Edward III (play)
Edward III | |
---|---|
history play | |
Setting | Fourteenth century: England and France |
The Raigne of King Edward the Third, commonly shortened to Edward III, is an
The play contains several gibes at
The play also contains an explicit reference to its having been produced not only for the stage, but also for the page. In the final sequence, the Black Prince states: "So that hereafter ages, when they read / The painful traffic of my tender youth, / Might thereby be inflamed” (scene 18).[5]
Characters
- The English
- King Edward III
- Queen Philippa – his wife
- Edward, the Black Prince– their son
- Sir Walter de Manny; Salisbury was deceased by the events of the second half of the play.[6]
- Countess of Salisbury – Salisbury's wife (although the story of Edward III's infatuation with her is based on an incident involving Alice of Norfolk, Salisbury's sister-in-law)[7]
- Earl of Warwick– her father (fictitiously)
- Sir William Montague– Salisbury's nephew
- Earl of Derby
- Lord Audley – portrayed as an old man, though he was historically no older than 30 at the time of the play
- Lord Percy
- John Copland – esquire, later Sir John Copland
- Lodwick or Lodowick – King Edward's secretary
- Two Esquires
- Herald
- Supporters of the English
- Robert, Count of Artois – partially based on Sir Godfrey de Harcourt; Artois was deceased by the events of the second half of the play[6]
- Duke of Brittany
- Gobin de Grace – French prisoner
- The French
- King John II – some of his actions in the play were actually undertaken by his predecessors King Charles IV and King Philip VI.
- Prince Charles – Duke of Normandy, his son
- Prince Philip – his youngest son (historically not yet born)
- Duke of Lorraine
- Villiers – Norman lord
- Captain of Calais
- Another Captain
- Mariner
- Three Heralds
- Two Citizens from Crécy
- Three other Frenchmen
- Woman with two children
- Six wealthy citizens of Calais
- Six poor citizens of Calais
- Supporters of the French
- King of Bohemia
- PolonianCaptain
- Danish troops
- The Scots
- King David the Bruce of Scotland
- Sir William Douglas
- Two Messengers
There are several references made to "the Emperor". This is Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor.
Synopsis
King Edward III is informed by
In the second part of the play, Edward joins his army in France, fighting a war to claim the French throne. He and the French king exchange arguments for their claims before the Battle of Crécy. King Edward's son, Edward, the Black Prince, is knighted and sent into battle. The king refuses to send help to his son when it appears that the young man's life is in danger. Prince Edward proves himself in battle after defeating the king of Bohemia. The English win the battle and the French flee to Poitiers. Edward sends the prince to pursue them, while he besieges Calais.
In Poitiers the prince finds himself outnumbered and apparently surrounded. The play switches between the French and English camps, where the apparent hopelessness of the English campaign is contrasted with the arrogance of the French. Prince Edward broods on the morality of war before achieving victory in the Battle of Poitiers against seemingly insurmountable odds. He captures the French king.
In Calais the citizens realise they will have to surrender to King Edward. Edward demands that six of the leading citizens be sent out to face punishment. Edward's wife, Queen Philippa, arrives and persuades him to pardon them. Sir John Copland brings Edward the king of the Scots, captured in battle, and a messenger informs Edward that the English have secured Brittany. However, the successes are undercut when news arrives that Prince Edward was facing certain defeat at Poitiers. King Edward declares he will take revenge. Prince Edward arrives with news of his victory, bringing with him the captured French king. The English enter Calais in triumph.
Sources
Like most of Shakespeare's history plays, the source is
The play radically compresses the action and historical events, placing the
The author or authors of The Reign of King Edward III also used John Eliot’s 1591 translation of Bertrand de Loque’s Discourses of Warre and single Combat for inspiration and guidance.[10]
Authorship
Edward III has only been accepted into the canon of plays written by Shakespeare since the 1990s.
