Philip Massinger
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (February 2024) |
Philip Massinger (1583 – 17 March 1640) was an English
Early life
The son of Arthur Massinger or Messanger, he was baptised at St. Thomas's
First plays
During these years he worked in collaboration with other dramatists. A joint letter, from Nathan Field, Robert Daborne and Philip Massinger, to Philip Henslowe, begs for an immediate loan of five pounds to release them from their "unfortunate extremity," the money to be taken from the balance due for the "play of Mr. Fletcher's and ours." A second document shows that Massinger and Daborne owed Henslowe £3 on 4 July 1615. The earlier note probably dates from 1613, and from this time Massinger apparently worked regularly with John Fletcher. Sir Aston Cockayne, Massinger's constant friend and patron, refers in explicit terms to this collaboration in a sonnet addressed to Humphrey Moseley on the publication of his folio edition of Beaumont and Fletcher (Small Poems of Divers Sorts, 1658), and in an epitaph on the two poets he says: "Plays they did write together, were great friends, And now one grave includes them in their ends."[1]
Massinger and the King's Men
After Philip Henslowe's death in 1616 Massinger and Fletcher began to write for the King's Men. Between 1623 and 1626 Massinger produced unaided for the Lady Elizabeth's Men, then playing at the Cockpit Theatre, three pieces, The Parliament of Love, The Bondman and The Renegado. With the exception of these plays and The Great Duke of Florence, produced in 1627 by Queen Henrietta's Men, Massinger continued to write regularly for the King's Men until his death. The tone of the dedications of his later plays affords evidence of his continued poverty. In the preface to The Maid of Honour (1632) he wrote, addressing Sir Francis Foljambe and Sir Thomas Bland: "I had not to this time subsisted, but that I was supported by your frequent courtesies and favours."[1]
The prologue to
Death
Massinger died suddenly at his house near the Globe Theatre, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Saviour's, Southwark, on 18 March 1640. In the entry in the parish register he is described as a "stranger", which, however, implies nothing more than that he belonged to another parish.[1] He is buried in the same tomb as Fletcher. That grave can be seen to this day in the chancel of what is now Southwark Cathedral near London Bridge on the south bank of the Thames. There the names of Fletcher and Massinger appear on adjacent plaques laid in the floor between the choir stalls. Next to these is a plaque commemorating Edmund Shakespeare (William's younger brother) who is buried in the cathedral, although the exact location of his grave is unknown.
Religion and politics
The supposition that Massinger was a
Conversely, characters in Massinger's plays sometimes masquerade as Catholic clergy (The Bashful Lover) and even hear believers' confessions (The Emperor of the East)—a violation of a sacrament that would be surprising for a Catholic.
As noted above, Massinger placed moral and religious concerns over political considerations, in ways that offended the interests of king and state in his generation. While not a "democrat" in any modern sense (no one in his society was), Massinger's political sympathies, insofar as we can determine them from his works, might have placed him in a predicament similar to that of the head of the house he revered, the Earl of Pembroke—who found that he could not support King Charles in the English Civil War, and became one of the few noblemen to back the Parliamentary side. Massinger did not live long enough to have to take a position in that conflict.
Style and influence
It seems doubtful whether Massinger was ever a popular playwright, for the best qualities of his plays would appeal rather to politicians and moralists than to the ordinary playgoer. He contributed, however, at least one great and popular character to the English stage. Sir Giles Overreach, in A New Way to Pay Old Debts, is a sort of commercial Richard III, a compound of the lion and the fox, and the part provides many opportunities for a great actor. He made another considerable contribution to the comedy of manners in The City Madam. In Massinger's own judgment The Roman Actor was "the most perfect birth of his Minerva." It is a study of the tyrant Domitian, and of the results of despotic rule on the despot himself and his court. Other favourable examples of his grave and restrained art are The Duke of Milan, The Bondman and The Great Duke of Florence.[1]
For an examination of William Shakespeare's influence on Massinger, see T. S. Eliot's essay on Massinger. It includes the famous line, "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal...."
In 2021, Making Massinger, a play by Simon Butteriss, was recorded and streamed by Wiltshire Creative, who commissioned it. The play is in verse and described as a revenge tragicomedy. The cast includes Samuel Barnett, Edward Bennett, Hubert Burton, Julia Hills, Jane How and Nina Wadia.
Canon of Massinger's works
The following scheme is based on the work of Cyrus Hoy, Ian Fletcher, and Terence P. Logan. (See References.)
