::non. ShaH see ·'1·.·, As the Prologue admits, 'Chaucer, of all admired, the story gives'. / ..... , ... \) ''t.'tJ I The Two Noble Kinsmen is based on one of the Canterbury Tales, That is, as Celia says In As You Uke 'laid on with a trowei'. It is a the Knight's Tale, which Shakespeare had already drawn on in A lelicf Lv tlllllk that Shcakcspeare did Hoi stoop 50 lov./ as to vvrite it. I Midsummer Night's Dream. in fact it begins where that play ends, WP ~__ ::It Fin~lIv______• .; .. _ ,>rrivp •.• rhp- _. nnp. ::1nd onlv.t ~l1rvivin!?<..J.. nl::Jv .t which was I' '\,Jllith Theseus's "t~vedding. The liiain story CGnccrns the rivalry of the clearly stated on its first, posthumous publication to have been written kinsmen, Palamon and Arcite, for the hand of Hippolyt::J'~ ~iRtf'r, the Shakespeare as a co-adjuror with someone else: The Two Noble I fair Emilia. There are two comic subplots, both invented, one of which KinSl1um. Curiously, the evidence that it dates from no earlier than I centres on a Jailer's Daughter (otherwise unnamed) who is comically the same year as !ill is True relates nO[ to Flen.:iler bm to BeaumoIlt. if touchingiy in love wlth Paiamon, the other on a group of rustics rl.",c. ,,( rhCl< ...... ~f"r".... ,.... l 1.'I"Cl 2.16 217 SHAKESPEARE AND CO. JOHN FLETCHER AND OTHERS Noble Kinsmen in its overall design exceeds even the bounds of tragi if sentimental exploitation of nostalgia and pathos, tinged at times comedy as defined by Fletcher, in that the resolution of the principal with hints of sexuai ambivalence, as when Palamon and An::ite love plot is achieved only at the expense of the death of one of the exchange reminiscences of previous love affairs in Act 3, Scene 3, and centr~l ch~racters, .A.,rc!te. the theatrically effective, if psychologically implausible, reversals of Shakespeare and Fletcher must have talked together to decide both behaviour resulting from the conflicting demands made on the kins how to treat the story and how to share the labour. As I said in the men by love and friendship, These create a high degree of erotic opening chapter, it seems clear that while Shakespeare agreed to write tension, nowhere more apparent than in the imprisoned kinsmen's the first and last acts, whICh by and iarge include the most serious ts~alatii1g expressions of love for one another over a long p 218 :;tT 9 SHAKESPEARE AND CO. JOHN FLETCHER AND OTHERS Which, seely innocence wots well, comes in 'Death stopped his journey and laid him low here' .35 He was buried I Like old emportment's bastard - has this end: in St Mary's (now Southwark Cathedral). Massinger succeeded him That the true love 'tween maid and maid may be as chief dramatist to the King's Men, and on his death in March r640 I ~10!e than in sex diy!dual. he joined his old friend in the church, reputedly in the same grave. A (1.1.64-82) single memorial stone now commemor~tes them there- I; Shakespeare was to collaborate once more in r613, this time on a • This is Shakespeare tit his most complex and convoluted, \vresting ~ vocabulary and syntax to new linguistic ends. tiny scale, and with an actor, not a writer. Ever since the reign of King ,- Henry Vin annual tournaments had been held before the monarch on ~ One reason why Fletcher was available to collaborate with Shake speare in r6r3 may be that his partnership with Beaumont had broken speciai occasions such as anniversaries of the accession, royai birth 36 t up. This was the year of Beaumont's marriage and ot his retirement dtiys tiTId visits by foreign dignitaries. The aristocratic participants, mounted on elaborately caparisoned steeds, carried, or had pagehoys I from rhe rheatre. Alrhough he weill 011 Lo [aLller iwo JaugllLeI~ he I seems to have suffered a stroke around this time. He died three years carry for them, pasteboard shields on which cryptic mottoes, usually later, on 6 March r6r6, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. When j in Latin or Italian, were inscribed within decorative borders. Com I monly the illscriptions encoded a message of homage, or of contntlOn Shakespeare also died, less than two months later, a poet named I I !