Thomas Middleton (1580 – 1627) was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. Middleton stands with John Fletcher and Ben Jonson as among the most successful and prolific of playwrights who wrote their best plays during the Jacobean period. He stands with Shakespeare as one of the few Renaissance dramatists to achieve equal success in comedy and tragedy. Also a prolific writer of masques and pageants, he remains one of the most noteworthy and characteristic of Jacobean dramatists.

Life

Middleton was born in London and baptized on April 18 1580. He was the son of a bricklayer who had been raised to the status of a gentleman. His father died when Middleton was very young; his mother's remarriage devolved into a lengthy battle over the inheritance of Thomas and his siblings.

Middleton attended Christ's Hospital (where a boarding house has since been named in his honour) and Queen's College, Oxford although he did not graduate. During his university years, 1598-1601, he wrote and published three long poems in popular Elizabethan styles; none appears to have been especially successful, and one, his book of satires, ran afoul of the Anglican Church's ban on verse satire and was burned. Nevertheless, his literary career was launched.

In the early 1600s, Middleton made a living writing topical pamphlets, including one—Penniless Parliament of Threadbare Poets—that enjoyed many reprintings. At the same time, records in the diary of Philip Henslowe show that Middleton was writing for the Admiral's Men. Unlike Shakespeare, Middleton remained a free agent, able to write for whichever company hired him. His early dramatic career was marked by controversy. His friendship with Thomas Dekker brought him into conflict with Ben Jonson and George Chapman in the War of the Theatres. The grudge with Jonson continued as late as 1626, when Jonson's play The Staple of News indulges a slur on Middleton's great success, A Game at Chess.[1] It has been argued that Middleton's Inner Temple Masque (1619) sneers at Jonson (then absent in Scotland) as a "silenced bricklayer."^[1]

In 1603, Middleton married. The same year, an outbreak of plague forced the closing of the theaters in London, and James I assumed the English throne. These events marked the beginning of Middleton's greatest period as a playwright. Having passed the time during the plague composing prose pamphlets (including a continuation of Thomas Nashe's Pierce Penniless), he returned to drama with great energy, producing close to a score of plays for several companies and in several genres, most notably city comedy and revenge tragedy. He continued his collaborations with Dekker, and the two produced The Roaring Girl, a biography of contemporary thief Mary Frith.

In the 1610s, Middleton began his fruitful collaboration with the actor William Rowley; working alone he produced his comic masterpiece, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, in 1613. His own plays from this decade reveal a somewhat mellowed temper; certainly there is no comedy among them with the satiric depth of Michaelmas Term and no tragedy as bloodthirsty as The Revenger's Tragedy. Middleton was also branching out into other dramatic endeavors; he was apparently called on to help revise Macbeth and Measure for Measure, and at the same time he was increasingly involved with civic pageants. This last connection was made official when, in 1620, he was appointed City Chronologer of the City of London. He held this post until his death in 1627, at which it was passed to Jonson.

Middleton's official duties did not interrupt his dramatic writings; the 1620s saw the production of his and Rowley's tragedy The Changeling, and several tragicomedies. In 1624, he reached a pinnacle of notoriety when his dramatic allegory A Game at Chess was staged by the King's Men. The play used the conceit of a chess game to present and satirize the recent intrigues surrounding the Spanish Match. Though Middleton's approach was strongly patriotic, the Privy Council shut down the play after nine performances on the complaint of the Spanish ambassador. Middleton faced an unknown, but likely frightening, degree of punishment. Since no play later than A Game at Chess is recorded, it has been hypothesized that his punishment included a ban on writing for the stage.

Middleton died at his home in Newington Butts in 1627. Some of his descendants reside in southern Wisconsin

Works

Middleton wrote in many genres, including tragedy, history and city comedy. His best-known plays are the tragedies The Changeling (written with William Rowley) and Women Beware Women, and the cynically satiric city comedy A Chaste Maid in Cheapside. It is also widely believed that he wrote The Revenger's Tragedy, previously attributed to Cyril Tourneur, and collaborated with Shakespeare on the scenes involving the Weird Sisters and Hecate in Macbeth.

