Henry ChettleReseñas

A very good, thorough edition of this collaborative play from the 1600s, to which William Shakespeare contributed. The introduction does a good job of exploring both the play as a work, and also the complex situation that led to its creation. The main text has a battle on its hands, since it's a very rare example of a play found in manuscript form, so words are missing, scenes are divided between authors or occasionally between original and censored texts, and so on. Very thoroughly done. And the thick appendices explore the nature of the text, which is very useful in this odd instance. Very glad the Arden Third Series has incorporated this into the body of Shakespeare scholarship, and looking forward to the rest of their high-quality run over the next few years.

L'edizione critica molto ben curata di un'opera poco conosciuta, ma che diverte e fa riflettere.

Henry Chettle (1564-1606) was an English dramatist and pamphleteer. He worked as a printing house factotum, author for hire and was probably a notorious forger. Piers Plainnes published in 1595 is a typical story set in a pastoral world where Pierres meets some shepherds and they sit down to be entertained by Piers telling a story of adventures in Greece and the island of Crete. I could find nothing to recommend spending much time with this and so 2 stars.

Interesting take on Thomas More, a play written during a period where his role in opposing Henry VIII’s divorce, which led to the English Reformation, would have surely drawn the attention of the censors.

[Sir Thomas More: A play by Anthony Munday and Others]: revised by Henry Chettle, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Heywood and William Shakespeare.
As the title suggests this Elizabethan play underwent a complicated history of production and although a fair copy was eventually made by Anthony Munday, apparently it never made it onto a London Stage. Although many hands were involved the actual finished item (if it was ever finished) reads very well indeed. Claims have been made that it is one of the best of the Elizabethan history plays and the form in which it can be read today demonstrates that it is stage worthy: ie that it would work well enough without major adjustments. In addition to this there are three pages of the manuscripts that have been confidently identified by some, as being by William Shakespeare's own hand and these seem to be the only pages of a manuscript written by Shakespeare that have come down to us. All this points to it being a bit of a mystery as to why it is not better known.

The play based on incidents in the life of Sir Thomas More falls fairly neatly into two parts; depicting his rise to power and then his dramatic fall and execution. The intense anti-foreigner feeling expressed in the first part of the play more than echoes the anti immigrant convictions of the majority of people in The UK, in America and in Europe today, perhaps it's topicality is one aspect of it's failure for being considered for a serious modern revival. Governments today are still shy of appearing as out and out racists, while at the same time encouraging their people to be so. In Henry VII's England the people of London rioted against the foreigners living in the city, they lived in enclaves that were seen to have economic and social advantages over the native population. In the play this comes down to an incident where foreigners are forcibly taking food from a London artisan, who is not deemed worthy enough to appreciate the delicacies and then also taking his wife into the bargain. Preachers at Spitalfields encourage the anger against the foreigners and it is Thomas More's intervention when he was an under Sheriff that persuaded the rioters to return to their homes. Thomas More is knighted and he becomes chancellor to king Henry VIII. This part of the story is skilfully conflated by the authors and there follows a scene midway through the play where Sir Thomas is entertaining dignitaries at his London home and provides a troupe of players to provide the entertainment. This play within a play entitled "the marriage of wit and wisdom" provides a sort of hiatus in the proceedings. It is included to demonstrate the wit of Sir Thomas, because the troupe are a player short and Sir Thomas himself offers to play a part. The final two acts of the five act play, show More's fall from power when he refuses to sign the articles that make the King the supreme head of the church. This part of the play shows Sir Thomas as a martyr to his faith. Going to his execution with equanimity joking to the last and confident in himself and his family. It is poignant but without actually saying so points to the king as merciless and a villain.

Sir Thomas More was one of the few Elizabethan plays to be based on recent history; Elizabeth I was Henry VIII 's daughter and so it was no surprise that the play would run into censorship problems and it is well documented that the Master of the Revels Edmund Tilney; became involved and sent the original copy back for rewriting. Anthony Munday was a fierce anti-catholic involved in priest hunting and so it would seem that he would make the necessary adjustments, but although some were made, Sir Thomas More is still very much the hero. Perhaps then it was never politically suitable to be played during Elizabeths reign. It might be more ( the play is full of puns) appropriate today with its anti foreigner messages.

Act scene iii is the portion written in Shakespeare's hand and contains the speech of Thomas More that quells the riot. It certainly gives no quarter to the rioters, reminding them that they are the kings subjects, under his protection and reminding them that they owe allegiance to the king. More is able to convince them to desist, because he is seen as an honest man and one who does not necessarily wish to take revenge on the common man. The writing does not particularly stand out from all that has gone before or all that follows, because the writing is of a good standard throughout. This modern spelling edition makes for an enjoyable and entertaining read for anyone interested in Elizabethan drama.

I read the Revels Plays edition edited by Vittorio Gabrieli and Giorgio Melchiori, which proves to be an excellent guide for the interested reader. The introduction, painstakingly yet fairly precisely takes the reader through all the amendments and interventions to Anthony Munday's fair copy. It surmises on the date order of the amendments and the probable reasons as to why they were made. It is an excellent example of its kind, holding the reader interest and giving food for thought on possible additional reading or enquiry. The notes that appear on the same page as the text are detailed and support the information given in the introduction. There are appendices that show amendments that were never included and also details of the source material that was used. It really is an excellent package and enhanced my reading of the play, which is one where the history of the production is as fascinating as the play itself. All in all a five star read.

