The Humorous Lieutenant
The Humorous Lieutenant, also known as The Noble Enemies, Demetrius and Enanthe, or Alexander's Successors,
The drama was initially published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.
Date and performance
The second Beaumont/Fletcher folio of
Manuscript
In addition to the printed texts in the two folios, the play exists in a manuscript version, a presentation copy prepared by the professional scribe Ralph Crane for Sir Kenelm Digby. Crane sent the MS. to Digby on 27 November 1625. In Crane's text, the play is longer by some 70 lines; the printed texts provide a stage version trimmed for acting. The MS. is titled Demetrius and Enanthe, and attributes the play to Fletcher alone—a verdict that is generally accepted, since Fletcher's distinctive stylistic profile is continuous through the play. The MS. has been called "the most beautiful example of Crane's calligraphy that we have."[3]
After 1642
Comic material from the play was adapted into a
The plot
The Humorous Lieutenant has no known source in the previous literature,[6] and seems to be that rare item in English Renaissance drama: an original plot. It is set in the ancient Middle East after the death of Alexander the Great, and features the major historical figures of the era: Antigonus, his son Demetrius, and Seleucus, Ptolemy, and Lysimachus. The plot centers on the love between Demetrius and an obscure young woman named Celia—who at the end of the play turns out to be Enanthe, the daughter of King Seleucus and so a suitable match for a prince.
The title character is the play's main
Notes
References
- OCLC 645070404.
- Leech, Clifford. The John Fletcher Plays. London, Chatto & Windus, 1962.
- Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S. Smith, eds. The Later Jacobean and Caroline Dramatists: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama. Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1978.
- Oliphant, E. H. C. The Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher: An Attempt to Determine Their Respective Shares and the Shares of Others. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1927.
- Potter, Alfred Claghorn. A Bibliography of Beaumont and Fletcher. Cambridge, MA, Library of Harvard University, 1890.
- Sprague, Arthur Colby. Beaumont and Fletcher on the Restoration Stage. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1926.
- Wilson, F. P. "Ralph Crane, Scrivener to the King's Players." Library 7 (1926), pp. 194–215.