Middleton's work is diverse even by the standards of his age. He did not have the kind of official relationship with a particular company that Shakespeare or Fletcher had; instead, he appears to have written on a freelance basis for any number of companies. Particularly in the early years of his career, this freedom led to a great diversity in his output, which ranges from the "snarling" satire of Michaelmas Term (performed by the Children of Paul's) to the bleak intrigues of The Revenger's Tragedy (performed by the King's Men). Also contributing to the variety of the works is the scope of Middleton's career. If his early work was informed by the flourishing of satire in the late-Elizabethan period,^[2]

His maturity was influenced by the ascendancy of Fletcherian tragicomedy. If many of these plays have been judged less compelling than his earlier work, his later work, in which satiric fury is tempered and broadened, also includes three of his acknowledged masterpieces. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, produced by the Lady Elizabeth's Men, skillfully combines Middleton's typically cutting presentation of London life with an expansive view of the power of love to effect reconciliation. The Changeling, a late tragedy, returns Middleton to an Italianate setting like that in The Revenger's Tragedy; here, however, the central characters are more fully drawn and more compelling as individuals.^[3] Similar changes may be seen in Women Beware Women.^[4]

Middleton's plays are characterized by their cynicism about the human race, a cynicism that is often very funny. True heroes are a rarity in Middleton; in his plays, almost every character is selfish, greedy, and self-absorbed. This quality is best observed in the A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, a panoramic view of a London populated entirely by sinners, in which no social rank goes unsatirized. It can also be seen in the tragedies Women Beware Women and The Revenger's Tragedy, in which enjoyably amoral Italian courtiers endlessly plot against each other, resulting in a climactic bloodbath. When Middleton does portray good people, the characters have very small roles, and are flawless to perfection. Thanks to a theological pamphlet attributed to him, Middleton is thought by some to have been a strong believer in Calvinism, among the dominant strains in the theology of the English church of his time, which rigidly divides humanity into the damned and the elect, and which focuses on human sinfulness and inadequacy more than other branches of Christianity do.

Influences and Style

In comedy, Middleton generally follows classical models at some remove. His early hit A Trick to Catch the Old One is essentially Plautus brought into the seventeenth century. In his comedies, Middleton generally retains a romantic entanglement as a basic structural element; he did not experiment, as Jonson did, with comedic form. His main interest, however, is in social and psychological satire. This interest makes him akin not only to Jonson but also to the other dramatic satirists of his day, such as Marston.

His tragedies are squarely in the Senecan tradition of the Jacobean theater. They are generally concerned with courtly revenge, and even when they are not, the central narrative element is scheming and counter-scheming, motivated by lust or greed, eventuating always in a bloodbath. A Yorkshire Tragedy is a partial exception in that it is a domestic tragedy; even here, however, the key to the tragedy is the cruelty and lust of the abusive husband.

Middleton's tragicomedies follow the model set by Fletcher in broad outline: they feature remote settings, unusual and even bizarre situations, and last-minute rescues from seemingly tragic inevitability.

Reputation

Despite his prolific output, and despite T.S. Eliot's claim that he was second only to Shakespeare, Middleton's plays are rarely staged today. The exception is The Changeling, which is popular enough to have been filmed several times.

Middleton's Canon

Note: The Middleton canon is beset by complications involving collaboration and debated authorship. The following list is based on that provided by the Oxford Middleton Project, a team of scholars who are editing a new edition of Middleton's complete works. All dates of plays are dates of composition, not of publication.

Plays

• The Family of Love (1602-7), co-written with Thomas Dekker
• The Phoenix (1603-4)
• The Honest Whore, Part 1, a city comedy (1604), co-written with Thomas Dekker
• Michaelmas Term, a city comedy, (1604)
• A Trick to Catch the Old One, a city comedy (1605)
• A Mad World, My Masters, a city comedy (1605)
• A Yorkshire Tragedy, a one-act tragedy (1605); attributed to Shakespeare on its title page, but stylistic analysis favours Middleton.
• Timon of Athens a tragedy (1605-1606); stylistic analysis indicates that Middleton may have written this play in collaboration with William Shakespeare.
• The Puritan (1606)
• The Revenger's Tragedy, a tragedy (1606); although sometimes attributed to Cyril Tourneur, stylistic analysis strongly indicates Middleton's authorship.
• Your Five Gallants, a city comedy (1607)
• The Bloody Banquet (1608-9); co-written with Thomas Dekker.
• The Roaring Girl, a city comedy depicting the exploits of Mary Frith (1611); co-written with Thomas Dekker.
• No Wit, No Help Like a Woman's, a tragicomedy (1611)
• The Second Maiden's Tragedy, a tragedy (1611); an anonymous manuscript; stylistic analysis indicates Middleton's authorship.
• A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, a city comedy (1613)
• Wit at Several Weapons, a city comedy (1613); printed as part of the Beaumont and Fletcher Folio, but stylistic analysis indicates comprehensive revision by Middleton and William Rowley.
• More Dissemblers Besides Women, a tragicomedy (1614)
• The Widow (1615-16)
• The Witch, a tragicomedy (1616)
• Macbeth, a tragedy. Various evidence indicates that the extant text of Shakespeare's Macbeth was partly adapted by Middleton in 1616, using passages from The Witch.
• A Fair Quarrel, a tragicomedy (1616). Co-written with William Rowley.
• The Old Law, a tragicomedy (1618-19). Co-written with William Rowleyand perhaps a third collaborator, who may have been Philip Massinger or Thomas Heywood.
• Hengist, King of Kent, or The Mayor of Quinborough, a tragedy (1620)
• Women Beware Women, a tragedy (1621)
• Measure for Measure. Stylistic evidence indicates that the extant text of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure was partly adapted by Middleton in 1621.
• Anything for a Quiet Life, a city comedy (1621). Co-written with John Webster.
• The Changeling, a tragedy (1622). Co-written with William Rowley.
• The Nice Valour (1622). Printed as part of the Beaumont and Fletcher Folio, but stylistic analysis indicates comprehensive revision by Middleton.
• The Spanish Gypsy, a tragicomedy (1623). Believed to be a play by Middleton and William Rowley revised by Thomas Dekker and John Ford.
• A Game at Chess, a political satire (1624). Satirized the negotiations over the proposed marriage of Prince Charles, son of James I of England, with the Spanish princess. Closed after nine performances.

