51-446: Massinger is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: Philip Massinger (1583–1640), English dramatist William Massinger (1514/15–1593/94), English politician [REDACTED] Surname list This page lists people with the surname Massinger . If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding
102-818: A degree and the want of patronage from Lord Pembroke may both be explained on the supposition that he had become Roman Catholic . On leaving the university he went to London to make his living as a dramatist, but his name cannot be definitely affixed to any play until fifteen years later, when The Virgin Martyr (registered with the Stationers Company , 7 December 1621) appeared as the work of Massinger and Thomas Dekker . During these years he worked in collaboration with other dramatists. A joint letter, from Nathan Field , Robert Daborne and Philip Massinger, to Philip Henslowe , begs for an immediate loan of five pounds to release them from their "unfortunate extremity",
153-471: A hit for the King's Men and began a profitable connection between Fletcher and that company. Philaster appears also to have initiated a vogue for tragicomedy; Fletcher's influence has been credited with inspiring some features of Shakespeare's late romances (Kirsch, 288–90) and his influence on the tragicomic work of other playwrights is even more marked. By the middle of the 1610s, Fletcher's plays had achieved
204-423: A large share, is really a miracle play, dealing with the martyrdom of Dorothea in the time of Diocletian , and the supernatural element is freely used. Caution must be used in interpreting this play as an elucidation of Massinger's views; it is not entirely his work. In The Renegado , however, the action is dominated by the beneficent influence of a Jesuit priest, Francisco, and the doctrine of baptismal regeneration
255-615: A lost collaboration, with Fletcher and Field. The list given above represents a consensus of scholarship; individual critics have assigned various other plays, or portions of plays, to Massinger—like The Faithful Friends , or the first two acts of The Second Maiden's Tragedy (1611). Massinger's independent works were collected by Thomas Coxeter (4 vols., 1759, revised edition with introduction by Thomas Davies , 1779), by J. Monck Mason (4 vols., 1779), by William Gifford (4 vols., 1805, 1813), by Hartley Coleridge (1840), by Lt. Col. Cunningham (1867), and selections by Arthur Symons in
306-476: A popularity that rivalled Shakespeare's and cemented the pre-eminence of the King's Men in Jacobean London. After Beaumont's retirement and early death in 1616, Fletcher continued working, singly and in collaboration, until his death in 1625. By that time, he had produced or had been credited with, close to fifty plays. This body of work remained a big part of the King's Men's repertory until the closing of
357-654: A predicament similar to that of the head of the house he revered, the Earl of Pembroke—who found that he could not support King Charles in the English Civil War , and became one of the few noblemen to back the Parliamentary side. Massinger did not live long enough to have to take a position in that conflict. It seems doubtful whether Massinger was ever a popular playwright, for the best qualities of his plays would appeal rather to politicians and moralists than to
408-400: A sacrament that would be surprising for a Catholic. As noted above, Massinger placed moral and religious concerns over political considerations, in ways that offended the interests of king and state in his generation. While not a "democrat" in any modern sense (no one in his society was), Massinger's political sympathies, insofar as we can determine them from his works, might have placed him in
459-459: A sixth stressed syllable to a standard pentameter verse line—most often sir but also too or still or next . Various other habits and preferences may reveal his hand. The detection of this pattern, a Fletcherian textual profile, has persuaded some researchers that they have penetrated the Fletcher canon with what they consider success—and has in turn encouraged the use of similar techniques in
510-492: A sonnet addressed to Humphrey Moseley on the publication of his folio edition of Beaumont and Fletcher ( Small Poems of Divers Sorts , 1658), and in an epitaph on the two poets he says: "Plays they did write together, were great friends, And now one grave includes them in their ends." After Philip Henslowe's death in 1616 Massinger and Fletcher began to write for the King's Men . Between 1623 and 1626 Massinger produced unaided for
