Robert Armin (c. 1563 – 1615) was an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
actorAn actor or actress is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, a member of the
Lord Chamberlain's MenThe Lord Chamberlain's Men was a playing company at which William Shakespeare worked as an actor and playwright for most of his career. Formed at the end of a period of flux in the theatrical world of London, it had become, by 1603, one of the two leading companies of the city and was subsequently...
. He became the leading
comedyComedy as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse generally intended to amuse, 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 Ancient Greece...
actor with the troupe associated with
William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
following the departure of
Will KempeWilliam Kempe , also spelled Kemp, was an English actor and dancer best known for being one of the original actors in William Shakespeare's plays. Specialising in comic roles, he was considered during the period as the successor to the great Queen's Men clown Richard Tarlton.-Life:Of Kempe's early...
around 1600. Also a popular comic author, he wrote a comedy,
The History of the Two Maids of More-clacke, as well as
Foole upon Foole,
A Nest of Ninnies (1608) and
The Italian Taylor and his Boy.
Armin changed the part of the clown or fool from the rustic servingman turned
comedianA comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain members of an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
to that of a high-comedy domestic wit.
Early life
- “…the clown is wise because he plays the fool for money, while others have to pay for the same privilege.” – Leslie Hotson in Shakespeare’s Motley
Armin was one of three children born to John Armyn II of
King's LynnKing's Lynn is a town and port in Norfolk, England. The town has been known variously as Bishop's Lynn and Lynn Regis, while it is frequently referred to by locals as simply Lynn, the Celtic word for lake....
, a successful
tailorA tailor is a person whose occupation is to sew and scissor menswear style jackets and the skirts or trousers that go with them.Although the term dates to the thirteenth century, tailor took on its modern sense in the late eighteenth century, and now refers to makers of men's and women's suits,...
and friend to John Lonyson, a
goldsmithA goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Since ancient times the techniques of a Goldsmith have evolved very little in order to produce items of jewelry of quality standards. In modern times actual Goldsmiths are rare...
of the same place. His brother, John Armyn III, was a merchant tailor in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
. Armin did not take up his father’s craft; instead, his father apprenticed him to Lonyson in the
Goldsmiths' CompanyThe Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. The Company, which has origins in the twelfth century, received a Royal Charter in 1327. It ranks fifth in the order of precedence of Livery Companies. Its motto is Justitia Virtutum Regina, Latin for Justice...
in 1581. Lonyson was the Master of Works at the
Royal MintThe Royal Mint of the United Kingdom is the body permitted to manufacture, or mint, coins in the United Kingdom. The Mint originated over 1,100 years ago, but has functioned since 1975 as a Trading Fund, operating in much the same way as a government-owned company...
in the
Tower of LondonHer Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London , is a historic fortress and scheduled monument in central London, England, on the north bank of the River Thames...
, a position of great responsibility. The arrangement moved Armin to a life and a social circle quite different from what he might have expected as a Norfolk tailor. Lonyson died in 1582, and the apprenticeship was transferred to another master. According to a tale preserved in
Tarlton's Jests, Armin came to the attention of the Queen's famous jester
Richard TarltonRichard Tarlton , an English actor, was the most famous clown of his era.He was born in Condover, Shropshire. Firm information on his early life is scarce; traditions maintain that he started out as either a London apprentice, or a swineherd in Shropshire; and it is not impossible that he was both...
. In the course of his duties, the story contends, Armin was sent to collect money from a lodger at Tarlton's inn. Frustrated by the man's refusal to pay, Armin wrote verses in chalk on the wall; Tarlton noticed and, aprroving their wit, wrote an answer in which he expressed a desire to take Armin as his apprentice. Though not corroborated, this anecdote is far from the least plausible in
Tarlton's Jests. Influenced by Tarlton or not, Armin already had a literary reputation before he finished his apprenticeship in 1592. In 1590, his name is affixed to the preface of a religious tract,
A Brief Resolution of the Right Religion. Two years later, both
Thomas NasheThomas Nashe was an English Elizabethan pamphleteer, poet and satirist. He was the son of the minister William Nashe and his wife Margaret .-Life and career:...
(in
Strange News) and
Gabriel HarveyGabriel Harvey was an English writer. Harvey was a notable scholar, though his reputation suffered from his quarrel with Thomas Nashe...
(in
Pierce's Supererogation) mention him as a writer of
balladA ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative and set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later North America, Australia and North Africa. Many...
s; none of his work in this vein, however, is known to have survived. Armin reported in his
Quips upon Questions that by December 1599 he was the servant of a great lord in Hackney, for which
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of OxfordEdward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford was an Elizabethan courtier, playwright, poet, sportsman, patron of numerous writers, and sponsor of at least two acting companies, Oxford's Men and Oxford's Boys, and a company of musicians...
