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William Cartwright (actor)
William Cartwright (died 17 December 1686) was an English actor of the seventeenth century, whose career spanned the Caroline era to the Restoration. He is sometimes known as William Cartwright, Junior or William Cartwright the younger to distinguish him from his father, another William Cartwright (fl. 1598 – 1636), an actor of the previous generation. Early career William Cartwright the younger was about eighty years old when he died; he was therefore born around 1606 or 1607. Nothing is known of his early life; it is reasonable to assume that he began his stage career under his father's tutelage. He was included with his father on a 1635 list of actors; apparently they both belonged to the King's Revels Men at that time. James Wright's '' Historia Histrionica'' (1699) maintains that the younger Cartwright was associated with the Salisbury Court Theatre — which may refer to his time with his father's troupe, or may indicate that he was with Queen Henrietta's Men in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Heywood
Thomas Heywood (early 1570s – 16 August 1641) was an English playwright, actor, and author. His main contributions were to late Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre. He is best known for his masterpiece '' A Woman Killed with Kindness'', a domestic tragedy, which was first performed in 1603 at the Rose Theatre by the Worcester's Men company. He was a prolific writer, claiming to have had "an entire hand or at least a maine finger in two hundred and twenty plays", although only a fraction of his work has survived. Early years Few details of Heywood's life have been documented with certainty. Most references indicate that the county of his birth was most likely Lincolnshire, while the year has been variously given as 1570, 1573, 1574 and 1575. It has been speculated that his father was a country parson and that he was related to the half-century-earlier dramatist John Heywood, whose death year is, again, uncertain, but indicated as having occurred not earlier than 1575 an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A King And No King
''A King and No King'' is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher and first published in 1619. It has traditionally been among the most highly praised and popular works in the canon of Fletcher and his collaborators. The play's title became almost proverbial by the middle of the 17th century, and was used repeatedly in the polemical literature of the mid-century political crisis to refer to the problem and predicament of King Charles I. Date and performance Unlike some of the problematic Beaumont and Fletcher works (see, for example, '' Love's Cure,'' or '' Thierry and Theodoret''), there is little doubt about the date and authorship of ''A King and No King.'' The records of Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels during much of the 17th century, assert that the play was licensed in 1611 by Herbert's predecessor Sir George Buck. The drama was acted at Court by the King's Men on 26 December 1611, again in the following ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beaumont And Fletcher
Beaumont and Fletcher were the English dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I (1603–25). They became known as a team early in their association, so much so that their joined names were applied to the total canon of Fletcher, including his solo works and the plays he composed with various other collaborators including Philip Massinger and Nathan Field. The first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647 contained 35 plays; 53 plays were included in the second folio in 1679. Other works bring the total plays in the canon to about 55. While scholars and critics will probably never render a unanimous verdict on the authorship of all these plays—especially given the difficulties of some of the individual cases—contemporary scholarship has arrived at a corpus of about 12 to 15 plays that are the work of both men. (See the individual pages on Beaumont and Fletcher for more details.) Works The plays general ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Alchemist (play)
''The Alchemist'' is a comedy by English playwright Ben Jonson. First performed in 1610 by the King's Men, it is generally considered Jonson's best and most characteristic comedy; Samuel Taylor Coleridge believed that it had one of the three most perfect plots in literature. The play's clever fulfilment of the classical unities and vivid depiction of human folly have made it one of the few Renaissance plays (except the works of Shakespeare) with a continuing life on stage, apart from a period of neglect during the Victorian era. Background ''The Alchemist'' premiered 34 years after the first permanent public theatre ( The Theatre) opened in London; it is, then, a product of the early maturity of commercial drama in London. Only one of the University Wits who had transformed drama in the Elizabethan period remained alive (this was Thomas Lodge); in the other direction, the last great playwright to flourish before the Interregnum, James Shirley, was already a teenager. The the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volpone