~_~!L_~~_~~_._: ••_-1 ~_1_~_~!~ .. 4-_.~ __ ..___ L _____ 4- _____ -1 _.I.1 ______J William Basse (c. r 5 83 - r 653 ?) wrote a memorial sonnet inviting the lV.I V.l.le:ll\.....C:.:l \...-Vllll.Illlle:U, V.I llUpe: .IU.I ld VUUl;:' LlJ ue: \...-UUle:.I.Ie:U, dUUlC':-';:,CU to the sovereiEn_ E~ch impre5a, as they were known, was presented I present incumbents of Poets' Corner, inciuding Beaumont, to make I I; _~~.~ c~_ L.:~. to the monarch at the start of the tournament, and at the end they , .l\.JV.l.l.l.lV.l .l.l.U.l.l. I I were gathered together and taken away to be stored and displayed in 1J, I .l'-L..lIUVV.lIL.U J.p.... l.l~\...l, .lH.., a. L.lJ.VU5.l.lL IJ.J.V.l .... J..H5.lJ. a lUllg gallcl y 111 WUlleuau ralaLe. To learned Chaucer; and rare Beaumont, lie This Shields Gallery was an attraction greatly admired on the guided A little nearer Spenser, to make room tours which even then were available to visitors. Thomas Platter took I 33 I: For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb. one of them on the day before he saw Julius Caesar at the Globe, I; I writing that 'Before the entrance to the palace is the tilt-yard, in its But Shakespeare was buried in Stratford. By then Fletcher had taken . 1 • 1 , 1 , 1 • I . • I .. 1 r l' 1 1 LeuLre a uarner aUUUL a nor~c ~ nelgIH OIl elrner ~lue or wnlen rne over as chief dramatist for the King's Men, and was to write a long n'lrtirin'lntc inllct' Aftpr cppincr thic hp ~nr1 hic n.-:1rtu 'pntprprl .-:1 L r~~-~-~r~~~-~ ,~-~-" ~~~--~ ..... --...... ~o ... ~~ ...... - ...... --...... r ...... ; ...... "" ...... --...... stream ot successful plays, almost always ill tandem wIth another I ., chamber built over the water [the Thames), hung all round with I wriler - fir~l willi the [Ufluer boy actor i'.Jdthall field and then, after emblems and mottoes'; he copied out a number of them, for example I Field died in r619 or r620, with Philip Massinger with whom he f 'superat fortuna laborem. That is Good fortune vanquisheth effort, I; composed some seventeen plays. Aubrey is again the source of our illustrated by a hand drawing a ring, with a diamond inset, from the knowledge of Fletcher's death, writing slightly hazily that 'Fletcher, I' ...... ~ ... 1.-...... h,.,1.-.~ ...... 1: ...... ,38 TI ...... 1.-...... : ...... c1.-...... L...... _ ...... _ ...... _ ...... 1 I VVaLI....J.. VVJ.LU. a J..J..:lJ.J..J..J..J..5 J..J..J.J.\...... u! LJ.J.\..... LJ.J..J.J.I.... '-'lla~\...... :l1:-'\.....aJ..\..... vva.:l a IvyaJ. invited to go with a knight into Norfolk or Suffolk in the plague-time . I, -·1··· servant he could have seen hundreds of shields on occasions such as r625, stayed [in London] but to make himself a suit of ciothes, and St Stephen's Night r606 when the King's Men performed King Lear t ~vvhiI~ it Tv"vras making, feU sick of the pl~gue ~nd died. This! h~d (r668) I ;1.-, for the court. I from his tailor, who is now a very old man, and clerk of St Mary :. He and Wilkins draw on the tradition in a scene in Pericles in which Overy's in Southwark.'34 Apparently Fletcher had some sort of abscess ~J I' .. 1 • 1." . I ( TT' C" .. I 1 l' 1 ,. ....,. .. ~IX KluguL~ JUUM UClure l'-111g ~11uUl11ue~ auu Ul~ uauguler I nalsa 111 on his arm, which his tailor dressed with ivy leaves. Coming to do I I comnet!t!o!1 for her h:!nd in m2!"r!:!Qe~ The hrst h 1.re k!,!!Qht~ 2re richhr llll;:', lle: .IlJUllU llH...... Iala.I }!.Ia5u\...... :lV.IL..:l V.l.l J.. J..L.LL..l.lL.J... J.. J..J..L.J..J.., nJ..H..L.0 .Ll..UUJ..I....!, armed, and accompanied by pageboys bearing their shields. The 220 221 SHAKESPEARE AND CO. JOHN FLETCHER AND OTHERS recently shipvvrccked Pericles, ho'.vever, '."rears only rusty armour period of a dozen or mOfe years during vv"hich he