Rule a Wife and Have a Wife
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Rule a Wife and Have a Wife is a late Jacobean stage play, a comedy written by John Fletcher. It was first performed in 1624 and first published in 1640.
The play was licensed for performance by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, on Oct. 19, 1624. It was acted by the King's Men, who performed it at Court twice in that season. The 1640 quarto was printed at Oxford by Leonard Lichfield, the printer to the University of Oxford. It was later reprinted in the second Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1679. It was revived in the Restoration era in an adaptation, like many of Fletcher's plays; the revised version was printed in 1697 and repeatedly thereafter, and proved to be among the dramatist's most popular works.[1]
External evidence, including Herbert's entry in his records and the 1640 quarto, assigns the play to Fletcher alone. The play's internal evicence of style and textual preferences confirms Fletcher's solo authorship: "Fletcher's sole responsibility for it has never been questioned."[2]
[edit] Characters
- Michael Perez, called a "Copper Captain"
- Juan de Castro
- Servant
- Donna Clara
- Estifania
- Juan
- Sanchio
- Alonzo
- Altea
- Leon
- Cacafogo
- Margarita
- Boy
- Sancho
- Old woman
- Maid
- Duke of Medina
- Lorenzo
- Coachman
[edit] References
- ^ Alfred Claghorn Potter, A Bibliography of Beaumont and Fletcher, Cambridge, MA, Library of Harvard University, 1890; pp. 13-14.
- ^ E. H. C. Oliphant, The Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1927; p. 146.
[edit] External links
- Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, available at Project Gutenberg.
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This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia.
