Francis Beaumont - Wikipedia Francis Beaumont From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search English playwright (1584-1616) For other people named Francis Beaumont, see Francis Beaumont (disambiguation). This article includes a list of general references, but it remains largely unverified because it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (June 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Francis Beaumont Born 1584 Grace-Dieu, England Died 6 March 1616(1616-03-06) (aged 31–32) London, England Nationality English Notable works The Knight of the Burning Pestle Francis Beaumont (/ˈboʊmɒnt/ BOH-mont; 1584 – 6 March 1616) was a dramatist in the English Renaissance theatre, most famous for his collaborations with John Fletcher. Contents 1 Beaumont's life 2 Beaumont's plays 3 References 4 Further reading 5 External links Beaumont's life[edit] Beaumont was the son of Sir Francis Beaumont of Grace Dieu, near Thringstone in Leicestershire, a justice of the common pleas.[1] His mother was Anne, the daughter of Sir George Pierrepont (d. 1564), of Holme Pierrepont, and his wife Winnifred Twaits.[2] Beaumont was born at the family seat and was educated at Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College, Oxford) at age thirteen. Following the death of his father in 1598, he left university without a degree and followed in his father's footsteps by entering the Inner Temple in London in 1600.[3] Accounts suggest that Beaumont did not work long as a lawyer. He became a student of poet and playwright Ben Jonson; he was also acquainted with Michael Drayton and other poets and dramatists, and decided that was where his passion lay. His first work, Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, appeared in 1602. The 1911 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica describes the work as "not on the whole discreditable to a lad of eighteen, fresh from the popular love-poems of Marlowe and Shakespeare, which it naturally exceeds in long-winded and fantastic diffusion of episodes and conceits." In 1605, Beaumont wrote commendatory verses to Jonson's Volpone. Beaumont's collaboration with Fletcher may have begun as early as 1605. They had both hit an obstacle early in their dramatic careers with notable failures; Beaumont's The Knight of the Burning Pestle, first performed by the Children of the Blackfriars in 1607, was rejected by an audience who, the publisher's epistle to the 1613 quarto claims, failed to note "the privie mark of irony about it;" that is, they took Beaumont's satire of old-fashioned drama as an old-fashioned drama. The play received a lukewarm reception. The following year, Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess failed on the same stage. In 1609, however, the two collaborated on Philaster, which was performed by the King's Men at the Globe Theatre and at Blackfriars. The play was a popular success, not only launching the careers of the two playwrights but also sparking a new taste for tragicomedy. According to a mid-century anecdote related by John Aubrey, they lived in the same house on the Bankside in Southwark, "sharing everything in the closest intimacy." About 1613 Beaumont married Ursula Isley, daughter and co-heiress of Henry Isley of Sundridge in Kent, by whom he had two daughters; Elizabeth and Frances (a posthumous child).[4] He had a stroke between February and October 1613, after which he wrote no more plays, but was able to write an elegy for Lady Penelope Clifton, who died 26 October 1613.[5] Beaumont died in 1616 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Although today Beaumont is remembered as a dramatist, during his lifetime he was also celebrated as a poet. Beaumont's plays[edit] The Knight of the Burning Pestle, one of Beaumont's early plays. It was once written of Beaumont and Fletcher that "in their joint plays their talents are so...completely merged into one, that the hand of Beaumont cannot clearly be distinguished from that of Fletcher." Yet this romantic notion did not stand up to critical examination. In the seventeenth century, Sir Aston Cockayne, a friend of Fletcher's, specified that there were many plays in the 1647 Beaumont and Fletcher folio that contained nothing of Beaumont's work, but rather featured the writing of Philip Massinger. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century critics like E.H.C. Oliphant subjected the plays to a self-consciously literary, and often subjective and impressionistic, reading – but nonetheless began to differentiate the hands of the collaborators. This study was carried much farther, and onto a more objective footing, by twentieth-century scholars, especially Cyrus Hoy. Short of absolute certainty, a critical consensus has evolved on many plays in the canon of Fletcher and his collaborators; in regard to Beaumont, the schema below is among the least controversial that has been drawn. By Beaumont alone: The Knight of the Burning Pestle, comedy (performed 1607; printed 1613) The Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn, masque (performed 20 February 1613; printed 1613?) With Fletcher: The Woman Hater, comedy (1606; 1607) Cupid's Revenge, tragedy (c. 1607–12; 1615) Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding, tragicomedy (c. 1609; 1620) The Maid's Tragedy, tragedy (c. 1609; 1619) A King and No King, tragicomedy (1611; 1619) The Captain, comedy (c. 1609–12; 1647) The Scornful Lady, comedy (c. 1613; 1616) Love's Pilgrimage, tragicomedy (c. 1615–16; 1647) The Noble Gentleman, comedy (licensed 3 February 1626; 1647) Beaumont/Fletcher plays, later revised by Massinger: Thierry and Theodoret, tragedy (c. 1607?; 1621) The Coxcomb, comedy (c. 1608–10; 1647) Beggars' Bush, comedy (c. 1612–13?; revised 1622?; 1647) Love's Cure, comedy (c. 1612–13?; revised 1625?; 1647) Because of Fletcher's highly distinctive and personal pattern of linguistic preferences and