Summer's Last Will and Testament
Encyclopedia
Summer's Last Will and Testament is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy
written by Thomas Nashe
. Nashe's sole extant drama, it broke new ground in the development of English Renaissance drama
: "No earlier English comedy has anything like the intellectual content or the social relevance that it has."
on 28 October 1600
, and was published before the end of that year in a quarto
printed by Simon Stafford for the bookseller Walter Burre
. (Burre is best known for his publication of first editions of the plays of Ben Jonson
.) The 1600 quarto was the only edition of the play prior to the nineteenth century.
, and also to an outbreak of bubonic plague
and a severe drought that lowered the level of the River Thames to an unusual extreme. Scholars agree that 1592
is the one year that best matches these references.
The play was not performed by professional adult actors in one of the London theatres, which in any case were closed due to the plague epidemic in 1592. References and allusions in the play suggest that the drama was staged in Croydon
at Croydon Palace
, the manor house of the Archbishops of Canterbury; the Archbishop at the time was John Whitgift
. The cast was composed at least in part of amateurs, including boys who served as pages in the Archbishop's household; the cast may have been supplemented by experienced boy actors
from the established London troupes, the Children of Paul's
or the Children of the Chapel
. The performance occurred "in this latter end of summer," probably in the second half of September or the first half of October 1592.
that would evolve during the Jacobean and Caroline eras. The play can be seen as a bridge between the 16th-century interlude and the 17th-century masque; it features personifications 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 the officers and members of the kingdom are summoned to yield their accounts. The presences of Bacchus
, satyrs
, nymphs
, hunters, reapers, maids and clowns and Morris dancers
(complete with hobby horse
), give the play a strongly pastoral
feeling.
The term "summer" in the title has a double meaning: the play is introduced and presented by the figure of Will Summer
, or Summers, the jester of King Henry VIII
. Summers had an enduring reputation with the Elizabethan public; he would be brought back to the stage by Samuel Rowley
in When You See Me You Know Me
(printed 1605
). The clown-figure of Summers provides a level of satire
to the morality-play
style allegory
of the plot.
Some writers have seen "Ver" (Spring) as an allusion to, or even a caricature of, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
, who was a friend of Nash's.
In one view, Nashe produced his play by rewriting and expanding an earlier interlude by John Lyly
that was performed in 1591
. In the play, Will Summers embodies a reaction to the type of overly formal drama represented by Lyly.
The play also contains a poem that later acquired independent fame, 'Adieu, farewell, earth's bliss.' This contains the famous couplet, "Brightness falls from the air, Queens have died young and fair." The lyric 'Spring, sweet spring' has also received attention from critics and anthologists.
debuted a large-scale orchestral and choral setting of Nashe's play
, which has sometimes been judged Lambert's greatest work and Lambert himself considered his best. Lambert employed 'Adieu, farewell, earth's bliss' as the conclusion of his musical setting.
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
written by Thomas Nashe
Thomas Nashe
Thomas Nashe was an English Elizabethan pamphleteer, playwright, poet and satirist. He was the son of the minister William Nashe and his wife Margaret .-Early life:...
. Nashe's sole extant drama, it broke new ground in the development of English Renaissance drama
English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre, also known as early modern English theatre, refers to the theatre of England, largely based in London, which occurred between the Reformation and the closure of the theatres in 1642...
: "No earlier English comedy has anything like the intellectual content or the social relevance that it has."
Publication
The play was entered into the Stationers' RegisterStationers' Register
The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including printers, bookbinders, booksellers, and publishers in England...
on 28 October 1600
1600 in literature
The year 1600 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*January 1 - The Admiral's Men perform Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday at Court....
, and was published before the end of that year in a quarto
Book size
The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from "folio" , to "quarto" and "octavo"...
printed by Simon Stafford for the bookseller Walter Burre
Walter Burre
Walter Burre was a London bookseller and publisher of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, best remembered for publishing several key texts in English Renaissance drama....
. (Burre is best known for his publication of first editions of the plays of Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
.) The 1600 quarto was the only edition of the play prior to the nineteenth century.
Date and Performance
No external evidence indicates the date of the authorship or first performance of the play; but the text of the work is rich in allusions and references that bear upon the question of its date. The text refers to a progress through the English countryside by Queen Elizabeth IElizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
, and also to an outbreak of bubonic plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
and a severe drought that lowered the level of the River Thames to an unusual extreme. Scholars agree that 1592
1592 in literature
-Events:*Ulysses Redux, a Latin play by William Gager, is staged by the students of Christ Church, Oxford on February 5. Two days later, on February 7, the students revive Gager's 1583 Latin play Rivales...
is the one year that best matches these references.
The play was not performed by professional adult actors in one of the London theatres, which in any case were closed due to the plague epidemic in 1592. References and allusions in the play suggest that the drama was staged in Croydon
Croydon
Croydon is a town in South London, England, located within the London Borough of Croydon to which it gives its name. It is situated south of Charing Cross...
at Croydon Palace
Croydon Palace
Croydon Palace, in Croydon, now part of south London, was the summer residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury for over 500 years. Regular visitors included Henry III and Queen Elizabeth I...
, the manor house of the Archbishops of Canterbury; the Archbishop at the time was John Whitgift
John Whitgift
John Whitgift was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1583 to his death. Noted for his hospitality, he was somewhat ostentatious in his habits, sometimes visiting Canterbury and other towns attended by a retinue of 800 horsemen...
