The Novella (play)
Encyclopedia
The Novella is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy
written by Richard Brome
. It was first published in the 1653
Brome collection Five New Plays, issued by the booksellers Humphrey Moseley
, Richard Marriot
, and Thomas Dring
.
at the Blackfriars Theatre
in the year 1632
.
One detail in the play offers insight into the functioning of the King's Men in the relevant period. In the play's final scene (if its stage directions are taken at face value), all the actors in the cast, eighteen men and boys, are onstage at once. Earlier in its history, the company generally did not mount such large productions: cast lists survive from two King's Men productions of John Webster
's The Duchess of Malfi
, one c. 1614 and the other c. 1621, and both show that the company used doubling of minor roles to stage the play with eleven actors. Other cast data from the Jacobean era
(like the casts lists for early King's Men's productions of Fletcherian
plays, found in the second Beaumont and Fletcher folio
) indicate productions of the same general proportions. Yet if the whole cast of The Novella was onstage in the final scene, doubling could not have been employed. It was in the early Caroline era
that the King's Men peaked in personnel: the company had fifteen sharers in the latter 1620s, more than at any time before or after. (The company's 1628 production of John Ford's
The Lover's Melancholy
, with its cast of seventeen players, was on the same scale as the 1632 Novella staging.)
that are strongly rooted in contemporary London. The early play The Novella provides a very rare instance in which Brome exploits a non-English location. For its setting in Venice
, Brome drew material from Thomas Coryat
's famous 1611
travelogue Coryat's Crudities
, among other printed and manuscript sources of information.
, exploits a version of the standard Elizabethan bed trick
so common in English Renaissance drama
, but with a racial twist: in each play a man goes to a sexual assignation expecting to encounter a white woman, only to find that his partner or potential partner is apparently an African woman. In both cases, the appearance is deceptive: in The English Moor the apparent black woman is a white woman in blackface makeup, while in The Novella the apparent black woman is an African boy eunuch. This plot twist in The Novella has attracted the attention of modern critics interested in race and gender issues.
In both cases, a white English boy player
would have played across race and gender lines in the original productions: a white boy playing a white woman playing a black woman, and a white boy playing a (castrated) black youth playing a black woman.
As the two friends discuss the matter (and deliver the plot's backstory), "diverse gentlemen" pass over the stage. Many of these are going to view a young beauty who has recently arrived in the city; she is the "novella" of the title. (Brome employs the term "novella" to mean "novelty" or "innovation.") The young woman in question is the newest recruit among the twenty thousand courtesan
s of Venice; she has offered her virginity to any man who will pay the enormous sum of two thousand ducat
s. Piso thinks he sees Fabritio's father Pantaloni among the curiosity seekers going to meet the Novella (the "dogs" seeking to "unkennel the handsomest she fox / In Venice"), though Fabritio is doubtful. There is no doubt when the two young men meet Francisco and his friend Horatio; what is at first a tense encounter mellows when Fabritio and Francisco realize that they have the same goal — to frustrate the arranged marriage of Fabritio and Flavia.
The second scene portrays the senator Guadagni in his element, among his books and records and bags of gold. The man is revealed as irascible and dictatorial — though his daughter Flavia is adept at manipulating his tempestuous emotions. Away from her father, Flavia conspires with her servant Asutta to escape her father's control and the arranged marriage, and to elope with Francisco.
Piso turns out to have been correct: he did see Fabritio's father Pantaloni on his way to meet the Novella. But Pantaloni made the mistake of trying to bargain with the woman for her virginity at a lower price; and when he went in to receive his reward, he met a young African servant woman in bed instead. Pantaloni has planned a revenge on the Novella for this trick: he will lure her into a public encounter with the city's executioner, which will disgrace her socially and cause her to be scorned and isolated. To bring this about, he equips his witty servant Nicolo with the uniform of a Zaffi, the common law officer of Venice. The arrogant Pantaloni has alienated Nicolo, however, by frequently dwelling on the fact that Nicolo's father is a prisoner in the galleys; and Nicolo is easily swayed to defect to the side of Fabritio and his friends.
The Novella is introduced in her quarters, with her "bravo" (bodyguard/thug/manservant) Borgio and her African serving maid Jaconetta (she of Pantaloni's bed trick). The Novella is shown manipulating and putting off the men who circle around her; at one point she comes close to being raped by an ardent Spanish gentleman, though she is saved by Borgio and a German named Swartzenburgh. (The play confuses the Germans, "Deutsch," with the Dutch — a confusion common among the English at the time.) The Novella proves to be Victoria, come from Rome in search of Fabritio; she has adopted her courtesan disguise as a means of finding her love in the strange city.