produced a string of reclaimed from the sea and, 'having neither page to deliver his shield solo-authored masterpieces, Shakespeare turned to write plays jointly nor shield to deliver', presents an unexpected kind of device to the with Wilkins, Middleton and, finally, Fletcher. Did he need help lady himself. The King asks: because of some sort of recurring illness? This might be a plausible And what's the sixth and last, the which the knight himself explanatIOn if It looked as If the plays 1I1 questIOn were started by him With such a graceful courtesy dclivereth? and then cOHlpleted by someOlie else, but this is not so. Thefe is every THAISA He seems to be a stranger, but his present is reason to suppose that he was fully involved in the planning and A withered branch dlai'~ ul11y gj'ten at tGP~ execution of all of them from start to finish. Was he acting as a kind The m8tto, In hac st'e U!!If) fin thj(; hope Tlive}, of tutor to apprentice playwrights? There may have been an element KING SIMONIDES From the dejected state wherein he is of this, but Middleton, Fletcher, and even the less prolific Wilkins had He hopes by you his fortunes yet may flourish. written successful plays before their Shakespearian coiiaborations. (Scene 6, Could it eVen be that Shakespeare's colleagues required him to vvork I with a colle:lgue who W;lS more in tOllch with the demands of the Shakespeare may have taken ideas for this scene from his visits to public than the ageing, increasingly self-absorbed master? The plays Whitehall. Possibly he had himself already been commissioned to of Shakespeare's late years, even the solo-authored Coriolanus, The compose such devices. That he eventually did so we know from an Winter's Tale, Cymbeiine and The Tempest, wonderful though they emry in the account books of Francis !Vlanners, 6th Earl of Rmhlnd alC, ha vc Ht:VCI clljuyed tire :>aliic of populai sucCess as the T <:7R-Tf, 2 L vmJ!l~('r hrother of the 5th Earl. Roger, who had spent mastemieces of his middle !'eriod - Ham/t!t_ Twelfth Niqht. Othello_ so much time going to see plays with Southampton in 1599. Un King Lear, Macbeth. Like Beethoven's late quartets and piano sonatas, 3I March 1613 Francis's steward recorded a payment of forty-four Shakespeare's late plays exhibit a degree of introversion which, while shillings, 'To 1\1r in gold, about my Iord's ,i!npres:l '.; and I being an indisputable part of their greatness, limits their appeal. They of the same amount, :lIsa in gold, 'To Richard Burbage for painting are works for connoisseurs; especially, 8.5 I have tried to show, in their and making it'.40 The tournament had taken place a week before the verbal style, and Fletcher may have been brought in to alleviate their payments were made; those taking part included the brother Earls rigours. of Pembroke and Montgomery, to whom the First Foiio was IO be dedicated. The paymenr for wriling a fe-,v words may seem generous; it may appear to show Shakespeare in the )';lIise of no more than an lIpm;lrket copywriter and the great actor Burbage, who played Pericles and whose death six years later the jousting Earl of Pembroke was to mourn, as a mere property-maker to the aristocracy. But the making I of the impresa wouid have been an important OLLa:>ioll for Rutland, ( and the LVUl.l)l)s~tion of an inscription to be presented to the :Kine was a delicate mattr:r C~llline for ract as well as skill. It has not survived, I and we do not know in what language it was written. So, for one last time, Shakespeare worked together with the oid friend with whom he haa Shareu mUl.:ll lur allllu~l l "'''-liLY Y vai~. I It is natura! to ask why, in tbe closing stages of his career, after a 222 223 1-' ~,l SHAKESPEARE AND CO. NOTES "1 ,< collection and had it specially bound for his private library in or soon after II':'.·.·'·· r600. He is known oniy by hls tnltIais, 'G.O.', which are embiazonecl on the CHAPTER 7 THE MOVE TO TRAGICOMEDY: I¥[! k.".':..'