Solo plays
- The Maid of Honour, tragicomedy (c. 1621; printed 1632)
- The Duke of Milan, tragedy (c. 1621–3; printed 1623, 1638)
- The Unnatural Combat, tragedy (c. 1621–6; printed 1639)
- The Bondman, tragicomedy (licensed 3 December 1623; printed 1624)
- The Renegado, tragicomedy (licensed 17 April 1624; printed 1630)
- The Parliament of Love, comedy (licensed 3 November 1624; MS)
- A New Way to Pay Old Debts, comedy (c. 1625; printed 1632)
- The Roman Actor, tragedy (licensed 11 October 1626; printed 1629)
- The Great Duke of Florence, tragicomedy (licensed 5 July 1627; printed 1636)
- The Picture, tragicomedy (licensed 8 June 1629; printed 1630)
- The Emperor of the East, tragicomedy (licensed 11 March 1631; printed 1632)
- Believe as You List, tragedy (rejected by the censor in January, but licensed 6 May 1631;[1] MS)
- The City Madam, comedy (licensed 25 May 1632; printed 1658)
- The Guardian, comedy (licensed 31 October 1633; printed 1655)
- The Bashful Lover, tragicomedy (licensed 9 May 1636; printed 1655)
Collaborations
With John Fletcher:
- Sir John van Olden Barnavelt, tragedy (August 1619; MS)
- The Little French Lawyer, comedy (c. 1619–23; printed 1647)
- A Very Woman, tragicomedy (c. 1619–22; licensed 6 June 1634; printed 1655)
- The Custom of the Country, comedy (c. 1619–23; printed 1647)
- The Double Marriage, tragedy (c. 1619–23; Printed 1647)
- The False One, history (c. 1619–23; printed 1647)
- The Prophetess, tragicomedy (licensed 14 May 1622; printed 1647)
- The Sea Voyage, comedy (licensed 22 June 1622; printed 1647)
- The Spanish Curate, comedy (licensed 24 October 1622; printed 1647)
- The Lovers' Progress or The Wandering Lovers, tragicomedy (licensed 6 December 1623; revised 1634; printed 1647)
- The Elder Brother, comedy (c. 1625; printed 1637).
With John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont:
- Thierry and Theodoret, tragedy (c. 1607?; printed 1621)
- The Coxcomb, comedy (1608–10; printed 1647)
- Beggars' Bush, comedy (c. 1612–15?; revised 1622?; printed 1647)
- Love's Cure, comedy (c. 1612–15?; revised 1625?; printed 1647).
With John Fletcher and Nathan Field:
- The Honest Man's Fortune, tragicomedy (1613; printed 1647)
- The Queen of Corinth, tragicomedy (c. 1616–18; printed 1647)
- The Knight of Malta, tragicomedy (c. 1619; printed 1647).
With Nathan Field:
- The Fatal Dowry, tragedy (c. 1619, printed 1632); adapted by Nicholas Rowe: The Fair Penitent
With John Fletcher, John Ford, and William Rowley (?), or John Webster (?):
- The Fair Maid of the Inn, comedy (licensed 22 January 1626; printed 1647).
With John Fletcher, Ben Jonson, and George Chapman (?):
- Rollo Duke of Normandy, or The Bloody Brother, tragedy (c. 1616–24; printed 1639).
With
- The Virgin Martyr, tragedy (licensed 6 October 1620; printed 1622).
With Thomas Middleton and William Rowley:
- The Old Law, comedy (c. 1615–18; printed 1656).
Some of these "collaborations" are in fact more complex: revisions by Massinger of older plays by Fletcher and others, etc. (It is not necessary to suppose that Massinger, Fletcher, Ford, and Rowley-or-Webster sat down in a room together to write a play.)
More than a dozen of Massinger's plays are said to be lost,[a] though the titles of some of these may be duplicates of those of existing plays. Eleven of these lost plays were manuscripts used by John Warburton's cook for lighting fires and making pies.[1] The tragedy The Jeweller of Amsterdam (c. 1616–19) may be a lost collaboration, with Fletcher and Field.
The list given above represents a consensus of scholarship; individual critics have assigned various other plays, or portions of plays, to Massinger—like The Faithful Friends, or the first two acts of The Second Maiden's Tragedy (1611).
