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51-445: George Chapman ( c.  1559 – 12 May 1634) was an English dramatist , translator and poet . He was a classical scholar whose work shows the influence of Stoicism . William Minto speculated that Chapman is the unnamed Rival Poet of Shakespeare 's sonnets. Chapman is seen as an anticipator of the metaphysical poets of the 17th century. He is best remembered for his translations of Homer 's Iliad and Odyssey , and

102-475: A murder mystery play which is the longest-running West End show , it has by far the longest run of any play in the world, with its 29,500th performance having taken place as of February 2024. Contemporary playwrights in the United States are affected by recent declines in theatre attendance. No longer the only outlet for serious drama or entertaining comedies, theatrical productions must use ticket sales as

153-507: A bond of surety for a loan to furnish Chapman money "for his proper use in Attendance upon the then Right Honorable Sir Rafe Sadler Knight." Chapman's courtly ambitions led him into a trap. He apparently never received any money, but he would be plagued for many years by the papers he had signed. Wolfall had the poet arrested for debt in 1600, and when in 1608 Wolfall's son, having inherited his father's papers, sued yet again, Chapman's only resort

204-401: A fervent admiration of Chapman's Homeric authenticity in his famous poem " On First Looking into Chapman's Homer ". Chapman also drew attention from Samuel Taylor Coleridge and T. S. Eliot . In Percy Bysshe Shelley 's poem The Revolt of Islam , Shelley quotes a verse of Chapman's as homage within his dedication "to Mary__ __", presumably his wife Mary Shelley : There is no danger to

255-507: A form of playwright. Outside of the Western world there is Indian classical drama , with one of the oldest known playwrights being Śudraka , whose attributed plays can be dated to the second century BC. The Nāṭya Shāstra , a text on the performing arts from between 500BC-500AD, categorizes playwrights as being among the members of a theatre company, although playwrights were generally the highest in social status, with some being kings. In

306-511: A man, that knows What life and death is: there's not any law Exceeds his knowledge; neither is it lawful That he should stoop to any other law. The Irish playwright Oscar Wilde quoted the same verse in his part fiction, part literary criticism, "The Portrait of Mr. W.H.". The English poet John Keats wrote " On First Looking into Chapman's Homer " for his friend Charles Cowden Clarke in October 1816. The poem begins "Much have I travell'd in

357-590: A number of other anonymous plays of his era. F. G. Fleay proposed that his first play was The Disguises . He has been put forward as the author, in whole or in part, of Sir Giles Goosecap , Two Wise Men And All The Rest Fools, The Fountain of New Fashions, and The Second Maiden's Tragedy . Of these, only 'Sir Gyles Goosecap' is generally accepted by scholars to have been written by Chapman ( The Plays of George Chapman: The Tragedies, with Sir Giles Goosecap, edited by Allan Holaday, University of Illinois Press, 1987). In 1654, bookseller Richard Marriot published

408-419: A person who has "wrought" words, themes, and other elements into a dramatic form—a play. (The homophone with "write" is coincidental.) The first recorded use of the term "playwright" is from 1605, 73 years before the first written record of the term "dramatist". It appears to have been first used in a pejorative sense by Ben Jonson to suggest a mere tradesman fashioning works for the theatre. Jonson uses

459-406: A play which caused some controversy due to the similarities between the content of the play and ongoing legal proceedings between one John Flaskett (a local book binder) and Agnes How (to whom Flaskett was betrothed). The play was purchased from Chapman by Thomas Woodford & Edward Pearce for 20 marks (a considerable amount for such a work at the time) and resulted in a legal case that went before

510-635: A playwright, winning awards for his play The Phoenix at both the New York International Fringe Festival in 1999 and the Route 66 American Playwriting Competition in 2000. Today, theatre companies have new play development programs meant to develop new American voices in playwriting. Many regional theatres have hired dramaturges and literary managers in an effort to showcase various festivals for new work, or bring in playwrights for residencies. Funding through national organizations, such as

