''The Humorous Lieutenant'', also known as ''The Noble Enemies'', ''Demetrius and Enanthe'', or ''Alexander's Successors'', is a Jacobean era stage play, a

tragicomedy Tragicomedy is a literary genre that blends aspects of both tragic and comic forms. Most often seen in dramatic literature, the term can describe either a tragic play which contains enough comic elements to lighten the overall mood or a seriou ...

written by John Fletcher. Highly praised by critics, it has been called "Fletcher's best comedy." The drama was initially published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of

1647 Events January–March * January 2 – Chinese bandit leader Zhang Xianzhong, who has ruled the Sichuan province since 1644, is killed at Xichong by a Qing archer after having been betrayed one of his officers, Liu Jinzhong. ...

Date and performance

The second Beaumont/Fletcher folio of 1679 provides a cast list for the original King's Men's production, which includes

Henry Condell Henry Condell ( bapt. 5 September 1576 – December 1627) was a British actor in the King's Men, the playing company for which William Shakespeare wrote. With John Heminges, he was instrumental in preparing and editing the First Folio, the col ...

, Joseph Taylor,

John Lowin John Lowin (baptized 9 December 1576 – buried – 24 August 1653) was an English actor. Early life Born in St Giles-without-Cripplegate, London, Lowin was the son of a tanner. Like Robert Armin, he was apprenticed to a goldsmith. Whil ...

, William Ecclestone, Richard Sharpe, John Underwood,

Robert Benfield Robert Benfield (died July 1649) was a seventeenth-century actor, noted for his longtime membership in the King's Men in the years and decades after William Shakespeare's retirement and death. Nothing is known of Benfield's early life. He was mo ...

—and Thomas Pollard, the comic actor who filled the title role. This is the only cast list that includes both Taylor and Condell; Taylor joined the company in the spring of 1619, to replace

Richard Burbage Richard Burbage (c. 1567 – 13 March 1619) was an English stage actor, widely considered to have been one of the most famous actors of the Globe Theatre and of his time. In addition to being a stage actor, he was also a theatre owner, entr ...

after his death in March of that year; and Condell is thought to have retired not long after—which appears to date the play fairly securely to 1619.

Manuscript

In addition to the printed texts in the two folios, the play exists in a manuscript version, a presentation copy prepared by the professional scribe

Ralph Crane Ralph Crane ('' fl.'' 1615 – 1630) was a professional scrivener or scribe in early seventeenth-century London. His close connection with some of the First Folio texts of the plays of William Shakespeare has led to his being called "Shakespe ...

for Sir

Kenelm Digby Sir Kenelm Digby (11 July 1603 – 11 June 1665) was an English courtier and diplomat. He was also a highly reputed natural philosopher, astrologer and known as a leading Roman Catholic intellectual and Blackloist. For his versatility, he is d ...

. Crane sent the MS. to Digby on 27 November 1625. In Crane's text, the play is longer by some 70 lines; the printed texts provide a stage version trimmed for acting. The MS. is titled ''Demetrius and Enanthe,'' and attributes the play to Fletcher alone—a verdict that is generally accepted, since Fletcher's distinctive stylistic profile is continuous through the play. The MS. has been called "the most beautiful example of Crane's calligraphy that we have."

After 1642

Comic material from the play was adapted into a

droll A droll is a short comical sketch of a type that originated during the Puritan Interregnum in England. With the closure of the theatres, actors were left without any way of plying their art. Borrowing scenes from well-known plays of the Elizabe ...

during the Interregnum period. Like many plays in Fletcher's canon, ''The Humorous Lieutenant'' was revived at the start the Restoration era, in 1660. When the new Theatre Royal at Drury Lane opened on 8 April

1663 Events January–March * January 10 – The Royal African Company is granted a Royal Charter by Charles II of England. * January 23 – The Treaty of Ghilajharighat is signed in India between representatives of the Mugha ...

, ''The Humorous Lieutenant'' was the first play staged, and ran for twelve nights in a row—highly unusual in the repertory system of the time. The play remained popular and was performed repeatedly, in various adaptations, into the early eighteenth century. Adapted forms of the play were published in 1697 and 1717, while the manuscript text was first printed by Alexander Dyce in 1830.

The plot

''The Humorous Lieutenant'' has no known source in the previous literature,Logan and Smith, p. 41. and seems to be that rare item in English Renaissance drama: an original plot. It is set in the ancient Middle East after the death of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to ...

, and features the major historical figures of the era: Antigonus, his son

Demetrius Demetrius is the Latinized form of the Ancient Greek male given name ''Dēmḗtrios'' (), meaning “Demetris” - "devoted to goddess Demeter". Alternate forms include Demetrios, Dimitrios, Dimitris, Dmytro, Dimitri, Dimitrie, Dimitar, Dumi ...

, and Seleucus,

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importance ...

, and Lysimachus. The plot centers on the love between Demetrius and an obscure young woman named Celia—who at the end of the play turns out to be Enanthe, the daughter of King Seleucus and so a suitable match for a prince. The title character is the play's main

comic relief Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene, or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension. Definition Comic relief usually means a releasing of emotional or other tension resulting from a comic epis ...

: an otherwise-unnamed lieutenant who is capable of fighting ferociously in battle but is a profound hypochondriac the rest of the time. He is "humorous" in the seventeenth-century sense of the word: his bodily

humours Humorism, the humoral theory, or humoralism, was a system of medicine detailing a supposed makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers. Humorism began to fall out of favor in the 1850s ...

are out of balance.

Notes

References

* *Leech, Clifford. ''The John Fletcher Plays.'' London, Chatto & Windus, 1962. *Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S. Smith, eds. ''The Later Jacobean and Caroline Dramatists: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama.'' Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1978. *Oliphant, E. H. C. ''The Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher: An Attempt to Determine Their Respective Shares and the Shares of Others.'' New Haven, Yale University Press, 1927. *Potter, Alfred Claghorn. ''A Bibliography of Beaumont and Fletcher.'' Cambridge, MA, Library of Harvard University, 1890. *Sprague, Arthur Colby. ''Beaumont and Fletcher on the Restoration Stage.'' Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1926. *Wilson, F. P. "Ralph Crane, Scrivener to the King's Players." ''Library'' 7 (1926), pp. 194–215. {{DEFAULTSORT:Humorous Lieutenant, The 1619 plays English Renaissance plays Plays by John Fletcher (playwright) Plays set in ancient Greece Tragicomedy plays