Francisco disguises himself as a peddler woman, who is let in to Guadagni's home to show "her" wares to the bride to be. After comic business of hiding in closets and similar doings, Francisco and Flavia manage to escape the house and head for refuge...with Victoria. Guadagni's pursuit of the eloping couple leads to the grand confused agglomeration of the play's climax, which sees the senators, the lovers, the servants, the Spaniard, Nicolo in Zaffi disguise plus a real Zaffi, Swartzenburgh the Dutch/German plus Fabritio disguised as him, all jumbled together. Fabritio and Victoria discover each other through their disguises, and are happily re-united. Borgio the bravo turns out to be Paulo, Victoria's brother and a priest; he has been watching over his sister and her honor during her risky courtesan disguise. Jaconetta the black serving maid is revealed to be Jacomo the eunuch, a fact that the embarrassed Pantaloni is eager to conceal. Father Paulo's moral authority succeeds in quelling everyone's resentment and outraged pride, and the two young couples are blissfully united in matrimony.
drew upon Brome's The Novella for his Tomaso, or the Wanderer (1654). In the Restoration
era, Aphra Behn
borrowed from Tomaso for her play The Rover
; when she was criticized for her derivativeness, Behn pointed out Killigrew's debt to Brome's play in her Postscript. (Behn was directly indebted to Brome for another work: her play The Debauchee is a rewrite of Brome's A Mad Couple Well-Match'd
.)
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 Richard Brome
Richard Brome
Richard Brome was an English dramatist of the Caroline era.-Life:Virtually nothing is known about Brome's private life. Repeated allusions in contemporary works, like Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, indicate that Brome started out as a servant of Jonson, in some capacity...
. It was first published in the 1653
1653 in literature
The year 1653 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* James Shirley's masque Cupid and Death is performed on March 26.* Pierre Corneille retires from the theatre for six years.* John Evelyn buys Sayes Court, Deptford....
Brome collection Five New Plays, issued by the booksellers Humphrey Moseley
Humphrey Moseley
Humphrey Moseley was a prominent London publisher and bookseller in the middle seventeenth century.Possibly a son of publisher Samuel Moseley, Humphrey Moseley became a "freeman" of the Stationers Company, the guild of London booksellers, on 7 May 1627; he was selected a Warden of the Company on...
, Richard Marriot
John and Richard Marriot
John Marriot and his son Richard Marriot were prominent London publishers and booksellers in the seventeenth century. For a portion of their careers, the 1645–57 period, they were partners in a family business....
, and Thomas Dring
Thomas Dring
Thomas Dring was a London publisher and bookseller of the middle seventeenth century. He was in business from 1649 on; his shop was located "at the sign of the George in Fleet Street, near St...
.
Date and Performance
In the 1653 Five New Plays (not to be confused with the 1659 Brome collection of the same name), each of the plays has its own title page. The title page of The Novella specifies that the drama was performed by the King's MenKing's Men (playing company)
The King's Men was the company of actors to which William Shakespeare belonged through most of his career. Formerly known as The Lord Chamberlain's Men during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it became The King's Men in 1603 when King James ascended the throne and became the company's patron.The...
at the Blackfriars Theatre
Blackfriars Theatre
Blackfriars Theatre was the name of a theatre in the Blackfriars district of the City of London during the Renaissance. The theatre began as a venue for child actors associated with the Queen's chapel choirs; in this function, the theatre hosted some of the most innovative drama of Elizabeth and...
in the year 1632
1632 in literature
The year 1632 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*On February 14, Tempe Restored, a masque written by Aurelian Townshend and designed by Inigo Jones, is performed at Whitehall Palace....
.
One detail in the play offers insight into the functioning of the King's Men in the relevant period. In the play's final scene (if its stage directions are taken at face value), all the actors in the cast, eighteen men and boys, are onstage at once. Earlier in its history, the company generally did not mount such large productions: cast lists survive from two King's Men productions of John Webster
John Webster
John Webster was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, which are often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare.- Biography :Webster's life is obscure, and the dates...
's The Duchess of Malfi
The Duchess of Malfi
The Duchess of Malfi is a macabre, tragic play written by the English dramatist John Webster in 1612–13. It was first performed privately at the Blackfriars Theatre, then before a more general audience at The Globe, in 1613-14...
, one c. 1614 and the other c. 1621, and both show that the company used doubling of minor roles to stage the play with eleven actors. Other cast data from the Jacobean era
Jacobean era
The Jacobean era refers to the period in English and Scottish history that coincides with the reign of King James VI of Scotland, who also inherited the crown of England in 1603 as James I...
