The Plays of John Lyly Bachelor’S Diploma Thesis

Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Petra Spurná The Plays of John Lyly Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. Pavel Drábek, Ph.D. 2009 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature 2 Acknowledgement: I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Pavel Drábek, Ph.D. for his valuable guidance and advice. 3 Table of Contents 1. Introduction.................................................................................................................5 2. The Life of Johny Lyly...............................................................................................7 3. Lyly‟s Work..............................................................................................................12 3.1 Specific Conditions...........................................................................................12 3.2 Inventions..........................................................................................................14 4. The Plays...................................................................................................................18 4.1 Introduction to the Eight Plays..........................................................................18 4.2 Allegory.............................................................................................................25 4.3 Sapho and Phao.................................................................................................28 4.4 Endimion...........................................................................................................36 5. Conclusion.................................................................................................................45 6. Czech Resumé...........................................................................................................46 7. Works Cited...............................................................................................................47 4 1. Introduction John Lyly was an Elizabethan playwright, who was active as a court dramatist mainly in the last decade of the sixteenth century. Both his person and his dramatic work are oftentimes marginalized in theoretical works concerning the English Renaissance drama, even though by many theorists he is percieved as an author of a great importance for the development of English comedy. This dicrepancy in attitude was the main reason for writing this thesis: to put together information about Lyly‟s life, about the specific conditions in which he was writing, and, especially, about his plays. The main task was to summarize the reasons why is Lyly from the present day‟s perspective seen as an author of a minor importance and is criticized for a lack of invention in his plays, which are described as base court flatteries. The chapter called The Life of John Lyly concerns summarized information about Lyly‟s life and a description of his character as given by his contemporaries and by R.W. Bond, who is the main authority on the playwright and an author of three- volumed The Complete Works of John Lyly, which was the main source of this thesis. The chapter about Lyly‟s work consists of two subchapters, in which I am dealing with some special conditions of his work and describing inventions that are accredited to Lyly. The subchapter about his inventions is particularly important, because it includes Lyly‟s contributions to the development of comedy. The main chapter of this thesis is called The Plays and it involves a subchapter, in which I attempted to introduce Lyly‟s plays and provide basic information about each of them. The subchapter about allegory is important mainly as an introductory to the following subchapters about Sapho and Phao and Endimion, putting them in a larger context. The subchapters dealing with the two plays in particular consist of plot 5 information and description of various types of allegory that are involved. I have chosen these two plays to support the main reason of Lyly‟s later neglect, because they show how much he was influenced by his time and that is why his plays could be never wholly understood again. 6 2. The life of John Lyly There is not much known about Lyly‟s life that could be strictly stated; his biography is mainly built upon supposition based on some Lyly‟s letters or literary works by his contemporaries, in which appears a quotation of Lyly‟s works or a satirical picture of himself1. R.W. Bond in his The Complete Works of John Lyly accomplished a diligent inquiry of every accessible source and created thus an exhaustive survey of Lyly‟s life full of supposed dates and facts. Nevertheless, Bond‟s three volumes create so far the best comprehensive source of Lyly‟s biography and works, and is thus the main source of this thesis. John Lyly was born between 1553 and 1554 in the county of Kent. The precise place of birth is not known; even the information about the county and his background is taken from Fidus‟s story in Euphues and his England. What is known for certain is that he studied at Magdalen College, Oxford. He was about sixteen years old, when he entered the college. There are records of his degrees obtained at Oxford in the university‟s Register: BA in 1573 and MA in 1575. Lyly was described as a student who was not so much interested in logic and philosophy, but was “naturally bent to the pleasant paths of Poetry”2 He is said to be a part of a group of young fashionable (almost foppish) men and putting all the rumours that appear about him togehter , “[w]e shall be tolerably safe in supposing that his Oxford life was marked by a madcap temper, some disregard of the authorities, and some neglect of the prescribed studies” (Bond 1; 8). However, Lyly was probably a diligent student concerning the branch of study he was interested in, because in many of his plays he was inspired by classical 1 Jonson‟s Every Man out of his Humour 2 from Gabriel Harvey‟s pamphlet Advertisement for Papp-Hatchett and Martin Marprelate, quoted in Bond, Vol. 1, p. 7. 7 authors and their works (e.g. Pliny or Ovid‟s Metamorphoses) and included many Latin quotations. After he obtained his MA degree, he tried to apply to the fellowship at Magdalen College. He wrote an elaborate letter in Latin to Lord Burleigh, to whom he was probably obliged for his studies at Oxford. But the result was disappointing. Later, Lyly implied a criticism of Oxford in Euphues. After this failure, he probably spent a few years at Cambridge – it is known that he was incorporated MA of Cambridge in 15793. Around 1578, Lyly is reported to live in the Savoy, London, where he probably met many of his future friends and acquaintances – among them Gabriel Harvey and, supposedly, Edward de Vere, Lord of Oxford. In the same year Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit was published and it was a great success: [l]ess, perhaps, for the novelty of style [...] than for its originality of plan and purport, this first considerable English romance of contemporary life was hailed by the cultivated classes of society as a welcome change from the interminable adventures of the fair sex more chivalrous and conventional than lively or accurate (Bond 1; 20). Because of the major success of his first novel, Lyly decided to write a sequel, Euphues and his England. The novel was published with a delay in 1580. It was dedicated “To the Right Honourable my very good Lorde and Maister Edward de Vere, Earle of Oxenforde” (Bond 1; 24). It was the first notion of Lyly‟s being acquainted with Lord Oxford. Moreover, Lyly was appointed Oxford‟s private secretary. Bond assumes that the men had “common elements of character and directions of taste” (Bond 1; 24). And probably, as Oxford‟s man, Lyly was in a good position to start a career as a playwright of the Court, because “Oxford held the hereditary office of Lord Great Chamberlain, and was besides a special favourite” (Bond 1; 31). Campaspe, the first play composed by Lyly, was probably written in 1579 and a year later performed at 3 Bond, Vol. 1, p. 16. 8 the Court by the Children of St. Paul‟s and the Chapel children. In 1581 Lyly probably started writing Sapho and Phao, an allegorical play about Duke d‟Alençon‟s wooing the Queen, and finished it at the beginning of 1582, when Alençon, the original for Phao, left definitely England. In 1883, probably, a quarrel between Lord Oxford and Lyly had started. Bond assumes that Lyly might be accused of a falsification of accounts, but that Lyly himself seemed uncertain of the charge and it might be only a result of Oxford‟s “gloomy temper” after he was ordered by the Queen to his own house, because of a quarrel between him and another gentleman of the privy chamber4. In 1584 Lyly published Gallathea, his first pastoral. A year later, in 1585, he was appointed a Vice-master of the Children of St. Paul‟s. During his mastership at the St. Paul‟s, most of his plays were performed. Bond suggests that Lyly was in 1585-90 receiving a payment large enough to get married. There is not much known about Lyly‟s wife, except for his own mentioning her in his letter to Sir Robert Cecil, in which he says that she “personally presented yet another petition of his to the Queen” (Bond 1; 43). It could be thus suggest, that Lyly‟s wife held a position at the Court and she might be the source of the backstage gossip he used in his allegories. During the period from 1588 to 1601, Lyly was four times

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