561-469: A response to the erotic poems of the age, such as Philip Sidney 's Astrophil and Stella and Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis . Chapman's life was troubled by debt and his inability to find a patron whose fortunes did not decline: Robert Devereux, Second Earl of Essex , and the Prince of Wales, Prince Henry both met their ends prematurely. The former was executed for treason by Elizabeth I in 1601, and

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612-695: A result of Jonson's public feud with Inigo Jones . Some satiric, scathing lines, written sometime after the burning of Jonson's desk and papers, provide evidence of the rift. The poem lampooning Jonson's aggressive behaviour and self-believed superiority remained unpublished during Chapman's lifetime; it was found in documents collected after his death. Chapman's greatest tragedies took their subject matter from recent French history. These include Bussy D'Ambois (1607), The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron (1608), The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois (1610) and The Tragedy of Chabot, Admiral of France (published 1639). The two Byron plays were banned from

663-525: A source of income, which has caused many of them to reduce the number of new works being produced. For example, Playwrights Horizons produced only six plays in the 2002–03 seasons, compared with thirty-one in 1973–74. Playwrights commonly encounter difficulties in getting their shows produced and often cannot earn a living through their plays alone, leading them to take up other jobs to supplement their incomes. Many playwrights are also film makers . For instance, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock began his career as

714-558: A stricter interpretation of Aristotle, as this long-lost work came to light in the late 15th century. The neoclassical ideal, which was to reach its apogee in France during the 17th century, dwelled upon the unities , of action, place, and time. This meant that the playwright had to construct the play so that its "virtual" time would not exceed 24 hours, that it would be restricted to a single setting, and that there would be no subplots. Other terms, such as verisimilitude and decorum, circumscribed

765-672: A willingness to experiment with dramatic form: An Humorous Day's Mirth was one of the first plays to be written in the style of "humours comedy" which Ben Jonson later used in Every Man in His Humour and Every Man Out of His Humour . With The Widow's Tears , he was also one of the first writers to meld comedy with more serious themes, creating the tragicomedy later made famous by Beaumont and Fletcher . He also wrote one noteworthy play in collaboration. Eastward Ho (1605), written with Jonson and John Marston , contained satirical references to

816-615: Is Hans Sachs (1494–1576) who wrote 198 dramatic works. In England, The Second Shepherds' Play of the Wakefield Cycle is the best known early farce. However, farce did not appear independently in England until the 16th century with the work of John Heywood (1497–1580). Playwright William Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Most playwrights of

867-534: Is still useful to playwrights today is the " French scene ", which is a scene in a play where the beginning and end are marked by a change in the makeup of the group of characters onstage rather than by the lights going up or down or the set being changed. Notable playwrights: Greek theater was alive and flourishing on the island of Crete. During the Cretan Renaissance two notable Greek playwrights Georgios Chortatzis and Vitsentzos Kornaros were present in

918-684: The Homeric Hymns , the Georgics of Virgil , The Works of Hesiod (1618, dedicated to Francis Bacon ), the Hero and Leander of Musaeus (1618) and the Fifth Satire of Juvenal (1624). Chapman's translation of Homer was admired by Pope for "a daring fiery spirit that animates his translation, which is something like what one might imagine Homer himself would have writ", though he also disapproved of Chapman's roughness and inaccuracy. John Keats expressed

969-487: The Ancient Greeks . William Shakespeare is amongst the most famous playwrights in literature, both in England and across the world. The word "play" is from Middle English pleye , from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsperson or builder (as in a wheelwright or cartwright ). The words combine to indicate

1020-406: The Ancient Greeks . These early plays were for annual Athenian competitions among play writers held around the 5th century BC. Such notables as Aeschylus , Sophocles , Euripides , and Aristophanes established forms still relied on by their modern counterparts. We have complete texts extant by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides . The origins of Athenian tragedy remain obscure, though by

