 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
The Coronation is a Caroline era stage play, a tragicomedy written by James Shirley, and notable for the tug-of-war of authorship claims in which it was involved in the middle seventeenth century.
The play was licensed by the Master of the Revels on 6 February 1635, and was probably written in the previous year or so. In May 1636, however, the London theatres shut down for one of their longest and most severe closures due to bubonic plague. Shirley left for his four years in Dublin (1636–40), and in the next year or so the playing company for which he had been serving as house dramatist, Queen Henrietta's Men, sold off their stock of Shirley's plays to the London booksellers. The result was that a group of Shirley's plays appeared in print in the late 1630s. Most of these were published under Shirley's name; only one, The Coronation, was misattributed to another dramatist. The first edition of The Coronation was issued in 1640 in a quarto printed by Thomas Cotes for the booksellers Andrew Crooke and William Cooke. And the authorship of the play was assigned to John Fletcher.
The source of the misattribution is not certain, though the acting company has borne the brunt of the suspicion; they are thought to have sold a spurious play called Look to the Lady as Shirley's at about the same time. When he was back in London, Shirley attempted to reclaim his lost offspring; The Coronation was listed in "A Catalogue of the Authors Poems already Printed," printed in Six New Plays in 1653, as "Falsely ascribed to Jo. Fletcher." Shirley's reclamation effort was not entirely successful, however; The Coronation was included in the second Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1679. [1]
The confusion is perhaps understandable, since The Coronation is perhaps the one play in Shirley's canon in which Fletcher's influence is strongest and most obvious.
The Kingdom of Epire (or Epirus) is ruled by a Lord Protector, Cassander, while its Queen, Sophia, is still a minor child—a time now coming to its end. Cassander is eager for the Queen to marry his son Lisimachus, as has long been planned; though the Queen manages matters so that the marriage will take place only after she assumes power.
Epire has long been troubled by a feud between the houses of two noblemen, Eubulus and Macarius. Seleucus, the warlike son of Eubulus and heir of his house, proposes a way to end the feud: a ceremonial combat or duel between himself and Arcadius, the nephew of Macarius. The Queen views the proposal ironically at first; Arcadius is a prominent young courtier, and she worries that "a small wound / I'th' head" may spoil his hairstyle. But she gives permission for the combat to take place. Both Eubulus and Macarius, however, are opposed to their young heirs facing the risk of injury or death, and stage an apparent reconciliation to cancel the duel.
Cassander expects the Queen to announce her choice of Lisimachus as her consort; he, and the court in general, are astounded when she chooses Arcadius instead. Macarius and the local Bishop intervene before the ceremony can occur; they reveal that Arcadius is actually Demetrius, a royal prince missing and assumed dead — and therefore the Queen's long-lost brother.
It transpires that Theodosius, the prior king and the Queen's father, had hidden his two young sons, Leonatus and Demetrius, through a fear that Cassander would usurp the throne and kill the princes after Theodosius's death. The king had believed, correctly, that Cassander would not do the same to Sophia, but would instead keep her in her place so that his son could attain the crown by marrying her. With the secret revealed, Demetrius is now recognized as the rightful king, and Sophia is displaced from direct power.
Arcadius's fiancée, Polidora, is suddenly superseded when the Queen decides to marry him — as Lisimachus is displaced at the same time. When the Queen is suddenly removed from power and her wedding cancelled, she suspects that Polidora is Lisimachus's new love, which generates a subplot of romantic cross-purposes, jealousies and misunderstandings.
Cassander, in a rage at the disruption of his well-laid plans, devises a plot to regain power: he intends to advance Seleucus as the elder missing prince, Leonatus, and so eject Arcadius/Demetrius from the throne. Since Seleucus bears a physical resemblance to the late Theodosius, Cassander thinks the plan can work. The intended coup d'état is mounted, only to encounter another twist of fate — Eubulus and the Bishop reveal that Seleucus actually is the missing Leonatus, and thus the true king of Epire. In the play's climax, Cassander is forgiven his treachery if he vows allegiance to the new monarch, and Leonatus achieves his rightful place as king; and the couples Demetrius and Polidora, and Sophia and Lisimachus, have their misunderstandings resolved and are happily united once again.
