A Very Woman
Encyclopedia
A Very Woman, or The Prince of Tarent is an early seventeenth-century stage play, a tragicomedy
Tragicomedy
Tragicomedy is fictional work that blends aspects of the genres of tragedy and comedy. In English literature, from Shakespeare's time to the nineteenth century, tragicomedy referred to a serious play with either a happy ending or enough jokes throughout the play to lighten the mood.-Classical...

 written by Philip Massinger
Philip Massinger
Philip Massinger was an English dramatist. His finely plotted plays, including A New Way to Pay Old Debts, The City Madam and The Roman Actor, are noted for their satire and realism, and their political and social themes.-Early life:The son of Arthur Massinger or Messenger, he was baptized at St....

 and John Fletcher
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...

. It was first published in 1655
1655 in literature
The year 1655 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*May - Jeremy Taylor is imprisoned for four months at Chepstow Castle.*August 6 - The Blackfriars Theatre is demolished....

, fifteen and thirty years after the deaths of its authors.

Date

Scholars generally agree that the existing text of the play is a Massinger revision of an earlier work, though they disagree as to whether that earlier version was a Fletcher/Massinger collaboration or a work by Fletcher alone. (Cyrus Hoy
Cyrus Hoy
Cyrus Hoy was a literary scholar of the English Renaissance stage who taught at the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University, and was the John B. Trevor Professor of English at the University of Rochester...

 favored the latter view.) So the original must have predated Fletcher's death in 1625; lacking hard data on this point, scholars have estimated a date of authorship in the 1619–22 period. The play entered the historical record when it was licensed for performance by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels
Master of the Revels
The Master of the Revels was a position within the English, and later the British, royal household heading the "Revels Office" or "Office of the Revels" that originally had responsibilities for overseeing royal festivities, known as revels, and later also became responsible for stage censorship,...

, on June 6, 1634
1634 in literature
The year 1634 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*January 1 - The King's Men perform Cymbeline at the court of King Charles I of England.*January 22 - The King's Men perform Davenant's The Wits at the Blackfriars Theatre....

; it is not improbable that Massinger's revision of the text shortly preceded that licensing. No firm information on the play's early stage history has survived; it is more likely than not that the play was acted by the King's Men
King'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...

, the company that performed most of the solo works of Fletcher and Massinger and their collaborations as well.

Early 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, A Very Woman received a revival production in Oxford (1661
1661 in literature
The year 1661 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* The Book of Kells is presented to Trinity College, Dublin.* Controversial author James Harrington is arrested on a charge of conspiracy....

).

Publication

A Very Woman first appeared in print when it was included in an octavo
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"...

 volume titled Three New Plays, issued by 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...

 in 1655; the volume also contained Massinger's plays The Guardian
The Guardian (play)
The Guardian is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy written by Philip Massinger, dating from 1633. "The play in which Massinger comes nearest to urbanity and suavity is The Guardian...."-Performance:...

and The Bashful Lover
The Bashful Lover
The Bashful Lover is a Caroline era stage play, a tragicomedy written by Philip Massinger. Dating from 1636, it is the playwright's last known extant work; it appeared four years before his death in 1640....

.
(This 1655 volume appears to unite the final three surviving works of Massinger's dramatic career.) When Moseley entered the play into the Stationers' Register
Stationers' 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 September 9, 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....

, he gave it a different subtitle, calling it A Very Woman, or The Woman's Plot. This alternative subtitle is found nowhere else, and there is no "woman's plot" in the play; but a play with the title The Woman's Plot was acted at Court on November 5, 1621
1621 in literature
The year 1621 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*August 26 - Barten Holyday's allegorical play Technogamia, originally produced at Christ Church, Oxford in 1618, is staged before King James at Woodstock Palace...

. Moseley employed the possibilities for confusion inherent in play titles and subtitles to register two plays for a single fee — which appears to be what he did in this case. (For other examples of Moseley's trick, see The Bashful Lover
The Bashful Lover
The Bashful Lover is a Caroline era stage play, a tragicomedy written by Philip Massinger. Dating from 1636, it is the playwright's last known extant work; it appeared four years before his death in 1640....

