The Sun's Darling
The Sun's Darling is a
The Sun's Darling was licensed for performance by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, on 3 March 1624. It was probably composed not long before; nineteenth-century speculations that the text was an old play of Dekker's, revised by Ford, have fallen out of favor.[1] The original text may have been revised c. 1638–39; material in the early portion of Act V reflects the dominant political situation at that time. Cyrus Hoy has suggested that the play was revised and revived at that time, as a response to Thomas Nabbes's Microcosmus (1636; published 1637).[2] Several attempts have been made by individual commentators to identify the shares of the two collaborators, though no general agreement on the question has been reached.
The first edition was a
Pennycuicke dedicated Q1 to Lady Newton, wife of
Featuring standard masque-style personifications, like Youth, Health, Delight, Time, Detraction, Fortune, etc., and rich in songs, dances, and May-Day games, the play has some obvious crowd appeal to explain its popularity in its own era. The protagonist is Raybright, who is the child and "darling" of the Sun. To treat his melancholy, he is given a year to experience the earthly pleasures of the four seasons. He falls, however, under the deceptive influences of Humor (in the Elizabethan sense) and Folly, and his search for satisfaction is unfulfilled. In the end the Sun warns Raybright that he must resist Folly and Humor to attain harmony.
Some critics have praised the "vitality and beauty" of some of the lyrics in the play; others have judged the work more harshly.[citation needed]
Notes
- ^ Logan and Smith, p. 140.
- ^ Waith, p. 201.
- ^ Thomas Wriothesley was the son of the famous 3rd Earl, Henry Wriothesley, Shakespeare's patron and the dedicatee of Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. Thomas Wriothesley succeeded his father in 1624.
- ^ Logan and Smith, p. 137.
References
- 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.
- Stavig, Mark. John Ford and the Traditional Moral Order. Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Press, 1968.
- Waith, Eugene M. Patterns and Perspectives in English Renaissance Drama. Newark, DE, University of Delaware Press, 1988.