Englishmen for My Money

Last updated April 29, 2019

Englishmen for My Money, or A Woman Will Have Her Will is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy written by William Haughton that dates from the year 1598. Scholars and critics often cite it as the first city comedy.^[1] Indeed, the play inaugurated a dramatic subgenre that would be exploited and developed by Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton, Ben Jonson, and others in the following years and decades.

William Haughton was an English playwright in the age of English Renaissance theatre.

City comedy, also known as citizen comedy, is a genre of comedy in the English early modern theatre.

Thomas Middleton was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. Middleton stands with John Fletcher and Ben Jonson among the most successful and prolific of the playwrights at work during the Jacobean period. He was among the few to achieve equal success in comedy and tragedy, and a prolific writer of masques and pageants.

Performance and publication

The records of theater manager and impresario Philip Henslowe show that Haughton received payment for his work on the play between February and May 1598. The play is thought to have been premiered onstage, by the Admiral's Men at the Rose Theatre, before the end of that year.

An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays, or operas, performing a role similar to that of an artist manager or a film or television producer.

Philip Henslowe was an Elizabethan theatrical entrepreneur and impresario. Henslowe's modern reputation rests on the survival of his diary, a primary source for information about the theatrical world of Renaissance London. He was portrayed by actor Geoffrey Rush in the Academy Award-winning film Shakespeare in Love.

The Admiral's Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in the Elizabethan and Stuart eras. It is generally considered the second most important acting troupe of English Renaissance theatre.

The work was entered into the Stationers' Register on 3 August 1601, but was not published until 1616, when the first quarto edition was issued by the stationer William White. A second quarto appeared in 1626, printed by John Norton for bookseller Hugh Perry, and a third in 1631, printed by Augustine Matthews for Richard Thrale.^[2]

The Stationers’ Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including printers, bookbinders, booksellers, and publishers in England. The Register itself allowed publishers to document their right to produce a particular printed work, and constituted an early form of copyright law. The Company's charter gave it the right to seize illicit editions and bar the publication of unlicensed books.

The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from folio, to quarto (smaller) and octavo. Historically, these terms referred to the format of the book, a technical term used by printers and bibliographers to indicate the size of a leaf in terms of the size of the original sheet. For example, a quarto historically was a book printed on a sheet of paper folded twice to produce four leaves, each leaf one fourth the size of the original sheet printed. Because the actual format of many modern books cannot be determined from examination of the books, bibliographers may not use these terms in scholarly descriptions.

Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers London livery company

The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, usually known as the Stationers' Company, is one of the livery companies of the City of London. The Stationers' Company was formed in 1403; it received a royal charter in 1557. It held a monopoly over the publishing industry and was officially responsible for setting and enforcing regulations until the enactment of the Statute of Anne, also known as the Copyright Act of 1710. Once the company received its charter, “the company’s role was to regulate and discipline the industry, define proper conduct and maintain its own corporate privileges.”

Plot

The play is set within the contemporary merchant class of London, the men who dealt on the Royal Exchange founded by Sir Thomas Gresham. The Portuguese-born merchant and moneylender Pisaro has three half-English daughters, Laurentia, Marina, and Mathea. The daughters face two trios of suitors, one foreign and one domestic. The foreigners are Delion, a Frenchman, Alvaro, an Italian, and Vandal, a Dutchman. Also a foreigner, Pisaro favours these candidates because of their wealth, but his daughters prefer their English suitors, Harvey, Heigham, and Walgrave. The play is rich in linguistic play, courtship scenes, and disguises and cross-dressing, and includes abundant comic material from the clown Frisco. In the end, as the title indicates, the Englishmen win their brides (which importantly helps to cancel the debts they owe to Pisaro).

Sir Thomas Gresham the Elder, was an English merchant and financier who acted on behalf of King Edward VI (1547–1553) and Edward's half-sisters, queens Mary I (1553–1558) and Elizabeth I (1558–1603).

