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Shakespeare's Contemporaries

Though the best known playwright of the Renaissance is, of course, William Shakespeare, it cannot be disputed that several others have an eminent place in the history of English Drama and theatre.

Brief description of a few important contemporaries is given below :


1. George Chapman (1559-1634)

George Chapman was born in Hitchin, a town in Hertfordshire some thirty miles from London. It is believed that he studied at Oxford. He spent a few years in the household of a nobleman and sometime later got engaged in military service.

Literary Career and Works

Chapman's first published work was The Shadow of Night (1594). This long poem was divided into two parts, the Hymnus in Noctem and the Hymnus in Cynthiam. These contained hymns dedicated to Night and Cynthia, the Greek Goddess of Moon. His second work, Ovid's Banquet of Sense (1595) parodied the genre of the erotic narrative poem such as Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis.

Chapman's reputation was further cemented by his continuation of Christopher Marlowe's Hero and Leander (1598) and his translations of Homer. John Keats effusively praised Chapman's translation of Homer in his famous poem On First Looking into Chapman's Homer. Apart from Homer, Chapman also translated the Georgics of Virgil and the works of Hesiod. Chapman began writing for the stage around 1595. His first extant play, The Blind Beggar of Alexandria was produced in 1596. His most famous comedy was All Fools, based on two classical Roman comedies by Terence, the Heauton Timorumenos and the Adelphoe.

His best known tragedy was Bussy D'Ambois, based on the career of a protégé of brother of Henry III of France. Bussy is portrayed as a malcontent in a world of courtly intrigue. Despite his success as a dramatist, Chapman lived in dire financial straits. He was imprisoned for debt in 1600. He died in poverty in London around 1634.

Major Works

  • The Shadow of Night (1594)
  • Ovid's Banquet of Sense (1595)
  • The Blind Beggar of Alexandria (1596)
  • A Humorous Day's Mirth (1597)
  • All Fools (1605)
  • Bussy D'Ambois (1607)
  • The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois (1610)
  • The Iliads of Homer (1611)
  • Caesar and Pompey (1613)
  • The Whole Works of Homer (1616)
  • The Crown of All Homer's Works (1624)





2. Ben Jonson (1572-1637)

Ben Jonson was born in 1572 in London. His father, a clergyman died before he was born and his mother remarried a bricklayer named Robert Brett. Jonson was educated at Westminster School by the great classical scholar William Camden. For a brief period, Jonson joined his stepfather's trade-bricklaying, but soon became dissatisfied and later joined the army. He returned to London about 1594 and married Anne Lewis on 14th November, 1594.

Literary Career and Works

In London, Jonson joined a theatrical company and established himself as an actor and playwright. He was charged for sedition for a satirical play, he wrote alongwith Thomas Nashe, entitled The Isle of Dogs (1597). A year later, he gained recognition with his first major success, Every Man In His Humour. This play and its sequel Every Man Out of His Humour, elaborated his famous theory of humours.


Jonson was also involved in the famous War of Theatres with playwrights; John Marston and Thomas Dekker. Marston had presented a satirical portrait of Jonson in his Histriomastix in 1599.

In reply, Jonson critiqued Marston's style as 'fustian' in his Every Man Out of His Humour. Marston believed Jonson attacked him in his Cynthia's Revels and in turn, Marston satirised Jonson as Lampatho Doria in his play What You Will. Later, Jonson wrote The Poetaster in which he mocked both Marston's and Dekker's style of writing. Apart from his humour plays, Jonson's most well-known plays are his comedies Epicoene or The Silent Woman, Volpone, The Alchemist and Bartholomew Fair. Jonson's two tragedies on Roman themes are Sejanus and Catiline.

In his Essay of Dramatic Poesy, Dryden praised Jonson as "The most learned and judicious writer, which any theatre ever had". He compared Jonson with Shakespeare and called him 'the more correct poet'. According to Dryden, if Shakespeare was Homer, Jonson was Virgil. Jonson died on 6th August, 1637 and was buried in Westminster Abbey under a plain slab, on which was later carved the words, 'O Rare Ben Jonson!'