, who lived there from 1596 to 1604, appears to be the only candidate.
The Chandos company
At some point in the 1590s, Armin joined a company of players patronized by Baron Chandos. With this company, about which little is known, he is presumed to have traveled from the western
MidlandsThe English Midlands, or the Midlands is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important...
to
East AngliaEast Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...
. The nature of his work for the company may be estimated from his parts in
The History of the Two Maids of More-clacke. The preface to the
1609The year 1609 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*On January 1, the Children of the Blackfriars perform Middleton's A Trick to Catch the Old One at Court....
quartoThe 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"...
indicates that he played Blue John, a clown in the vein of Tarlton and Kempe; he also seems to have doubled in the role of Tutch, a witty fool of the type he later played in London. The late quarto is associated with a revival by the Children of the King's Revels, a short-lived troupe of
boy playerBoy 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...
s led by Nathan Field, but it was almost certainly written around 1597.
Little else is known precisely of Armin's time with Chandos's Men. A dedication to his patron's widow in 1604 suggests some personal acquaintance with the Brydges family; on the other hand, a reference in another work suggests he may have spent some time, like Kempe, as a solo performer. The pair of books Armin published around the turn of the century demonstrate a performer with an interest in his craft.
Fool Upon Fool (1600, 1605; reissued in 1608 as
A Nest of Ninnies), offers the wit of assorted natural fools, some of whom Armin knew personally. The same year he published
Quips upon Questions, a collection of seemingly extemporaneous dialogues with his
marotteA Marotte is a prop stick or scepter with a carved head on it. The word is borrowed from the French, where it signifies either a fool's bauble, or a fad/craze....
, named by him Signor Truncheon. In this he demonstrates his style; instead of having a conversation with the audience, as Tarlton did, and entering into a battle of wits, he jests using multiple
personaA persona, in the word everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. This is an Italian word that derives from the Latin for "mask" or "character", derived from the Etruscan word "phersu", with the same meaning...
s, improvised song, or by commenting on a person or event. Rather than exchange words, he gave words freely.
The first editions of these two books were credited to "Clonnico de Curtanio Snuffe"--that is, to the Clown of the
CurtainThe Curtain Theatre was an Elizabethan playhouse located in Curtain Close, Shoreditch , just outside the City of London. It opened in 1577, and continued staging plays until 1622....
". The 1605 edition changes "Curtain" to "Mundo" (that is,
GlobeThe Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613. A second Globe Theatre was built on the same site by June 1614 and closed in 1642.A modern...
); only in 1608 was he credited by name, though the earlier title pages would have sufficed to identify him for Londoners.
Another work of uncertain date (it was published in 1609) is
The Italian Tailor and his Boy. A translation of a tale from Gianfrancesco Straparola, the subject matter may reflect his family background of tailors. He was a tailor’s son, who paralleled in the
ItalianThe Italian people are an ethnic group, in the sense of sharing a common Italian culture, descent, and speaking the Italian language as a mother tongue...
tailor’s apprentice, and the
rubyA ruby is a pink to blood-red gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum . The red color is caused mainly by the presence of the element chromium. Its name comes from ruber, Latin for red. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sapphires...
ring of the play’s lore parallels the goldsmith apprentice.
Sutcliffe argues that Armin wrote a pamphlet published in 1599,
A Pil to Purge Melancholie, on the grounds that it was published by the same press, mentions a clown with Armin’s nickname, and contains verbal echoes of
Two Maids of More-clacke.
Lord Chamberlain's Men
The timing of Armin's joining the Chamberlain's Men is as mysterious as its occasion. That it was connected to Kempe's departure has been generally accepted; however, the reasons for that departure are not clear. One traditional view—that the company in general or Shakespeare specifically had begun to tire of Kempe's old-fashioned clowning—is still current, though the main evidence for this view consists of Kempe's departure and the type of comic roles Shakespeare wrote after 1600. Armin played on the Globe stage by August 1600; Wiles theorizes that he may have joined the Chamberlain’s Men in 1599, but continued to perform solo pieces at the Curtain; however, he may also have played with the company at the Curtain, while Kempe was still a member.
Armin is generally credited with all the "licensed fools" in the repertory of the Chamberlain's and
King's MenThe 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...
: Touchstone in
As You Like ItAs You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the folio of 1623. The work was based upon the novel Rosalynde by Thomas Lodge. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in...