Massinger's independent works were collected by Thomas Coxeter (4 vols., 1759, revised edition with introduction by Thomas Davies, 1779), by J. Monck Mason (4 vols., 1779), by William Gifford (4 vols., 1805, 1813), by Hartley Coleridge (1840), by Lt. Col. Cunningham (1867), and selections by Arthur Symons in the Mermaid Series (1887–1889).[1]
Subsequent work on Massinger includes Philip Edwards and Colin Gibson, eds., The Plays and Poems of Philip Massinger (5 vols., Oxford, 1976), Martin Garrett, ed., Massinger: the Critical Heritage (London, 1991), chapters in Annabel Patterson, Censorship and Interpretation: the Conditions of Writing and Reading in Early Modern England (Madison, 1984) and Martin Butler, Theatre and Crisis 1632–1642 (Cambridge, 1984), and Martin Garrett, "Philip Massinger" in the revised Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2005).
Notes
- ^ In his edition, Gifford cites the comedies The Noble Choice, The Wandering Lovers, Antonio and Vallia, Fast and Welcome, The Woman's Plot, and The Spanish Viceroy; the tragedies The Forced Lady, The Tyrant, Minerva's Sacrifice, The Tragedy of Cleander, and The Italian Nightpiece, or The Unfortunate Piety; the tragicomedy Philenzo and Hippolita; and six plays of unspecified genre, The Judge, The Honour of Women, The Orator, The King and the Subject, Alexius, or The Chaste Lover, and The Prisoner, or The Fair Anchoress of Pausilippo.[citation needed]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Massinger, Philip". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 868–869. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
General references
This article contains a list that has not been properly sorted. See MOS:LISTSORT for more information. if you can. (February 2024) |
- James Phelan: On Philip Massinger. (in Vol. 2 of Anglia: Zeitschrift für englische Philologie), Halle 1879 (Leipzig: Univ., Diss., 1878).
- Minto, William (1883). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. XV (9th ed.). pp. 618–619.
- Francis Cunningham (Ed.): William Gifford: The plays of Philip Massinger; From the text of William Gifford. With the addition of the tragedy "Believe as you list" ed. by Francis Cunningham. London: Chatto and Windus, ca. 1887.
- Alfred Jean-François Mézières: Contemporains et successeurs de Shakespeare. 5. rev. a. corr. Ed. Paris: Hachette, 1913.
- Irmgard Röhricht: Das Idealbild der Frau bei Philip Massinger. Munich: Piloty & Loehle, 1920.
- T.S. Eliot, "Philip Massinger" (1920), available abridged in 'Selected Prose of T.S. Eliot' at 153 (Frank Kermode, ed.) Harcourt Brace 1975. ISBN 0-15-680654-1.
- Cyrus Hoy: The Shares of Fletcher and His Collaborators in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon. Studies in Bibliography, 1956–62.
- Samuel A. and Dorothy R. Tannenbaum: Philip Massinger. Michel de Montaigne. Anthony Mundy. Thomas Nashe. George Peele. Thomas Randolph. (Elizabethan bibliographies; Vol. 6). Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1967.
- Ian Fletcher: Beaumont and Fletcher. London: Longmans, Green, 1967.
- Naomi Conn Liebler: Philip Massinger's The Roman actor and the idea of the play within a play. Stony Brook, State Univ. of New York, Diss., 1976.
- Philip Edwards and Colin Gibson (Hrsg.): The plays and poems of Philip Massinger. London: Oxford Univ. Pr., 1976.
- Terence P.Logan: Philip Massinger. In: Terence P. Logan and Denzell S. Smith, eds., The Later Jacobean and Caroline Dramatists: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1978.
- Colin Gibson (Ed.): The selected plays of Philip Massinger: The Duke of Milan; The Roman actor; A new way to pay old debts; The city madam. (Plays by Renaissance and Restoration dramatists). Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1978. ISBN 0-521-29243-3.
- Martin Garrett: Philip Massinger's attitude to spectacle. (Jacobean drama studies; 72). 1984.
- Douglas Howard (Ed.): Philip Massinger: a crit. reassessment. Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1985. ISBN 0-521-25895-2.
- Doris Adler: Philip Massinger. (Twayne's English authors series; 435) Boston: Twayne, 1987. ISBN 0-8057-6934-X.
- Martin Garrett (Ed.): Massinger: the critical heritage. London [a.o.]: Routledge, 1991. ISBN 0-415-03340-3.
- Lawless, Donald S. Philip Massinger and his Associates, Ball State University monograph, 1967
- Lawless, Donald S. The Poems of Philip Massinger, Ball State University monograph, 1968
External links
- Quotations related to Philip Massinger at Wikiquote
- T. S. Eliot, "Philip Massinger" (1920), available abridged in Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot at 153 (Frank Kermode, ed.) Harcourt Brace 1975. ISBN 0-15-680654-1.
- Works by Philip Massinger at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Philip Massinger at Internet Archive
- Works by Philip Massinger at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)