Major Works

Comedies

  • A Tale of A Tub (1596)
  • The Isle of Dogs, (1597 with Thomas Nashe)
  • Every Man in His Humour (1598)
  • Every Man Out of His Humour (1599)
  • Cynthia's Revels (1600)
  • The Poetaster (1601)
  • Eastward Ho (1605), a collaboration with John Marston and George Chapman
  • Volpone (1606)
  • Epicoene, or the Silent Woman (1609)
  • The Alchemist, Comedy (1610)
  • Bartholomew Fair, Comedy (1614)

Tragedies

  • Sejanus (1603)
  • Catiline (1611)
  • Masques
  • The Coronation Triumph, or The King's Entertainment (1604)
  • The Masque of Beauty (1608)
  • The Hue and Cry After Cupid, or The Masque at Lord Haddington's Marriage (1608)
  • The Masque of Queens (1609)
  • The King's Entertainment at Welbeck in Nottinghamshire (1633)
  • Love's Welcome at Bolsover (1634)




3. Thomas Heywood (1570-1641)

Thomas Heywood was probably born in Lincolnshire in 1570. He was educated at Cambridge, but left without a degree, when his father died in 1593 and became a fellow of Peterhouse. After this, he moved to London and wrote a play for the Admiral's Men an acting company, in October, 1596.

Literary Career and Works

Heywood's first play was perhaps The Four Prentices of London, a tale of four apprentices, who become knights and travel to Jerusalem. Most of Heywood's significant plays were written between 1600 and 1620. In 1633, in the preface to his play The English Traveller, Heywood claimed to have written 220 plays.

Heywood's most popular play was a domestic tragedy A Woman Killed with Kindness. It is the story of a happy marriage broken when Anne, the wife is seduced by her husband's friend.

The title of the play is taken from a proverb in Shakespeare's The Taming of a Shrew. Heywood also wrote a number of pamphlets and poems. During the late years of his career, he devoted himself to writing non-dramatic works. He was called 'Prose Shakespeare' by Charles Lamb. He died in 1641 and was buried in St James's Church in the Clerkenwell section of London.

Major Works

  • A Woman Killed with Kindness (1602-03)
  • An Apology for Actors, Containing Three Brief Treatises (1612)
  • The Royal King and the Loyal Subject (1615-18)
  • The English Traveller (1623)
  • A Mayden-Head Well Lost (1634)
  • A Challenge for Beautie (1636)
  • Loves Maistresse or The Queens Masque (1636)





4. Thomas Dekker (1572-1632)

Thomas Dekker was born in London in 1572. There is no biographical information available about Dekker like his upbringing or education. He might have acquired some knowledge of Latin, French and Dutch and he may have been in military service in his early years.

Literary Career and Works

Dekker started his literary career in the 1590s. In the year 1599, Dekker produced two plays, Old Fortunatus (1599), a morality play based on German legend and The Shoemaker's Holiday (1599), a comedy centered on Simon Eyre, a shoemaker. The plot of the second play derives from Thomas Deloney's story.

Dekker's most famous and successful play was The Honest Whore (1604-1605). It is the story of a prostitute Bellafront, who redeems herself.

Dekker also wrote successful pamphlets such as The Wonderful Year (1603), a graphic account of London beset by plague. He further provided accounts of London underworld in pamphlets, The Seven Deadly Sins of London (1606) and The Belman of London (1608), The Gull's Hornbook (1609), the Roaring girl (1610) written with Thomas Middleton. Thomas Dekker died in 1632, being heavily in debt.

Major Works

  • Old Fortunatus (1599)
  • The Shoemaker's Holiday (1599)
  • The Honest Whore (1604-05)
  • The Wonderful Year (1603)
  • The Seven Deadly Sins of London (1606)
  • The Belman of London (1608)
  • The Gull's Hornbook (1609)
  • The Roaring Girl (1610)





5. John Marston (1576-1634)

John Marston was born in Oxfordshire, England on 7th October, 1576. He was the son of an English lawyer and his Italian wife. Marston attended Brasenose College, Oxford in 1592 and received his BA in 1594. He entered the Middle Temple to study law and remained there until 1608, but did not complete his legal education.

Literary Career and Works

Marston's literary career began as a poet in 1598. His first known works are Books of Ovidian eroticism and poetic satire, The Metamorphosis of Pigmalion's Image and The Scourge of Villanie. A year later, Marston began working as a playwright for Philip Henslowe. He wrote all his plays before taking holy orders in 1609. Histriomastix is considered as his first play.