(like the casts lists for early King's Men's productions of Fletcherian
John Fletcher (playwright)
John Fletcher was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; both during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's...
plays, found in the second Beaumont and Fletcher folio
Beaumont and Fletcher folios
The Beaumont and Fletcher folios were two large folio collections of the stage plays of John Fletcher and his collaborators. The first was issued in 1647, and the second in 1679. The two collections were important in preserving many works of English Renaissance drama.-The first folio, 1647:The 1647...
) indicate productions of the same general proportions. Yet if the whole cast of The Novella was onstage in the final scene, doubling could not have been employed. It was in the early Caroline era
Caroline era
The Caroline era refers to the era in English and Scottish history during the Stuart period that coincided with the reign of Charles I , Carolus being Latin for Charles...
that the King's Men peaked in personnel: the company had fifteen sharers in the latter 1620s, more than at any time before or after. (The company's 1628 production of John Ford's
John Ford (dramatist)
John Ford was an English Jacobean and Caroline playwright and poet born in Ilsington in Devon in 1586.-Life and work:...
The Lover's Melancholy
The Lover's Melancholy
The Lover's Melancholy is an early Caroline era stage play, a tragicomedy written by John Ford. While the dating of the works in Ford's canon is very uncertain, this play has sometimes been regarded as "Ford's first unaided drama," an anticipation of what would follow through the remainder of his...
, with its cast of seventeen players, was on the same scale as the 1632 Novella staging.)
Setting and sources
Over the full course of his playwriting career, Brome distinguished himself as a writer of city comediesCity comedy
City comedy, also called Citizen Comedy, is a common genre of Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline comedy on the London stage from the last years of the 16th century to the closing of the theaters in 1642...
that are strongly rooted in contemporary London. The early play The Novella provides a very rare instance in which Brome exploits a non-English location. For its setting in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, Brome drew material from Thomas Coryat
Thomas Coryat
Thomas Coryat was an English traveller and writer of the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean age. He is principally remembered for two volumes of writings he left regarding his travels, often on foot, through Europe and parts of Asia...
's famous 1611
1611 in literature
The year 1611 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*January 1 - Oberon, the Faery Prince, a masque written by Ben Jonson and designed by Inigo Jones, is performed at Whitehall Palace....
travelogue Coryat's Crudities
Coryat's Crudities
Coryat's Crudities: Hastily gobled up in Five Moneth's Travels is a travelogue published in 1611 by Thomas Coryat of Odcombe, an English traveller and mild eccentric.- History :...
, among other printed and manuscript sources of information.
Race and sex
The Novella, like Brome's later play The English MoorThe English Moor
The English Moor, or the Mock Marriage is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy written by Richard Brome, noteworthy in its use of the stage device of blackface make-up...
, exploits a version of the standard Elizabethan bed trick
Bed trick
The bed trick is a plot device in traditional literature and folklore; it involves a substitution of one partner in the sex act with a third person...
so common in 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...
, but with a racial twist: in each play a man goes to a sexual assignation expecting to encounter a white woman, only to find that his partner or potential partner is apparently an African woman. In both cases, the appearance is deceptive: in The English Moor the apparent black woman is a white woman in blackface makeup, while in The Novella the apparent black woman is an African boy eunuch. This plot twist in The Novella has attracted the attention of modern critics interested in race and gender issues.
In both cases, a white English boy player
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...
would have played across race and gender lines in the original productions: a white boy playing a white woman playing a black woman, and a white boy playing a (castrated) black youth playing a black woman.
Synopsis
The play opens on a night scene in a Venice street. Two young friends, Fabritio and Piso, discuss Fabritio's problematic personal situation. Two wealthy Venetian senators, Pantaloni and Guadagni, have arranged a socially advantageous marriage for their respective son and daughter, Fabritio and Flavia. Unfortunately, both young people are already in love with other choices: Fabritio loves Victoria, a young woman of Rome, while Flavia loves the poor but noble Francisco. Fabritio would like to escape Venice, and the looming arranged marriage, for Rome and Victoria — if he can figure out how to do so without sacrificing his inheritance.As the two friends discuss the matter (and deliver the plot's backstory), "diverse gentlemen" pass over the stage. Many of these are going to view a young beauty who has recently arrived in the city; she is the "novella" of the title. (Brome employs the term "novella" to mean "novelty" or "innovation.") The young woman in question is the newest recruit among the twenty thousand courtesan
Courtesan
A courtesan was originally a female courtier, which means a person who attends the court of a monarch or other powerful person.In feudal society, the court was the centre of government as well as the residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together...
s of Venice; she has offered her virginity to any man who will pay the enormous sum of two thousand ducat
Ducat
The ducat is a gold coin that was used as a trade coin throughout Europe before World War I. Its weight is 3.4909 grams of .986 gold, which is 0.1107 troy ounce, actual gold weight...
s. Piso thinks he sees Fabritio's father Pantaloni among the curiosity seekers going to meet the Novella (the "dogs" seeking to "unkennel the handsomest she fox / In Venice"), though Fabritio is doubtful. There is no doubt when the two young men meet Francisco and his friend Horatio; what is at first a tense encounter mellows when Fabritio and Francisco realize that they have the same goal — to frustrate the arranged marriage of Fabritio and Flavia.
