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(Created page with 'Category:Film and Media ''For other uses of the word Succubus, see Succubus (disambiguation).'' '''''The Lady of Pleasure''''' is a Caroline era comedy of manner…') |
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{{Infobox play | |||
| name = The Lady of Pleasure | |||
| image = | |||
| image_size = | |||
| image_alt = | |||
| caption = | |||
| writer = James Shirley | |||
| chorus = | |||
| characters = | |||
| mute = | |||
| setting = Caroline Era Comedy of Manners | |||
| premiere = October 15, 1635 | |||
| place = Cockpit Theatre | |||
| orig_lang = English | |||
| series = | |||
| subject = Satirical | |||
| genre = Comedy | |||
| web = | |||
}} | |||
''For other uses of the word [[Succubus]], see [[Succubus (disambiguation)]].'' | ''For other uses of the word [[Succubus]], see [[Succubus (disambiguation)]].'' | ||
'''The Lady of Pleasure''' is a Caroline era comedy of manners written by James Shirley, first published in 1637. It has often been cited as among the best, and sometimes as the single best, the "most brilliant," of the dramatist's comic works. In this work, one of the characters is mistakenly called a Succubus by another. | |||
==Date and Performance== | |||
The play was licensed for performance by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, on October 15, 1635. It was performed by Queen Henrietta's Men at the Cockpit Theatre in Drury Lane, in the final winter before the theatres suffered a long closure due to bubonic plague (May 1636 to October 1637) and Shirley himself left London for Dublin (1637). | |||
==Publication== | ==Publication== | ||
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In this context, note that the 1637 quarto was dedicated to Richard Lovelace, who had been created Baron Lovelace of Hurley in 1627. But Richard Lovelace had died in April 1634; his son and successor was named John.<ref>David Moore Bergeron, ''Textual Patronage in English Drama, 1570–1640,'' London, Ashgate, 2006; p. 202.</ref> This sloppiness is more suggestive of the tradesmen booksellers than of Shirley the Court sophisticate. | In this context, note that the 1637 quarto was dedicated to Richard Lovelace, who had been created Baron Lovelace of Hurley in 1627. But Richard Lovelace had died in April 1634; his son and successor was named John.<ref>David Moore Bergeron, ''Textual Patronage in English Drama, 1570–1640,'' London, Ashgate, 2006; p. 202.</ref> This sloppiness is more suggestive of the tradesmen booksellers than of Shirley the Court sophisticate. | ||
==Critical | |||
==Critical Response== | |||
Those who admire or enjoy Shirley's work can specify ''The Lady of Pleasure'' as displaying his "ornate and profuse fancy to the greatest advantage."<ref>''Chamber's Cyclopaedia of English Literature'', 1902; p. 485.</ref> But critics with serious moral and ethical preoccupations tend to be uncomfortable with the poet's portraits of amorality and immorality, and judge his plays more stringently. ''The Lady of Pleasure'' was singled out by C. S. Lewis, in his ''Rehabilitations and Other Essays'' (1939), as representative of Shirley's comedies — to which Lewis gives a firmly negative evaluation. The play has also been studied as "a commentary on the Platonic love cult in the Caroline court under Queen Henrietta Maria."<ref> | Those who admire or enjoy Shirley's work can specify ''The Lady of Pleasure'' as displaying his "ornate and profuse fancy to the greatest advantage."<ref>''Chamber's Cyclopaedia of English Literature'', 1902; p. 485.</ref> But critics with serious moral and ethical preoccupations tend to be uncomfortable with the poet's portraits of amorality and immorality, and judge his plays more stringently. ''The Lady of Pleasure'' was singled out by C. S. Lewis, in his ''Rehabilitations and Other Essays'' (1939), as representative of Shirley's comedies — to which Lewis gives a firmly negative evaluation. The play has also been studied as "a commentary on the Platonic love cult in the Caroline court under Queen Henrietta Maria."<ref> | ||
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; p. 155.</ref> | 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; p. 155.</ref> | ||
==Synopsis== | ==Synopsis== | ||
