William the Conqueror: Difference between revisions
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==Critical Commentary==
==Critical Commentary==


'''Hazlitt''' notes of this play: "A play on this subject is also mentioned in Heywood's Apology for Actors, 1612" (253).
'''Hazlitt''' notes of this play: "A play on this subject is also mentioned in Heywood's ''Apology for Actors'', 1612" (253).


'''Fleay''' (''BCED'', 2.292, 299) makes a new suggestion: "Query ''Fair Em'', retained from L.Strange's Men, like ''The Jew of Malta''."  That is to say, he 'lumps' it with the extant play ''Fair Em, or the Miller's Daughter of Manchester, with the Love of William the Conqueror''.  <br><br>
'''Fleay''' (''BCED'', 2.292, 299) makes a new suggestion: "Query ''Fair Em'', retained from L.Strange's Men, like ''The Jew of Malta''."  That is to say, he 'lumps' it with the extant play ''Fair Em, or the Miller's Daughter of Manchester, with the Love of William the Conqueror''.  <br><br>

Revision as of 08:38, 12 September 2016

Anon. (1594)


Historical Records

Performance Records (Henslowe's Diary)


F. 8v (Greg, I.16)

In a listing headed as follows:

"In the name of god Amen begninge the 27 of
desember 1593 the earle of susex his men


Res at william the conkerer the 4 of Jenewary 1593 [i.e. 1594]. . . ………. xxiis


Theatrical Provenance

Sussex's Men at the Rose Playhouse. The play is only known from this single performance. It is not marked "ne".

Probable Genre(s)

Romantic comedy? (Harbage)

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

See below


References to the Play

None known


Critical Commentary

Hazlitt notes of this play: "A play on this subject is also mentioned in Heywood's Apology for Actors, 1612" (253).

Fleay (BCED, 2.292, 299) makes a new suggestion: "Query Fair Em, retained from L.Strange's Men, like The Jew of Malta." That is to say, he 'lumps' it with the extant play Fair Em, or the Miller's Daughter of Manchester, with the Love of William the Conqueror.

Fleay's suggestion has met with fairly general acceptance: for instance, Greg, 2.158, Harbage, and more recently Knutson.
Wiggins, on the other hand, describes the play without assuming that it is Fair Em, and offers a summary of its possible content in terms of the usual features of William the Conqueror's career in chronicle histories. See Wiggins, serial number 903.





For What It's Worth

Hazlitt is presumably thinking of this passage from the Apology for Actors:

Thirdly, playes haue made the ignorant more apprehensiue, taught the vnlearned the knowledge of many famous histories, instructed such as ca~ not reade in the discouery of all our English Chronicles: & what man haue you now of that weake capacity, that can not discourse of any notable thing recorded euen from William the Conquerour, nay from the landing of Brute, vntill this day. (Heywood, Apology, F1r)

It is not very clearly an allusion to any specific William the Conqueror play.

Works Cited

Hazlitt, W. Carew. A Manual for the Collector and Amateur of Old English Plays. London, 1892.
Heywood, Thomas. An Apology for Actors. London, 1612. Print. EEBO.
Knutson, Roslyn L. "What's So Special About 1594." Shakespeare Quarterly 61.4 (2010): 449-467.


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