Masques and entertainments

• The Whole Royal and Magnificent Entertainment Given to King James Through the City of London (1603-4). Co-written with Thomas Dekker, Stephen Harrison and Ben Jonson.
• The Manner of his Lordship's Entertainment
• The Triumphs of Truth
• Civitas Amor
• The Triumphs of Honour and Industry (1617)
• The Masque of Heroes, or, The Inner Temple Masque (1619)
• The Triumphs of Love and Antiquity (1619)
• The World Tossed at Tennis (1620). Co-written with William Rowley.
• Honourable Entertainments (1620-1)
• An Invention (1622)
• The Sun in Aries (1621)
• The Triumphs of Honour and Virtue (1622)
• The Triumphs of Integrity with The Triumphs of the Golden Fleece (1623)
• The Triumphs of Health and Prosperity (1626)

Poetry

• The Wisdom of Solomon Paraphrased (1597)
• The Ghost of Lucrece (1600)

Prose

• (1599)
• The Penniless Parliament of Threadbare Poets (1601)
• ''News from Gravesend. Co-written with Thomas Dekker (1603)
• The Nightingale and the Ant (1604), also published under the title Father Hubbard's Tales
• The Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinary (1604). Co-written with Thomas Dekker.
• Plato's Cap Cast at the Year 1604 (1604)
• The Black Book (1604)
• Sir Robert Sherley his Entertainment in Cracovia (1609) (translation).
• The Two Gates of Salvation (1609), or The Marriage of the Old and New Testament.
• The Owl's Almanac (1618)
• The Peacemaker (1618)

Notes

References

• Covatta, Anthony. "Thomas Middleton's City Comedies." Lewisburg: Bucknell Univ. Press, 1973.
• Barbara Jo Baines. The Lust Motif in the Plays of Thomas Middleton. Salzburg, 1973.
• Eccles, Mark. "Middleton's Birth and Education." Review of English Studies 7 (1933), 431-41.
• J.R. Mulryne, Thomas Middleton ISBN 0-582-01266-X
• Pier Paolo Frassinelli. "Realism, Desire, and Reification: Thomas Middleton's A Chaste Maid in Cheapside." Early Modern Literary Studies 8 (2003).
• Kenneth Friedenreich, editor, "Accompaninge the players": Essays Celebrating Thomas Middleton, 1580-1980 ISBN 0-404-62278-X
• Margot Heinemann. Puritanism and Theatre: Thomas Middleton and Opposition Drama Under the Early Stuarts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
• Herbert Jack Heller. Penitent Brothellers: Grace, Sexuality, and Genre in Thomas Middleton's City Comedies. Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Press, 2000.
• Ben Jonson. The Staple of News. London, 1692. Holloway e-text.
• Brian Loughrey and Neil Taylor. "Introduction." Five Plays of Thomas Middleton. Brian Loughrey and Neil Taylor, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
• Jane Milling and Peter Thomson, editors. The Cambridge History of British Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
• Mary Beth Rose. The Expense of Spirit: Love and Sexuality in English Renaissance Drama. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988.
• Schoenbaum, Samuel. "Middleton's Tragicomedies." Modern Philology 54 (1956), 7-19.
• Algernon Charles Swinburne. The Age of Shakespeare. New York: Harpers, 1908. Gutenberg e-text
• Gary Taylor. "Thomas Middleton." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
• Stanley Wells. Select Bibliographical Guides: English Drama, Excluding Shakespeare. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975.
• The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume VI. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1907-21. Bartleby e-text
• The Oxford Middleton Project
• The Plays of Thomas Middleton
• Bilingual editions (English/French) of two Middleton plays by Antoine Ertlé can be found at:

[2] (A Game at Chess) [3] (The Old Law)