The Fair Penitent is Nicholas Rowe's stage adaptation of the tragedy The Fatal Dowry, the Philip Massinger and Nathan Field collaboration first published in 1632. Rowe's adaptation, premiered onstage in 1702 and first published in 1703, was a great popular success through much of the 18th century, and was praised by critics as demanding as Samuel Johnson ("There is scarcely any work of any poet so interesting by the fable and so delightful in the language").[1]
In making his adaptation, Rowe eliminated characters and simplified the action "to create a more focused play than the original." He pursued "neoclassical simplicity" but in the process sacrificed the "underlying moral principles" of the original.[2] Rowe shifted the setting from Dijon to Genoa, and changed the main characters' names.
Characters
Fatal Dowry
Fair Penitent
Rochfort
Sciolto
Charalois
Altamont
Romont
Horatio
Novall Junior
Lothario
Pontalier
Rossano
Beaumelle
Calista
Bellapert
Lucilla
Rowe also accentuated the role of the female protagonist, making the play much more a vehicle for a female star performer, a "better acting piece" for a prominent actress.[3] Where the original "concentrates largely on the legal and political affairs of the cuckolded husband," Rowe focused far more directly on the domestic tragedy of Calista's infidelity.[4]
The play was revived at both of the major London theatres of the era, Drury Lane and Covent Garden; the former production starred Mrs. Siddons as Calista. The 1703 first edition was dedicated to the Duchess of Ormond—but did not credit the original authors of The Fatal Dowry, leading to later critics' accusations of plagiarism against Rowe, as in William Gifford's edition of Massinger's works.
Legacy
The eponym "Lothario," meaning "a man who seduces women," stems from the character in this play. However, a character named Lothario as a seducer predates the play. It first appeared in 1605 in Miguel de Cervantes novel Don Quixote. In this story Lothario is urged by his lifelong friend Anselmo to attempt to seduce his wife in order to test her faithfulness. At first most unwilling, he eventually enters into the scheme with skill and success.
Malcolm Goldstein edited The Fair Penitent for a modern edition in 1969. Critics, both traditional and modern, have debated whether Calista is actually "penitent" for her infidelity.[7]
↑ Howe, pp. 124-7. In the original production of The Fatal Dowry, all the female roles were played by boy actors, since women did not appear on the English stage until the Restoration era.
Brawley, Benjamin Griffith. A Short History of English Drama. New York, Harcourt, Brace, 1921.
Freeman, Lisa A. Character's Theater: Genre and Identity on the Eighteenth-Century English Stage. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.
Goldstein, Malcolm, ed. The Fair Penitent. Regents Restoration Drama series; Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1969.
Howe, Elizabeth. The First English Actresses: Women and Drama 1660–1700. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S. Smith, eds. The Later Jacobean and Caroline Dramatists: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama. Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1978.
Marsden, Jean I. Fatal Desire: Women, Sexuality, and the English Stage, 1660–1720. Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 2006.
Philip Massinger was an English dramatist. His finely plotted plays, including A New Way to Pay Old Debts, The City Madam, and The Roman Actor, are noted for their satire and realism, and their political and social themes.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1702.
Nicholas Rowe, English dramatist, poet and miscellaneous writer, was appointed Poet Laureate in 1715. His plays and poems were well-received during his lifetime, with one of his translations described as one of the greatest productions in English poetry. He was also considered the first editor of the works of William Shakespeare.
James Quin was an English actor of Irish descent.
Barton Booth was one of the most famous dramatic actors of the first part of the 18th century.
Nathan Field was an English dramatist and actor.
The term she-tragedy, also known as pathetic tragedy refers to a vogue in the late 17th and early 18th centuries for tragic plays focused on the sufferings of a woman, sometimes innocent and virtuous but often a woman who had committed some sort of sexual sin. Prominent she-tragedies include Thomas Otway's The Orphan (1680), John Banks' Virtue Betrayed, or, Anna Bullen (1682), Thomas Southerne's The Fatal Marriage (1694), Mary Pix's Ibrahim, the Thirteenth Emperor of the Turks and Nicholas Rowe's The Fair Penitent (1703) and Lady Jane Grey (1715). Rowe was the first to use the term "she-tragedy," in 1714.
Lothario is an Italian name used as shorthand for an unscrupulous seducer of women, based upon a character in The Fair Penitent, a 1703 tragedy by Nicholas Rowe. In Rowe's play, Lothario is a libertine who seduces and betrays Calista; and his success is the source for the proverbial nature of the name in the subsequent English culture. The Fair Penitent itself was an adaptation of The Fatal Dowry (1632), a play by Philip Massinger and Nathan Field. The name Lothario was previously used for a somewhat similar character in The Cruel Brother (1630) by William Davenant. A character with the same name also appears in The Ill-Advised Curiosity, a story within a story in Miguel de Cervantes' 1605 novel, Don Quixote, Part One, however the "Lothario" there is most unwilling to seduce his friend's wife and only does so upon the urging of the former, who recklessly wants to test her fidelity.
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The Guardian is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy written by Philip Massinger, dating from 1633. "The play in which Massinger comes nearest to urbanity and suavity is The Guardian...."
The Fatal Dowry is a late Jacobean era stage play, a tragedy written by Philip Massinger and Nathan Field, and first published in 1632. It represents a significant aspect of Field's very limited dramatic output.
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Johann Jakob Greber was a German Baroque composer and musician. His first name sometimes appeared in its Italianized version, Giacomo, especially during the years he spent in London. Greber composed solo cantatas, sonatas, and stage works, including the opera Gli amori di Ergasto which opened London's Queen's Theatre in 1705. He died in Mannheim, where for many years he was Kapellmeister of the court orchestra of Charles III Philip, Elector Palatine.
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