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38-987: The Fatal Marriage; Or, The Innocent Adultery is a 1694 tragicomedy by the Anglo-Irish writer Thomas Southerne . It was part of the tradition of She-tragedy which flourished at the time. Incidental music for the work was composed by Henry Purcell . It was originally performed by the United Company at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane featuring a cast that included Edward Kynaston as Count Baldwin, Joseph Williams as Biron, George Powell as Carlos, Thomas Betterton as Villeroy, John Verbruggen as Frederick, Thomas Doggett as Fernando, William Bowen as Jaqueline, Cave Underhill as Sampson, Joseph Harris as Bellford, John Freeman as Pedro, Elizabeth Barry as Isabella, Frances Maria Knight as Julia, Anne Bracegirdle as Villeria and Elinor Leigh as Nurse. A popular hit it

76-400: A century and more. In England, where practice ran ahead of theory, the situation was quite different. In the sixteenth century, "tragicomedy" meant the native sort of romantic play that violated the unities of time, place, and action, that glibly mixed high- and low-born characters, and that presented fantastic actions. These were the features Philip Sidney deplored in his complaint against

114-409: A comedy, when there are kings and gods in it. What do you think? Since a slave also has a part in the play, I'll make it a tragicomedy...— Plautus , Amphitryon Two figures helped to elevate tragicomedy to the status of a regular genre, by which is meant one with its own set of rigid rules. First was Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio , a dramatist working in the mid-sixteenth century who developed

152-415: A happy ending" eventually developed into melodrama , in which form it still flourishes. Landgartha (1640) by Henry Burnell , the first play by an Irish playwright to be performed in an Irish theatre, was explicitly described by its author as a tragicomedy. Critical reaction to the play was universally hostile, partly it seems because the ending was neither happy nor unhappy. Burnell in his introduction to

190-745: A language delicately archaic. In form Sidney usually adopts the Petrarchan octave (ABBAABBA), with variations in the sestet that include the English final couplet. His artistic contacts were more peaceful and significant for his lasting fame. During his absence from court, he wrote Astrophel and Stella (1591) and the first draft of The Arcadia and The Defence of Poesy . Somewhat earlier, he had met Edmund Spenser , who dedicated The Shepheardes Calender to him. Other literary contacts included membership, along with his friends and fellow poets Fulke Greville , Edward Dyer , Edmund Spenser and Gabriel Harvey , of

228-544: A marginal figure in the politics of his time, he was memorialised as the flower of English manhood in Edmund Spenser 's Astrophel , one of the greatest English Renaissance elegies. An early biography of Sidney was written by his devoted friend and schoolfellow, Fulke Greville . While Sidney was traditionally depicted as a staunch and unwavering Protestant , recent biographers such as Katherine Duncan-Jones have suggested that his religious loyalties were more ambiguous. He

266-673: A place steeped in human tragedy and suffering. Films including Life is Beautiful , Mary and Max , Parasite , Jojo Rabbit , The Banshees of Inisherin , Beau is Afraid , Robot Dreams , and Memoir of a Snail have been described as tragicomedies. Television series including Succession , Killing Eve , Breaking Bad , Better Call Saul , Fleabag , I May Destroy You , BoJack Horseman , South Park , Steven Universe Future , Moral Orel , Barry , Made for Love and The White Lotus have also been described as tragicomedies. Philip Sidney Sir Philip Sidney (30 November 1554 – 17 October 1586)

304-447: A secondary way on how close the action comes to a death. But, as Eugene Waith showed, the tragicomedy Fletcher developed in the next decade also had unifying stylistic features: sudden and unexpected revelations, outré plots, distant locales, and a persistent focus on elaborate, artificial rhetoric. Some of Fletcher's contemporaries, notably Philip Massinger and James Shirley , wrote popular tragicomedies. Richard Brome also essayed

342-676: A tragicomic impulse in modern theatre with Luigi Pirandello who influenced many playwrights including Samuel Beckett and Tom Stoppard. Also it can be seen in absurdist drama. Friedrich Dürrenmatt , the Swiss dramatist, suggested that tragicomedy was the inevitable genre for the twentieth century; he describes his play The Visit (1956) as a tragicomedy. Tragicomedy is a common genre in post- World War II British theatre, with authors as varied as Samuel Beckett , Tom Stoppard , John Arden , Alan Ayckbourn and Harold Pinter writing in this genre. Vladimir Nabokov 's postmodern 1962 novel Pale Fire

380-450: A treatise on drama modeled on Roman comedies and tragedies as opposed to early Greek-based treatises that became the model for Italian dramatists at the time. He argued for a version of tragicomedy where a tragic story was told with a happy or comic ending ( tragedia a lieto fine), which he thought were better suited for staged performances as opposed to tragedies with unhappy endings which he thought were better when read. Even more important

418-623: A united Protestant effort against the Catholic Church and Spain. In the winter of 1575-76 he fought in Ireland while his father was Lord Deputy there. In the early 1580s, he argued fruitlessly for an assault on Spain itself. Promoted General of Horse in 1583, his enthusiasm for the Protestant struggle was given free rein when he was appointed governor of Flushing in the Netherlands in 1585. Whilst in