1071-600: The National Endowment for the Arts and the Theatre Communications Group , encouraged the partnerships of professional theatre companies and emerging playwrights. Playwrights will often have a cold reading of a script in an informal sitdown setting, which allows them to evaluate their own plays and the actors performing them. Cold reading means that the actors haven't rehearsed the work, or may be seeing it for

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1122-449: The 4th century BCE, Aristotle wrote his Poetics , in which he analyzed the principle of action or praxis as the basis for tragedy. He then considered elements of drama: plot ( μύθος mythos ), character ( ἔθος ethos ), thought ( dianoia ), diction ( lexis ), music ( melodia ), and spectacle ( opsis ). Since the myths on which Greek tragedy were based were widely known, plot had to do with

1173-536: The 5th century it was institutionalised in competitions ( agon ) held as part of festivities celebrating Dionysos (the god of wine and fertility ). As contestants in the City Dionysia's competition (the most prestigious of the festivals to stage drama), playwrights were required to present a tetralogy of plays (though the individual works were not necessarily connected by story or theme), which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play. For

1224-506: The English dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher , who collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I (1603–25). They became known as a team early in their association, so much so that their joined names were applied to the total canon of Fletcher, including his solo works and the plays he composed with various other collaborators including Philip Massinger and Nathan Field . The first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647 contained 35 plays; 53 plays were included in

1275-569: The Homeric Batrachomyomachia . Chapman was born at Hitchin in Hertfordshire . There is conjecture that he studied at Oxford but did not take a degree, though no reliable evidence affirms this. Very little is known about Chapman's early life, but Mark Eccles uncovered records that reveal much about Chapman's difficulties and expectations. In 1585 Chapman was approached in a friendly fashion by John Wolfall Sr., who offered to supply

1326-550: The Middle Ages, the earliest of which is The Play of the Greenwood by Adam de la Halle in 1276. It contains satirical scenes and folk material such as faeries and other supernatural occurrences. Farces also rose dramatically in popularity after the 13th century. The majority of these plays come from France and Germany and are similar in tone and form, emphasizing sex and bodily excretions. The best known playwright of farces

1377-605: The Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and the end of the 17th century, classical ideas were in vogue. As a result, critics of the time mostly rated Shakespeare below John Fletcher and Ben Jonson. This period saw the first professional woman playwright, Aphra Behn . As a reaction to the decadence of Charles II era productions, sentimental comedy grew in popularity. Playwrights like Colley Cibber and Richard Steele believed that humans were inherently good but capable of being led astray. The Italian Renaissance brought about

1428-611: The Scottish courtiers who formed the retinue of the new king James I ; this landed Chapman and Jonson in jail at the suit of Sir James Murray of Cockpool, the king's "rascal[ly]" Groom of the Stool . Various of their letters to the king and noblemen survive in a manuscript in the Folger Library known as the Dobell MS , and published by AR Braunmuller as A Seventeenth Century Letterbook . In

1479-671: The Star Chamber. Chapman wrote one of the most successful masques of the Jacobean era , The Memorable Masque of the Middle Temple and Lincoln's Inn , performed on 15 February 1613. According to Kenneth Muir , The Masque of the Twelve Months , performed on Twelfth Night 1619 and first printed by John Payne Collier in 1848 with no author's name attached, is also ascribed to Chapman. Chapman's authorship has been argued in connection with

1530-601: The Tears of Peace (1609). Some have considered Chapman to be the " rival poet " of Shakespeare's sonnets (in sonnets 78–86), although conjecture places him as one in a large field of possibilities. From 1598 he published his translation of the Iliad in instalments. In 1616 the complete Iliad and Odyssey appeared in The Whole Works of Homer , the first complete English translation, which until Alexander Pope 's (completed 1726)

1581-420: The ancient Greeks, playwriting involved poïesis , "the act of making". This is the source of the English word poet . Despite Chinese Theatre having performers dated back to the 6th century BC with You Meng , their perspective of theatre was such that plays had no other role than "performer" or "actor", but given that the performers were also the ones who invented their performances, they could be considered