•. cover. Soon after the volume was discovered, Henry Clay Folger, the Ameri JOHN FLETCHER AND OTHERS iJ can collector, snapped it up, and it is now in the Folger Shakespeare Library, I• '!! T. This is thp only recorded t!se of this 'Nord, "\xlhich me:!!1S resemblance . Washington. '·1.····.·.. 2. Aubrey, Brief Lives, p. 21. 6. Middieron, ed. Buiien, voL Vlll, p. 77. '. I>I.;: 3. Ibid. 7. Leanda de After Elizabeth (London;> HarperCollin~) 2('}()S}j p. 257 I 4. This quotes from I Henry 1 0 I: 8. Curiollsly, the first two lines of this speech are lifted directly from one of 1.3. 99-2. 3, where, however, 'sea' reads I , 'never fathom-line touched any ground' reads 'fathom-line could never Middleton's favourite books, Nashe's Pierce Penniless. I[F touch the ground', and 'from the lake of hell' reads 'by the locks'. Ii 9· 9 October 19 66. J h 5· It was broadcast by the BBC in 1988, with Roy Kinnear in the role of the I :ro~ There ~re no ref~rences to .Shakespeare :'as an at.:'tor aftt:'f bl)t thfln I hungry courtler. Ii there are very few of any date, so it is not impossible that he went on I 6. Compare The ,"~~1er:;hant of l,/cnicc, '... \"y~al'mcd and cooled by the same i':1 till the end of his career. ''i.. ·.'. winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?' I Jowett, 'Introduction', Timon The Oxford Shakespeare I '.",. (3.1.58- 60), and The History of King Lear, 'Through the sharp hawthorn I Oxford Uni't.rers!!y 2004L p T; rhpr~ i.e; ~ t.qhl1l::ltion of jowett's I Hi biows the coid wind ... Tom's a-cold!' (Scene II, Jines 4°-4 ,51-2.). assessment of Middleton's contributions on p. 2. 1 If ..., Tt i~ llnrl'lt~rl I r ~ -~ ~ ... -~~--..- ... --. T2. The case is argued by Anne Lancashire in 'The Witch: tlOp or 8. The definitive study is Defining Shakespeare: Pericles as Test by I Poiiticai Mistake?', in Kenneth Friedenreich (ed.), 'Accumpanirtgl: lIn: I MacDonald P. Jackson (Oxford, Oxford University Press, I, players': C!!leb Y:Jti11g Thoma< Middlptnn, [580-7980 (New York, I :'r~' 9· Roger Prior, 'The Life of George Wiikms', Shakespeare Survey, 2.5 (197 ), :: AMS Press, 1983), pp. r6r-8r. 2 I~,~/ I !:'t'. !~7-c\2: {T!..!0tat!Ons frnr!1 on. ! .~.-:. ~~!1 L1'7 I3. tor purposes ot companson l nave aeuoerarelY CllUSt:Il plays mal t:Xl" III 10. Jackson, Defining Shakespeare, p. 216. one early text. II. The play also lifts passages from an earlier version of the tale, The 14. The case sketched below is argued at length by John Jowett and Pattern of Painful Ad1)"11tU.."<, by Laurence published originally in Taylor in their book Shakespeare Reshaped, 1606-T623 (Oxford, Oxtord 1 the mid-IS70S and reprinted in 1607, which the dramatists had used as Pres!), 1 ;:19j). jowett puts the case iTIOrC in his cxcelle.'1t I source material. ::.rtide, 'The Audacity of Measure for Measure in 1621', Ben Jonson Journal, I .L:L. 'Part uf Cymbeline's S (200r), pp. 229-48. pieasure win come from the way it mines Fietcher's I seam; drawing the tr<-leic f'mQttons of pity and fear !!!to the t!2gicomic modes IS. Gary Taylor, 'Shakespeare's Mediterranean Measure tor Measure', 1I1 of admiration and wonder'; Martin Butler, 'Introduction' to Cymbeline TUfn Claytun, SU5al1 Drock and \Ticerrte Fores (cds.), Shakespeare and the I (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 19. Mediterranean (Newark, University of Delaware Press, 2004), pp. 24,-69. :1 :':3· Shaw un Shakespeare, ed, Edwin Wilson (London, Casseii, 1962), p. 180. 16. The relevant documents are most conveniently reprinted in appendix I 31 to the Revels edition, ed. T. Howard-Hill (Manchester, Manchester Umverslty 14· Gordon McMullan, 'TntmrlllNion' tn The RO}lal Sha.ke£peare Campa:flY I Production of 'The Tamer Tamed' (London, Nick Hem Books, 2003), p. xiv, This is a somewhat rewritten acting version. My quotations are modernized I7. WicKham, p. 615. I frofll the editiun hy Fn:J~ol1 Bowers. 