Appius and Virginia

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Appius and Virginia

Appius and Virginia is an early seventeenth-century stage play, a tragedy by John Webster

John Webster

John Webster was an England Literature in English#Jacobean literature dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage....
(and perhaps Thomas Heywood

Thomas Heywood

Thomas Heywood was a prominent England playwright, actor, and author whose peak period of activity falls between late Elizabethan theatre and early Jacobean theatre....
). It is the third and least famous of his tragedies, after The White Devil
The White Devil

The White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona is a Revenge play from 1612 by English playwright John Webster . A notorious failure when it premiered onstage, Webster complained the play was acted in the dead of winter before an unreceptive audience....
and The Duchess of Malfi
The Duchess of Malfi

The Duchess of Malfi is a macabre, tragedy Play , written by the England dramatist John Webster and first performed in 1614 at the Globe Theatre in London....
.

he basis of his distinctive Latinate vocabulary, Heywood has been suggested as a part-author of the play, though some commentators disagree. (Heywood has also been proposed as a part-author of Webster and Rowley's

William Rowley

William Rowley was an England Jacobean dramatist, best known for works written in collaboration with more successful writers. His date of birth is estimated to have been c....
A Cure for a Cuckold
A Cure for a Cuckold

A Cure for a Cuckold is a late Literature in English#Jacobean literature era stage play, a comedy written by John Webster and William Rowley....
.)

efinite evidence on the play's date of origin or early performance history has survived.

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Encyclopedia

Appius and Virginia is an early seventeenth-century stage play, a tragedy by John Webster

John Webster

Thomas Heywood

Heywood

On the basis of his distinctive Latinate vocabulary, Heywood has been suggested as a part-author of the play, though some commentators disagree. (Heywood has also been proposed as a part-author of Webster and Rowley's

William Rowley

Date

No definite evidence on the play's date of origin or early performance history has survived. Scholars have conjectured dates of authorship anytime in the interval between 1608 and 1634. Critics who consider the play crude have favored an early date, and thought of the work as Webster's first venture into the genre of tragedy. Others have focused on the 1625–27 period as perhaps the most likely. It has been argued that Webster was influenced by Shakespeare's

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English people poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist....
classical Roman tragedies, and that he likely wrote his play after the publication of the First Folio

First Folio

Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies is the 1623 published collection of William Shakespeare's plays. Modern scholars commonly refer to it as the First Folio....
in 1623

1623 in literature

The year 1623 in literature involved some significant events....
. The play was certainly in existence by 1639

1639 in literature

The year 1639 in literature involved some significant events....
, when it was listed among the repertory of Beeston's Boys

Beeston's Boys

Beeston's Boys was the popular and colloquial name of The King and Queen's Young Company, a troupe of boy player of the Literature_in_English#Caroline_and_Cromwellian_literature period, active mainly in the years 1637 in literature–1642 in literature....
.

Publication

Webster's play was published late: it was entered into the Stationers' Register

Stationers' Register

The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers 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 May 13, 1654

1654 in literature

The year 1654 in literature involved some significant events....
by bookseller 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 appeared in print before the end of that year. The original title page assigns the play to Webster, and does not identify the publisher. A second impression of the original quarto

Book size

The size of a specific book is measured from the head to tail of the spine, and from edge to edge across the covers.However, in bookbinding, printing, and publishing, a series of terms are used to indicate the approximate size of a book....
, with a new title page, was issued in 1659

1659 in literature

The year 1659 in literature involved some significant events....
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 Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, the guild of London booksellers, on May 7, 1627; he was selected a Warden of the Company on July 7,...
; a third edition followed in 1679

1679 in literature

This article lists some of the most significant events of the year 1679 in literature....
.