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1632-404: The arrangement and selection of existing material. Character was determined by choice and by action. Tragedy is mimesis —"the imitation of an action that is serious". He developed his notion of hamartia , or tragic flaw, an error in judgment by the main character or protagonist , which provides the basis for the "conflict-driven" play. There were also a number of secular performances staged in

1683-566: The end of the 1590s, Chapman had become a successful playwright, working for Philip Henslowe and later for the Children of the Chapel . Among his comedies are The Blind Beggar of Alexandria (1596; printed 1598), An Humorous Day's Mirth (1597; printed 1599), All Fools (printed 1605), Monsieur D'Olive (1605; printed 1606), The Gentleman Usher (printed 1606), May Day (printed 1611), and The Widow's Tears (printed 1612). His plays show

1734-651: The first three scenes in Act IV (IV,i-iii) and the first and third scenes of Act V (V,i and iii). The play is more Beaumont's than it is Fletcher's. Beaumont also dominates in The Maid's Tragedy , The Noble Gentleman, Philaster , and The Woman Hater . In contrast, The Captain , The Coxcomb , Cupid's Revenge , Beggars' Bush , and The Scornful Lady contain more of Fletcher's work than Beaumont's. The cases of Thierry and Theodoret and Love's Cure are somewhat confused by Massinger's revision; but in these plays too, Fletcher appears

1785-508: The first time, and usually, the technical requirements are minimal. The O'Neill Festival offers summer retreats for young playwrights to develop their work with directors and actors. Playwriting collectives like 13P and Orbiter 3 gather members together to produce, rather than develop, new works. The idea of the playwriting collective is in response to plays being stuck in the development process and never advancing to production. Beaumont and Fletcher Beaumont and Fletcher were

1836-512: The latter died of typhoid fever at the age of eighteen in 1612. Chapman's resultant poverty did not diminish his ability or his standing among his fellow Elizabethan poets and dramatists. Chapman died in London, having lived his latter years in poverty and debt. He was buried at St Giles in the Fields . A monument to him designed by Inigo Jones marked his tomb, and stands today inside the church. By

1887-486: The latter part of the 16th century. The plays of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Friedrich Schiller , and other Sturm und Drang playwrights inspired a growing faith in feeling and instinct as guides to moral behavior and were part of the German romanticism movement. Aleksandr Ostrovsky was Russia's first professional playwright). Author and playwright Agatha Christie wrote The Moustrap ,

1938-421: The letters, both men renounced the offending line, implying that Marston was responsible for the injurious remark. Jonson's "Conversations With Drummond" refers to the imprisonment, and suggests there was a possibility that both authors would have their "ears and noses slit" as a punishment, but this may have been Jonson elaborating on the story in retrospect. Chapman's friendship with Jonson broke down, perhaps as

1989-450: The money owed him; his petition was ineffective. Chapman's translation of the Odyssey is written in iambic pentameter , whereas his Iliad is written in iambic heptameter . (The Greek original is in dactylic hexameter .) Chapman often extends and elaborates on Homer's original contents to add descriptive detail or moral and philosophical interpretation and emphasis. Chapman also translated

2040-505: The most beggarly poet of 'em all, Either Accrostique, Exordion, Epithalamions, Satyres, Epigrams, Sonnets in Doozens, or your Quatorzanies, In any rhyme, Masculine, Feminine, Or Sdrucciola, or cooplets, Blancke Verse: Y'are but bench-whistlers now a dayes to them That were in our times.... Dramatist The earliest playwrights in Western literature with surviving works are

2091-491: The offending material was excised, and Chapman refers to the play in his dedication to Sir Thomas Walsingham as "poore dismembered Poems". His only work of classical tragedy, Caesar and Pompey (written 1604, published 1631), although "politically astute", can be regarded as his most modest achievement in the genre. Chapman wrote The Old Joiner of Aldgate, performed by the Children of Paul's between January and February 1603 –

