The Puritan
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The Puritan, or the Widow of Watling Street is an anonymous Jacobean stage comedy, first published in 1607. It is often attributed to Thomas Middleton, but also belongs to the Shakespeare Apocrypha due to its title page attribution to "W.S.".
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[edit] Date and authorship
The Puritan probably dates from the year 1606. Some of its incidents are drawn from a contemporary work called The Merry Conceited Jests of George Peele, which attributes to the writer George Peele a number of tricks and jokes that can be found in previous popular literature. This book was entered into the Stationers' Register on December 14, 1605, though the earliest edition now known dates from 1607. It contains an allusion to an almanac that specifies July 15 as a Tuesday, which was true only of 1606 in the first decade of the 17th century (although the author may not have intended it to be accurate). And the play's interest in corporal oaths may be related to the demands for oaths of allegiance from Catholics following the Gunpowder Plot.[1]
The Puritan was entered into the Stationers' Register on August 6, 1607, and published in quarto format before the end of the year by the printer George Eld. The title page of the quarto states that the play was performed by the Children of Paul's, one of the boys' acting companies of the era, and attributes its authorship to "W. S." These initials were first identified with William Shakespeare by Edward Archer in his 1656 play list, published in his edition of The Old Law. The Puritan was later added to the second impression of the Shakespeare Third Folio (1664) by publisher Philip Chetwinde, bringing the play into the Shakespeare Apocrypha.[2]
The modern scholarly consensus rejects the identification of "W. S." with Shakespeare. The obscure Jacobean dramatists Wentworth Smith and William Smith have been proposed as alternative candidates, but solely on the strength of the common initials. However, most studies of the play consider the true author to have been Thomas Middleton, and this is supported by stylistic analysis.[3] It is included in the 2007 Collected Works of Middleton, published by Oxford University Press.
[edit] Synopsis
The opening scene introduces the family of Lady Plus and her three children, her son Edmond and daughters Francis ("Frank") and Moll. The family is of Puritan orientation, and has just returned from the funeral of Lady Plus's husband; they are accompanied by Sir Godfrey Plus, the dead man's brother. The Widow Plus is vocal and demonstrative in her mourning — though two of her children, Edmond and Moll, are notably cool and cynical about their father's death. Sir Godfrey, with a cool and pragmatic spirit of his own, urges the Widow to consider re-marrying, though she is appalled at the idea so soon after her husband's funeral.
(The situation in the play's first scene shares a strong similarity with the opening scene of Middleton's Michaelmas Term. There, London merchant Ephestian Quomodo has faked his own death and witnessed his funeral, only to be shocked by the callous reactions of his wife and son.)
The second scene in The Puritan introduces another set of characters, the play's rogues and con-men. George Pieboard is a poor and cynical scholar, reduced to living by his wits to survive; he is accompanied by a discharged soldier named Peter Skirmish. Pieboard is the character based on George Peele — "peel" and "pieboard" being synonymous terms for the tool bakers use to move their wares into and out of their ovens. Pieboard and Skirmish witness another friend, Captain Idle, being taken to prison; they follow, to learn the charges and to see what they can do.
The two sets of characters, Puritans and soundrels, begin to make contact in the third scene in Act I; Corporal Oath, another cashiered soldier, encounters three of Lady Plus's servants, Frailty, Simon St. Mary Overies, and Nicholas St. Antlings. Amid some comic back-and-forth about Puritan hypocrisy and the Corporal's bad breath, it is revealed that Nicholas St. Antlings is a kinsman of Captain Idle; at the scene's end, Nicholas and the Corporal also head off to the Marshalsea Prison to learn the Captain's fate.
(St. Antlings and St. Mary Overies are two London parishes that were centers of Puritan activity in the early 17th century. Puritan preacher William Crashaw took offense at the play's satire against Puritans, and preached a sermon on the subject in 1608.)[4]
The two groups come together at the Marshalsea. Nicholas sympathizes with his kinsman's predicament — but not enough to do much about it. Pieboard, however, begins to develop a scheme to free the Captain by taking advantage of Nicholas and the Puritan family he serves. The Plusses, meanwhile, are disputing among themselves about their proper conduct; the down-to-earth Moll looks forward to marriage and is eager to receive suitors, and earns her mother's ire by allowing three gentlemen suitors into the house. Pieboard also pays a call; he pretends to be a fortune-teller, and begins to worm his way into their confidence by a range of confidence tricks (drawn from The Merry Conceited Jests). His plans are almost derailed when he is arrested in the street for his debts; but Pieboard manages to escape the sergeants and continue his campaign of trickery. He manipulates Sir Godfrey Plus into bailing Captain Idle from jail; and together they stage a mock-conjuring that fools Sir Godfrey so thoroughly that he is eager to arrange marriages in his family for both Pieboard and Captain Idle.
Before such an extreme outcome can be pulled off by the con-men, however, they are exposed by the three gentlemen suitors who have been pursuing the Widow and her daughters. In the final scene, Lady Plus, Frank, and Moll accept the gentlemen as their future bridegrooms, and Pieboard and friends make their escape, none the worse for wear.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Donna B. Hamilton, introduction in Thomas Middleton and Early Modern Textual Culture, ed. Taylor and Lavagnino (OUP, 2007), 358-9.
- ^ Chambers, Vol. 4, pp. 41-2.
- ^ Donna B. Hamilton, introduction in Thomas Middleton and Early Modern Textual Culture, ed. Taylor and Lavagnino (OUP, 2007), 358-9.
- ^ Chambers, Vo. 1, p. 262, Vol. 4, p. 249.
[edit] References
- Chambers, E. K. The Elizabethan Stage. 4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923.
- Dunkel, W. D. "Authorship of The Puritan." Papers of the Modern Language Association 45 (1930).
- Lake, David J. The Canon of Thomas Middleton's Plays, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1975.
- Maxwell, Baldwin. Studies in the Shakespeare Apocrypha. New York, King's Crown Press, 1956.
- Tucker Brooke, C. F. The Shakespeare Apocrypha, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1908.
[edit] External links
- The Puritan online annotated text