The principal arguments against Shakespeare's authorship are its non-inclusion in the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays in 1623 and being unmentioned in Francis Meres's Palladis Tamia (1598), a work that lists many (but not all) of Shakespeare's early plays. Some critics view the play as not up to the quality of Shakespeare's ability, and they attribute passages resembling his style to imitation or plagiarism.[2] Despite this, many critics have seen some passages as having an authentic Shakespearean ring. In 1760, noted Shakespearean editor Edward Capell included the play in his Prolusions; or, Select Pieces of Ancient Poetry, Compil'd with great Care from their several Originals, and Offer'd to the Publicke as Specimens of the Integrity that should be Found in the Editions of worthy Authors, and concluded that it had been written by Shakespeare. However, Capell's conclusion was, at the time, only supported by mostly German scholars.[12]
In recent years, professional Shakespeare scholars have increasingly reviewed the work with a new eye, and have concluded that some passages are as sophisticated as any of Shakespeare's early histories, especially
Giorgio Melchiori, editor of the New Cambridge edition, asserts that the play's disappearance from the canon is probably due to a 1598 protest at the play's portrayal of the Scottish. According to Melchiori, scholars have often assumed that this play, the title of which was not stated in the letter of 15 April 1598 from
The events and monarchs in the play would, along with the two
have argued that the play is entirely by Shakespeare, but today, scholarly opinion is divided, with many researchers asserting that the play is an early collaborative work, of which Shakespeare wrote only a few scenes.In 2009,
- Henry VI, Part 3 (Shakespeare)
- Edward II (Marlowe)
- Henry VI, Part 1 (Shakespeare, possibly with Thomas Nashe, Kyd, and/or Marlowe)
- Alphonsus, King of Aragon (Robert Greene)
- Richard III (Shakespeare)
- Tamburlaine, Part 1 (Marlowe)
- King John (Shakespeare)
- A Knack to Know a Knave (anonymous)
- Tamburlaine, Part 2 (Marlowe)
- The Massacre at Paris (Marlowe)
This suggests to them that genre is more significant than author. They also note that Kyd's plays do not score that high on Mueller's scale, The Spanish Tragedy at 24th, Soliman and Perseda at 33rd, and Cornelia at 121st.[24] They also note that Vickers was working on a wider project to expand the canon of Kyd to include Edward III, Arden of Faversham, Fair Em, King Leir, and parts of Henry VI, Part 1.[25] Marcus Dahl did n-gram research on Nashe's works and found seven links in Summer's Last Will and Testament, 24 links in Christ's Tears Over Jerusalem, thirteen links in The Unfortunate Traveller, and four links in The Terrors of the Night.[26] Proudfoot and Bennett argue that Nashe's access to the library of Sir Robert Cotton, 1st Baronet, of Connington, would have given Nashe access to Froissart and other sources of the play. They note[27] that the only reference to Froissart in all of Shakespeare's canonical work is in the first act of Henry VI, Part 1, which many scholars now attribute to Nashe. Nashe was known primarily as a playwright, but Summer's Last Will and Testament is his only theatrical work of undisputed authorship still extant.[28] Proudfoot and Bennett also suggest that Nashe's possible co-authorship need not have been dialogue writing, but structuring the plot. "It will be apparent", they write, however,
that the attempt to identify Nashe as a putative partner in writing Edward III is wholly conjectural, anchored to the few known facts of his familiarity with Froissart and perhaps by phrasal links with the verbal text of Edward III. If this hypothesis has any interest, then it may be in confronting the question of how the selection of material from Froissart for Edward III came to be as it is and not otherwise. The fact that it is purely speculative may serve to illustrate the tantalising gap that remains between the playtext that has survived and the attempt to locate it among what little is known of the writers and players who brought it into being.[29]
Proudfoot and Bennett's arguments, particularly those pertaining to statistical analysis of n-grams, are countered by Darren Freebury-Jones, who provides a sustained analysis of the evidence in favour of Shakespeare and Thomas Kyd as direct collaborators.[31]
Harold Bloom rejected the theory that Shakespeare wrote Edward III, on the grounds that he found "nothing in the play is representative of the dramatist who had written Richard III".[32]