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456-411: Is a tragicomedy preoccupied with Elizabethan drama. American writers of the metamodernist and postmodernist movements have made use of tragicomedy and/or gallows humor . A notable example of a metamodernist tragicomedy is David Foster Wallace 's 1996 magnum opus , Infinite Jest . Wallace writes of comedic elements of living in a halfway house (i.e. "some people really do look like rodents"),

494-551: The Arcadia , to her. After her brother's death, Mary reworked the Arcadia , which became known as The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia . His brother, Robert Sidney was a statesman and patron of the arts, and was created Earl of Leicester in 1618. In 1572, at the age of 18, he travelled to France as part of the embassy to negotiate a marriage between Elizabeth I and the Duc D'Alençon . He spent

532-418: The "mungrell Tragy-comedie" of the 1580s, and of which Shakespeare's Polonius offers famous testimony: "The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individuable, or poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are

570-622: The (possibly fictitious) " Areopagus ", a humanist endeavour to classicise English verse. Sidney played a brilliant part in the military/literary/courtly life common to the young nobles of the time. Both his family heritage and his personal experience (he was in Walsingham's house in Paris during the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre ), confirmed him as a keenly militant Protestant. In the 1570s, he persuaded John Casimir to consider proposals for

608-444: The 1580s, Astrophel and Stella . Her father, Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex , was said to have planned to marry his daughter to Sidney, but Walter died in 1576 and this did not occur. In England, Sidney occupied himself with politics and art. He defended his father's administration of Ireland in a lengthy document. More seriously, he quarrelled with Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford , probably because of Sidney's opposition to

646-451: The 16-year-old daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham . In the same year, he made a visit to Oxford University with Giordano Bruno , the polymath known for his cosmological theories, who subsequently dedicated two books to Sidney. In 1585 the couple had one daughter, Elizabeth, who later married Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland , in March 1599 and died without issue in 1612. Like the best of

684-551: The Elizabethans, Sidney was successful in more than one branch of literature, but none of his work was published during his lifetime. However, it circulated in manuscript. His finest achievement was a sequence of 108 love sonnets. These owe much to Petrarch and Pierre de Ronsard in tone and style, and place Sidney as the greatest Elizabethan sonneteer after Shakespeare . Written to his mistress, Lady Penelope Rich, though dedicated to his wife, they reveal true lyric emotion couched in

722-544: The French marriage of Elizabeth to the much younger Alençon, which de Vere championed. In the aftermath of this episode, Sidney challenged de Vere to a duel, which Elizabeth forbade. He then wrote a lengthy letter to the Queen detailing the foolishness of the French marriage. Characteristically, Elizabeth bristled at his presumption, and Sidney prudently retired from court. During a 1577 diplomatic visit to Prague , Sidney secretly visited

760-560: The Greek philosopher Aristotle had something like the Renaissance meaning of the term (that is, a serious action with a happy ending) in mind when, in Poetics , he discusses tragedy with a dual ending. In this respect, a number of Greek and Roman plays , for instance Alcestis , may be called tragicomedies, though without any definite attributes outside of plot. The word itself originates with

798-627: The Netherlands, he consistently urged boldness on his superior, his uncle the Earl of Leicester . He carried out a successful raid on Spanish forces near Axel in July 1586. Later that year, he joined Sir John Norris in the Battle of Zutphen , fighting for the Protestant cause against the Spanish. During the battle, he was shot in the thigh and died of gangrene 26 days later, at the age of 31. One account says this death

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836-535: The Roman comic playwright Plautus , who coined the term ( tragicomoedia in Latin) somewhat facetiously in the prologue to his play Amphitryon . The character Mercury, sensing the indecorum of the inclusion of both kings and gods alongside servants in a comedy, declares that the play had better be a "tragicomoedia": I will make it a mixture: let it be a tragicomedy. I don't think it would be appropriate to make it consistently

874-703: The centrepiece of the Old Salopians Memorial at Shrewsbury School to alumni who died serving in World War I (unveiled 1924). Philip Sidney appears as a young man in Elizabeth Goudge's third novel, Towers in the Mist (Duckworth, 1937), visiting Oxford around the time Queen Elizabeth also visited Oxford. (Goudge admitted to slightly advancing the time of Sidney's arrival in Oxford, for the sake of her larger story.) In

912-622: The exiled Jesuit priest Edmund Campion . Sidney had returned to court by the middle of 1581. In the latter year he was elected to fill vacant seats in the Parliament of England for both Ludlow and Shrewsbury , choosing to sit for the latter, and in 1584 was MP for Kent . That same year Penelope Devereux was married, apparently against her will, to Lord Rich. Sidney was knighted in 1583. An early arrangement to marry Anne Cecil , daughter of Sir William Cecil and eventual wife of de Vere, had fallen through in 1571. In 1583, he married Frances ,

950-464: The form, but with less success. And many of their contemporary writers, ranging from John Ford to Lodowick Carlell to Sir Aston Cockayne , made attempts in the genre. Tragicomedy remained fairly popular up to the closing of the theaters in 1642, and Fletcher's works were popular in the Restoration as well. The old styles were cast aside as tastes changed in the eighteenth century; the "tragedy with

