Summer's Last Will and Testament is the Elizabethan stage play, comedy written by Thomas Nashe. The drama is notable for opening a new breakthrough in the development of British Renaissance dramas: "No previous English comedy has anything like intellectual content or social relevance it has."
Although Nashe is known as the Elizabethan playwright, Summer's Last Will and Testament is his only solo drama still in existence; another dramatic work of life, Dido, Queen of Carthage, is a collaboration with Christopher Marlowe, where Nash's role may be minimal.
Video Summer's Last Will and Testament
Publications
The drama was inserted into the Stationers' Register on 28 October 1600, and published before the end of the year in quarto was printed by Simon Stafford for bookseller Walter Burre. (Burre is famous for publishing the first edition of Ben Jonson drama.) 1600 quarto is the only drama edition before the nineteenth century.
Maps Summer's Last Will and Testament
Date and performance
No external evidence indicates the date of the authorship or the first performance of the drama; but the text of this work is rich with figures and references that contain questions about the date. This text refers to the advancement in the English countryside by Queen Elizabeth I, as well as the severe plague and drought plague which lowers the Thames River level to unusual extremes. Experts agree that the year 1592 is the most suitable year with these references.
This drama was not performed by a professional adult actor in one of the theaters in London, which in any case was closed due to the epidemic outbreak in 1592. References and tropes in the drama show that the drama was staged at Croydon in Croydon Palace, the manor of the Archbishops of Canterbury home; The archbishop at the time was John Whitgift. The players are at least made up of amateurs, including boys serving as a yard in Archbishop's household; the cast may have been supplemented by experienced male actors from an existing London entourage, Paul's Children or Chapel Children. The show took place "at the end of this summer", probably in the second half of September or the first half of October 1592.
Genre
Nashe developed Summer's Last Will and Testament from a popular interlude form in the royal court of England and sixteenth-century English nobles; and he anticipates the mask that will develop during the Jacobean and Caroline era. This drama can be seen as a bridge between the interlude of the 16th century and the 17th century; the personification features of the four seasons, Summer, Autumn, Winter, and "Ver." Summer is the "king of the world," but now old and declining, and ready to make his will. First, all officers and members of the kingdom are summoned to produce their accounts. The presence of Bacchus, satyrs, nymphs, hunters, archers, waiters and clowns, and Morris dancers (complete with hobby horses), provides a strong pastoral feeling game.
The term "summer" in the title has a double meaning: the drama is introduced and presented by the figure of Will Summer, or Summers, comedian King Henry VIII. Summers has an enduring reputation with the Elizabethan public; he will be brought back to the stage by Samuel Rowley on When You See Me You Know Me (printed 1605). Summers clown figure provides a satirical level against the allegory of moral play style of the plot.
In one view, Nashe produced his game by rewriting and extending past intervals by John Lyly performed in 1591. In drama, Will Summers made a reaction to the kind of overly dramatic drama represented by Lyly.
The drama also contains poetry which then gained independent fame, "Adieu, farewell, earthly happiness". It contains a famous temple, "The brightness falls out of the air, Queens has died young and fair." The lyrics "Spring, sweet spring" also received the attention of critics and anthologists.
Modern adaptation
In 1936, English composer Constant Lambert made his debut on the orchestra stage and a great choir of Nashe drama, which is sometimes regarded as Lambert's greatest work and which Lambert himself regarded as the best. Lambert was hired "Adieu, farewell, earthly happiness" as the cover of his musical arrangement.
References
External links
- The online game text at Gutenberg.org
- Summer's Last Will and Testament at the Oxford Authorship Site, edited by Nina Green.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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