His other popular plays are Antonio and Mellida (which deals with the 'comic crosses of true love' faced by Antonio, son of the good Duke Andrugio, and Mellida, daughter of the wicked Duke Piero), Malcontent (a satirical comedy which is centered on a supplanted Duke who returns to his Dukedom in disguise) and The Dutch Courtesan (story of two friends, Freevill and Puritan Malheureux, and their turbulent relationship with the passionate Dutch Courtesan Franceschina).

Probably under the influence of his father-in-law, Marston became a reader at the Bodleian library at Oxford in 1609 and was made a deacon on 24th September and a priest on 24th December, 1609. A few years later, he was assigned the living of Christchurch, Hampshire. Marston died on 24th June, 1634 in London.

Major Works

  • The Metamorphosis of Pigmalions Image. And Certaine Satyres (1598)
  • The Scourge of Villanie. Three Bookes of Satyres (1599)
  • Histriomastix (1599)
  • Antonio and Mellida (1599-1600)
  • Antonio's Revenge (1600)
  • Jacke Drums Entertainment: Or, The Comedie of Pasquill and Katherine (1600-01)
  • What You Will (1601)
  • The Malcontent (1604)
  • Parasitaster, or The Fawn (1604)
  • Eastward Ho (by Marston, George Chapman, and Ben Jonson, 1604-1605)
  • The Dutch Courtesan (1605)
  • The Spectacle presented to the Sacred Majesties of Great Britain, and Denmark as They Passed through London (1606)
  • The Entertainment of the Dowager-Countess of Darby (1607)





6. Thomas Middleton (1580-1627)

Thomas Middleton was born in London in 1580. He was the son of a London master bricklayer, who was later elevated to the status of a gentleman. He studied at Queen's College, Oxford and Gray's Inn. By 1600, Middleton had already published three books of verse and also began writing for the stage.

Literary Career and Works

Middleton's comedies deal with London life in the tradition of Dekker and Heywood. His earliest surviving independent play, Blurt, Master Constable was printed in 1602. As a playwright, he was frequently commissioned to write pageants and civic entertainments. His famous comedies of intrigue were, A Trick to Catch the Old One (1605), A Mad World, My Masters (1605) and A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (1611). His play A Game at Chess (1625), an allegory about England and Spain's political tension was anti-Spanish in tone. It drew the ire of the Spanish ambassador and prompted James I to suppress the play.

His most famous tragedy was Women Beware Women (1625), which depicts the degeneration of Bianca, wife of Leantio, after the Duke of Florence seduces her in presence of her husband. Middleton also wrote a highly successful tragedy in collaboration with William Rowley in 1622, titled The Changeling. The heroine of this play was Beatrice Joanna, who in her quest to escape marriage to a man she dislikes, ends up getting entangled in the vicious schemes of her servant De Flores (who also loves her). Middleton died of natural causes at Newington Butts and was buried there on 4th July, 1627.

Major Works

  • The Phoenix (1603-04)
  • The Honest Whore, Part I (1604), co-written with Thomas Dekker
  • Michaelmas Term (1604)
  • A Trick to Catch the Old One (1605)
  • A Mad World, My Masters (1605)
  • The Bloody Banquet (1608-09); co-written with Thomas Dekker
  • A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (1611)
  • More Dissemblers Besides Women (1614)
  • A Fair Quarrel (1616). Co-written with William Rowley.
  • The Old Law (1618-19). Co-written with William Rowley and perhaps a third collaborator, who may have been Philip Massinger or Thomas Heywood.
  • Anything for a Quiet Life (1621), Co-written with John Webster.
  • The Changeling (1622). Co-written with William Rowley.
  • Women Beware Women (1625)
  • A Game at Chess (1625)





7. John Webster (1578-1634)

John Webster was probably born in London in 1578. He was the son of a coach-maker and a member of the Merchant Taylors' Company. It is believed that Webster studied at the Merchant Taylors' School. He later married Sara Peniall.

Literary Career and Works

Webster was employed as a playwright in the theatre company of Phillip Henslowe. His literary career began with collaborative works with writers such as Dekker, Rowley, Ford and Heywood. Between 1602 and 1605, he collaborated on 5 plays, including Caesar's Fall, Lady Jane, Westward Ho! and Northward Ho!. Webster's first individually written play was The Devil's Law Case, a tragicomedy.

