The Island Princess
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The Island Princess is a late Jacobean tragicomedy by John Fletcher, first published in 1647.
The authorship and the stage premier of the play are generally thought to have occurred ca. 1619-21; it was acted at Court during the latter year, by the King's Men. The play received its initial publication in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647. The folio offers a cast list for the play, a list that includes John Lowin, John Underwood, William Ecclestone, Richard Sharpe, Joseph Taylor, Robert Benfield, George Birch, and Thomas Pollard.
Fletcher's solo authorship is generally recognized; his characteristic pattern of linguistic preferences is continuous throughout. The 1647 folio text is not especially short, though it does show some signs of cutting: several scenes have characters that appear but do not speak.[1] Fletcher's sources were two books on exploration, L'histoire de Ruis Dias, et de Quixaire, Princess des Moloques, a novella by Le Seigneur de Bellan (1615), which derives from the Conquista de las Islas Molucas by Bartolemé Leonardo de Argensola (1609).[2]
Like many of Fletcher's plays, this play was revived in the Restoration era in adapted forms. The play was adapted three times, by Nahum Tate, by Thomas d'Urfey, and again by Peter A. Motteux, the latter being the more successful. Motteux's version, The Island Princess, or The Generous Portugal, premiered before royalty on Nov. 6, 1668; Samuel Pepys saw the production three times in the following year, on Jan, 7, Feb. 9, and April 23, 1669, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Motteux's version, replete with songs, dances, and special effects, was popular, and frequently performed for four decades, down to 1708.[3] All three daptations were printed, d'Urfey's in 1682, Tate's in 1687 and Motteux's in 1669, 1699, and 1701.
Along with The Sea Voyage, another play in Fletcher's canon, The Island Princess has been discussed by some late twentieth century scholars and critics as part of the literature of colonialism and anti-colonialism.[4]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Oliphant, p. 140.
- ^ Neill, p. 109.
- ^ Sprague, pp. 49, 74, 82-6, 123 and ff.
- ^ Hadfield, pp. 1-2; Jowitt, pp. 104 ff; MacMullan, pp. 224 ff.
[edit] References
- Hadfield, Andrew. Literature, Travel, and Colonial Writing in the English Renaissance, 1545–1625. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1998.
- Jowitt, Claire. Travel Drama and Gender Politics, 1589–1642: Real and Imagined Worlds. Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2003.
- MacMullan, Gordon. The Politics of Unease in the Plays of John Fletcher. Amherst, MA, University of Massachusetts Press, 1994.
- Neill, Michael. "Material Flames: The Space of Mercantile Fantasy in John Fletcher's The Island Princess." Renaissance Drama 28. Edited by Jeffrey Masten and Wendy Wall. Northwestern University Press, 1999.
- Oliphant, E. H. C. The Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher: An Attempt to Determine Their Respective Shares and the Shares of Others. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1927.
- Sprague, Arthur Colby. Beaumont and Fletcher on the Restoration Stage. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1926.
