FRANCIS BEAUMONT et JOHN FLETCHER, Philastre ou l’amour ensanglanté (1610)

This essay explores the ‘lives’ of Francis Beaumont at the point of the four hundredth anniversary of his death, through elegies by John Earle and Thomas Pestell and hitherto unknown and newly interpreted biographical information that sheds fresh light on the relationship between his life and works. Focusing in particular on his plays The Scornful Lady and The Woman Hater, it argues that Beaumont and his regular collaborator, John Fletcher, mix (auto)biographical allusions with satire and fantasy. This analysis offers new perspectives on the ways in which their imaginations were sparked by their lived experience.

Download Full-text

John Fletcher’s Collaborator on The Noble Gentleman

Studia Metrica et Poetica ◽

10.12697/smp.2020.7.2.03 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 7 (2) ◽

pp. 43-60

Author(s):

Darren Freebury-Jones

Keyword(s):

Early Modern ◽

Early Modern Period ◽

Comprehensive Analysis ◽

John Fletcher ◽

Francis Beaumont ◽

John Ford ◽

Collaborative Practices ◽

Modern Period ◽

King's Men ◽

Opening Up

Although John Fletcher is recognized as one of the most influential dramatists of the early modern period, many of the theories concerning the divisions of authorship in his collaborative plays continue to present insoluble difficulties. For instance, according to the soundly based chronology developed by Martin Wiggins, many plays attributed in part to Francis Beaumont appear to have been written after Beaumont had ceased writing (c. 1613), or even after he died in 1616. A prime example would be The Noble Gentleman (1626), which E. H. C. Oliphant and Cyrus Hoy attributed in part to Beaumont. Modern scholarship holds that this was Fletcher’s last play and that it was completed by another hand after Fletcher died in 1625. This article offers the most comprehensive analysis yet undertaken of the stylistic qualities of the “non-Fletcher” portions in this play in relation to dramatists writing for the King’s Men at the time, thereby opening up several new lines of enquiry for co-authored plays of the period. Seeking to broaden our understanding of the collaborative practices in plays produced by that company in or around 1626, through a combination of literary-historical and quantitative analysis, the article puts forth a new candidate for Fletcher’s posthumous collaborator: John Ford.

Download Full-text

Plot Illustrated

Typographies of Performance in Early Modern England ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198848790.003.0005 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 185-228

Author(s):

Claire M. L. Bourne

Keyword(s):

Seventeenth Century ◽

Early Modern ◽

Title Page ◽

John Fletcher ◽

Francis Beaumont ◽

Custom Made

Chapter 4 argues that techniques of illustrating early modern plays were designed to correspond to the effects those same plays were said to have had in performance. It studies the careful composition of custom-made woodcuts in a trio of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher quartos: The Maid’s Tragedy (1619), A King and No King (1619), and Philaster (1620). These plays cemented Beaumont and Fletcher’s widely acknowledged reputation for creating a pleasurable sense of not-knowing for playgoers through clever plotting. The title-page images present seemingly contradictory but equally viable forecasts of the plays’ endings and enhance readerly uncertainty through visual paradox. By contrast, the engravings made for the 1711 edition of Beaumont and Fletcher’s Works depicted single, isolated moments. In step with the resurgence of neoclassical principles of dramatic decorum in the late seventeenth century, these engravings attempted to unify readers’ attention where the earlier woodcuts had sought to confuse it to pleasing effect.

Download Full-text