| Front | The Fatal Dowry |
|---|---|
| Back | A tragedy Philip Massinger and Nathan Field 1632 The Fatal Dowry is a late Jacobean era stage play, a tragedy written by Philip Massinger and Nathan Field, and first published in 1632. It represents a significant aspect of Field's very limited dramatic output. Though hard evidence is lacking, the play is thought to have been composed c. 1619; it may have been the last writing for the theatre done by Field before his death in 1620. The play was acted by the King's Men at the Blackfriars Theatre. The 1632 quarto was printed by John Norton for the bookseller Francis Constable. The quarto's text is corrupt and badly printed. Synopsis The play is set in Dijon in Burgundy in the later part of the fifteenth century, in the aftermath of the battles of Grandson, Morat (both 1476) and Nancy (1477), all mentioned in Act I, scene ii. The protagonist's father, the elder Charalois, was a general who had gone into debt to pay the expenses of his troops; unable to repay those charges, he died in debtor's prison, and his rapacious creditors refuse to release his body for a proper burial. The general's son has taken his cause to court, but his suit is rejected by the judges, led by the hostile Novall Senior, president of the Dijon parlement. The younger Charalois amazes everyone by offering to assume his father's debts and take his place in prison, thus freeing his father's corpse. A retiring judge named Rochfort is impressed by Charalois' courage, virtue, and self-sacrifice, and decides to pay the general's debts himself |
Learn with these flashcards. Click next, previous, or up to navigate to more flashcards for this subject.
Next card: Faulkner nobel prize william american short novels county
Previous card: Farquhar farquhar's play comedy recruiting friend irish restoration
Up to card list: Wordsworth companion to literature by Bahman Moradi