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2142-452: The ones destroyed in the famous kitchen burnings by John Warburton 's cook. The lost play Christianetta (registered 1640) may have been a collaboration between Chapman and Richard Brome , or a revision by Brome of a Chapman work. Other poems by Chapman include: De Guiana, Carmen Epicum (1596), on the exploits of Sir Walter Raleigh ; a continuation of Christopher Marlowe 's unfinished Hero and Leander (1598); and Euthymiae Raptus; or

2193-407: The period typically collaborated with others at some point, as critics agree Shakespeare did, mostly early and late in his career. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. In England, after the interregnum , and Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, there was a move toward neoclassical dramaturgy. Between

2244-484: The play Revenge for Honour as the work of Chapman. Scholars have rejected the attribution; the play may have been written by Henry Glapthorne . Alphonsus Emperor of Germany (also printed 1654) is generally considered another false Chapman attribution. The lost plays The Fatal Love and A Yorkshire Gentlewoman And Her Son were assigned to Chapman in Stationers' Register entries in 1660. Both of these plays were among

2295-520: The realms of gold" and is much quoted. For example, P. G. Wodehouse in his review of the first novel of The Flashman Papers series that came to his attention: "Now I understand what that 'when a new planet swims into his ken' excitement is all about." Arthur Ransome uses two references from it in his children's books, the Swallows and Amazons series . From All Fooles, II.1.170-178, by George Chapman: I could have written as good prose and verse As

2346-925: The second folio in 1679. Other works bring the total plays in the canon to about 55. While scholars and critics will probably never render a unanimous verdict on the authorship of all these plays—especially given the difficulties of some of the individual cases—contemporary scholarship has arrived at a corpus of about 12 to 15 plays that are the work of both men. (See the individual pages on Beaumont and Fletcher for more details.) The plays generally recognised as Beaumont/Fletcher collaborations: Beaumont/Fletcher plays, later revised by Massinger: Due to Fletcher's distinctive pattern of contractional forms and linguistic preferences (' em for them , ye for you , etc.), his hand can be fairly readily distinguished from Beaumont's in their collaborative works. In A King and No King , Beaumont wrote Acts I, II, and III in their entirety, plus scene IV,iv and V,ii and iv, while Fletcher wrote only

2397-618: The stage—although, when the Court left London, they were performed in their original and unexpurgated forms by the Children of the Chapel. The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Byron offended the French ambassador, probably because it included a scene which portrayed Henry IV 's wife and mistress arguing and physically fighting, and Robert Cecil was persuaded to issue a warrant for Chapman's arrest. However, Ludovic Stuart, 2nd Duke of Lennox , appears to have intervened to prevent its execution. On publication,

2448-553: The subject matter significantly. For example, verisimilitude limits of the unities. Decorum fitted proper protocols for behavior and language on stage. In France, contained too many events and actions, thus, violating the 24-hour restriction of the unity of time. Neoclassicism never had as much traction in England, and Shakespeare 's plays are directly opposed to these models, while in Italy, improvised and bawdy commedia dell'arte and opera were more popular forms. One structural unit that

2499-441: The word in his Epigram 49, which is thought to refer to John Marston or Thomas Dekker : Jonson described himself as a poet, not a playwright, since plays during that time were written in meter and so were regarded as the province of poets. This view was held as late as the early 19th century. The term "playwright" later again lost this negative connotation. The earliest playwrights in Western literature with surviving works are

2550-401: Was the most popular in the English language and was the way most English speakers encountered these poems. The endeavour was to have been profitable: his patron, Prince Henry, had promised him £300 on its completion plus a pension. However, Henry died in 1612 and his household neglected the commitment, leaving Chapman without either a patron or an income. In an extant letter, Chapman petitions for

2601-498: Was to petition the Court of Chancery for equity. As Sadler died in 1587, this gives Chapman little time to have trained under him. Chapman spent the early 1590s abroad, and saw military action in the Low Countries fighting under renowned English general Sir Francis Vere . His earliest published works were the obscure philosophical poems The Shadow of Night (1594) and Ovid's Banquet of Sense (1595). The latter has been taken as

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