The play is structured in the three-level plot format that Shirley exploits for other comedies, like ''Hyde Park'' and ''The Ball''.<ref>Richard Levin, ''The Multiple Plot in English Renaissance Drama.'' Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1971; pp. 96-101.</ref> The main plot concerns the married couple of Sir Thomas and Lady Bornwell. Here, Shirley rings a significant change on the formulas of English Renaissance comedy: Lady Bornwell is a philandering female, the "lady of pleasure" of the play's title, while Sir Thomas's goal is to reform his wife's conduct. Aretina is devoted to the pastimes and vices of courtly aristocrats, notably in spending her husband's money. Sir Thomas tries to frighten his wife into restraint by pretending to pursue Celestina, a sixteen-year-old widow. | The play is structured in the three-level plot format that Shirley exploits for other comedies, like ''Hyde Park'' and ''The Ball''.<ref>Richard Levin, ''The Multiple Plot in English Renaissance Drama.'' Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1971; pp. 96-101.</ref> The main plot concerns the married couple of Sir Thomas and Lady Bornwell. Here, Shirley rings a significant change on the formulas of English Renaissance comedy: Lady Bornwell is a philandering female, the "lady of pleasure" of the play's title, while Sir Thomas's goal is to reform his wife's conduct. Aretina is devoted to the pastimes and vices of courtly aristocrats, notably in spending her husband's money. Sir Thomas tries to frighten his wife into restraint by pretending to pursue Celestina, a sixteen-year-old widow. His strategy fails at first. Yet Aretina is brought up short by the prospect of actual bankruptcy, and by the shock of learning that her partner in a casual tryst in the dark does not know her name and thinks she's a succubus, a "she-devil." | ||
The second-level plot involves Celestina's attempts to reform the otherwise-unnamed Lord A from his perceived misogyny. Here again, the play departs from the standard pattern, in that the heroine of the second-level plot is presented as more admirable and morally serious than the female character on the first level. (Their contrasting names are clues to meaning: Celestina is "heavenly," while Aretina is a female form of | The second-level plot involves Celestina's attempts to reform the otherwise-unnamed Lord A from his perceived misogyny. Here again, the play departs from the standard pattern, in that the heroine of the second-level plot is presented as more admirable and morally serious than the female character on the first level. (Their contrasting names are clues to meaning: Celestina is "heavenly," while Aretina is a female form of Aretino, the Italian pornographer.)<ref>Levin, p. 99.</ref> Celestina, is can be noted, is not an ascetic or a prig; she herself pursues pleasure, but in a moderate way that is in keeping with the mores of her society and class. Aretina is to be faulted, and needs to be reformed, because she goes too far. | ||
The play also has a more purely comic third-level plot, involving the character Master Frederick, who descends from scholarship to drunkenness; and it contains the comic features typical of Shirleian comedy, like the clownish suitors Littleworth and Kickshaw (a "kickshaw" is a trinket, a flashy object of little intrinsic value), plus Madame Decoy the bawd, Sir William Scentlove the worthless dandy, and Haircut the barber. | The play also has a more purely comic third-level plot, involving the character Master Frederick, who descends from scholarship to drunkenness; and it contains the comic features typical of Shirleian comedy, like the clownish suitors Littleworth and Kickshaw (a "kickshaw" is a trinket, a flashy object of little intrinsic value), plus Madame Decoy the bawd, Sir William Scentlove the worthless dandy, and Haircut the barber. | ||
Aphra Behn would later borrow plot elements from Shirley's play for her own ''The Lucky Chance'' (1686). | Aphra Behn would later borrow plot elements from Shirley's play for her own ''The Lucky Chance'' (1686). | ||
==References== | ==References== | ||
{{Reflist}} | {{Reflist}} | ||
==External Links== | ==External Links== | ||
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_of_Pleasure The original source of this | *[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_of_Pleasure The original source of this article at Wikipedia] | ||