John Heywood

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "John Heywood" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

John Heywood (c. 1497 – c. 1580) was an English writer known for his plays, poems, and collection of

Life

Heywood was born in 1497, probably in

His son was the poet and translator Jasper Heywood, his daughter was Elizabeth Heywood, and his grandson was the poet and preacher John Donne.

Themes

Arthur F. Kinney writes that Heywood 'seems to have survived an unusually long and turbulent existence both by his use of "good learning" – his use of literary sources, especially More and Chaucer, and his intelligent if often oblique commentary on religious and social issues – and his wit, his sociability and his playfulness'.^[4] While Fraser and Rabkin argue that Heywood's plays represent primitive drama, the long monologues in his text would have required actors with an extraordinary range. Many scholars have conjectured that Heywood was probably a performer in his own plays, due to the frequent references in royal expense accounts to Heywood as a performer of various kinds. The plays might seem simple due to their lack of plot in the modern sense, but the ideas that Heywood explores are developed through the exposition of the characters in an equally complex way, even if it might seem foreign to modern sensibilities. Greg Walker has argued that the lack of plot (for example, in Four PP where as soon as the Palmer has mastery over the Pardoner and Pothecary, he gives it up) has a lot to do with Heywood's political views. As these plays can logically be assumed to have been performed in the presence of the king on at least one occasion, it is a very fruitful reading of the plays to consider the ways in which Heywood is in fact arguing for a peaceful resolution to the conflicts caused by events leading up to the schism of 1531.

Richard Axton and Peter Happé observe that Heywood's longer plays would probably take at least an hour and a half to perform, including the songs and acrobatic routines. Their sparse staging requirements (most of the plays require no more furniture than perhaps a table and a chair) would mean that they could be performed almost anywhere, whether it be in a dining hall or as Cameron Louis suggests, the Inns of Court. Most of his works would require four actors or fewer, and would have been performed by adult performers. Axton and Happe conclude as there is no doubling of roles, the plays would have not used professional actors. The major exception would be his play The Play of the Weather which required ten boy actors, and elaborate staging.

Works

A partial list:

Plays

• Witty and Witless or, A Dialogue on Wit and Folly (on archive.org)
• Gentleness and Nobility with John Rastell
• The Mery Play betwene Johan Johan, the Husbande, Tyb, his Wyf, and Syr Johan, the Preest
• The Mery Play between the Pardoner and the Frere, the Curate and Neybour Pratte (before 1533)
• The Play called the foure PP; a newe and a very mery interlude of a palmer, a pardoner, a potycary, a pedler (c. 1530)
• The Play of the Wether, a new and mery interlude of all maner of Wethers
  (1533)
• The Play of Love (1533)

Verse

• The Spider and the Flie (1556)
• A Dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in Effect of All the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue, Compacte in a Matter Concernyng Two Maner of Mariages (1546); (enlarged edition 1550)
• A Balade Specifyienge Partly the Maner, Partly the Matter, in the Mariage betwene Our Soueraigne Lord, and Our Soueraigne Lady (1554)
• A Breefe Balet Touchyng the Traytorous Takynge of Scarborow Castell (1557)
• A Ballad against Slander and Detraction (1562)

Collections

• Proverbs (c. 1538)
• The Proverbs of John Heywood (1546), originally titled A dialogue conteinyng the nomber ... of all the prouerbes in the englishe tongue.^[8]

Famous epigrams

• What you have, hold.
• Haste maketh waste. (1546)
• Out of sight out of mind. (1542)
• When the sun shineth, make hay. (1546)
• Look ere ye leap. (1546)
• Two heads are better than one. (1546)
• Love me, love my dog. (1546)
• Beggars should be no choosers. (1546)
• All is well that ends well. (1546)
• The fat is in the fire. (1546)
• I know on which side my bread is buttered. (1546)
• One good turn asketh another. (1546)
• A penny for your thought. (1546)
• Rome was not built in one day. (1546)
• Better late than never. (1546)
• An ill wind that bloweth no man to good. (1546)
• The more the merrier. (1546)
• You cannot see the wood for the trees. (1546)
• This hitteth the nail on the head. (1546)
• No man ought to look a given horse in the mouth. (1546)
• Tread a woorme on the tayle and it must turne agayne. (1546)
• Wolde ye bothe eate your cake and haue your cake? (1562)
• When he should get aught, each finger is a thumb. (1546)

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to John Heywood.

• "Heywood, John" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. XI (9th ed.). 1880. p. 786.
• The Proverbs and Epigrams of John Heywood on Google Books
• A Mery Play Betwene Johan Johan the Husbande Tyb His Wyf and Syr Jhan the Preest at SFF Net.
• John John audio adaptation at Beyond Shakespeare
• Gentleness and Nobility audio version at Beyond Shakespeare
• Witty and Witless audio version at Beyond Shakespeare
• The Pardoner and the Friar audio version at Beyond Shakespeare
• The Four P's audio version at Beyond Shakespeare
• A Play of Love audio version at Beyond Shakespeare
• The Play of the Weather audio version at Beyond Shakespeare