This was followed by his two most famous plays, The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, among the finest of all Jacobean tragedies. Both of them are revenge tragedies. The White Devil is centered on Vittoria Corombona and the Duke of Brachiano, who are in an adulterous relationship. The Duke murders Vittoria's husband and his own wife. After the murders, both of them get married. However, justice is restored at the end with both the Duke and Vittoria getting killed at the hands of Isabella's (Duke's slain wife) avengers. The Duchess of Malfi, on the other hand, revolves around a widowed Duchess, who marries her steward, Antonio Bologna secretly without her brothers' knowledge.

When the Duchess' brothers, Cardinal and Ferdinand become aware of her secret marriage, they both get her and Antonio killed. However, here too justice prevails with the death and downfall of the evil characters at the end of the play. Webster died sometime around November, 1634. Elizabethan theatre rapidly declined after his death.

Major Works

  • Caesar's Fall (1602, collaboration with Michael Drayton, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton and Anthony Munday)
  • Lady Jane (1602, collaboration with Heywood and other)
  • Westward Ho (1604, collaboration with Thomas Dekker)
  • Northward Ho (1605, collaboration with Dekker)
  • The White Devil (1608-09)
  • The Devil's Law Case (1610)
  • The Duchess of Malfi (1613)
  • Anything For a Quiet Life (1621, collaboration with Middleton)
  • The Fair Maid of the Inn (1625, collaboration with Massinger and Ford)
  • A Cure for a Cuckold (1625, collaboration with Heywood)





8. Philip Massinger (1833-1640)

Philip Massinger was born in Salisbury, Southern England in 1583. He was the son of Anne and Arthur Massinger. His father was servant to the prominent Herbert family and at one time a fellow of Merton College, Oxford. Massinger studied at St Alban Hall, Oxford, but left without a degree. Massinger's career as a playwright began around 1613. He became John Fletcher's primary collaborator when Beaumont got married and retired from the theatre.

Literary Career and Works

His collaboration with Fletcher, began around 1613 and ended at Fletcher's death in 1625, spanning some 20 plays, including The Custom of the Country (1619), The False One (1619-23), The Beggar's Bush (1612-1615), and The Spanish Curate (1622). He also collaborated with Thomas Middleton and William Rowley on The Old Law and with Nathan Field in The Fatal Dowry.

Massinger began writing independently from 1620 onwards. His most important individual works are his comedies A New Way to Pay Old Debts (1625), The City Madam (1632), both of which probed economic and social issues and the historical tragedy.

The Roman Actor (1626) A New Way to Pay Old Debts relied for its plot on Middleton's A Trick to Catch the Old One. It is a comedy of an extortioner, Sir Giles Overreach, who is tricked into restoring his nephew Wellborn's fortunes. The City Madam mocks the social pretensions of Lady Frugal, who is obsessed about class. The Roman Actor, on the other hand is a tragedy based on the life of the Roman emperor Domitian, who was murdered in AD 96. It carries suggestions of Jonson's Sejanus. Massinger died in London, where he had spent most of his adult life, early in 1640.

Major Works

  • The Maid of Honour (1621)
  • The Duke of Milan (1621-1623)
  • The Unnatural Combat (1621)
  • The Bondman (1623)
  • The Renegado (1624)
  • The Parliament of Love (1624)
  • A New Way to Pay Old Debts (1625)
  • The Roman Actor (1626)
  • The Great Duke of Florence (1627)
  • The Picture (1629)
  • Believe as You List (1631)
  • The City Madam (1632)
  • The Guardian (1633)
  • The Bashful Lover (1636)





9. John Ford (1586-1639)

John Ford was born in Ilsington, Devon in 1586. He studied at Exeter College, Oxford, in 1601 and entered the Middle Temple in November 1602.

Literary Career and Works

Ford's first published work was an elegy, he wrote on the Earl of Devonshire in Fame's Memorial (1606). Before he started writing dramatic works, Ford wrote poems such as Christ's Bloody Sweat (1613), and two prose essays published as pamphlets, The Golden Mean (1613) and A Line of Life (1620).

His first venture in dramatic work may well have been in the writing or revising of A Bad Beginning Makes a Good Ending, which was acted by the King's Men at court in 1612-1613. However, he came to limelight with his collaborative work with Thomas Dekker and William Rowley, The Witch of Edmonton in 1621.

