Angel King: Difference between revisions
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==Theatrical Provenance== | ==Theatrical Provenance== | ||
Palsgrave's Company at the Fortune | |||
==Probable Genre(s)== | ==Probable Genre(s)== | ||
Unknown (Harbage); doppelganger comedy (Fleay) | |||
==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues== | ==Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues== | ||
"The story of Robert, King of Sicily, I suppose" (Fleay, ''BCED'', 2.327). | |||
Fleay is alluding to a tale which survives in many versions, typified by the very popular medieval English poem ''Robert of Cisyle''. In this tale, a proud king wakes up to find, to his surprise, that no-one regognizes him any more, while his place has been taken by an angelic doppelganger. | |||
Later English-language versions of the tale include a prose narrative by Leigh Hunt, published in A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla (1848); and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "The Sicilian’s Tale", a narrative poem within the hugely successful collection ''Tales from a Wayside Inn'' (1863). "The Sicilian's Tale", in turn, prompted a large number of further versions. | |||
==References to the Play== | ==References to the Play== | ||
None known. | |||
==Critical Commentary== | |||
This is one of a group of at least fifteen new plays licensed by Herbert between July 1623 and November 1624 for the Palsgrave’s Company, formerly the Admiral's Men. In 1621, their theatre, the Fortune, had burnt down, and three years later they were still attempting to recover from the destruction not merely of their venue but also, it is thought, of their stock of playbooks. This concentration of new writing for one company, fifteen plays in little over a year, is unparalleled in Herbert's records. Fourteen of the fifteen are lost, the survivor being Thomas Drew's ''The Duchess of Suffolk''. As far as one can tell, the post-fire licensings represented an attempt to rebuild a working repertory. (See Gurr, ''Shakespeare's Opposites'', 47; Bentley, 1.149; Bentley, 5.1327-8) | |||
This particular play attracted almost no attention prior to the LPD apart from Fleay's uncharacteristically diffident suggestion as to its source. Sibley and Bentley both quote Fleay's sentence without evaluative comment or addition. | |||
Revision as of 10:20, 6 April 2016
Historical Records
Dramatic Records of of Sir Henry Herbert
J. O. Halliwell-Phillips transcribed a number of Sir Henry Herbert's licensing records and compiled them in various scrapbooks now held at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Amongst them is the following transcription of plays from 1624, which includes:
For the Palsg: comp: -- A new P. call: The Angell King 15 Oct. 1624 - 1 li.
- (Folger Shakespeare Library, MS W.b.156 ("Fortune"), p149. Reproduced by permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library)
In 1996, N. W. Bawcutt published new records deriving from hitherto overlooked transcriptions and cuttings from the Ord manuscript, made by its previous owner (i.e. previous to Halliwell-Phillipps) the nineteenth-century scholar Jacob Henry Burn (Beinecke Library, Osborn d1):
The Angill King, a New Play, allowed 15 Oct 1624 1l.
For the Palsgraves Company.
- (Jacob Henry Burn, "Collection towards forming a history of the now obsolete office of the Master of the Revells", [1874]. James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Reproduced with permission).
Theatrical Provenance
Palsgrave's Company at the Fortune
Probable Genre(s)
Unknown (Harbage); doppelganger comedy (Fleay)
Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues
"The story of Robert, King of Sicily, I suppose" (Fleay, BCED, 2.327).
Fleay is alluding to a tale which survives in many versions, typified by the very popular medieval English poem Robert of Cisyle. In this tale, a proud king wakes up to find, to his surprise, that no-one regognizes him any more, while his place has been taken by an angelic doppelganger.
Later English-language versions of the tale include a prose narrative by Leigh Hunt, published in A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla (1848); and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "The Sicilian’s Tale", a narrative poem within the hugely successful collection Tales from a Wayside Inn (1863). "The Sicilian's Tale", in turn, prompted a large number of further versions.
References to the Play
None known.
Critical Commentary
This is one of a group of at least fifteen new plays licensed by Herbert between July 1623 and November 1624 for the Palsgrave’s Company, formerly the Admiral's Men. In 1621, their theatre, the Fortune, had burnt down, and three years later they were still attempting to recover from the destruction not merely of their venue but also, it is thought, of their stock of playbooks. This concentration of new writing for one company, fifteen plays in little over a year, is unparalleled in Herbert's records. Fourteen of the fifteen are lost, the survivor being Thomas Drew's The Duchess of Suffolk. As far as one can tell, the post-fire licensings represented an attempt to rebuild a working repertory. (See Gurr, Shakespeare's Opposites, 47; Bentley, 1.149; Bentley, 5.1327-8)
This particular play attracted almost no attention prior to the LPD apart from Fleay's uncharacteristically diffident suggestion as to its source. Sibley and Bentley both quote Fleay's sentence without evaluative comment or addition.
For What It's Worth
<Enter any miscellaneous points that may be relevant, but don't fit into the above categories. This is the best place for highly conjectural thoughts.>
Works Cited
Site created by David McInnis, University of Melbourne; updated 30 March 2016.