The False One

Last updated

The False One
The False One frontispiece.jpg
frontispiece to The False One, 1711 edition
Written by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger
Date premieredc.1619-20
Original languageEnglish
SubjectJulius Caesar meets Cleopatra
Genre history play
SettingAncient Egypt

The False One is a late Jacobean stage play by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, though formerly placed in the Beaumont and Fletcher canon. It was first published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.

Contents

This classical history tells of the meeting and romance of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, and the betrayal and death of Pompey the Great at the hands of one of his own officers, the "false one" of the title.

Date

Scholars date the play to the 1619–20 period, partly because of parallels with the political situation in Jacobean era England at the time. It was originally staged by the King's Men; the cast list provided in the second Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1679 names John Lowin, Joseph Taylor, John Underwood, Nicholas Tooley, Robert Benfield, John Rice, Richard Sharpe, and George Birch. The presence of Taylor, who replaced Richard Burbage after Burbage's death in the spring of 1619, indicates a date after that time.

Authorship

Given Fletcher's highly distinctive pattern of stylistic and textual preferences, scholars have found it fairly easy to distinguish the shares of the two authors in the play. Commentators from E. H. C. Oliphant [1] to Cyrus Hoy [2] have agreed that Massinger wrote Act I and Act V, while Fletcher wrote Acts II, III, and IV — the same division of labour as in The Elder Brother.

Characters

Plot

The dramatists chose to portray only the beginning of the story of Caesar and Cleopatra in their play; they concentrate on the events of 48 BC. The play is set in Egypt; at its start, the Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII has sequestered his sister/wife/queen Cleopatra and has assumed sole rule of the kingdom, and the Battle of Pharsalia has not yet occurred. By the play's end, Caesar has deposed Ptolemy and placed Cleopatra in sole possession of the Egyptian crown. The play's Prologue specifically states that the work shows a virginal "Young Cleopatra...and her great Mind / Express'd to the height...." Some of the famous aspects of the story are reproduced in the play: Cleopatra has herself delivered to Caesar in Act III, though enclosed in a "packet" rather than rolled up in a rug.

The playwrights chose to concentrate much of their attention on the figure of Lucius Septimius, the Roman officer who betrayed, murdered, and decapitated Pompey the Great when Pompey landed in Egypt after his Pharsalia defeat (events depicted in Act II). Septimius is the "false one" of the title, and his prominence comes close to turning the work into a "villain play." Yet Septimius is portrayed as lacking any redeeming or sympathetic quality, making him a weak prop on which to mount a drama. The authors' choice in this matter may have been dictated by their desire to comment on contemporaneous political events; in this interpretation, the Pompey of the play represents Sir Walter Raleigh, executed in 1618, while the loathsome reprobate Septimius stands for Raleigh's primary accuser, Sir Lewis Stukeley. [3]

Critics have seen the influence of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra in The False One, and have suggested that the portrayal of Septimius was partially modelled on Shakespeare's Enobarbus. [4] The False One is heavily dominated by political material, rather than dramatic realisations of its characters; [5] for some critics, the split in the play's focus among Cleopatra, Caesar, and Septimius prevents the play from cohering into an effective dramatic whole.

The collaborators' primary source for their play was the Pharsalia of Lucan.

The historical characters of the play – primarily Caesar and Cleopatra, but also Pompey and even Septimius – have attracted the attention of various dramatists. Apart from the famous works of Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw, other instances can be noted. George Chapman's Caesar and Pompey, perhaps his most obscure play, may date from c. 1613. It was followed by Thomas May's The Tragedy of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt (1626), Sir Charles Sedley's Antony and Cleopatra (1677), and John Dryden's All for Love (1678) — the last, one of Dryden's great successes. Similarly, Katherine Philips's translation of Pierre Corneille's La Mort de Pompée (1643) [6] was a stage hit in London in 1663. As late as 1910, John Masefield treated Pompey and Septimius in his The Tragedy of Pompey the Great.