His reputation as a playwright rests on the plays Tis Pity She's a Whore (1624) and The Broken Heart, The Lover's Melancholy (1628). Revolving around the theme of incest, Tis Pity She's a Whore centers on the siblings Giovanni and Annabella, who insist on the rightness of their incestuous passion for each other, regardless of structures of religion, family and society. The Broken Heart, on the other hand, depicts Penthea, a noble and virtuous heroine, who is forced by her brother to leave her love, Orgilus and marry Bassanes. Ford died in 1639.

Major Works

  • Christ's Bloody Sweat (1613)
  • The Witch of Edmonton (1621), with Thomas Dekker and William Rowley
  • The Sun's Darling (1624), with Dekker
  • Tis Pity She's a Whore (1624)
  • The Lover's Melancholy (1628)
  • The Broken Heart (1628)
  • Love's Sacrifice (1632)
  • Perkin Warbeck (1629-34)
  • The Fancies Chaste and Noble (1635-36)
  • The Lady's Trial (1638)






10. Beaumont and Fletcher

Collaboration between playwrights Francis Beaumont (1584-1616) and John Fletcher (1579-1625) was so successful that they are often named together as a group. Beaumont was the son of a chief justice, and Fletcher the son of a clergyman who later became Lord Bishop of London. While Beaumont was born in Leicestershire and educated at Oxford and the Inner Temple, Fletcher was born in Sussex and studied at Corpus Christi, Cambridge.

Beaumont's first published verses were prefaced to his brother John Beaumont's The Metamorphosis of Tobacco (1602). The same year, his Salmacis and Hermaphroditus was also published. While both Beaumont and Fletcher wrote solo plays, their works in collaboration are better known.

Literary Career and Works

It is unclear how or where both these playwrights met or how their association started. However, their collaboration started in 1607 and lasted until Beaumont's death in 1616. They worked together on more than fifty plays. They appear to have replaced Shakespeare around 1609 as chief dramatists of the King's Men. They wrote Philaster, The Maid's Tragedy, Cupid's Revenge and A King and No King all in a span of two years. The first collected edition of the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher came out in 1647.

According to Martha Fletcher Bellinger, in the combined works of Beaumont and Fletcher, there is 'sureness of touch, humor, pathos and intensity'.

"Fletcher was more brilliant of the two, with the ability to create witty, graceful dialogue; while tragic intensity and genial humri were the special gifts of Beaumont.

In their joint plays their talents are so organically combined, so completely merged into one, that the hand of Beaumont cannot be clearly distinguished from that of Fletcher."

While Beaumont had died of fever in 1616 and was buried at Westminster Abbey, Fletcher died in 1625 and was buried at St. Saviour's, Southwark.

Major Works

  • Beaumont's Works
  • Salmacis and Hermaphroditus (1602).
  • The Woman Hater (1605).
  • The Masque of The Inner-Temple and Gray's Inn (1612).

Fletcher's Works

  • The Faithful Shepherdess (1609).
  • The Tragedy of Valentinian (1610-14).
  • The Woman's Prize; or, The Tamer Tamed (1611).
  • The Mad Lover (1616).
  • The Wild-Goose Chase (1621).
  • Rule a Wife and Have a Wife (1624).

Beaumont and Fletcher Plays in Collaboration

  • Philaster; or, Love Lies A-Bleeding (1610)
  • The Coxcomb (1608-1610)
  • The Maid's Tragedy (1610)
  • The Captain (1609-1612)
  • A King and No King (1611)
  • Cupid's Revenge (1611)
  • The Noble Gentleman (1613)
  • Love's Pilgrimage (1615-16)
  • The Scornful Lady (1616)


Important Points

  • The fact that so many plays survive from the Elizabethan and Jacobean times is itself an indication of the popularity of both, the theatre and the plays written for the theatre.
  • If we keep Shakespeare at the Centre of English Renaissance drama, he had two sets of contemporaries or 'fellow dramatists'. The first included the University Wits and the second set of colleagues included Chapman, Jonson, Marston, Middleton, Heywood etc and towards the end Beaumont, Fletcher and Webster. Thus Renaissance drama can be neatly, if artificially divided into two segments. Shakespeare bridging them and uniting them.
  • The closure of theatres in 1642 by order of Parliament brought an end to renaissance English drama as it is known understood today and when the theatres re-opened in 1660, it was a new era that dawned.







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