Attributions
- William Shakespeare – Edward Capell (1760)
- George Peele – Tucker Brooke (1908)
- Robert Greene, George Peele, and Thomas Kyd – J. M. Robertson(1924)
- Michael Drayton – E. A. Gerard (1928)
- Robert Wilson – S. R. Golding (1929)
- William Shakespeare – A. S. Cairncross (1935)
- Michael Drayton – H. W. Crundell (1939)
- Thomas Kyd – William Wells (1940)
- Thomas Kyd – Guy Lambrechts (1963)
- Robert Greene – R. G. Howarth (1964)
- Thomas Heywood – Moelwyn Merchant (1967)[note 2]
- William Shakespeare – Eliot Slater (1988)
- William Shakespeare and one other – Jonathan Hope (1994)
- William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe – Robert A. J. Matthews and Thomas V. N. Merriam (1994)
- William Shakespeare – Eric Sams (1996)
- William Shakespeare and others (not Marlowe) – Giorgio Melchiori (1998)[33][note 3]
- Christopher Marlowe (Acts I, III, and V) and William Shakespeare (Acts II and IV) – Thomas Merriam (2000)[34]
- Thomas Kyd (60%) and William Shakespeare (40%) – Brian Vickers (2009)[20]
- George Peele – Lois Potter (2012)[35]
- William Shakespeare (Scenes 2, 3, and 12) and others (principal consideration is given to Marlowe, Kyd, Peele and Thomas Nashe, but qualified as "purely speculative" and insisting that even Shakespeare's involvement is conjectural) – Richard Proudfoot and Nicola Bennett (2017)
- Thomas Kyd and William Shakespeare – Darren Freebury-Jones (2022)[31]
Performance history
The first modern performance of the play was on 6 March 1911, when the Elizabethan Stage Society performed Act 2 at the Little Theatre in London. Following this, the BBC broadcast an abridged version of the play in 1963, with complete performances taking place in Los Angeles in 1986 (as part of a season of Shakespeare Apocrypha) and Mold in 1987.[36]
In 1977, the play was incorporated into the marathon BBC Radio dramatic series Vivat Rex as Episodes Three: "Obsession" and Four: "The Black Prince" with Keith Michell as "Edward III", Christopher Neame as "Edward the Black Prince" and Richard Burton as "The Narrator".
In 1998, Cambridge University Press became the first major publisher to produce an edition of the play under Shakespeare's name, and shortly afterward the Royal Shakespeare Company performed the play (to mixed reviews).
In 2001, the American professional premiere was staged by Hope Theatre, Inc. at the Bank Street Theater in Greenwich Village, New York City, which received mixed reviews. Later in 2001, it was produced again by
In 2002, the
In 2009, Director Donna Northcott of St. Louis Shakespeare produced a traditionally set production on a multi-tiered set at the Orthwein Theater.[38]
In 2011, the Atlanta Shakespeare Company presented a production in repertory with The Two Noble Kinsmen at their Shakespeare Tavern Theater. In his director's note, Director Troy Willis stressed the various elements of honor and chivalry found in the play were often taught to the nobility by characters who were lower in social station than themselves. This is notable in the Countess instructing King Edward and Audley instructing the young prince.[39]
In 2014, The Hawai'i Shakespeare Festival (HSF) presented an anime/video game style production that was notable for using dancers as stand ins for King Edward and King John as they controlled the dancers from the sides of the stage.[40]
In 2016, The
In 2016, The Flock Theater in New London, Connecticut, featured a decidedly older King Edward and much younger Countess.[42]
In 2016, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater presented Edward III as part of a 3-play history cycle that included Henry V and Henry VI, Part 1. The cycle was called Tug of War: Foreign Fire and concluded in a follow-up cycle called Tug of War: Civil Strife which included Henry VI, Part 2, Henry VI, Part 3 and Richard III.[43]
See also
- Shakespeare Apocrypha
Notes
- Literary and Linguistic Computing vol 15 (2) 2000: 157–186 uses stylometry to investigate claims that the play is a reworking by Shakespeare of a draft originally written by Marlowe.
- Hill and Wang, 1967) twice mentions Heywood as the author of Edward III (xvii, xxiv).
- Tamburlaine, Part II, which was recent and popular enough to be fresh in the memory of theatre-goers during the period in which Edward III was written. Melchiori does not believe that the play is entirely Shakespeare's, but he does not attempt to determine whose the other hands in the play are. He also voices his dislike of the publication of the "hand D" segments of Sir Thomas Moreout of context in many complete Shakespeare editions (ix).