561-581: A total of 53. The first folio included The Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn (1613) and the second The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607) are widely considered to be solo works, although the latter was in early editions attributed to both writers. Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt , existed in manuscript and was not published till 1883. In 1640 James Shirley's The Coronation was misattributed to Fletcher upon its initial publication and
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#1732790500998612-516: Is enforced. In The Maid of Honour a complicated situation is solved by the decision of the heroine, Camiola, to take the veil. For this she is held up "to all posterity a fair example for noble maids to imitate." Conversely, characters in Massinger's plays sometimes masquerade as Catholic clergy ( The Bashful Lover ) and even hear believers' confessions ( The Emperor of the East )—a violation of
663-450: Is enough to make it no tragedy; yet brings some near it, which is enough to make it no comedy". A comedy, he went on to say, must be "a representation of familiar people" and the preface is critical of drama that features characters whose action violates nature. Fletcher appears to have been developing a new style faster than audiences could comprehend. By 1609, however, he had found his voice. With Beaumont, he wrote Philaster , which became
714-450: Is not necessary to suppose that Massinger, Fletcher, Ford, and Rowley-or-Webster sat down in a room together to write a play.) More than a dozen of Massinger's plays are said to be lost, though the titles of some of these may be duplicates of those of existing plays. Eleven of these lost plays were manuscripts used by John Warburton's cook for lighting fires and making pies. The tragedy The Jeweller of Amsterdam (c. 1616–19) may be
765-515: Is now Southwark Cathedral , although the precise location is not known; there is a reference by Aston Cockayne to a common grave for Fletcher and Massinger (also buried in Southwark). What is more certain is that two simple adjacent stones in the floor of the Choir of Southwark Cathedral, one marked ' Edmond Shakespeare 1607' the other 'John Fletcher 1625' refer to Shakespeare's younger brother and
816-541: Is probably (according to some modern scholars) the basis for Lewis Theobald 's play Double Falsehood . A play he wrote singly around this time, The Woman's Prize , or the Tamer Tamed , is a sequel to The Taming of the Shrew . In 1616, after Shakespeare's death, Fletcher appears to have entered into an exclusive arrangement with the King's Men similar to Shakespeare's. Fletcher wrote only for that company between
867-566: Is reported to have himself struck out a passage put into the mouth of Don Pedro, king of Spain, as "too insolent." The poet seems to have adhered closely to the politics of his patron, Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke , who had leanings to democracy and was a personal enemy of the Duke of Buckingham. The servility towards the Crown displayed in Beaumont and Fletcher 's plays reflected the temper of
918-556: The Lady Elizabeth's Men , then playing at the Cockpit Theatre , three pieces, The Parliament of Love , The Bondman and The Renegado . With the exception of these plays and The Great Duke of Florence , produced in 1627 by Queen Henrietta's Men , Massinger continued to write regularly for the King's Men until his death. The tone of the dedications of his later plays affords evidence of his continued poverty. In
969-1008: The Mermaid Series (1887–1889). Subsequent work on Massinger includes Philip Edwards and Colin Gibson, eds., The Plays and Poems of Philip Massinger (5 vols., Oxford, 1976), Martin Garrett, ed., Massinger: the Critical Heritage (London, 1991), chapters in Annabel Patterson, Censorship and Interpretation: the Conditions of Writing and Reading in Early Modern England (Madison, 1984) and Martin Butler, Theatre and Crisis 1632–1642 (Cambridge, 1984), and Martin Garrett, "Philip Massinger" in
1020-707: The Beaumont and Fletcher 1647 folio place Fletcher in the company of Ben Jonson ; a comment of Jonson's to Drummond corroborates this claim, although it is not known when this friendship began. At the beginning of his career, his most important association was with Francis Beaumont . The two wrote together for close on a decade, first for the Children and then for the King's Men. According to an anecdote transmitted or invented by John Aubrey , they also lived together (in Bankside ), sharing clothes and having "one wench in
1071-862: The Elizabethan popular tradition and the popular drama of the Restoration . Fletcher was born in December 1579 (baptised 20 December) in Rye , Sussex, and died of the plague in August 1625 (buried 29 August in St. Saviour's , Southwark ). His father Richard Fletcher was an ambitious and successful cleric who was in turn Dean of Peterborough , Bishop of Bristol , Bishop of Worcester and Bishop of London (shortly before his death), as well as chaplain to Queen Elizabeth . As Dean of Peterborough, Richard Fletcher, at