Criticism

The play displays a popular dislike of Englishwomen being courted by foreigners that is also expressed in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor , which was written and acted at about the same time (c. 1597–99). Critics have studied the play for its attitude toward, and treatment of, foreigners in England.^[3] Some critics have interpreted the character Pisaro as a Jew; though the word "Jew" is never used in the play, Pisaro compares himself to Judas and is called "Signior Bottle-nose,"^[4] which has been read as an expression of the anti-Semitism endemic in English and European culture in the period.^[5] The most recent edition of Englishmen for My Money presents it as a "usury play" on account of its financial themes.^[6]

William Shakespeare English playwright and poet

William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 39 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare first published in 1602, though believed to have been written in or before 1597. The Windsor of the play's title is a reference to the town of Windsor, also the location of Windsor Castle, in Berkshire, England. Though nominally set in the reign of Henry IV, the play makes no pretense to exist outside contemporary Elizabethan era English middle class life. It features the character Sir John Falstaff, the fat knight who had previously been featured in Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2. It has been adapted for the opera on several occasions. The play is one of Shakespeare's lesser-regarded works among literary critics.

Judas Iscariot one of the original Twelve Disciples of Jesus Christ, known for betrayal of Jesus

Judas Iscariot(; Biblical Hebrew: יהודה‎, translit. Yehûdâh, lit. 'God is praised'; Greek: Ὶούδας Ὶσκαριώτης) was a disciple and one of the original Twelve Disciples of Jesus Christ. According to all four canonical gospels, Judas betrayed Jesus to the Sanhedrin in the Garden of Gethsemane by kissing him and addressing him as "Rabbi" to reveal his identity to the crowd who had come to arrest him. His name is often used synonymously with betrayal or treason. Judas's epithet Iscariot most likely means he came from the village of Kerioth, but this explanation is not universally accepted and many other possibilities have been suggested.

Related Research Articles

The Merchant of Venice is a 16th-century play written by William Shakespeare in which a merchant in Venice (Antonio) must default on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock. It is believed to have been written between 1596 and 1599. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is most remembered for its dramatic scenes, and it is best known for Shylock and the famous "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech on humanity. Also notable is Portia's speech about "the quality of mercy". Critic Harold Bloom listed it among Shakespeare's great comedies.

The earliest texts of William Shakespeare's works were published during the 16th and 17th centuries in quarto or folio format. Folios are large, tall volumes; quartos are smaller, roughly half the size. The publications of the latter are usually abbreviated to Q1, Q2, etc., where the letter stands for "quarto" and the number for the first, second, or third edition published.

Henry Chettle was an English dramatist and miscellaneous writer of the Elizabethan era, best known for his pamphleteering.

King Leir is an anonymous Elizabethan play about the life of the ancient Brythonic king Leir of Britain. It was published in 1605 but was entered into the Stationers' Register on 15 May 1594. The play has attracted critical attention principally for its relationship with King Lear, Shakespeare's version of the same story.

Love's Labour's Won is a lost play attributed by contemporaries to William Shakespeare, written before 1598 and published by 1603, though no copies are known to have survived. Scholars dispute whether it is a true lost work, possibly a sequel to Love's Labour's Lost, or an alternative title to a known Shakespeare play.

<i>The Jew of Malta</i> c. 1590 play by Christopher Marlowe

The Jew of Malta is a play by Christopher Marlowe, written in 1589 or 1590. The plot primarily revolves around a Maltese Jewish merchant named Barabas. The original story combines religious conflict, intrigue, and revenge, set against a backdrop of the struggle for supremacy between Spain and the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean that takes place on the island of Malta. There has been extensive debate about the play's portrayal of Jews and how Elizabethan audiences would have viewed it.

Every Man in His Humour is a 1598 play by the English playwright Ben Jonson. The play belongs to the subgenre of the "humours comedy," in which each major character is dominated by an over-riding humour or obsession.

Every Man out of His Humour is a satirical comedy written by English playwright Ben Jonson, acted in 1599 by the Lord Chamberlain's Men. It is a conceptual sequel to his 1598 comedy Every Man in His Humour. It was much less successful on stage than its predecessor, though it was published in quarto three times in 1600 alone; it was also performed at Court on 8 January 1605.

The Merry Devil of Edmonton is an Elizabethan-era stage play; a comedy about a magician, Peter Fabell, nicknamed the Merry Devil. It was at one point attributed to William Shakespeare, but is now considered part of the Shakespeare Apocrypha.

