Women Beware Women (New Mermaids) - Hardcover

Thomas Middleton

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0510341616 ISBN 13: 9780510341619

Publisher: Ernest Benn Ltd, 1968

Synopsis

One of the great Renaissance playwrights, Middleton wrote tragedies essentially different from either Marlowe's or Shakespeare's, being wittier than the former and more grittily ironic than the latter. The genre of 'citizen tragedy' came into its own in the eighteenth century, but Middleton can claim to have created it: Bianca, wife of a middling commercial agent, arouses the lust of the Duke of Florence and becomes his mistress, first secretly, then openly and finally, after her husband has been seduced by the scheming Lady Livia and stabbed by Livia's brother, the Duke's wife. Livia plots her revenge, and the play ends with a banquet and a masque that are a triumph of black farce. Middleton's powerful, psychologically complex female characters and his clear-sighted analysis of misogyny are bound to impress today's audiences, but it is the pervasive irony - cynicism, even - with which he dissects the motivations of both oppressor and victim that makes him so eerily modern.

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Review

Thomas Middleton's Jacobean drama spreads like a web around the the black- widow figure of Livia... it is clear that Livia's deviousness is a profoundly cynical response to the hipocrisy of a society in which women are powerless and men do as they please.' Sarah Hemming, Financial Times, 29.04.10 'Thomas Middleton's 17th- century study of self- survival and the destruction of innocence' Clare Allfree, Metro (London), 29.04.10 'A sardonic masterwork that admits one to the world of fuliginous cruelty.' Michael Billington, Guardian, 29.04.10 'Dark, decadent and immensely stylish, Women Beware Women makes you laugh even as you shiver.' Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph, 29.04.10 'A fiercely felt, finely wrought, seldom-seen play by one of Shakespeare's contemporaries.' Susannah Clapp, Obcerver, 02.05.10

About the Author

Thomas Middleton (1570-1627) was an English dramatist, who excelled in both comedy and tragedy. Whilst his so-called 'city comedies' provide insight into 17th-century London life and manners, his tragedies are noted for their richly poetic verse, their emphasis on guilt and corruption, and their understanding of feminine psychology. His admirer T. S. Eliot wrote: ""Middleton was a great observer of human nature, without fear, without sentiment, without prejudice."" Middleton's first plays were acted by boy companies at Blackfriars Theatre and other venues. He often worked in collaboration with other dramatists for the theatre owner Philip Henslowe. With Thomas Dekker (c. 1570-1632) he wrote The Honest Whore (1604) and The Roaring Girl (1610), and with William Rowley he produced the powerful tragedy The Changeling (1622). Some modern scholars also believe that the texts we now have of Shakespeare's Macbeth and Measure for Measure were substantially altered by Middleton. The Revenger's Tragedy (1606) is now generally attributed to Middleton, rather than Cyril Tourneur. Middleton's social comedies include A Trick to Catch the Old One (1604-05), which provided the basis for Philip Massinger's A New Way to Pay Old Debts (1623), A Mad World, My Masters (1605), which introduced Sir Bounteous Progress, a lively country gentleman who is generous to all except his heir Dick Follywit, and A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (1619), which satirized ordinary Londoners. Other works include the tragedy Women Beware Women (1621) and the political satire A Game of Chess (1624), about the futile efforts to unite the royal houses of England (represented by the White Knight) and Spain (the Black Knight). The play drew huge crowds to the Globe Theatre but the Spanish ambassador protested and James I had A Game of Chess banned after only nine performances. It proved equally popular in print.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ernest Benn Ltd
• Publication date: 1968
• ISBN 10: 0510341616
• ISBN 13: 9780510341619
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 144
• Editor: Roma Gill