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#17327905009981122-468: The London Stage and the royal company as King James's Lord Chamberlain, succeeded to the title in 1601. It has been suggested that he supported Massinger at Oxford, but the omission of any reference to him in any of Massinger's prefaces points to the contrary. Massinger left Oxford without a degree in 1606. His father had died in 1603, and that may have left him without financial assistance. The lack of
1173-660: The Revels , where available. With Francis Beaumont : With Massinger : With Massinger and Field : With Shakespeare : With Middleton and Rowley : With Rowley : With Field : With Shirley : With Ford : Uncertain : The Nice Valour may be a play by Fletcher revised by Thomas Middleton ; The Fair Maid of the Inn is perhaps a play by Massinger, John Ford and John Webster , either with or without Fletcher's involvement. The Laws of Candy has been variously attributed to Fletcher and to John Ford. The Night-Walker
1224-432: The choir stalls. Next to these is a plaque commemorating Edmund Shakespeare (William's younger brother) who is buried in the cathedral, although the exact location of his grave is unknown. The supposition that Massinger was a Roman Catholic rests upon three of his plays, The Virgin Martyr (licensed 1620), The Renegado (licensed 1624) and The Maid of Honour (c. 1621). The Virgin Martyr , in which Dekker probably had
1275-573: The city records as early as 1415. He is described in his matriculation entry at St. Alban Hall , Oxford (1602), as the son of a gentleman. His father, who had also been educated at St. Alban Hall, was a member of parliament, and was attached to the household of Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke . Herbert recommended Arthur in 1587 for the office of examiner in the Court of the Marches . William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke , who would come to oversee
1326-414: The collaborative texture of the works. According to scholars such as Cyrus Hoy , Fletcher used distinctive textual and linguistic preferences, style and idiosyncrasies of spelling that identify his presence. According to Hoy's figures, he frequently uses ye instead of you at rates sometimes approaching 50 per cent. He employs ' em for them , along with a set of other preferences in contractions. He adds
1377-464: The court of James I . The attitude of Massinger's heroes and heroines towards kings is very different. Camiola's remarks on the limitations of the royal prerogative ( Maid of Honour , Act V, Scene v) could hardly be acceptable at court. Massinger died suddenly at his house near the Globe Theatre , and was buried in the churchyard of St. Saviour's, Southwark , on 18 March 1640. In the entry in
1428-419: The death of Shakespeare and his death nine years later. He never lost his habit of collaboration, working with Nathan Field and later with Philip Massinger , who succeeded him as house playwright for the King's Men. His popularity continued throughout his life; during the winter of 1621, three of his plays were performed at court. He died in 1625, apparently of the plague. He seems to have been buried in what
1479-639: The developing taste for comedies of manners. Among the tragedies, The Maid's Tragedy and especially, Rollo Duke of Normandy held the stage. Four tragicomedies ( A King and No King , The Humorous Lieutenant , Philaster and The Island Princess ) were popular, perhaps in part for their similarity to and foreshadowing of heroic drama. Four comedies ( Rule a Wife And Have a Wife , The Chances , Beggars' Bush and especially The Scornful Lady ) were also popular. Fletcher's plays, relative to those of Shakespeare and to new productions, declined. By around 1710, Shakespeare's plays were more frequently performed and
1530-639: The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots , at Fotheringhay Castle , "knelt down on the scaffold steps and started to pray out loud and at length, in a prolonged and rhetorical style as though determined to force his way into the pages of history". He cried out at her death, "So perish all the Queen's enemies!" Richard Fletcher died shortly after falling out of favour with the Queen, over a marriage she had advised against. He appears to have been partly rehabilitated before his death in 1596 but he died substantially in debt. The upbringing of John Fletcher and his seven siblings