. The cast was composed at least in part of amateurs, including boys who served as pages in the Archbishop's household; the cast may have been supplemented by experienced boy actors
Boy player
Boy player is a common term for the adolescent males employed by Medieval and English Renaissance playing companies. Some boy players worked for the mainstream companies and performed the female roles, as women did not perform on the English stage in this period...
from the established London troupes, the Children of Paul's
Children of Paul's
The Children of Paul's was the name of a troupe of boy actors in Elizabethan and Jacobean London. Along with the Children of the Chapel, the Children of Paul's were the most important of the companies of boy players that constituted a distinctive feature of English Renaissance theatre.St...
or the Children of the Chapel
Children of the Chapel
The Children of the Chapel were the boys with unbroken voices, choristers, who formed part of the Chapel Royal, the body of singers and priests serving the spiritual needs of their sovereign wherever they were called upon to do so....
. The performance occurred "in this latter end of summer," probably in the second half of September or the first half of October 1592.
Genre
Nashe developed Summer's Last Will and Testament out of the interlude form that was popular in the royal and noble courts of sixteenth-century England; and he anticipates the masqueMasque
The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in 16th and early 17th century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio...
that would evolve during the Jacobean and Caroline eras. The play can be seen as a bridge between the 16th-century interlude and the 17th-century masque; it features personifications 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 the officers and members of the kingdom are summoned to yield their accounts. The presences of Bacchus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
, satyrs
Satyr
In Greek mythology, satyrs are a troop of male companions of Pan and Dionysus — "satyresses" were a late invention of poets — that roamed the woods and mountains. In myths they are often associated with pipe-playing....
, nymphs
Nymph
A nymph in Greek mythology is a female minor nature deity typically associated with a particular location or landform. Different from gods, nymphs are generally regarded as divine spirits who animate nature, and are usually depicted as beautiful, young nubile maidens who love to dance and sing;...
, hunters, reapers, maids and clowns and Morris dancers
Morris dance
Morris dance is a form of English folk dance usually accompanied by music. It is based on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of dancers. Implements such as sticks, swords, handkerchiefs and bells may also be wielded by the dancers...
(complete with hobby horse
Hobby horse
The term hobby horse is used, principally by folklorists, to refer to the costumed characters that feature in some traditional seasonal customs, processions and similar observances around the world. They are particularly associated with May Day celebrations, Mummers Plays and the Morris dance in...
), give the play a strongly pastoral
Pastoral
The adjective pastoral refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an...
feeling.
The term "summer" in the title has a double meaning: the play is introduced and presented by the figure of Will Summer
William Sommers
William 'Will' Sommers was the best-known court jester of Henry VIII of England.Born in Shropshire, Sommers came to the attention of Richard Fermor, a merchant of the staple at Calais, who brought him to Greenwich in 1525 to present to the King. Impressed by Sommers' sense of humour, Henry...
, or Summers, the jester of King Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
. Summers had an enduring reputation with the Elizabethan public; he would be brought back to the stage by Samuel Rowley
Samuel Rowley
Samuel Rowley was a 17th century English dramatist and actor.Rowley first appears in the historical record as an associate of Philip Henslowe in the late 1590s. Initially he appears to have been an actor, perhaps a sharer, in the Admiral's Men, who performed at the Rose Theatre...
in When You See Me You Know Me
When You See Me You Know Me
When You See Me You Know Me is an early Jacobean history play about Henry VIII, written by Samuel Rowley and first published in 1605.The play was acted by Prince Henry's Men, the company to which Rowley belonged through most of his acting career, and premiered most likely in 1604 at the Fortune...
(printed 1605
1605 in literature
The year 1605 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*January 1 - The Queen's Revels Children perform George Chapman's All Fools at Court....
). The clown-figure of Summers provides a level of satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
to the morality-play
Morality play
The morality play is a genre of Medieval and early Tudor theatrical entertainment. In their own time, these plays were known as "interludes", a broader term given to dramas with or without a moral theme. Morality plays are a type of allegory in which the protagonist is met by personifications of...
style allegory
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
of the plot.
Some writers have seen "Ver" (Spring) as an allusion to, or even a caricature of, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford was an Elizabethan courtier, playwright, lyric poet, sportsman and patron of the arts, and is currently the most popular alternative candidate proposed for the authorship of Shakespeare's works....
, who was a friend of Nash's.
In one view, Nashe produced his play by rewriting and expanding an earlier interlude by John Lyly
John Lyly
John Lyly was an English writer, best known for his books Euphues,The Anatomy of Wit and Euphues and His England. Lyly's linguistic style, originating in his first books, is known as Euphuism.-Biography:John Lyly was born in Kent, England, in 1553/1554...
that was performed in 1591
1591 in literature
-Events:*In the spring of the year, a dispute with James Burbage impels the Admiral's Men to leave The Theatre and move to Philip Henslowe's Rose Theatre.*Summer - Sir Walter Raleigh secretly marries Elizabeth Throckmorton....
. In the play, Will Summers embodies a reaction to the type of overly formal drama represented by Lyly.
The play also contains a poem that later acquired independent fame, 'Adieu, farewell, earth's bliss.' This contains the famous couplet, "Brightness falls from the air, Queens have died young and fair." The lyric 'Spring, sweet spring' has also received attention from critics and anthologists.
Modern adaptation
In 1936 the English composer Constant LambertConstant Lambert
Leonard Constant Lambert was a British composer and conductor.-Early life:Lambert, the son of Russian-born Australian painter George Lambert, was educated at Christ's Hospital and the Royal College of Music...
debuted a large-scale orchestral and choral setting of Nashe's play
Summer's Last Will and Testament (Lambert)
Summer's Last Will and Testament is a choral masque or cantata by Constant Lambert, written between 1932 and 1935, and premiered in 1936. It is scored for chorus and orchestra, with a baritone solo also featured in the last of its seven movements. It is based on the poem of the same name by...
, which has sometimes been judged Lambert's greatest work and Lambert himself considered his best. Lambert employed 'Adieu, farewell, earth's bliss' as the conclusion of his musical setting.