Precedents

Webster was not the first English Renaissance playwright to dramatize the story of Appius Claudius Crassus

Appius Claudius Crassus

Appius Claudius Crassus was a decemviri of the Roman Republic ca 451 BC.His father was Appius Claudius Sabinus, Consul in 471 BCEDespite being of patrician descent, he supported the plebeian wish for a code of laws, and while in office shared power with their representatives....
and Verginia

Verginia

Verginia was the subject of an almost certainly apocryphal story of Ancient Rome, related in Livy's Ab Urbe Condita, designed to show the evil character of the decemviri Appius Claudius Crassus....
; another play with the same title and subject matter had been published in 1576

1576 in literature

Events*James Burbage builds The Theatre, the first permanent public playhouse in London, ushering in the great age of Elizabethan drama....
, as the work of "R. B.," probably a Richard Bower. The earlier play influenced Webster's treatment.

Beyond the 1576 play, the classical tale was available to Webster and his contemporaries in a variety of forms. Apart from the original Ab Urbe condita
Ab urbe condita

Ab Urbe condita is Latin for "from founding of Rome of the City ", traditionally set in 753 BC. It was used to identify the Roman year by a few Roman historians....
of Livy

Livy

Titus Livius , known as Livy in English language, was a Ancient Rome historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome, Ab Urbe Condita, from its founding through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own time....
, it appears in The Romance of the Rose, and the Confessio Amantis
Confessio Amantis

Confessio Amantis is a 33,000-line Middle English poem by John Gower, which uses the confession made by an ageing lover to the chaplain of Venus as a frame story for a collection of shorter narrative poems....
of John Gower

John Gower

John Gower was an English poet, a contemporary of William Langland and a personal friend of Geoffrey Chaucer. He is remembered primarily for three major works, the Mirroir de l'Omme, Vox Clamantis, and Confessio Amantis, three long poems written in French, Latin, and English respectively, which are united by common moral and po...
, and The Physician's Tale

The Physician's Tale

The Physician's Tale is one of the Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century.This is a domestic drama about the relationship between a daughter and her father and it is one of the earliest extant poems in English language about such subjects and relationships....
in The Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century . The tales, some of which are originals and others not, are contained inside a frame tale and told by a collection of pilgrims on a pilgrimage from London Borough of Southwark to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathed...
of Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer was an English author, poet, philosopher, Bureaucracy, Noble court and diplomat. Although he wrote many works, he is best remembered for his unfinished frame narrative The Canterbury Tales....
. It is also found in the Pecorone of Ser Giovanni Fiorentino (1378), and closer to home in William Painter

William Painter

William Painter , English author, was a native of Kent. He matriculated at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1554. In 1561 he became clerk of the ordnance in the Tower of London, a position in which he appears to have amassed a fortune out of the public funds....
's Palace of Pleasure (1566-67).

In the Restoration

Webster's play was revived during the Restoration

English Restoration

The English Restoration, or simply The Restoration began in 1660 when the English monarchy, Scottish monarchy and Irish monarchy were restored under Charles II of England after the Interregnum that followed the English Civil War....
era, in an adaptation by Thomas Betterton

Thomas Betterton

Thomas Patrick Betterton , England actor, son of an under-cook to Charles I of England, was born in London.He was apprenticed to John Holden, William Davenant's publisher, and possibly later to a bookseller named John Rhodes , who had been wardrobe-keeper at the Blackfriars Theatre....
called The Roman Virgin, or The Unjust Judge that was acted at Lincoln's Inn Fields

Lincoln's Inn Fields

Lincoln's Inn Fields is the List of city squares by size in London, England. It is thought to have been one of the inspirations of Central Park, New York City....
in 1670

1670 in literature

The year 1670 in literature involved some significant events....
, and was printed in 1679. (Betterton played Virginius, and his wife was Virginia.) Betterton combined elements from the sixteenth-century play with Websterian material. Later dramatists also dealt with the story: John Dennis's Appius and Virginia was staged at Drury Lane

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a London borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane....
in 1709

1709 in literature

The year 1709 in literature involved some significant events....
(Betterton was Virginius again). At least seven other versions followed.

Synopsis

The play is set in ancient Rome

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
in the time of the Decemvirate, from 451 to 449 B.C.E. In the opening scene, Appius Claudius is offered membership among the Decemviri; he feigns humility and claims unworthiness for the high office, and accepts only when faced with the penalty for refusal, which is banishment. Yet in private conversation with his closest follower, Marcus Claudius, Appius shows that he actually covets the office and its power, and cynically masks his ambition with an outward show of modesty.