Fair Em, the Miller's Daughter of Manchester, is an Elizabethan-era stage play, a comedy written c. 1590. It was bound together with Mucedorus and The Merry Devil of Edmonton in a volume labelled "Shakespeare. Vol. I" in the library of Charles II. Though scholarly opinion generally does not accept the attribution to William Shakespeare, there are a few who believe they see Shakespeare's hand in this play.

Poetaster is a late Elizabethan satirical comedy written by Ben Jonson that was first performed in 1601. The play formed one element in the back-and-forth exchange between Jonson and his rivals John Marston and Thomas Dekker in the so-called Poetomachia or War of the Theatres of 1599–1601.

Valentine Simmes was an Elizabethan era and Jacobean era printer; he did business in London, "on Adling Hill near Bainard's Castle at the sign of the White Swan." Simmes has a reputation as one of the better printers of his generation, and was responsible for several quartos of Shakespeare's plays. [See: Early texts of Shakespeare's works.]

Thomas Creede was a printer of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, rated as "one of the best of his time." Based in London, he conducted his business under the sign of the Catherine Wheel in Thames Street from 1593 to 1600, and under the sign of the Eagle and Child in the Old Exchange from 1600 to 1617. Creede is best known for printing editions of works in English Renaissance drama, especially for ten editions of six Shakespearean plays and three works in the Shakespeare Apocrypha.

Cuthbert Burby was a London bookseller and publisher of the Elizabethan and early Jacobean eras. He is known for publishing a series of significant volumes of English Renaissance drama, including works by William Shakespeare, Robert Greene, John Lyly, and Thomas Nashe.

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Edward Allde or Alde was an English printer in London during the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. He was responsible for a number of significant texts in English Renaissance drama, including some of the early editions of plays by William Shakespeare.

The Blind Beggar of Alexandria is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy written by George Chapman. It was the first of Chapman's plays to be produced on the stage; its success inaugurated his career as a dramatist.

The Three Ladies of London is an Elizabethan comedy about usury that was probably first performed in 1581; it was published in a quarto edition both in 1584 and 1592. The play is unusual and noteworthy as a philo-Semitic response to the prevailing anti-Semitism of Elizabethan drama and the larger contemporaneous English society.

The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington and The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington are two closely related Elizabethan-era stage plays on the Robin Hood legend, that were written by Anthony Munday in 1598 and published in 1601. They are among the relatively few surviving examples of the popular drama acted by the Admiral's Men during the Shakespearean era.

References

↑ Theodore B. Leinwand, The city staged : Jacobean comedy, 1603-1613, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986, p. 7.
↑ E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, 4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923; Vol. 3, pp. 334–5.
↑ A. J. Hoenselaars, Images of Englishmen and Foreigners in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporarie,. Rutherford, New Jersey, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1992; pp. 53–62.
↑ John Berryman, Berryman's Shakespeare: Essays, Letters, and Other Writings, John Haffenden, ed.; New York, Tauris Parke, 2001; Introduction (Haffenden), p. lv.
↑ Matthew S. Biberman, Masculinity, Anti-Semitism, and Early Modern English Literature: From the Satanic to the Effeminate Jew, London, Ashgate, 2004; pp. 58–9.
↑ Lloyd Edward Kermode, ed., Three Renaissance Usury Plays. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009, pp. 39-47.

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[1] Theodore B. Leinwand, The city staged : Jacobean comedy, 1603-1613, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986, p. 7.

[2] E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, 4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923; Vol. 3, pp. 334–5.

[3] A. J. Hoenselaars, Images of Englishmen and Foreigners in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporarie,. Rutherford, New Jersey, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1992; pp. 53–62.

[4] John Berryman, Berryman's Shakespeare: Essays, Letters, and Other Writings, John Haffenden, ed.; New York, Tauris Parke, 2001; Introduction (Haffenden), p. lv.

[5] Matthew S. Biberman, Masculinity, Anti-Semitism, and Early Modern English Literature: From the Satanic to the Effeminate Jew, London, Ashgate, 2004; pp. 58–9.

[6] Lloyd Edward Kermode, ed., Three Renaissance Usury Plays. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009, pp. 39-47.