988-558: The most famous story about Sir Philip, intended to illustrate his noble and gallant character. Sidney's body was returned to London and interred in Old St Paul's Cathedral on 16 February 1587. The grave and monument were destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. A modern monument in the crypt lists his among the important graves lost. Already during his own lifetime, but even more after his death, he had become for many English people

1026-448: The next several years in mainland Europe, moving through Germany, Italy, Poland , the Kingdom of Hungary and Austria . On these travels, he met a number of prominent European intellectuals and politicians. Returning to England in 1575, Sidney met Penelope Devereux (who would later marry Robert Rich, 1st Earl of Warwick ). Although much younger, she inspired his famous sonnet sequence of

1064-451: The only men." Some aspects of this romantic impulse remain even in the work of more sophisticated playwrights: Shakespeare 's last plays, which may well be called tragicomedies, have often been called romances . By the early Stuart period, some English playwrights had absorbed the lessons of the Guarini controversy. John Fletcher 's The Faithful Shepherdess , an adaptation of Guarini's play,

1102-516: The printed edition of the play attacked his critics for their ignorance, pointing out that as they should know perfectly well, many plays are neither tragedy nor comedy, but "something between". Criticism that developed after the Renaissance stressed the thematic and formal aspects of tragicomedy, rather than plot. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing defined it as a mixture of emotions in which "seriousness stimulates laughter, and pain pleasure." Tragicomedy's affinity with satire and "dark" comedy have suggested

1140-461: The very epitome of a Castiglione courtier: learned and politic, but at the same time generous, brave, and impulsive. The funeral procession was one of the most elaborate ever staged, so much so that his father-in-law, Francis Walsingham , almost went bankrupt. As Sidney was a brother of the Worshipful Company of Grocers , the procession included 120 of his company brethren. Never more than

1178-407: Was Giovanni Battista Guarini . Guarini's Il Pastor Fido , published in 1590, provoked a fierce critical debate in which Guarini's spirited defense of generic innovation eventually carried the day. Guarini's tragicomedy offered modulated action that never drifted too far either to comedy or tragedy, mannered characters, and a pastoral setting. All three became staples of continental tragicomedy for

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1216-494: Was an English poet, courtier , scholar and soldier who is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan age . His works include a sonnet sequence , Astrophel and Stella , a treatise , The Defence of Poesy (also known as The Defence of Poesie or An Apology for Poetrie ) and a pastoral romance , The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia . Born at Penshurst Place , Kent , of an aristocratic family, he

1254-418: Was avoidable and heroic. Sidney noticed that one of his men was not fully armoured. He took off his thigh armour on the grounds that it would be wrong to be better armored than his men. As he lay dying, Sidney composed a song to be sung by his deathbed. According to the story, while lying wounded he gave his water to another wounded soldier, saying, "Thy necessity is yet greater than mine". This became possibly

1292-423: Was educated at Shrewsbury School and Christ Church, Oxford . He was the eldest son of Sir Henry Sidney and Lady Mary Dudley . His mother was the eldest daughter of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland , and the sister of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester . His sister, Mary , was a writer, translator and literary patron, and married Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke . Sidney dedicated his longest work,

1330-759: Was known to be friendly and sympathetic towards individual Catholics. A memorial, erected in 1986 at the location in Zutphen where he was mortally wounded by the Spanish, can be found at the entrance of a footpath (" 't Gallee") located in front of the petrol station at the Warnsveldseweg 170. In Arnhem , in front of the house in the Bakkerstraat 68, an inscription on the ground reads: "IN THIS HOUSE DIED ON THE 17 OCTOBER 1586 * SIR PHILIP SIDNEY * ENGLISH POET, DIPLOMAT AND SOLDIER, FROM HIS WOUNDS SUFFERED AT THE BATTLE OF ZUTPHEN. HE GAVE HIS LIFE FOR OUR FREEDOM". The inscription

1368-431: Was produced in 1608. In the printed edition, Fletcher offered a definition of the term, stating that: "A tragi-comedie is not so called in respect of mirth and killing, but in respect it wants deaths, which is enough to make it no tragedy, yet brings some neere it, which is inough to make it no comedie." Fletcher's definition focuses primarily on events: a play's genre is determined by whether or not people die in it, and in

1406-425: Was revived numerous times with many leading actresses playing the part of Isabella. In 1758 David Garrick adapted it for his play Isabella which became a signature role for Sarah Siddons . This article on a play from the 17th century is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Tragicomedy There is no concise formal definition of tragicomedy from the classical age. It appears that

1444-725: Was unveiled on 17 October 2011, exactly 425 years after his death, in the presence of Philip Sidney, 2nd Viscount De L'Isle , a descendant of the brother of Philip Sidney. The city of Sidney, Ohio , in the United States and a street in Zutphen , Netherlands, have been named after Sir Philip. A statue of him can be found in the park at the Coehoornsingel where, in the harsh winter of 1795, English and Hanoverian soldiers were buried who had died while retreating from advancing French troops. Another statue of Sidney, by Arthur George Walker , forms

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