Old Fortunatus

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The Pleasant Comedie of Old Fortunatus (1599) is a play in a mixture of prose and verse by Thomas Dekker, based on the German legend of Fortunatus and his magic inexhaustible purse. Though the play is not easy to categorise, it has been called "the only example of an interlude inspired by the fully developed genius of the Renaissance".[1]

Synopsis

Fortunatus, a beggar, meets the goddess

Queen Elizabeth
to decide whether Virtue or Vice has been the victor.

Writing and publication

Old Fortunatus is based on the old German tale of

Queen Elizabeth on 27 December 1599. It was published in quarto early in 1600, implying that it was no longer being produced on the public stage.[2]

Revival and critical reception

When

Adolphus William Ward
balanced the work's vices and virtues:

The construction of this drama is necessarily lax; the wild defiance of the unities of time and place accords well with the nature of the subject; but as the author seems so strongly impressed by the moral of his story, he ought not to have allowed the virtuous and the vicious son of Fortunatus to come alike to grief...Altogether this romantic comedy attracts by a singular vigour and freshness; but its principal charm lies in the appropriately naif treatment of its simple, not to say childlike, theme.[7]

Modern editions

  • Ernest Rhys (ed.) Thomas Dekker London: Vizetelly & Co., 1887. Repr. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1888, and again 1904. Repr. London: Ernest Benn, 1949.
  • Hans Scherer (ed.) The Pleasant Comedie of Old Fortunatus Erlangen: A. Deichert, 1901.
  • Oliphant Smeaton (ed.) Old Fortunatus: A Play London: J. M. Dent, 1904.
  • Fredson Bowers (ed.) The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, vol. 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953.
  • Old Fortunatus: 1600 Menston: Scolar Press, 1971. Facsimile reprint of the 1600 edition.

Notes

  1. ^ William John Courthope A History of English Poetry (New York: Russell and Russell, 1962) vol. 4, p. 221.
  2. ^ Cyrus Hoy Introductions, Notes and Commentaries to Texts in "The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker", Edited by Fredson Bowers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) vol. 1, pp. 71–74, 87–88; Albert Feuillerat The Composition of Shakespeare's Plays: Authorship, Chronology (Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1970) pp. 17–21.
  3. Charles Lamb
    Specimens of English Dramatic Poets Who Lived about the Time of Shakespeare (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1808) pp. 56–63, 441.
  4. The Dictionary of National Biography
    (London: Smith, Elder, 1885–1901) vol. 5, p. 92.
  5. ^ P. P. Howe (ed.) The Complete Works of William Hazlitt (London: J. M. Dent, 1930–1934) vol. 6, p. 234.
  6. ^ The Writings of James Russell Lowell (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1904) vol. 8, p. 192; George Saintsbury A History of Elizabethan Literature (London: Macmillan, 1920) p. 205.
  7. ^ Harold Bloom (ed.) The New Moulton's Library of Literary Criticism (New York: Chelsea House, 1985–1990) vol. 3, p. 1229.

Further reading

  • Haldane, Michael. "The Date of Thomas Combe's "Fortunatus" and Its Relation to Thomas Dekker's "Old Fortunatus"." In: The Modern Language Review 101, no. 2 (2006): 313-324. doi:10.2307/20466785.
  • Halstead, W. L. "Note on Dekker's Old Fortunatus." Modern Language Notes 54, no. 5 (1939): 351–52. doi:10.2307/2912352.
  • Lange, Alexis F. "On the Relation of Old Fortunatus to the Volksbuch." Modern Language Notes 18, no. 5 (1903): 141–44. doi:10.2307/2917211.
  • Schlueter, June. "New Light on Dekker's "Fortunati"." Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England 26 (2013): 120-35. www.jstor.org/stable/24322743.
  • Sherman, William H. ""Gold Is the Strength, the Sinnewes of the World": Thomas Dekker's "Old Fortunatus" and England's Golden Age." Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England 6 (1993): 85–102. www.jstor.org/stable/24321954.

External links

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