Thomas Killigrew
Thomas Killigrew | |
---|---|
Born | England | 7 February 1612
Died | 19 March 1683 Whitehall, London, England | (aged 71)
Occupation | Dramatist |
Nationality | English |
Thomas Killigrew (7 February 1612 – 19 March 1683) was an
Life
Killigrew was one of twelve children of Sir
Killigrew was present at the exorcism of the possessed nuns of Loudun. In 1635 he left a sceptical account of the proceedings.[1]
Before the English Civil War, Killigrew wrote several plays—tragicomedies like Claracilla and The Prisoners, as well as his most popular play, The Parson's Wedding (1637). The latter play has been criticized for its coarse humour; but it also contains prose readings of John Donne's poetry to pique a literate audience.[2]
A Royalist and
At the
Along with Sir
In 1673, Killigrew was appointed
Works
Thomas Killigrew's dramas are:
- The Prisoners (written c. 1632-5 in London; printed 1641)
- Claricilla (c. 1636, Rome; printed 1641)
- The Princess, or Love at First Sight (c. 1636; Naples)
- The Parson's Wedding (c. 1637; Basel, Switzerland)
- The Pilgrim (Paris)
- Bellamira Her Dream, or Love of Shadows (two-part play; Venice)
- Cicilia and Clorinda, or Love in Arms (two-part play; Cicilia, c. 1650, Turin; Clorinda, 1651, Florence)
- Thomaso, or the Wanderer (two-part play; Madrid).
In 1664,[4] Henry Herringman published a collected edition of Killigrew's dramas, titled Comedies and Tragedies (rather inaccurately, since the majority of the plays are tragicomedies). Only his two earliest plays had been printed previously. The collected edition identifies the city in which Killigrew supposedly wrote each play.
The Parson's Wedding and Claricilla were successful stage plays. Of his last three works, Thomaso is a broad comedy based on Killigrew's experiences in European exile, while Bellamira and Cicillia are heroic romances—but all three are closet dramas, ten-act double plays never intended for the stage. Yet oddly enough, Aphra Behn adapted Thomaso for her successful The Rover (1677).[5] The tragedy The Pilgrim, apparently never performed, borrows its plot from James Shirley's The Politician and reveals many allusions to Shakespeare.
Some critics have considered The Parson's Wedding to be a
Family
He married twice.
1
- Henry Killigrew (bapt 16 April 1637 St Martin's-in-the-Fields)
2 Charlotte de Hesse (1629 –1716) in 1655; with children:
- Charles Killigrew (29 December 1655 – 1725)
- Thomas Killigrew (the younger)(1657 –1719), who had one successful play, called Chit-Chat (1719)
- Robert (Roger) Killigrew (born 17 September 1663)
- Elizabeth Killigrew (born 3 July 1666)
His second wife and their 3 sons were naturalised in an Act of Parliament in 1683.
The other Killigrews
Among his 8 siblings known to have survived to adulthood, Thomas had two brothers who also wrote plays:
- Sir William Killigrew (1606–1695), was a Court official (vice chamberlain to the Queen) who wrote four plays: Selindra; Pandora; and Ormasdes, or Love and Friendship—all printed in 1664; and The Siege of Urbin (1666), generally considered his best work.
- Henry Killigrew (1613–1700), a clergyman, wrote only one play ... but he wrote it twice. His The Conspiracy was published in 1638, apparently pirated; he revised it into Pallantus and Eudora (1653). Henry was the father of the poet Anne Killigrew.
For the other six, see Robert Killigrew
Notes
- ^ Huxley, Aldous (1952) The Devils of Loudun. New York: Harper
- ^ Keast, William R. (1950) "Killigrew's Use of Donne in The Parson's Wedding" in: Modern Language Review, 45 (1950), pp. 512–15
- ^ Jenkins, Terry: The Royal Licensing of London Theatres in the Seventeenth Century – a history of the Killigrew and Davenant Patents granted by Charles II (Lewiston NY, Edwin Mellen Press, 2017).
- ^ In the collected edition, each play has a separate title page (common in seventeenth-century collections); and some of these title pages are dated 1663 instead of 1664, causing some confusion in Killigrew's bibliography. (This type of misdating is not unusual in the collections of the era.)
- ^ Margaret Lindon Whedon, Rogues, Rakes, and Lovers, dissertation, 1993.
References
- Thomas Killigrew, Cavalier Dramatist, 1612–1683. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press. 1930.
- Harbage, Alfred (1936). "Cavalier Drama". A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. New York, Modern Language Association of America.