This article concerns the period 319 BC – 310 BC.
This article concerns the period 309 BC – 300 BC.
Year 317 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Brutus and Barbula. The denomination 317 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Seleucus I Nicator was a Macedonian Greek general, officer and successor of Alexander the Great who went on to found the eponymous Seleucid Empire, led by the Seleucid dynasty. Initially a secondary player in the power struggles following Alexander's death, Seleucus rose to become the total ruler of Asia Minor, Syria, Mesopotamia, and the Iranian plateau, assuming the title of basileus (emperor). The Seleucid Empire was one of the major powers of the Hellenistic world, until it was overcome by the Roman Republic and Parthian Empire in the late second and early first centuries BC.
Cassander was king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia from 305 BC until 297 BC, and de facto ruler of southern Greece from 317 BC until his death.
James Shirley was an English dramatist.
Lysimachus was a Thessalian officer and successor of Alexander the Great, who in 306 BC, became King of Thrace, Asia Minor and Macedon.
The Wars of the Diadochi, or Wars of Alexander's Successors, were a series of conflicts fought between the generals of Alexander the Great, known as the Diadochi, over who would rule his empire following his death. The fighting occurred between 322 and 281 BC.
Marriage à la Mode is a Restoration comedy by John Dryden, first performed in London in 1673 by the King's Company. It is written in a combination of prose, blank verse and heroic couplets. It has often been praised as Dryden's best comedic endeavour, and James Sutherland accounts for this by observing that "the comic scenes are beautifully written, and Dryden has taken care to connect them with the serious plot by a number of effective links. He writes with ... one of the most thoughtful treatments of sex and marriage that Restoration comedy can show."
The Bird in a Cage, or The Beauties is a Caroline era comedy written by James Shirley, first published in 1633. The play is notable, even among Shirley's plays, for its lushness — what one critic has called "gay romanticism run mad."
The Arcadia is James Shirley's dramatization of the prose romance The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney, one expression of the enormous influence that Sidney's work exercised during the 17th century. Shirley's stage version was first published in 1640.
The Sisters is a Caroline stage play, a comedy written by James Shirley. It was the last of Shirley's plays performed in London prior to the closing of the theatres in September 1642, at the start of the English Civil War. "Slight in substance, The Sisters is excellent in matter of technique, and especially in...structural unity...."
The Brothers is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy written by James Shirley. First published in 1652, The Brothers has sometimes been hailed as one of Shirley's best plays, though it has also been a focus of significant confusion and scholarly debate.
The Changes, or Love in a Maze is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy of manners written by James Shirley, first published in 1639. It was one of Shirley's most popular comedies, especially in the Restoration era. The play is almost universally known by its subtitle.
The Doubtful Heir, also known as Rosania, or Love's Victory, is a Caroline era stage play, a tragicomedy written by James Shirley and first published in 1652. The play has been described as "swift of action, exciting of episode, fertile of surprise, and genuinely poetic."
The Humorous Courtier, also called The Duke, is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy written by James Shirley, first published in 1640.
The Duke's Mistress is a Caroline era stage play, a tragicomedy written by James Shirley and first published in 1638. It was the last of Shirley's plays produced before the major break in his career: with the closing of the London theatres due to bubonic plague in May 1636, Shirley left England for Ireland, where he worked under John Ogilby at the Werburgh Street Theatre in Dublin for four years.
Andromana, or The Merchant's Wife is a mid-seventeenth-century stage play, a tragedy first published in 1660. It has attracted scholarly attention for the questions of its authorship and the influence of its sources.
The Humorous Lieutenant, also known as The Noble Enemies, Demetrius and Enanthe, or Alexander's Successors, is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy written by John Fletcher. Highly praised by critics, it has been called "Fletcher's best comedy."
Thierry and Theodoret is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragedy in the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators that was first published in 1621. It is one of the problematic plays of Fletcher's oeuvre; as with Love's Cure, there are significant uncertainties about the date and authorship of Thierry and Theodoret.