''Volpone'' (, Italian for "sly fox") is a comedy play by English playwright Ben Jonson first produced in 1605–1606, drawing on elements of city comedy and beast fable. A merciless satire of greed and lust, it remains Jonson's most-performed play, and it is ranked among the finest Jacobean era comedies. Characters * Volpone (the Sly Fox) – a greedy and rich childless Venetian ''magnifico'' * Mosca (the Fly) – his servant * Voltore (the Vulture) – a lawyer * Corbaccio (the Raven) – an avaricious old miser * Bonario – Corbaccio's son * Corvino (the Carrion Crow) – a merchant * Celia – Corvino's wife * Sir Politic Would-Be – ridiculous Englishman * Lady Would-Be (the parrot) – English lady and wife of Sir Politic-Would-Be * Peregrine ("Pilgrim") – another, more sophisticated, English traveller * Nano – a dwarf, companion of Volpone * Androgyno – a hermaphrodite, companion of Volpone * Castrone – a eunuch, companion of Volpone * The Avocatori – the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for the satirical plays '' Every Man in His Humour'' (1598), '' Volpone, or The Fox'' (c. 1606), '' The Alchemist'' (1610) and '' Bartholomew Fair'' (1614) and for his lyric and epigrammatic poetry. "He is generally regarded as the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I." Jonson was a classically educated, well-read and cultured man of the English Renaissance with an appetite for controversy (personal and political, artistic and intellectual) whose cultural influence was of unparalleled breadth upon the playwrights and the poets of the Jacobean era (1603–1625) and of the Caroline era (1625–1642)."Ben Jonson", ''Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge'', volume 10, p. 388. His ancest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Othello
''Othello'' (full title: ''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'') is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, probably in 1603, set in the contemporary Ottoman–Venetian War (1570–1573) fought for the control of the Island of Cyprus, a possession of the Venetian Republic since 1489. The port city of Famagusta finally fell to the Ottomans in 1571 after a protracted siege. The story revolves around two characters, Othello and Iago. Othello is a Moorish military commander who was serving as a general of the Venetian army in defence of Cyprus against invasion by Ottoman Turks. He has recently married Desdemona, a beautiful and wealthy Venetian lady much younger than himself, against the wishes of her father. Iago is Othello's malevolent ensign, who maliciously stokes his master's jealousy until the usually stoic Moor kills his beloved wife in a fit of blind rage. Due to its enduring themes of passion, jealousy, and race, ''Othello'' is still topical and popular and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Falstaff
Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare and is eulogised in a fourth. His significance as a fully developed character is primarily formed in the plays '' Henry IV, Part 1'' and ''Part 2'', where he is a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V of England. Falstaff is also featured as the buffoonish suitor of two married women in ''The Merry Wives of Windsor''. Though primarily a comic figure, Falstaff embodies a depth common to Shakespeare's major characters. A fat, vain, and boastful knight, he spends most of his time drinking at the Boar's Head Inn with petty criminals, living on stolen or borrowed money. Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and is ultimately repudiated after Hal becomes king. Falstaff has since appeared in other media, including operas by Giuseppe Verdi, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Otto Nicolai, and in Orson Welles' 1966 film '' Chimes at Midnight''. The operas focus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1682 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1682. Events *In London, the King's Company and the Duke's Company join to form the United Company of actors. *In Paris, the Bibliothèque Mazarine reopens at the Collège des Quatre-Nations. *In Japan, Ihara Saikaku's ''The Life of an Amorous Man'' (好色一代男, ''Kōshoku Ichidai Otoko'', "The Man Who Spent His Life in Love") inaugurates what becomes known as ''ukiyo-zōshi'' ("books of the floating world"), the first major genre of popular Japanese fiction. New books Prose *John Bunyan – '' The Holy War'' *Francisco Nunez de Cepeda – ''Idea del buen pastor representada en Empresas sacras'' *William Penn **Frame of Government of Pennsylvania **Some Fruits of Solitude In Reflections And Maxims' *Mary Rowlandson – '' A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson'' *Ihara Saikaku (井原 西鶴) – ''The Life of an Amorous Man (好色一代男 Kōshoku Ichidai Otok ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Company
The United Company was a London theatre company formed in 1682 with the merger of the King's Company and the Duke's Company. Both the Duke's and King's Companies suffered poor attendance during the turmoil of the Popish Plot period, 1678–81. When the King's Company fell into difficulties due to mismanagement, the Duke's Company joined with them to form the United Company in 1682, managed by the Duke's Company leaders. The United Company began performances in November 1682. The King's Company theatre, the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, was used mainly for plays, while the Duke's Dorset Garden Theatre was devoted to operas and spectaculars. The company began performing in November 1682 at Drury Lane. In February 1685 the theatre was closed by the death of Charles II, and reopened in January 1688 under the patronage of James II. The succession of William III and Mary II in 1689 brought no Royal patronage and a decline in interest in theatre.''The Cambridge History of British ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