,
The Guardian
The Guardian (play)
The Guardian is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy written by Philip Massinger, dating from 1633. "The play in which Massinger comes nearest to urbanity and suavity is The Guardian...."-Performance:...

,
and The Lovers' Progress
The Lovers' Progress
The Lovers' Progress, also known as The Wandering Lovers, or Cleander, or Lisander and Calista, is an early seventeenth-century stage play, a tragicomedy written by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger...

.
)

Authorship

The original edition attributed the play to Massinger alone. Nineteenth-century scholars devoted much attention to the study of the canon of Fletcher and his collaborators, including the plays of Fletcher and Massinger. In the context of that general study, A Very Woman attracted attention; F. G. Fleay
Frederick Gard Fleay
Frederick Gard Fleay was an influential and prolific nineteenth-century Shakespeare scholar.Fleay, the son of a linen draper, graduated from King's College London and Trinity College, Cambridge , where he received mathematical training that was key to his later achievements...

 was the first commentator to recognize Fletcher's presence. Given Fletcher's highly distinctive textual and stylistic preferences
Stylometry
Stylometry is the application of the study of linguistic style, usually to written language, but it has successfully been applied to music and to fine-art paintings as well.Stylometry is often used to attribute authorship to anonymous or disputed documents...

, scholars have found it easy to distinguish between the two authors in the extant text. Their respective shares break down this way:
Massinger — Act I; Act II, scenes 1, 2, and 3a (to Duke's exit); Act IV, 2; Act V;
Fletcher — Act II, scene 3b (from Duke's exit); Act III; Act IV, 1 and 3.


Massinger's friend Sir Aston Cockayne
Aston Cockayne
Sir Aston Cockayne, Baronet of Ashbourne was, in his day, a well-known Cavalier and a minor literary figure, now best remembered as a friend of Philip Massinger, John Fletcher, Michael Drayton, Richard Brome, Thomas Randolph, and other writers of his generation.-Biography:Aston Cockayne was the...

 borrowed heavily from A Very Woman for his own play The Obstinate Lady (published 1658
1658 in literature
The year 1658 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* Molière arrives in Paris to act at the Louvre.* Edward Phillips continues the Chronicle of the Kings of England from the Time of the Romans' Government unto the Death of King James to this date.-New books:* Sir Thomas Browne -...

).

The uncertainties of the play's origin led early critics astray in one particular. The name of the character Cardenes led some to wonder if A Very Woman had some connection with the lost play Cardenio
Cardenio
The History of Cardenio, often referred to as merely Cardenio, is a lost play, known to have been performed by The King's Men, a London theatre company, in 1613. It was attributed to William Shakespeare and John Fletcher in a Stationers' Register entry of 1653...

,
attributed to Fletcher and Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

. Modern critics dismiss any connection between the two.

Speculation has also linked A Very Woman with the lost play The Spanish Viceroy
The Spanish Viceroy
The Spanish Viceroy is a problem play of English Renaissance drama. Originally a work by Philip Massinger dating from 1624, it was controversial in its own era, and may or may not exist today in altered form.-The facts:1624...

.

Sources

The dramatists' primary source for their story was El amante libreal (1613
1613 in literature
The year 1613 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*English poet Francis Quarles becomes cupbearer to Princess Elizabeth....

) by Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written...

; Massinger's revision was influenced by Burton's
Robert Burton (scholar)
Robert Burton was an English scholar at Oxford University, best known for the classic The Anatomy of Melancholy. He was also the incumbent of St Thomas the Martyr, Oxford, and of Segrave in Leicestershire.-Life:...

 The Anatomy of Melancholy
The Anatomy of Melancholy
The Anatomy of Melancholy The Anatomy of Melancholy The Anatomy of Melancholy (Full title: The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections...

.
The work was also influenced by The Mirror of Knighthood.