References
- ISBN 978-0789493330
- ^ a b Stater, Elliot, The Problem of the Reign of King Edward III: A Statistical Approach, Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 7–9.
- ISBN 978-0300066265
- ^ a b c Melchiori, Giorgio, ed. The New Cambridge Shakespeare: King Edward III, 1998, p. 2.
- ^ Stanco, Michele. "Il regno di Re Edoardo III: copione teatrale o testo letterario?", in William Shakespeare: artigiano e artista, a cura di Franco Marenco, il Mulino, 2021, pp. 229–241.
- ^ a b See Melchiori, passim.
- ^ See Melchiori, p. 186
- ^ Connotations Volume 3, 1993/94, No. 3: Was The Raigne of King Edward III a Compliment to Lord Hunsdon?
- ^ "The Palace of Pleasure, Novel 46".
- ^ Ambrose Murphy, A Possible New Source for Shakespeare’s The Reign of King Edward III, Notes and Queries, April 19, 2024;, gjae046, https://doi.org/10.1093/notesj/gjae046
- ISBN 978-0789493330
- ^ Melchiori, p. 1.
- ^ Melchiori, George, King Edward III, Cambridge University Press, 28 Mar 1998, p. 94.
- ^ M. W. A. Smith, 'Edmund Ironside'. Notes and Queries 238 (June, 1993):204–05.
- ^ Wells, Stanley and Gary Taylor, with John Jowett and William Montgomery, William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion (Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 136.
- ^ "King Edward III". Bloomsbury Publishing. Retrieved 11 August 2017.
- ISBN 9780199267170.
- ^ Melchiori, 12–13.
- ^ Sams, Eric. Shakespeare's Edward III: An Early Play Restored to the Canon (Yale UP, 1996)
- ^ a b Malvern, Jack (12 October 2009). "Computer program proves Shakespeare didn't work alone, researchers claim". Times of London.
- ^ Oxford, 2007
- ^ King Edward III. Arden Shakespeare Third Series. Ed. John Proudfoot and Nicola Bennett. London: Bloomsbury, 2017, pp. 58–60
- ^ "Scalable Reading – Scalable Reading NUsites site". scalablereading.northwestern.edu.
- ^ Proudfoot and Bennett, p. 82
- ^ Proudfoot and Bennett, p. 84
- ^ Proudfoot and Bennett, pp. 87–88
- ^ Proudfoot and Bennet, p. 86
- ^ Proudfoot and Bennett, p. 87
- ^ Proudfoot and Bennet, p. 88
- ^ p. 85
- ^ OCLC 1303076747.
- ^ Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York: Riverhead Books, p. xv.
- ^ Melchiori, p. 15.
- Literary and Linguistic Computing 15 (2000), 157–80, cited in William Shakespeare. King Edward III. Arden ShakespeareThird Series. Ed. Richard Proudfoot aqnd Nicola Bennett. London, Bloosbury, 2017, 82.
- ^ The Life of William Shakespeare, 170, cited in Proudfoot and Bennett, 85.
- ^ Melchiori, pp. 46–51.
- ^ Bilington, Michael (26 April 2002). "Edward III: Swan Theatre". The Guardian.
- ^ "Edward III Comes To St. Louis' Orthwein Theater 3/13 – 3/22". Broadway world.
- ^ Willis, Troy. "2010-2011 Season". shakespearetavern.com.
- ^ Saunders, Ben (8 September 2023). "Hawaiʻi Shakespeare Festival readies for war with "Edward III"". Ka Leo.
- ^ "Shakespeare's Lost History Romance tours in July". New Jersey Stage. Winetime Publishing. 4 July 2016.
- ^ Dorsey, Kristina. "Flock Theatre performs 'Edward III,' now believed to be a work of Shakespeare". theday.com.
- ^ "Chicago Shakespeare Theater: Tug of War: Foreign Fire".
External links
- The full text of The Raigne of King Edvvard the third at Wikisource, first quarto (1596)
- Edward III at Standard Ebooks
- Edward III at Project Gutenberg
- The Reign of King Edward the Third public domain audiobook at LibriVox
- Google Books edition (Donovan's English Historical Plays, vol. 1, London, 1896)
- Rolling delta results