Isle of Dogs, The

Jonson, Ben and Nashe, Thomas(1597)

Historical Records

Acts of the Privy Council

28 July 1597 (Dasent, 27.313-13)

15 August 1597 (Dasent, 27.338)

8 October 1597 (Dasent, 28.33)

Theatrical Provenance

All indications are that The Isle of Dogs belonged to Pembroke's players at least by the summer of 1597. The company had arrived in London by February, where they leased the Swan playhouse on the Bankside. Francis Langley had had the playhouse built in the fall of 1594, and it was probably open for business by summer 1596. No documents reveal the identity of Langley's lessees until Pembroke's players arrive in February 1597. The company's run was abbreviated in late summer, in part if not entirely because of governmental distress at the playing of The Isle of Dogs.

Probable Genre(s)

Satirical comedy (Harbage)

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

None known.

References to the Play

Francis Meres, Palladis Tamia

"As 'Actæon was worried of his owne hounds: so is Tom Nash of his Isle of Dogs. Dogges were the death of Euripedes; but bee not disconsolate, gallant young Iuuenall, Linus, the sonne of Apollo died the same death. Yet God forbid that so braue a witte should so basely perish! Thine are but paper doggies, neither is thy banishment like Ouids, eternally to conuerse with the barbarous Getæ. Therefore comfort thyselfe sweete Tom, with Cicero's glorious return to Rome, and with the counsel Æneas gives to his seabeaten soldiers. Lib. I, Æneid (Smith, II.324).

Thomas Nashe, Nashes Lenten Stuffe, 1599

In the opening section ("The Praise of the red herring"), Nashe comments explicitly on the Isle of Dogs event: "The straunge turning of the Ile of Dogs from a commedie to a tragedie two summers past, with the troublesome stir which hapned aboute it, is a general rumour laid upon me, as had well neere confounded mee ...". He speaks of the exile enforced upon him and resultant melancholy caused by "the silliest millers thombe or contemptible stickle-banck of my enemies [who are] as busie nibbling about [his] fame as if [he] were a deade man thrown amongst them to feede upon." But he promises a revenge "hot a brooding" in the form of a pamphlet that will quiet the rumors. Circling back to fallout from the play, Nashe speaks of the "unfortunate imperfect Embrion of my idle hours, the Ile of Dogs before mentioned," the conception of which was so violent that it "was no sooner borne but [he] was glad to run from it [i.e., to Yarmouth]" (McKerrow 3.153) In a marginal note, Nashe adds: "An imperfect Embrion I may well call it, for I hating begun but the induction and first act of it, the other four acts without my consent, or the least guess of my drift or scope, by the players were supplied, which bred both their trouble and mine to (McKerrow 3.153-4)

Thomas Dekker, Satiromastix (S. R. 11 November 1601; Q1602)

In an abrasive confrontation, Tucca, a blowhard captain, rails at Horace (Ben Jonson) that he has called Demetrius (Thomas Dekker) a "Iorneyman Poet"; Tucca then turns the insult on Horace: " but thou putst vp a Supplication to be a poore Iorneyman Player, and hadst beene still so, but that thou couldst not set a good face vpon't: thou hast forgot how thou amblest (in leather pilch) by a play-wagon, in the highway, and took'st mad Ieronimoes part, to get seruice among the Mimickes: and when the Stagerites banisht thee into the Ile of Dogs, thou turn'dst Ban-dog (villanous Guy) and euer since bitest, therefore I aske if th'ast been at Parris-garden, because thou hast such a good mouth, thou baitst well ..." (Google Books).

Critical Commentary

Privy Council Order

Wickham claims that the Swan "lost its license as a result of the performance of The Isle of Dogs in 1597 (vol.2, pt. 1, p. 134). [see xerox 2.1.279+ n#5 on "owners [of playhouses being brought] sharply to heel to reassure the government and admit of its entering upon a new agreement with the acting companies"; in note: companies "which acted regularly in London without inhibition after The Isle of Dogs affair of 1597 [were] the Lord Chamberlain's, another the Lord Admiral's and the third the Earl of Worcester's" (373, n. 5);

for more, see 2.part 2 xerox (whole chapter on 1597): p. 5 = "the performance ... which provoked an immediate Order from the Privy Council condemning both authors and actors to a spell in prison and authorizing the City Council to demolish all playhouses in and arund Londond." (2.2.5);

Forgeries

F. 29^v (Greg, I.57)

Lent the 14 may 1597 to Jubie vppon a notte

from Nashe twentie shellinges more for the Jylle

of dogges w^ch he is wrytinge for the company

Works Cited

Bowers, Fredson. The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker. 4 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962.(Google Books, 1873 ed)

Dasent, J. R., ed. Acts of the Privy Council of England. 32 vols. London:HMSO, 1890-1907. (British History Online)

Ingram, William. A London Life in the Brazen Age: Francis Langley, 1548-1602. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978.

McKerrow, Ronald B., ed. The Works of Thomas Nashe. 5 vols. London: A. H. Bullen, 1905. (Vol. 3)

Smith, G. Gregory, ed. Elizabethan Critical Essays. 3 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1904. (Meres excerpt)

Wickham, Glynne. Early English Stages, 1300 to 1660. 3 vols. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963.

Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; updated 21 February 2012.