contractional forms (ye for you, 'em for them, etc.), his hand can be distinguished fairly easily from Beaumont's in their collaborations. In A King and No King, for example, Beaumont wrote all of Acts I, II, and III, plus scenes IV. iv and V. ii & iv; Fletcher wrote only the first three scenes in Act IV (IV, i–iii) and the first and third scenes in Act V (V, i & iii) – so that the play is more Beaumont's than Fletcher's. The same is true of The Woman Hater, The Maid's Tragedy, The Noble Gentleman, and Philaster. On the other hand, Cupid's Revenge, The Coxcomb, The Scornful Lady, Beggar's Bush, and The Captain are more Fletcher's than Beaumont's. In Love's Cure and Thierry and Theodoret, the influence of Massinger's revision complicates matters; but in those plays too, Fletcher appears to be the majority contributor, Beaumont the minority. References[edit] ^ Beaumont, F., Fletcher, J., & Strachey, J. (1900). Beaumont and Fletcher / edited, with an introduction and notes by J. St. Loe Strachey. (Mermaid series). London: T. Fisher Unwin. T0336880 ^ "A Genealogical Abstract of Descent of the Family of Pierrepont from Sir Hugh de Pierrepont of Picardy, France, A.D. 980", Compiled by Edward J. Marks, New Haven, Connecticut, 1881." ^ Beaumont, F., Fletcher, J., & Strachey, J. (1900). Beaumont and Fletcher / edited, with an introduction and notes by J. St. Loe Strachey. (Mermaid series). London: T. Fisher Unwin. T0336880 ^ Beaumont, F., Fletcher, J., & Strachey, J. (1900). Beaumont and Fletcher / edited, with an introduction and notes by J. St. Loe Strachey. (Mermaid series). London: T. Fisher Unwin. T0336880 ^ Finkelpearl, Philip J. Court and Country Politics in the Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1990, pp. 41–42, 255–58. Further reading[edit]  Cousin, John William (1910), "Beaumont, Francis", A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, London: J. M. Dent & Sons – via Wikisource  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:  Algernon Charles Swinburne; Margaret Bryant (1911). "Beaumont and Fletcher". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. Fletcher, Ian. Beaumont and Fletcher. London: Longmans, Green, 1967. Hoy, Cyrus. "The Shares of Fletcher and His Collaborators in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon." Studies in Bibliography. Seven parts: vols. 8, 9, 11–15 (1956–62). Oliphant, Ernest Henry Clark. The Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher: An Attempt to Determine Their Respective Shares and the Shares of Others. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1927. Smith, Denzell S. "Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher." In: 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: University of Nebraska Press, 1978. Sanna, Laura, Sweet Deceiving. Le strategie della finzione in una commedia di Francis Beaumont, Giardini Pisa 1983. External links[edit] Wikiquote has quotations related to: Francis Beaumont Wikisource has original works written by or about: Francis Beaumont Wikiversity has learning resources about Collaborative_play_writing Works by Francis Beaumont at Project Gutenberg Works by Francis Beaumont at Faded Page (Canada) Works by or about Francis Beaumont at Internet Archive Works by Francis Beaumont at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) v t e The "Beaumont and Fletcher" Canon Francis Beaumont John Fletcher Philip Massinger Nathan Field William Shakespeare James Shirley Thomas Middleton William Rowley John Ford Ben Jonson George Chapman John Webster Plays (some attributions conjectural) Beaumont The Knight of the Burning Pestle The Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn Beaumont and Fletcher The Woman Hater Cupid's Revenge The Coxcomb Philaster The Captain The Maid's Tragedy A King and No King Love's Pilgrimage The Scornful Lady The Noble Gentleman Fletcher The Faithful Shepherdess The Woman's Prize Valentinian Bonduca Monsieur Thomas The Mad Lover The Chances The Loyal Subject Women Pleased The Humorous Lieutenant The Island Princess The Pilgrim The Wild Goose Chase A Wife for a Month Rule a Wife and Have a Wife Fletcher and Massinger †Barnavelt The Little French Lawyer The False One The Double Marriage The Custom of the Country The Lovers' Progress The Spanish Curate The Prophetess The Sea Voyage The Elder Brother †A Very Woman Fletcher and others with Beaumont & Massinger Thierry and Theodoret Beggars' Bush Love's Cure with Massinger & Field The Honest Man's Fortune The Queen of Corinth The Knight of Malta with Field Four Plays, or Moral Representations, in One with Shakespeare †Henry VIII The Two Noble Kinsmen with Shirley The Night Walker Wit Without Money with Rowley The Maid in the Mill with Massinger, Chapman & Jonson Rollo, Duke of Normandy with Massinger, Ford & Webster The Fair Maid of the Inn Others The Nice Valour (Middleton) Wit at Several Weapons (Middleton & Rowley) The Laws of Candy (Ford) The Coronation (Shirley) Performance and publication English Renaissance theatre King's Men Beaumont and Fletcher folios Humphrey Moseley Humphrey Robinson Related †The History of Cardenio (Shakespeare & Fletcher?) †Double Falsehood (possibly based on Cardenio) † = Not published in the Beaumont and Fletcher folios Authority control BNE: XX850659 BNF: cb12522849r (data) GND: 118657771 ISNI: 0000 0001 0899 0596 LCCN: n80036713 MBA: 9d6bb2eb-069c-4f0a-84ea-c1a8a7a2b182 NKC: jo2002112131 NLA: 35015965 NTA: 068381050 PLWABN: 9810586791405606 SELIBR: 177034 SNAC: w6w09dkw SUDOC: 034476016 Trove: 791184 VcBA: 495/90021 VIAF: 49333217 WorldCat Identities: lccn-n80036713 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Francis_Beaumont&oldid=997679790" Categories: English Renaissance dramatists Alumni of Broadgates Hall, Oxford 1584 births 1616 deaths People from Thringstone 16th-century English writers 16th-century male writers 17th-century English 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