, Feste in
Twelfth Night, the Fool in
King LearKing Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1603 and 1606, and is considered one of his greatest works. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological pre-Roman Celtic king...
, Lavatch in
All's Well That Ends WellAll's Well That Ends Well is a play by William Shakespeare. It was probably written between 1601 and 1608, and it was first published in the First Folio in 1623....
, and perhaps Thersites in
Troilus and CressidaTroilus and Cressida is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1602. The play is not a conventional tragedy, since its protagonist does not die. The play ends instead on a very bleak note with the death of the noble Trojan Hector and destruction of the love between...
, the Porter in
MacbethThe Tragedy of Macbeth, commonly just Macbeth, is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
, the Fool in
Timon of AthensThe Life of Timon of Athens is a play by William Shakespeare about an Athenian misanthrope named Timon , generally regarded as one of his most obscure and difficult works...
, and Autolycos in
The Winter's TaleThe Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, first published in the First Folio in 1623. Although it was listed as a comedy when it first appeared, some modern editors have relabeled the play a romance. Some critics, among them W. W...
. Touchstone is the fool of these three about which there is the most critical debate.
Harold BloomHarold Bloom is an American writer and literary critic, currently Sterling Professor of the Humanities at Yale University...
describes him as “rancidly vicious,” and writes that “this more intense rancidity works as a
touchstoneA touchstone is a small tablet of dark stone such as fieldstone, slate, or lydite, used for assaying precious metal alloys. It has a finely grained surface on which soft metals leave a visible trace.-Usage:...
should, to prove the true gold of Rosalind’s spirit”.
John Palmer-People:*John Palmer , U.S. Congressman from New York*John Palmer, 4th Earl of Selborne , British peer and businessman*John Palmer , English actor*John Palmer , British architect...
disagrees and writes that “he must be either a true
cynicThe Cynics were an influential group of philosophers from the ancient school of Cynicism. Their philosophy was that the purpose of life was to live a life of Virtue in agreement with Nature. This meant rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, health, and fame, and by living a life...
or one that affects his cynicism to mask a fundamentally genial spirit”. Obviously, as Palmer continues, a true cynic does not belong in
Arden-Places:Canada*Arden, Manitoba*Arden, Ontario*Arden Park, British Columbia*Ardendale, Ontario*Ardenode, Alberta*Ardenville, AlbertaEurope*Arden, Dunbartonshire, Scotland*Arden, Glasgow, Scotland...
, so the clown “must be a thoroughly good fellow at heart”. Touchstone affects the front of a malcontented cynic, thus serving as proof of Rosalind’s quick wit. When she confronts both Jaques and Touchstone, she exposes their silliness and prevents the fools from making Arden out to be worse than it really is.
Feste was almost certainly written for Armin, as he is a scholar, a singer, and a wit. Feste’s purpose is to reveal the foolishness of those around him. Lear’s fool differs from both Touchstone and Feste as well as from other clowns of his era. Touchstone and Feste are philosopher-fools; Lear’s fool is the natural fool of whom Armin studied and wrote. Armin here had the opportunity to display his studies. The fool speaks the prophecy lines, which he tells—largely ignored—to
LearLear or Leir can refer to:* Leir of Britain, a legendary king of the Britons* King Leir, an anonymous play based on the legend of Leir of Britain, published in 1605...
before disappearing from the play altogether. Lear’s fool is hardly around for entertainment purposes; rather, he is present to forward the plot, remain loyal to the king, and perhaps to stall his madness.
In non-Shakespearean roles, he probably played Pasarello in
John MarstonJohn Marston was an English poet, playwright and satirist during the late Elizabethan and Jacobean periods...
's
The MalcontentThe Malcontent is an early Jacobean stage play written by the dramatist and satirist John Marston ca. 1603. The play was one of Marston's most successful works....
; indeed, Marston may have added the part for him when the play was produced by the King's Men. Armin appears in the cast list for
Ben JonsonBenjamin 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...
's
The AlchemistThe Alchemist is a comedy by English playwright Ben Jonson. First performed in 1610 by the King's Men, it is generally considered Jonson's best and most characteristic comedy; Samuel Taylor Coleridge claimed that it had one of the three most perfect plots in literature...
; he may have played Drugger. He is also presumed to have been the clown in
George WilkinsGeorge Wilkins was an English dramatist and pamphleteer.He is first heard of as the author of a pamphlet on the Three Miseries of Barbary, which dates from 1606...
's
The Miseries of Inforst Marriage.