18. To raise £roo from 3,000 spectators at a single performance would have 15· The affair is discussed hy Meg Pnwers Liyinf,st()n in 'F!ptrher's required gross inflation of the normal entry charges. J The I Woman's prize in 1633' (April 1999), paper presented at the NEMLA Convention, Pittsburgh, Pa., available at http://www.personal.psu.edu/ I (aculty/tn/plriipIL0/ I 16. Samuel lohnson on Shakespeare, erl. Henry W(l11rlhlly~pn (HHPTIonds worth, Penguin Books, I989), p. 235. 25 6 257 SHAKESPEi\RE AND CO. NOTES the earlier is summarized Martin , 32. Emended from the quarto's 'misicall'. Butler in his New Camtmdge edItion of Cymbeiine p. 4. Buder 33· Complete Works, p. lxx. The lines, which circulated wid points to Shakespeare's indebtedness to much earlier dramatic in manuscript, were first printed in the 1633 collection of Tohn Donn romances, pp. I3-I4. Poems. Donne has been proposed as their author 18. His contribution to Sir Thomas More does not constitute collaboration 'Who Wrote William Basse's "Elegy on Shakespeare"?: Rediscovering a Po in the normai sense of the word. Lustfrom the Donne Canon', forthcoming in Shakespeare Survey, 59 (2001' 19. And Timon of A.thens only got in by the skin of its teeth: see p, ISS, It 34· P:lul Edm.ondson intriguingly asks , ..,rhether this tailor also h~ appears to have been added at the last minute because of difficulties relating supplied Aubrey with his information about Shakespeare. May he also to the copyright of Troi/us and Cressida. the man who designed the doublet shown in the Droeshout engraving 20. j)rean ~. Hammond, 'Theobaici's Doubie Faisehoad: An "Agreeabie Shakespeare?i rh.:...... ":,' ~1"....,+,)t",.."HAn.,II".·.;nc ",,,,n/T,,Q,,.\ nn "'_'1 '-""''''.... ''''' ... ,J."'V""""'" ,...... ~- ..... '~..,--, --7 \ ...... 7 ...... "1'" t"t"~ - J' 35· Aubr~y) Brief Lt"ues, p. 22. 21. In recent years Gary Taylor imaginatively reconstructed the original play 36. There are detailed accounts by Alan Young, 'The English Tournam( in a style (http://w\vw.shaksper.netlarchivesIr993/0425.html). and Imprese', in Peter M. Daly (ed.), The English Emblem and the Continen Greenblatt, 111 coHaboranon With Charies Tradition (New York, AIvlS Press, 1983), pp. 6I-tlI, and 111 his bOOk, 1 I Tnurnt1mpnt Imprese (New York, A!v1S f describes the Palace and suggests that Shakespeare IT also been claims that Cardenia is an alternative title for the lurid play known have been the anonymous author of a number of the on unni recentiy as The Second Maiden's (see p. 133) but which is to I 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare Faber and Fab be included in the forthcorning edition of the \17or,ks of Thomas 2005), pp. 28-37. Middleton as The Lady's Tragedy. The claim, based largely on the evidence 38. Platter, pp. 163-4. I 1 ot handwntlllg, has received little credence. 39· "llaplfU, 599, p. 34. 22. The accounts are printed in facsimile in Textual Companion, pp. 29-30. 40. The document is reproduced in S. Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare; 23. There is an excellent account of balladeering in Bruce R. Smith, The I Documentary Life (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1975), p. 220. Acoustic World of Early Modern England (Chicago and London, Chicago I Ul1lversity Press, 1999), pp. 16~-205. 24. Brian \licker~, Sh.::;/;.:;spcar::, Co-~!:thcr Oxfard Url!versity Pre~s, I CHAPTER 8 THE SUCCESSION: JOHN WFR<\TFR 2002), p. 1'1'). My discussion of this play draws heavily on Vickers's exhaus I T, M~ C 13r:vJbr;:')0k, John \Ylebster: Citiz:J'n and Dran1.atist (Lol1dGn, 'J';'cidc tive study. He mistakenly dates Charles Knight'S remarks 'some fifty years feld and Nicolson, I980), p. 137. later' than Roderick's. I 1 :25- Gentlen-zun s .i.Hu)::.u,t..,int,;" Pl'" II 5 2 3. I 26. Cited Vickets, ,)hal Nicoll (Cambridge, Cambridge Universiry l~t'I/), p. 13~. 'I·':. ~O. E!T!-=!"!d~d" fro!!'! th~ tJt1:;1.!t0'S 'n.?Dt'wJt:'. h~r (,8xd~,;.;;, w£:'rC:" 3I. Emended from the quarto's 'on'. 2 59