1581-479: The failure as due to his audience's faulty expectations. They expected a pastoral tragicomedy to feature dances, comedy and murder, with the shepherds presented in conventional stereotypes—as Fletcher put it, wearing "gray cloaks, with curtailed dogs in strings". Fletcher's preface in defence of his play is best known for its pithy definition of tragicomedy: "A tragicomedy is not so called in respect of mirth and killing, but in respect it wants [i.e., lacks] deaths, which
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1632-966: The famous line, "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal...." In 2021, Making Massinger , a play by Simon Butteriss, was recorded and streamed by Wiltshire Creative, who commissioned it. The play is in verse and described as a revenge tragicomedy. The cast includes Samuel Barnett, Edward Bennett, Hubert Burton, Julia Hills, Jane How and Nina Wadia. The following scheme is based on the work of Cyrus Hoy , Ian Fletcher, and Terence P. Logan. (See References.) With John Fletcher : With John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont : With John Fletcher and Nathan Field : With Nathan Field: With John Fletcher, John Ford , and William Rowley (?), or John Webster (?): With John Fletcher, Ben Jonson , and George Chapman (?): With Thomas Dekker : With Thomas Middleton and William Rowley : Some of these "collaborations" are in fact more complex: revisions by Massinger of older plays by Fletcher and others, etc. (It
1683-403: The house between them". This domestic arrangement, if it existed, was ended by Beaumont's marriage in 1613 and their dramatic partnership ended after Beaumont fell ill, probably of a stroke, the same year. By this time, Fletcher had moved into a closer association with the King's Men. He collaborated with Shakespeare on Henry VIII , The Two Noble Kinsmen and the lost Cardenio , which
1734-403: The money to be taken from the balance due for the "play of Mr. Fletcher's and ours." A second document shows that Massinger and Daborne owed Henslowe £3 on 4 July 1615. The earlier note probably dates from 1613, and from this time Massinger apparently worked regularly with John Fletcher . Sir Aston Cockayne , Massinger's constant friend and patron, refers in explicit terms to this collaboration in
1785-551: The ordinary playgoer. He contributed, however, at least one great and popular character to the English stage. Sir Giles Overreach, in A New Way to Pay Old Debts , is a sort of commercial Richard III , a compound of the lion and the fox, and the part provides many opportunities for a great actor. He made another considerable contribution to the comedy of manners in The City Madam . In Massinger's own judgment The Roman Actor
1836-461: The parish register he is described as a "stranger", which, however, implies nothing more than that he belonged to another parish. He is buried in the same tomb as Fletcher. That grave can be seen to this day in the chancel of what is now Southwark Cathedral near London Bridge on the south bank of the Thames. There the names of Fletcher and Massinger appear on adjacent plaques laid in the floor between
1887-417: The person's given name (s) to the link. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Massinger&oldid=1033012444 " Category : Surnames Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata All set index articles Monitored short pages Philip Massinger Philip Massinger (1583 – 17 March 1640)
1938-448: The plays have been revived only infrequently. Because Fletcher collaborated regularly and widely, attempts to separate Fletcher's work from this collaborative fabric have experienced difficulties in attribution. Fletcher collaborated most often with Beaumont and Massinger but also with Nathan Field , Shakespeare and others. Some of his early collaborations with Beaumont were later revised by Massinger, adding another layer of complexity to
1989-474: The playwright. His mastery is most notable in two dramatic types, tragicomedy and comedy of manners . Fletcher's early career was marked by one significant failure, of The Faithful Shepherdess , his adaptation of Giovanni Battista Guarini 's Il Pastor Fido , which was performed by the Blackfriars Children in 1608. In the preface to the printed edition of his play, Fletcher explained
2040-427: The preface to The Maid of Honour (1632) he wrote, addressing Sir Francis Foljambe and Sir Thomas Bland: "I had not to this time subsisted, but that I was supported by your frequent courtesies and favours." The prologue to The Guardian (licensed 1633) refers to two unsuccessful plays and two years of silence, when the author feared he had lost the popular favour. It is probable that this break in his production
2091-548: The prologue, Massinger ironically apologises for his ignorance of history, and professes that his accuracy is at fault if his picture comes near "a late and sad example." The obvious "late and sad example" of a wandering prince could be no other than Charles I 's brother-in-law, the Elector Palatine. An allusion to the same subject may be traced in The Maid of Honour . In another play by Massinger, not extant, Charles I