He is not named in the cast list for Jonson's
Catiline (1611), and other evidence suggests that he retired in 1609 or 1610. The preface to the
Two Maids quarto confides, “I would have again enacted John myself, but
tempora mutantur in illis, and I cannot do as I would”. He was buried in late 1615.
In London, he resided in the parish of St. Bishops
AldgateAldgate was the easternmost gateway through London Wall leading from the City of London to Whitechapel and the east end of London. Aldgate gives its name to a ward of the City...
; three of his children named in the parish register appear to have died before adulthood. Fellow King's Man
Augustine PhillipsAugustine Phillips was an Elizabethan actor who performed in troupes with Edward Alleyn and William Shakespeare. He was one of the first generation of English actors to achieve wealth and a degree of social status by means of his trade....
bequeathed him twenty
shillingThe shilling is a unit of currency used in current and former English Commonwealth countries and still used in countries which have become republics, such as Kenya. The word shilling comes from schilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of...
s as a "fellow";
John Davies of HerefordJohn Davies of Hereford was a writing-master and an Anglo-Welsh poet. He is usually known as John Davies of Hereford in order to distinguish him from others of the same name....
wrote Armin a complimentary
epigramAn Epigram is a brief, clever, and usually memorable statement. Derived from the "to write on - inscribe", the literary device has been employed for over two millennia....
.
A new fool
Armin may have played a key role in the development of Shakespearian fools. “If any player breathed,” Hotson tells us, “who could explore with Shakespeare the shadows and fitful flashes of the borderland of insanity, that player was Armin”. Robert Armin explored every aspect of the clown, from the natural idiot to the philosopher-fool; from serving man to retained jester. In study, writing, and performance, Armin moved the fool from rustic zany to trained motley. His characters—those he wrote and those he acted—absurdly point out the absurdity of what is otherwise called normal. Instead of appealing to the identity of the English commoner by imitating them, he created a new fool, a high-comic jester for whom wisdom is wit and wit is wisdom.
Ken KeseyKenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s...
told an interviewer of this notion of a fool. "That fool of Shakespeare’s, the actor Robert Armin, became so popular that finally Shakespeare wrote him out of Henry IV. In a book called A Nest of Ninnies, Armin wrote about the difference between a fool artificial and a fool natural. And the way Armin defines the two is important: the character Jack Oates is a true fool natural. He never stops being a fool to save himself; he never tries to do anything but anger his master, Sir William. A fool artificial is always trying to please; he’s a lackey."
The Shakespeare Stealer
Robert Armin is a significant character in
Gary BlackwoodGary Blackwood, born on October 23rd, 1945 in Meadville, Pennsylvania, is an American author of popular books for young readers including The Shakespeare Stealer, Shakespeare's Scribe, and Shakespeare's Spy. He grew up in rural Cochranton,Pennsylvania. He attended his earliest years of grade school...
's
historical fictionHistorical fiction is a sub-genre of fiction that often portrays fictional accounts or dramatization of historical figures or events. Writers of stories in this genre, while penning fiction, nominally attempt to capture the spirit, manners, and social conditions of the persons or time presented in...
The Shakespeare Stealer.
Tam Lin
In the 1991 Pamela Dean novel
Tam LinTam Lin is a 1991 contemporary fantasy novel by U.S. author Pamela Dean based on the traditional Scottish border ballad Tam Lin.It was originally published as one of the Fairy Tale Series edited by Terri Windling.-Plot introduction:...
, one of the major characters is Robert Armin (better known as Robin), a Classics and Theater student at a small college in the Midwestern U.S. during the early 1970s who has a surprisingly detailed knowledge of William Shakespeare's life and work.
Sources
- Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York: Riverhead Books, 1998.
- Faggen, Robert. Ken Kesey-The Art of Fiction. The Paris Review: Issue 130, Spring 1994.
- Felver, Charles S. "Robert Armin, Shakespeare's Fool: a Biographical Essay." Kent State University Bulletin 49(1) January 1961.
- Gray, Austin. "Robert Armine, the Foole." PMLA 42 (1927), 673-685.
- Hotson, Leslie. Shakespeare’s Motley. New York: Oxford University Press, 1952.
- Lippincott, H. F. "King Lear and the Fools of Armin." Shakespeare Quarterly 26 (1975), 243-253.
- Palmer, John. Comic Characters of Shakespeare. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1953.
- Suttcliffe, Chris. Robert Armin: Apprentice Goldsmith.Notes & Queries December 1994: 503-504.
- Suttcliffe, Chris. The Canon of Robert Armin's Work: An Addition. Notes & Queries June 1996: 171-175.
- Wiles, David. Shakespeare's Clown. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.