Agamemnon: Difference between revisions
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==Works Cited==
==Works Cited==


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Gurr, Andrew. ''Shakespeare's Opposites: The Admiral's Company 1594–1625''. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009.
 
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[[category:all]][[category:Roslyn L. Knutson]][[category:partial payment]] [[category:Henslowe's records]]
 
 
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Revision as of 16:33, 17 May 2019

Thomas Dekker, Henry Chettle (1599)


Historical Records

Payments to Playwrights (Henslowe's Diary)


F. 63 (Greg, I.109)

lent vnto mr dickers & mr chettell the 26 of
maye 1599 in earneste of a Boocke called [troylles
& creseda] ʌ the tragede of Agamemnon the some of ………… xxxs


Lent vnto Robarte shawe the 30 of maye
1599 in fulle payment of ther Boocke called
the tragedie of Agamemnone the some of….iijll vs
to mr dickers & hary chettell


Payments, Miscellaneous (Henslowe's Diary)

pd vnto the mr of Revelles man for lycensynge
of a Boocke called the tragedie of agamemnon
the 3 of June 1599 ………… vijs



Theatrical Provenance

The Admiral's men acquired "Agamemnon" when they were playing at the Rose, but plans to build the Fortune were already underway. Depending on when the play was debuted as well as how long a run it enjoyed, it might have remained in the company's repertory into September 1600, by which time the move to the Fortune had been accomplished.

Probable Genre(s)

Harbage calls "Agamemnon" a classical legend; Wiggins tags it a tragedy (#1186), as does Henslowe.


Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

<Enter any information about possible or known sources. Summarise these sources where practical/possible, or provide an excerpt from another scholar's discussion of the subject if available.>


References to the Play

<List any known or conjectured references to the lost play here.>


Critical Commentary

Greg (II, 260) was inclined to lump "Agamemnon" with another lost play in May 1599, "Orestes' Furies", which neither Malone, Collier, nor Fleay had previously done. He mused that the 5s. paid Chettle for the play about Orestes would more nearly bring payments to Dekker for "Agamemnon" up to the usual £6 fee (II, 202 #174). Chambers claims to agree with Greg but observes contradictorily that the two titles "point to two plays by Chettle and Dekker rather than one" (ES, 2.169n).

Gurr uses the titles interchangeably: the index item for "Agamemnon" sends the reader to "Orestes Furies", to which entry he attaches "or the Tragedy of Agamemnon" (314); the appendix similarly lumps the plays (244, #125). However, in one context Gurr calls the play "Agamemnon" (29) and in another, Chettle and Dekker's "Orestes Furies" (105).

Wiggins both subsumes "Orestes' Furies" into "Agamemnon," subordinating the plot line of the son's madness to the narrative of the father's return from Troy. pPersuaded in part by the timeline of the two stories, Wiggins also opines that Dekker's workload in 1599-1600 was too heavy for yet another full-length play, even if co-authored (#1186).

For What It's Worth

Information welcome.

Works Cited

Gurr, Andrew. Shakespeare's Opposites: The Admiral's Company 1594–1625. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009.

Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; updated 17 May 2019.