Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stage history; Theater -- England
It must be remembered, besides, that the years 1597 to 1599 were marked by
a group of dramas which may be called plays of political adventure. Nash
had got into trouble over a performance of "The Isle of Dogs" at the Rose
in 1597. In the same year complaints were made against Shakespeare for
putting Sir John Oldcastle on the stage in the character of Falstaff. Also
at the same period Shakespeare's "Richard the Second" was published, but
not without exciting suspicions at Court, for the play had a political
significance in the eyes of Catholics: Queen Mary of Scotland told her
English judges that "she remembered they had done the same to King
Richard, whom they had degraded from all honour and dignity." Then on the
authority of Mr. H. C. Hart we are told that Ben Jonson brought Sir Walter
Raleigh, the best hated man in England, on to the stage in the play of
"Every Man Out of His Humour," in 1599, and, as a consequence, in the
summer of the same year it was decided by the Privy Council that
restrictions should be placed on satires, epigrams, and English histories,
and that "noe plays be printed except they be allowed by such as have an
authoritie." Dramatists, therefore, had to be much more circumspect in
their political allusions after 1599 than they were before.
There are two new conjectures therefore put forward in this article: (1)
That the underplot in the "Poetaster" contains allusions to Shakespeare's
play, and (2) that the withdrawal of Achilles is a reflection on the
withdrawal of Essex from Elizabeth's Court. Presuming that further
evidence may one day be found to support these suppositions, it is worth
while to consider them in relation to the history of the play.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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