Fletcher, John

▪ English dramatist

Introduction

baptized December 20, 1579, Rye, Sussex, England

died August 29, 1625, London

      English Jacobean dramatist who collaborated with Francis Beaumont (Beaumont, Francis) and other dramatists on comedies and tragedies between about 1606 and 1625.

      His father, Richard Fletcher, was minister of the parish in which John was born and became afterward queen's chaplain, dean of Peterborough, and bishop successively of Bristol, Worcester, and London, gaining a measure of fame as an accuser in the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots, and as the chaplain sternly officiating at her execution. When not quite 12, John was apparently admitted pensioner of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and two years later became a Bible clerk. From the time of his father's death (1596) until 1607 nothing is known of him. His name is first linked with Beaumont's in Ben Jonson's Volpone (1607), to which both men contributed encomiums.

      Fletcher began to work with Beaumont probably about 1607, at first for the Children of the Queen's Revels and its successor and then (from c. 1609 until Beaumont's retirement in 1613) mainly for the King's Men at the Globe (Globe Theatre) and Blackfriars (Blackfriars Theatre) theatres. After 1613 he often collaborated with or had his plays revised by Philip Massinger (Massinger, Philip), who actually succeeded him in 1625 as chief playwright of the King's Men; other collaborators included Nathan Field (Field, Nathan) and William Rowley (Rowley, William). Throughout his career he also wrote plays unaided. He died in the London plague of 1625 that killed some 40,000 others; the antiquarian John Aubrey claimed that he had lingered in the city to be measured for a suit of clothes instead of making his escape to the country.

      The canon of the Beaumont and Fletcher plays is approximately represented by the 52 plays in the folio Fifty Comedies and Tragedies… (1679); but any consideration of the canon must omit one play from the 1679 folio (James Shirley's Coronation) and add three not to be found in it (Henry VIII, Sir John van Olden Barnavelt, A Very Woman). Of these 54 plays not more than 12 are by Beaumont or by Beaumont and Fletcher in collaboration. Another 3 were probably collaborations with Beaumont and Massinger. The others represent Fletcher either unaided or in collaboration with dramatists other than Beaumont, principally Massinger.

      The masterpieces of the Beaumont and Fletcher collaboration—Philaster, The Maides Tragedy, and A King and No King—show, most clearly in the last, the emergence of most of the features that distinguish the Fletcherian mode from that of Shakespeare, George Chapman, or John Webster: the remote, often pseudohistorical, fairy-tale setting; the clear, smooth speech rising to great emotional arias of declamatory rhetoric; the basically sensational or bizarre plot that faces the characters with wild “either–or” choices between extremes and that can be manipulated toward a sad or a happy ending as the playwrights choose; the sacrifice of consistency and plausibility in characterization so that patterns can be made out of constantly shifting emotional states and piquant situations can be prolonged.

      Of Fletcher's unaided plays, The Faithfull Shepheardesse, The Mad Lover, The Loyall Subject, The Humorous Lieutenant, Women Pleas'd, The Island Princesse, and A Wife for a Moneth (all between c. 1608 and c. 1624) are perhaps the best. Each of these is a series of extraordinary situations and extreme attitudes, displayed through intense declamations. The best of these are perhaps The Loyall Subject and A Wife for a Moneth, the latter a florid and loquacious play, in which a bizarre sexual situation is handled with cunning piquancy, and the personages illustrate clearly Fletcher's tendency to make his men and women personifications of vices and virtues rather than individuals. The best of Fletcher's comedies, for urbanity and consistency of tone, is probably The Wild-Goose Chase, a play of episodes rather than of intricate intrigue, but alive with irony and easy wit.

      Lastly, there are the Fletcherian plays in which others besides Beaumont had a hand. Wit at Several Weapons is a comedy that might have been written wholly by Thomas Middleton; and The Captaine (to which Beaumont may, however, have contributed) is a lively, complex play of sexual intrigue, with tragic dilemmas too. Notable among the numerous plays in this group are The False One and The Beggars Bush. The former is an original, incisive, and moderately subtle treatment of the story of Caesar and Cleopatra, which may well have aided John Dryden to compose All for Love and for which the greater credit goes to Massinger. The latter is worth reading for its “version of pastoral,” which genially persuades the audience that it is better to be a country beggar than a tyrannical king.

Major Works

The dates of composition given here for the individual plays are largely conjectural.

Plays by Fletcher unaided.

The Faithfull Shepheardesse (1608–09); Valentinian (1610–14); Monsieur Thomas (1610–16); The Womans Prize (?1611); Bonduca (1611–14); The Mad Lover (1616); The Chances (?1617); The Loyall Subject (1618); Women Pleas'd (?1619); The Island Princesse (?1619–21); The Humorous Lieutenant (?1619); The Wild-Goose Chase (1621); The Pilgrim (1621); Rule a Wife And have a Wife (1624); A Wife for a Moneth (1624).

Plays by Beaumont and Fletcher in collaboration.

The Woman Hater (1606); Philaster (1608–10); The Coxcombe (1608–10); The Maides Tragedy (1608–11); The Captaine (1609–12); A King and No King (1611); Cupids Revenge (1611); The Scornful Ladie (1613–17); Loves Pilgrimage (?1616); The Noble Gentleman (c. 1625).

Plays by Beaumont, Fletcher, and Philip Massinger.

Thierry and Theodoret (date of composition unknown, printed 1621); The Beggars Bush (?1622); Loves Cure (?revived 1625).

Plays by Fletcher and Massinger.

The Little French Lawyer (1619–23); Sir John van Olden Barnavelt (1619); The Custome of the Countrey (1619); The False One (1620); The Double Marriage (1621); The Spanish Curat (1622); The Sea Voyage (1622); The Prophetesse (1622); The Lovers Progress (1623–34); The Elder Brother (1625); A Very Woman (1625–34).

Plays by Fletcher with various other collaborators.

Including plays written by Fletcher and Massinger together with a third and sometimes a fourth collaborator—with Shakespeare (no general agreement on these assignments but they probably represent majority opinion), Henry VIII (1613); The Two Noble Kinsmen (1613); with James Shirley, The Night-Walker (1633); with Nathan Field, Foure Playes in One (?1609–12); with Massinger and Field, The Honest mans Fortune (1613); The Knight of Malta (1616–18); The Queene of Corinth (1616–17); with an unknown reviser, Wit With-Out Money (1614); with Thomas Middleton, The Nice Valour (?1616); with William Rowley, The Maid in the Mill (1623); with John Ford, Massinger, and John Webster, The Faire Maide of the Inne (1626); with Massinger, Ben Jonson, and George Chapman, The Bloody Brother, or, Rollo, Duke of Normandy (?1617–30).

Additional Reading

The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, ed. by Arnold Glover and A.R. Waller, 10 vol. (1905–12, reissued 1969), was previously the standard text; it is now being superseded by The Dramatic Works in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon, ed. by Fredson Bowers (1966– ). Charles L. Squier, John Fletcher (1986), is a biography and critical introduction. Clifford Leech, The John Fletcher Plays (1962), looks at Fletcher without Beaumont. Eugene M. Waith, The Pattern of Tragicomedy in Beaumont and Fletcher (1952, reissued 1969), claims that Beaumont and Fletcher significantly stylize experience and relates their work to the Roman art of declamation and to the classical controversiae. Two other critical works are Lawrence B. Wallis, Fletcher, Beaumont & Company, Entertainers to the Jacobean Gentry (1947, reissued 1968); and William W. Appleton, Beaumont and Fletcher (1956). Ian Fletcher, Beaumont and Fletcher (1967), is a brief, appreciative monograph.

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