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2142-453: The rest of the century saw a steady erosion in performance of Fletcher's plays. By 1784, Thomas Davies asserted that only Rule a Wife and The Chances were still on stage. A generation later, Alexander Dyce mentioned only The Chances . Since then Fletcher has increasingly become a subject only for occasional revivals and for specialists. Fletcher and his collaborators have been the subject of important bibliographic and critical studies but
2193-710: The revised Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2005). John Fletcher (playwright) John Fletcher (December 1579 – August 1625) was an English playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men , he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; during his lifetime and in the Stuart Restoration , his fame rivalled Shakespeare's. Fletcher collaborated in writing plays, chiefly with Francis Beaumont or Philip Massinger , but also with Shakespeare and others. Although his reputation has subsequently declined, he remains an important transitional figure between
2244-504: The study of literature. [See: stylometry .] Scholars such as Jeffrey Masten and Gordon McMullan, have pointed out limitations of logic and method in Hoy's and others' attempts to distinguish playwrights on the basis of style and linguistic preferences. This list of plays in Fletcher's canon provides likeliest composition dates, dates of first publication and dates of licensing by the Master of
2295-482: The theatres in 1642. During the Commonwealth , many of the playwright's best-known scenes were kept alive as drolls , the brief performances devised to satisfy the taste for plays while the theatres were suppressed. At the re-opening of the theatres in 1660, the plays in the Fletcher canon, in original form or revised, were by far the most common fare on the English stage. The most frequently revived plays suggest
2346-411: Was "the most perfect birth of his Minerva." It is a study of the tyrant Domitian , and of the results of despotic rule on the despot himself and his court. Other favourable examples of his grave and restrained art are The Duke of Milan , The Bondman and The Great Duke of Florence . For an examination of William Shakespeare's influence on Massinger, see T. S. Eliot 's essay on Massinger. It includes
2397-545: Was a Fletcher original, with additions by Shirley for a 1639 production. Some of the attributions given above are disputed by scholars, as noted in connection with Four Plays in One . Rollo Duke of Normandy , an especially difficult case and source of much disagreement among scholars, may have been written around 1617 and later revised by Massinger. The first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647 collected 35 plays, most not published before. The second folio of 1679 added 18 more, for
2448-406: Was an English dramatist . His finely plotted plays, including A New Way to Pay Old Debts , The City Madam , and The Roman Actor , are noted for their satire and realism , and their political and social themes. The son of Arthur Massinger or Messanger, he was baptised at St. Thomas's Salisbury on 24 November 1583. He apparently belonged to an old Salisbury family, for the name occurs in
2499-424: Was entrusted to his paternal uncle Giles Fletcher , a poet and minor official. His uncle's connections ceased to be a benefit and may even have become a liability after the rebellion of Robert Devereux , the Earl of Essex, who had been his patron. Fletcher appears to have entered Corpus Christi College , Cambridge , in 1591, at the age of eleven. It is not certain that he took a degree but evidence suggests that he
2550-494: Was owing to his free handling of political matters. In 1631, Sir Henry Herbert , the Master of the Revels , refused to license an unnamed play by Massinger because of "dangerous matter as the deposing of Sebastian, King of Portugal", calculated presumably to endanger good relations between England and Spain. There is little doubt that this was the same piece as Believe as You List , in which time and place are changed, Antiochus being substituted for Sebastian, and Rome for Spain. In
2601-543: Was preparing for a career in the church. Little is known about his time at college but he evidently followed the path previously trodden by the University wits before him, from Cambridge to the burgeoning commercial theatre of London. In 1606, he began to appear as a playwright for the Children of the Queen's Revels , then performing at the Blackfriars Theatre . Commendatory verses by Richard Brome in
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