Synopsis

The play is set in Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...

 in Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

, in Massinger's era — during the Spanish Habsburg
Habsburg Spain
Habsburg Spain refers to the history of Spain over the 16th and 17th centuries , when Spain was ruled by the major branch of the Habsburg dynasty...

 rule of southern Italy. The plot involves the intertwined marital fortunes of the younger generation of two prominent families — those of the (otherwise unnamed) Viceroy of Sicily and Duke of Messina
Messina, Italy
Messina is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, Italy and the capital of the province of Messina. It has a population of about 250,000 inhabitants in the city proper and about 650,000 in the province...

. The Viceroy has a son, Don Pedro, and a daughter, Almira; the Duke has a son, Don Martino Cardenes, and a niece, Leonora. The two couples, Pedro and Leonora and Cardenes and Almira, are in love and hope to be married.

One source of contention clouds their matchmaking: another wealthy and prominent nobleman and a close friend of Pedro's, Don John Antonio, the Prince of Tarent (or Taranto
Taranto
Taranto is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto and is an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base....

, in southern Italy), had come to the Viceroy's court in Palermo with great display and expense, hoping to win the hand of Almira. She, however, has refused his suit in favor of Cardenes, and none too subtly or gently. As the play opens, Antonio has asked permission to pay his farewell respects to Almira; but in her arrogance she refuses this last courtesy. Pedro protests her rudeness, but Cardenes, an insecure and touchy young man, supports her decision. He goes a step further, confronting the departing Antonio, picking a quarrel with him, and striking him. The two draw their swords, and Antonio inflicts a severe and almost fatal wound upon Cardenes.

Antonio is arrested and confined to prison — but his friend Pedro helps him escape. Cardenes survives his wound but endures a long convalescence and a bout of deep depression; Almira, burdened with grief and guilt, is sometimes hysterical, and those around her fear that she is losing her sanity. The Duke of Messina is incensed that Antonio has escaped the Viceroy's authority, and suspects collusion, though Pedro denies it. The Duke has Leonora accompany Almira in her convalescent seclusion, to keep her away from Pedro; both women are put under the watch of a court functionary named Cuculo and his wife Borachia.

Antonio returns to Palermo, but appears in the slave market in the guise of a Turk
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

; he is purchased by Cuculo and becomes a household servant, where he impresses everyone with his manners and breeding. Borachia thinks he must be the son of the Turkish sultan. In his slave guise, Antonio acts as the go-between for Pedro and Leonora. Both Cardenes and Almira are enduring their own versions of recovery from mental stress; Cardenes is under the cure of a prominent physician, while Leonora helps Almira regain her emotional balance. Almira loses some of her arrogance and acquires a measure of humility and sense; she also develops an infatuation with the Turkish slave who is really Antonio, her spurned suitor.

When pirates break into Cuculo's house and attempt to abduct Almira and Leonora, Antonio plays a crucial role in fighting off the would-be kidnappers and rescue the two women. But while their fathers are expressing their gratitude, Almira provokes her father by announcing that she is in love with the Turkish slave. The irate Viceroy sends the man to prison, but Almira refuses to back down, saying that she will inflict upon herself whatever torture he suffers. The matter is resolved once Antonio reveals his true identity. Cardenes is now fully cured, restored to physical and mental health — but the court is astonished when Cardenes rejects the idea of marrying Almira. His near-fatal wound, his long convalescence, and his depression have given the young man a more mature and austere view of life, and he has turned away from egotism and sensuality. With Antonio substituted for Cardenes, the two couples who began the play can proceed to the altar.

The comic relief in the play involves subjects — alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

 and slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

 — that are now generally considered questionable sources of humor. Borachia is an alcoholic, who turns aggressive and caustic when drunk; one of the slaves is an Englishman who has lived in France and absorbed French manners, a source of amusement for the play's original audience. On the more serious side, the drama displays Massinger's strong interest in medical and psychiatric matters and especially in the subject of clinical depression
Clinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...

 and its treatment.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...

reportedly once called the piece "one of the most perfect plays we have" — an extreme of enthusiasm that no other commentator has matched.
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