The play's second scene introduces Virginia, her uncle Numitorius, and her betrother, Icilius. Virginia's father Virginius is away commanding the army of Rome; but Icilius brings word that Virginius has suddenly returned to Rome from the field, spurring his horse bloody as he races directly to the Senate. Appius confesses to Marcus Claudius that he lusts after Virginia, and Marcus encourages Appius to exploit his power to obtain the girl; Appius, he says, can easily exert control over Virginius through his position in the state. Before the Senate, Virginius pleads for money for the hungry troops, warning the Senate that the army is close to mutiny. Appius puts him off, promising help "Hereafter." The Senate breaks up, and Virginius pauses only briefly to see his family before returning to the camp, where he manages to stifle the mutiny by the force of his commanding personality.

Virginia is serenaded by musicians she thinks are sent by Icilius; when she learns that they were actually sent by Appius, she rejects his advance. Appius courts her and pursues her with letters and gifts; at first Virginia conceals this from Icilius, but later she reveals all. Icilius meets Appius in private and threatens to kill him if he continues. Appius is outraged by this, and unhappy at the poor results of his pursuit of Virginia. Marcus reveals a bold plan to win the girl: he will use false evidence and perjured testimony to claim that Virginia is not really her father's daughter, but in fact a "bond-slave" belonging to himself.

Virginia is apprehended by Appius's lictors

Lictor

The lictor, derived from the Latin ligare , was a member of a special class of Rome civil servant, with special tasks of attending and guarding magistrates of the Roman Republic and Roman Empire who held imperium; essentially, a bodyguard....
while she is shopping in the market. Marcus brings the legal action before Appius, who makes a pretense of impartiality and even of suspicion and hostility toward Marcus — which does not fool Icilius or Numitorius. Appius tries to stage the trial before Virginius has time to return to Rome, but the general shows up for the hearing dressed like a slave. Before the trial starts, Virginia tells her father that she would rather die than be prostituted to Appius's lust. The rigged hearing goes as Appius and Marcus plan: their unctious Advocate presents false documents, and Appius rules in Marcus's favor. Icilius protests, and is taken into custody. Virginius bows to the demands of honor and to his daughter's words, and stabs Virginia to death in the courtroom. There is outrage, and an attempt to apprehend Virginius, but he escapes back to his troops. He confronts the soldiers with the fact of his deed, and once again wins their backing; he leads the army back to Rome.

The authorities imprison Appius and Marcus and release Icilius from prison to confront Virginius when the general arrives. Icilius is appalled that Virginius has killed his daughter ("thou hast turn'd / My bridal to a funeral"), and the two have a debate on the intertwined considerations of law and justice and honor. The two men join forces to go to the Senate to confront Appius.

Appius and Marcus are produced in chains. Virginius is emotionally drained after the ordeal of his daughter's death at his own hand, and seems ready to pardon Appius. This provokes Icilius. He brings Virginia's body through the streets; the Roman populace, confronted by the sight, becomes passionate for Appius's downfall, and Virginius's resolve is strengthened again. Appius and Marcus are offered swords; Appius uses his to commit suicide, but Marcus lacks the nerve to do the same, and pleads for mercy. He is sent to be executed by the common hangman.

The play's comic relief

Comic Relief

File:Comic Relief.svgComic Relief is a British charity organisation that was founded in the United Kingdom in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis in response to famine in Ethiopia....
is supplied by soldiers and servants, led by Virginia's servant Corbulo.

The critical response

Critics have differed widely and radically over the worth of Webster's Appius and Virginia. For Dugdale Sykes, the play is "Firmly constructed, lucid in style, and with a simple, coherent plot," which "is utterly unlike The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfy [sic], those profounder and more poetic tragedies...." Other critics have rendered harsher judgements, regarding the play's black-and-white morality as simplistic and uninteresting compared to Webster's other, more complex tragedies.