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| Bloody Poetry | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Howard Brenton |
| Characters | Percy Bysshe Shelley Mary Shelley Claire Clairmont George Byron Dr William Polidori Harriet Westbrook Voice |
| Date premiered | 1 October 1984 |
| Place premiered | Haymarket Theatre Leicester |
| Original language | English |
| Setting | Switzerland, England and Italy 1816-1822 |
Bloody Poetry is a 1984 play by Howard Brenton centring on the lives of Percy Shelley and his circle.
The play had its roots in Brenton's involvement with the small touring company Foco Novo and was the third, and final, show he wrote for them. The initial idea was that Brenton should write a piece based on the life of Shelley, though Brenton was more interested in looking, not at the individual, but at the quartet of Percy, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron and Byron's mistress Claire Clairmont, tying it in with Utopian themes appropriate to the revolutionary spirit of the protagonists. In his introduction to the play Brenton disclaims any interest in moralising over the actions of his characters, as he had in a programme to his earlier play Weapons of Happiness . [1] [2]
The play takes as its epigraph a comment of Richard Holmes's, “Shelley's life seems more a haunting than a history.”
Bloody Poetry was first performed at the Haymarket Theatre Leicester on 1 October 1984 in a production that later played at the Hampstead Theatre. The director was Roland Rees and the cast was:
Percy Bysshe Shelley – Valentine Pelka
Mary Shelley – Fiona Shaw
Claire Clairmont – Jane Gurnett
George Byron – James Aubrey
Dr William Polidori – William Gaminara
Harriet Westbrook – Sue Burton
The play had its west coast premiere in 1991 at Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills, under the direction of Keith Fowler, drawing excellent critical reception and winning the Dramalogue award for “Outstanding Direction.”
Nightingale Theatre produced the play in the summer of 1994 at The Union Chapel, Islington, London. Kate Godfrey (Claire Clairmont), Jane Gooderham (Harriet Westbrook), Melee Hutton (Mary Shelley), Mark Norton (Percy Bysshe Shelley), Peter Quilter (George Byron). with Cordelia Monsey directing.
The play played at the Manhattan Theatre Club in 1987 in a production directed by Lynne Meadow [3] and was revived in 1988 at the Royal Court Theatre and in 2007 at the Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff. [4]
The play was staged by emerging company Invulnerable Nothings at The Brooklyn Art Library in 2016.
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John William Polidori was a British writer and physician. He is known for his associations with the Romantic movement and credited by some as the creator of the vampire genre of fantasy fiction. His most successful work was the short story "The Vampyre" (1819), the first published modern vampire story. Although the story was at first erroneously credited to Lord Byron, both Byron and Polidori affirmed that the author was Polidori.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1818.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1811.
Clara Mary Jane Clairmont, or Claire Clairmont as she was commonly known, was the stepsister of English writer Mary Shelley and the mother of Lord Byron's daughter Allegra. She is thought to be the subject of a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Gothic is a 1986 British psychological horror film directed by Ken Russell, starring Gabriel Byrne as Lord Byron, Julian Sands as Percy Bysshe Shelley, Natasha Richardson as Mary Shelley, Myriam Cyr as Claire Clairmont and Timothy Spall as Dr. John William Polidori. It features a soundtrack by Thomas Dolby, and marks Richardson's and Cyr's film debut.
The Villa Diodati is a mansion in the village of Cologny near Lake Geneva in Switzerland, notable because Lord Byron rented it and stayed there with Dr. John Polidori in the summer of 1816. Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary’s stepsister Claire Clairmont, who had rented a house nearby, were frequent visitors. Because of poor weather, in June 1816 the group famously spent three days together inside the house creating stories to tell each other, two of which were developed into landmark works of the Gothic horror genre: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and The Vampyre, the first modern vampire story, by Polidori.
Clara Allegra Byron was the illegitimate daughter of the poet George Gordon, Lord Byron, and Claire Clairmont.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Frances Imlay, also known as Fanny Godwin and Frances Wollstonecraft, was the illegitimate daughter of the British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and the American commercial speculator and diplomat Gilbert Imlay. Wollstonecraft wrote about her frequently in her later works. Fanny grew up in the household of anarchist political philosopher William Godwin, the widower of her mother, with his second wife Mary Jane Clairmont and their combined family of five children. Fanny's half-sister Mary grew up to write Frankenstein and married Percy Bysshe Shelley, a leading Romantic poet, who composed a poem on Fanny's death.
Sir Percy Florence Shelley, 3rd Baronet,, was the son of the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his second wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, novelist and author of Frankenstein. He was the only child of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley to live beyond infancy. His middle name, possibly suggested by his father's friend Sophia Stacey, came from the city of his birth, Florence in Italy. He had two elder half-siblings, by his father's first marriage to Harriet Westbrook, and three full siblings who died in infancy.
"Maurice, or the Fisher's Cot" is a children's story by the Romantic writer Mary Shelley. Written in 1820 for Laurette Tighe, a daughter of her friends Margaret King and George William Tighe, Mary Shelley tried to have it published by her father, William Godwin, but he refused. The text was lost until 1997, when a manuscript copy was discovered in Italy.
Percy Bysshe Shelley was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achievements in poetry grew steadily following his death, and he became an important influence on subsequent generations of poets, including Robert Browning, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, and W. B. Yeats. American literary critic Harold Bloom describes him as "a superb craftsman, a lyric poet without rival, and surely one of the most advanced sceptical intellects ever to write a poem."
"Fragment of Novel" is an unfinished 1819 vampire horror story written by Lord Byron. The story, also known as "A Fragment" and "The Burial: A Fragment", was one of the first in English to feature a vampire theme. The main character was Augustus Darvell. John William Polidori based his novella The Vampyre (1819), originally attributed in print to Lord Byron, on the Byron fragment. The vampire in the Polidori story, Lord Ruthven, was modelled on Byron himself. The story was the result of the meeting that Byron had in the summer of 1816 with Percy Bysshe Shelley where a "ghost writing" contest was proposed. This contest was also what led to the creation of Frankenstein according to Percy Bysshe Shelley's 1818 Preface to the novel. The story is important in the development and evolution of the vampire story in English literature as one of the first to feature the modern vampire as able to function in society in disguise. The short story first appeared under the title "A Fragment" in the 1819 collection Mazeppa: A Poem, published by John Murray in London.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft.
Rowing with the Wind a.k.a. Remando al viento is a 1988 Spanish film written and directed by Gonzalo Suárez. The film won seven Goya Awards. It concerns the English writer Mary Shelley and her circle.
English writer Lord Byron has been mentioned in numerous media. A few examples of his appearances in literature, film, music, television and theatre are listed below.
George William Tighe was an Irish agricultural theorist who spent much of his life in Italy. Through his marriage to Margaret King, he exerted an influence on the radical poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Mary Shelley is a 2017 romantic period-drama film directed by Haifaa al-Mansour and written by Emma Jensen. The plot follows Mary Shelley's first love and her romantic relationship with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, which inspired her to write her 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. An international co-production, the film stars Elle Fanning as Shelley, with Maisie Williams, Douglas Booth, Bel Powley, and Ben Hardy in supporting roles.
Marion Kingston Stocking was an American literary scholar, educator, editor, book reviewer, advocate for the arts, memoirist, and environmentalist whose career spanned six decades. She was best known as editor of Beloit Poetry Journal and as a scholar of the Romantic period, specifically the circle of writers and thinkers associated with poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron.
Mary Jane Godwin was an English author, publisher, and bookseller. She was the second wife of William Godwin and stepmother to Mary Shelley.