The second scene portrays the senator Guadagni in his element, among his books and records and bags of gold. The man is revealed as irascible and dictatorial — though his daughter Flavia is adept at manipulating his tempestuous emotions. Away from her father, Flavia conspires with her servant Asutta to escape her father's control and the arranged marriage, and to elope with Francisco.
Piso turns out to have been correct: he did see Fabritio's father Pantaloni on his way to meet the Novella. But Pantaloni made the mistake of trying to bargain with the woman for her virginity at a lower price; and when he went in to receive his reward, he met a young African servant woman in bed instead. Pantaloni has planned a revenge on the Novella for this trick: he will lure her into a public encounter with the city's executioner, which will disgrace her socially and cause her to be scorned and isolated. To bring this about, he equips his witty servant Nicolo with the uniform of a Zaffi, the common law officer of Venice. The arrogant Pantaloni has alienated Nicolo, however, by frequently dwelling on the fact that Nicolo's father is a prisoner in the galleys; and Nicolo is easily swayed to defect to the side of Fabritio and his friends.
The Novella is introduced in her quarters, with her "bravo" (bodyguard/thug/manservant) Borgio and her African serving maid Jaconetta (she of Pantaloni's bed trick). The Novella is shown manipulating and putting off the men who circle around her; at one point she comes close to being raped by an ardent Spanish gentleman, though she is saved by Borgio and a German named Swartzenburgh. (The play confuses the Germans, "Deutsch," with the Dutch — a confusion common among the English at the time.) The Novella proves to be Victoria, come from Rome in search of Fabritio; she has adopted her courtesan disguise as a means of finding her love in the strange city.
Francisco disguises himself as a peddler woman, who is let in to Guadagni's home to show "her" wares to the bride to be. After comic business of hiding in closets and similar doings, Francisco and Flavia manage to escape the house and head for refuge...with Victoria. Guadagni's pursuit of the eloping couple leads to the grand confused agglomeration of the play's climax, which sees the senators, the lovers, the servants, the Spaniard, Nicolo in Zaffi disguise plus a real Zaffi, Swartzenburgh the Dutch/German plus Fabritio disguised as him, all jumbled together. Fabritio and Victoria discover each other through their disguises, and are happily re-united. Borgio the bravo turns out to be Paulo, Victoria's brother and a priest; he has been watching over his sister and her honor during her risky courtesan disguise. Jaconetta the black serving maid is revealed to be Jacomo the eunuch, a fact that the embarrassed Pantaloni is eager to conceal. Father Paulo's moral authority succeeds in quelling everyone's resentment and outraged pride, and the two young couples are blissfully united in matrimony.
Influence
The playwright Thomas KilligrewThomas Killigrew
Thomas Killigrew was an English dramatist and theatre manager. He was a witty, dissolute figure at the court of King Charles II of England.-Life and work:...
drew upon Brome's The Novella for his Tomaso, or the Wanderer (1654). In the Restoration
English Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
era, Aphra Behn
Aphra Behn
Aphra Behn was a prolific dramatist of the English Restoration and was one of the first English professional female writers. Her writing contributed to the amatory fiction genre of British literature.-Early life:...
borrowed from Tomaso for her play The Rover
The Rover (play)
The Rover or The Banish'd Cavaliers is a play in two parts written by the English author Aphra Behn.Having famously worked as a spy for Charles II against the Dutch, Behn's meager incomes was lost when the king refused to pay her expenses. She turned to writing for an income.The Rover premiered...
; when she was criticized for her derivativeness, Behn pointed out Killigrew's debt to Brome's play in her Postscript. (Behn was directly indebted to Brome for another work: her play The Debauchee is a rewrite of Brome's A Mad Couple Well-Match'd
A Mad Couple Well-Match'd
A Mad Couple Well-Match'd is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy written by Richard Brome. It was first published in the 1653 Brome collection Five New Plays, issued by the booksellers Humphrey Moseley, Richard Marriot, and Thomas Dring....
.)
External links
- Richard Brome Online http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/brome/ contains a scholarly edition of this play, including textual and critical introductions.