Related Research Articles

Rollo Duke of Normandy, also known as The Bloody Brother, is a play written in collaboration by John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, Ben Jonson and George Chapman. The title character is the historical Viking duke of Normandy, Rollo. Scholars have disputed almost everything about the play; but it was probably written sometime in the 1612–24 era and later revised, perhaps in 1630 or after. In addition to the four writers cited above, the names of Nathan Field and Robert Daborne have been connected with the play by individual scholars.

The King's Men is the acting company to which William Shakespeare (1564–1616) belonged for most of his career. Formerly known as the Lord Chamberlain's Men during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, they became the King's Men in 1603 when King James I ascended the throne and became the company's patron.

Francis Beaumont English playwright (1584–1616)

Francis Beaumont was a dramatist in the English Renaissance theatre, most famous for his collaborations with John Fletcher.

John Fletcher (playwright) English Jacobean playwright (1579–1625)

John Fletcher (1579–1625) was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's. He collaborated on writing plays with Francis Beaumont, and also with Shakespeare on three plays.

Joseph Taylor was a 17th-century English actor. As the successor of Richard Burbage as the leading actor with the King's Men, he was arguably the most important actor in the later Jacobean and the Caroline eras.

The Sea Voyage is a late Jacobean comedy written by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger. The play is notable for its imitation of Shakespeare's The Tempest.

The Custom of the Country is a Jacobean stage play, a tragicomedy written by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, originally published in 1647 in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio.

The Beaumont and Fletcher folios are two large folio collections of the stage plays of John Fletcher and his collaborators. The first was issued in 1647, and the second in 1679. The two collections were important in preserving many works of English Renaissance drama.

The Honest Man's Fortune is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy written by Nathan Field, John Fletcher, and Philip Massinger. It was apparently the earliest of the works produced by this trio of writers, the others being The Queen of Corinth and The Knight of Malta.

The Queen of Corinth is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy in the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators. It was initially published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.

The Knight of Malta is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy in the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators. It was initially published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.

The Spanish Curate is a late Jacobean era stage play, a comedy written by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger. It premiered on the stage in 1622, and was first published in 1647.

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."

Beggars' Bush is a Jacobean era stage play, a comedy in the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators that is a focus of dispute among scholars and critics.

Love's Pilgrimage is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. The play is unusual in their canon, in that its opening scene contains material from Ben Jonson's 1629 comedy The New Inn.

The Coxcomb is an early Jacobean era stage play, a comedy written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. It was initially published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.

The Captain is the title of a Jacobean era stage play, a comedy written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. It was originally published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.

<i>The Scornful Lady</i>

The Scornful Lady is a Jacobean era stage play, a comedy written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, and first published in 1616, the year of Beaumont's death. It was one of the pair's most popular, often revived, and frequently reprinted works.

The Loyal Subject is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy by John Fletcher that was originally published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.

Lucius Septimius

Lucius Septimius was a Roman soldier and mercenary who is principally remembered as one of the assassins of the triumvir Pompey the Great. At the time of the assassination Septimius was serving the Ptolemies of Egypt as a mercenary. He was dispatched with orders to murder Pompey by Ptolemy XIII's advisors who wanted to win the favour of Julius Caesar for their king.

References

  1. ↑ E. H. C. Oliphant, The Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher: An Attempt to Determine Their Respective Shares and the Shares of Others, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1927; pp. 234–7.
  2. ↑ Terence P. Logan 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; pp. 74, 107.
  3. ↑ Baldwin Maxwell, Studies in Beaumont, Fletcher and Massinger, Chapel Hill, NC, University of North Caroline Press, 1939; pp. 170–2.
  4. ↑ Maxwell, p. 169.
  5. ↑ Ira Clark, The Moral Art of Philip Massinger, Lewisburg, PA, Bucknell University Press, 1993; p. 104.
  6. ↑ Eugene M. Waith, "The Death of Pompey: English Style, French Style," in: Shakespeare and Dramatic Tradition, William R. Elton and William B. Long, eds., Newark, DE, University of Delaware Press, 1989; pp. 276–85.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.