I'm not sure how much of this Shakespeare is actually supposed to have written, but it's on my list for the “All of Shakespeare in a Year” challenge, so I read it. And, to be fair, it's not terrible. Beats Edward III or Two Gentlemen of Verona, that's for sure. The individual components of the story – the riot and its fall-out, the family scenes, the noble choice of death over moral compromise – are all fine, but they don't seem to hold together in any sort of compelling whole. It's more like “scenes from a life,” but there's no dramatic tension. The anti-immigrant riots seemed particularly topical, but the rioters, once in custody, are so thoroughly repentant and content to be paying the price (hanging) for disturbing the King's Peace as to be... disappointing. While it may have served a didactic purpose to have miscreants so fully recognize the error of their disobedient ways, a little outrage over their “betrayal” by More (who promised them that if they surrendered he would obtain pardons for them) would have seemed more plausible. The family scenes, while establishing More as a Nice Guy, who is neither stuffy nor moralizing, are... pretty dull. It seems to me that a big problem is the choice (however politically prudent or necessary from the perspective of the acting company) to Not describe at all the articles of the king which More refused to endorse (presumably the Oath of Supremacy, declaring Henry VIII head of the C of E, or the Oath of Succession). When a play is about a man choosing to die for his religious convictions, failing to mention those convictions at All leaves kind of a gaping HOLE. We're left with a pleasant guy choosing to die with complete placidity rather than sign some paper which isn't even worth mentioning. That's the kind of storytelling challenge that even some lines by Shakespeare aren’t' going to fix.

Review : Greene's Groatsworth of Witte (Bought With a Million of Repentance) , by (pen-name) 'Robert Greene' (later a.k.a. 'William Shakespeare') edited by D. Allen Carroll, 1994, Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, Binghamton, N.Y. | 166 pp., Preface, Introduction, Text, Textual Notes, Appendices A - H, index.

Suffice it to say that this is a work from the same brilliant mind which gave us what we foolishly persist in referring to as the works of "William Shakespeare."

"Robert Greene" is another pen-name of Edward de Vere (1), 17th Earl of Oxford. This work of his is brilliant, naturally. It's hilarious, naturally. It's full of insight, naturally.

It should never have come as a great surprise that, in Elizabethan England, an ingenious playwright should invent not only characters and scenarios for the theatre but also invent numerous pen-name personalities as a mask for his own identity; and this is especially so if, as was the case with Edward Oxford, such a literary genius was a member of the nobility. Such a genius could not both write and publish under his own real name during his lifetime and at the same time maintain his dignity in peer social-relations. Oxford's writing and his involvement with theatre as a benefactor and playwright took a toll on his reputation even as it was. But somehow this important aspect is hard for orthodox professors in Shakespeare studies to grasp.

Almost as funny as "Greene's" Witte is the spectacle of very serious adult men and women seriously analyzing the inner-workings of "Greene" 's mind, as though he were not a fictive pen-name invention. They wonder: did he write this? Did he write some of it? Which parts? Who else had a hand? How about Chettle? Maybe it was his work. What do the stylometrics tell us? How do we love thee? Let us count the (number of) words (which do or do not correspond to prior writings' trends).

Hilarious.

"Greene" was "Shakespeare" before there was a "Shakespeare", that iohannes fac totum, believing himself able to bombast out a blank verse as well as any and, in his own conceit, the "onely Shake-scene in a countrey."

Read the book. And remember, its author wrote pamphlets about "Cony-catching." So try not to get caught as a conie by the Evil Conny-catchers while you're at it.

"Fox made a Friday face" ...

;^) This is wonderful stuff. This is "Shake-speare"-- that is, it's de Vere, Edward Oxford and it's to be read.

From Appendix A:

"But here I meete with an Exit: the Prologue's ended, and I must off: Now Reader, (for I will not call thee gentle till I know whether thou wilt bite or no) behold a drie and withered shaddow, (which once was Greene) appeare in his native colour; new dipt, and a fresh glosse set on him; ready to enter upon the Stage of triall, to answer upon's Cu (cue), and speake his own part. -- Yours; if not, the care's taken, I.H. "
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Ponder that.

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Note
(1) See: Stephanie Hopkins Hughes' paper,
King of the Paper Stage (1997, The Oxfordian) (the link loads a .pdf file of the paper.) Hopkins Hughes is also the first Shakespeare scholar I know of who has argued that the use of pen-names by members of the nobility was a common practice, something extending well beyond the single case of Edward Oxford. She has presented a fascinating argument for the more frequent use by nobles of a mask to cover their own identities as published writers. It makes wonderful plain sense when one thinks about it. But, somehow, no one did until she pointed it out.

Hopkins Hughes is editor of the the web-log, PoliticWorm, and has researched topics in the history of the author of Shakespeare's works since the 1980s .