Beastie Boys, Run DMC, and Whodini, NYC 1987, © Lynn Goldsmith [x/x/x/x]

Wood Engraving Wednesday

FREDA BONE

This week we present wood engravings by Irish painter, illustrator, and wood engraver Freda Bone (1905-1991) from a 1932 edition of early 17th-century playwrights Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher’s play The Maides Tragedy, printed in an edition of 1200 copies by Richard W. Ellis for Cheshire House in New York. Unfortunately, we can find very little about Freda Bone’s life and career, even though she was a much sought after woodcut and wood-engraving illustrator. Still, we are delighted by the energy and symmetry of her compositions. If anyone has more information on Bone, we would appreciate if you would contact us.

View more posts with work by women wood engravers.

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Whodini..

While I'm on the topic of the Bard, I still need to track down a copy of John Fletcher's The Woman's Prize, or the Tamer Tamed, because the mere idea of a gender-reversed Taming of the Shrew setup is one of the hottest concepts I can imagine

(Now that I think about it, I'm wondering if anyone's done a lesbian Taming of the Shrew, which would be even more up my alley)

Poem of the Day 10 April 2024

John Fletcher. 1579-1625

Love's Emblems

NOW the lusty spring is seen;   Golden yellow, gaudy blue,   Daintily invite the view: Everywhere on every green Roses blushing as they blow,   And enticing men to pull, Lilies whiter than the snow,   Woodbines of sweet honey full:     All love's emblems, and all cry,     'Ladies, if not pluck'd, we die.'

Yet the lusty spring hath stay'd;   Blushing red and purest white   Daintily to love invite Every woman, every maid: Cherries kissing as they grow,   And inviting men to taste, Apples even ripe below,   Winding gently to the waist:     All love's emblems, and all cry,     'Ladies, if not pluck'd, we die.'

James Wilby (as Sir John Fletcher) in Less Than Kind by Terence Rattigan, in 2012.

My research thus reveals that Shakespeare borrowed from Elizabethan contemporaries such as Marlowe, Kyd, and Peele to a remarkable degree. However, having delved deeper into Shakespeare’s career, there is little evidence, on a verbal level at least, of Shakespeare attending closely to the plays of Jacobean contemporary playwrights. We can interpret these results in varying ways: perhaps Shakespeare did not have easy access to plays performed by rival and children’s playing companies. As an actor Shakespeare would of course be working when plays were usually performed, meaning that he was more likely to be influenced by his own company’s repertory than by others. However, it seems likely to me that Shakespeare, with his keen commercial eye, would attend the plays of other companies when he had afternoons off...

Having investigated Shakespeare’s dramatic relationship with Thomas Middleton and Fletcher in order to increase our understanding of the working methods shared between these playwrights, I plan to conclude my study by looking at the ways in which the compilers of the First Folio helped to create the image of Shakespeare as a solitary genius. It seems to me that Shakespeare’s dramatic identity was shaped in large part by the people with whom he collaborated most.

Death hath so many doors to let out life.

The Custom of the Country by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger

Hence, All Ye Vain Delights by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, from The Family Library of Poetry and Song edited by William Cullen Bryant, 1886

From Beth's Insta reels, first day on the picket line!

Shakespeariana - XIV

Take those lips away Take, O take those lips away, That so sweetly were forsworn; And those eyes, the break of day, Lights that do mislead the morn: But my kisses bring again Seals of love, though seal’d in vain. Hide, O hide those hills of snow That thy frozen bosom bears, On whose tops the pinks that grow Are yet of those that April wears, But first set my poor heart free, Bound in those icy…

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— John Fletcher

Shakespeare Weekend

Continuing our synopsis of The works of Mr. William Shakespear: in ten volumes published in 1728 by Alexander Pope (1688-1744) and Dr. George Sewell (d. 1726) for Jacob Tonson (1655-1736), this weekend we look at Volume Six. The volume contains four plays that bounce thematically between historic and tragic, starting with Henry VIII. Based on the life of Henry VIII, the play was written in collaboration with John Fletcher (1579-1625) and is noted for having more stage directions than any other Shakespearean play.  

Volume Six continues with Timon of Athens another collaboration written with Thomas Middleton (1580-1627), Coriolanus based on the life of the legendary Roman leader and one of the few Shakespearean plays to ever be banned in modern times, and Julius Caesar with its famous “Et tu? Brute!” popping up in Act 3 Scene 1. 

Like Rowe’s earlier collection, scene divisions, stage directions, dramatis personae, and full-page engravings by either French artist Louis Du Guernier (1677-1716) or Englishman Paul Fourdrinier (1698-1758) precede each play.  

Pope’s editions of Shakespeare were the first attempted to collate all previous publications. He consulted twenty-seven early quartos restoring passages that had been out of print for almost a century while simultaneously removing about 1,560 lines of material that didn’t appeal to him. Some of those lines were degraded to the bottom of the page with his other editorial notes.  

View more Shakespeare Weekend posts. 

-Jenna, Special Collections Graduate Intern 

The Two Noble Kinsmen by Douglas Blanchard

“Elegy as Epithalamium” by John Gould Fletcher

Poem of the Day 15 October 2023

John Fletcher. 1579-1625

Sleep

COME, Sleep, and with thy sweet deceiving     Lock me in delight awhile;     Let some pleasing dreams beguile     All my fancies; that from thence     I may feel an influence All my powers of care bereaving!

Though but a shadow, but a sliding,     Let me know some little joy!     We that suffer long annoy     Are contented with a thought     Through an idle fancy wrought: O let my joys have some abiding!