The Knight of Malta
Encyclopedia
The Knight of Malta is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy
in the canon of John Fletcher
and his collaborators. It was initially published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio
of 1647
.
production, added in the second Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1679
, cites Richard Burbage
, Henry Condell
, Nathan Field, Robert Benfield
, John Underwood
, John Lowin
, Richard Sharpe
, and Thomas Holcombe
, indicating that the play was performed in the 1616–19 period — after Field joined the troupe in 1616 but before Burbage's death in March 1619.
The authors depended upon the Filocolo of Giovanni Boccaccio
as their source, specifically the section of that work called "The Thirteen Questions of Love."
to Cyrus Hoy
and after, have attributed the authorship of the play to Fletcher, Field, and Philip Massinger
. While not unanimous on all points, critics have generally favored a division of authorship along these lines:
The play was roughly contemporaneous with The Queen of Corinth
, another work by the same trio of writers. The play's villainess is called Zanthia in Act I, and Abdella through the remainder of the play, suggesting that the text was set into type from the authors' "foul papers" or working draft. The name conflict would have been corrected in the theatre promptbook.
was pursuing a policy of Spanish appeasement; the play's choice of subject, the Knights of Malta
, has been interpreted in light of that policy, as a gesture at royal flattery. Modern critics have focused on the play's Christian/Muslim conflict, its sexual politics, and the racism of making the play's villain an African woman.
, in the era when the Knights of Malta used that island as their base in their conflict with the Ottoman Empire
. The action opens with a soliloquy by the play's villain, Mountferrat, a French member of the Order. Mountferrat, one of the Order's most formidable warriors, has reached a point in his life when he is no longer willing or able to adhere to his monastic vows. He maintains a sexual relationship with an African serving woman, Zanthia; more recklessly, he has also been propositioning Oriana, sister to Valetta, the Grand Master of the Order. Oriana has spurned his overtures, though she has kept them secret to avoid a scandal that would damage the Order's reputation. Zanthia, a longtime servant of Oriana, has learned to imitate her mistress's handwriting, in a plan to use that skill against Oriana.
Mountferrat has also grown resentful of the newer members of the Order who are receiving the kind of attention that he enjoyed in the past. Two prominent probationers, Miranda and Gomera, are being honored for their victories; each is given the opportunity to accept promotion from "Squire at Arms" to full membership as a Knight of the Order. Both, however, refuse; Miranda, the younger man, hesitates to take the monastic vows due to qualms of conscience. Gomera, an older man, confesses that he is in love, and therefore not prepared to take the vow of chastity. He admits that he loves Oriana, and Valetta and other knights approve of the potential match. Mountferrat interrupts this scene to present Zanthia's forged letter. Oriana has received a marriage proposal from the Basha
of Tripoli
, though she has no intention of accepting the Muslim ruler's proposal. Zanthia's forged letter indicates that Oriana will marry the Basha and will betray the Knights in the process.
Gomera rejects this slander, stating that Mountferrat is known to have pursued Oriana himself; he insists in defending Oriana in a trial by combat. Meanwhile, Miranda is engaged in warfare with the Turks; in the process, a beautiful young woman named Lucinda has come into his custody. Miranda subjects her to the kind of "chastity tests" that are such a noteworthy feature of Fletcherian drama; she passes all of them, consistently resisting his advances. Miranda had also been an admirer of Oriana; when he learns about the scandal and the coming combat between Mountferrat and Gomera, he goes to see Mountferrat. The villain plays upon Miranda's ego, suggesting that Gomera has dismissed him as a "boy." Miranda pleads to be allowed to take Mountferrat's place in the combat, and Mountferrat cynically agrees.
The combat is held; Gomera wins. Miranda's participation is not revealed until the duel is over, and the visor of his helmet is lifted. Miranda claims to have saved Miranda's honor, suggesting that he threw the combat deliberately; the implication is that Mountferrat would most likely have killed Gomera if the two had fought ("Gomera's old and stiff"). Both men appeal for Oriana's hand. Valetta decides that Gomera will marry Oriana, while Miranda becomes a knight of the Order. Mountferrat is sought as a criminal, and goes into hiding.
Gomera and Oriana settle into married life, and Oriana becomes pregnant. Zanthia/Abdella serves Oriana, and tries to provoke Gomera's jealousy over Oriana's admiration of Miranda. (The servant helps Mountferrat in his plan to seduce Oriana, because Mountferrat has promised to marry her.) In a confrontation between husband and wife, Oriana faints, and Abdella administers a sleeping potion that mimics death. Oriana is believed dead, and her body is taken to a crypt in a church. What follows borrows heavily from the climax of Romeo and Juliet
. Mountferrat and Abdella intend to go to the church and abduct Oriana when she wakes; but Miranda and his friend Norandine come to the church first. Miranda is there to pray after his most recent chastity test of Lucinda. The two men find Oriana as she awakens, and rescue her, leaving the church with her. Mountferrat and Abdella arrive soon after, only to find that Oriana is already gone. Gomera also arrives, mourning his wife; he finds and challenges Mountferrat.
The group leaves the church to fight in the open. Both Mountferrat and his servant attack Gomera with their swords, but are unable to defeat him; Abdella decides to resolve the combat with a pistol. Her shot wounds Gomera in the arm—but the report of the pistol attracts the attention of Norandine, which leads to the apprehension of Mountferrat and Abdella. In Miranda's care, Oriana gives birth to a son. In the play's denouement, Oriana and her son are re-united with Gomera, as Lucinda is with the man who was her intended husband prior to her capture. Mountferrat is stripped of his membership in the Order, while Miranda is promoted to full membership, thus becoming the Knight of Malta of the title.
The play's comic relief
is provided by the character Norandine, a Danish probationer who is a bluff, lusty, passionate character. Norandine's banter with his compatriots, with his surgeon, with soldiers and servants, supplies diversions of levity. Like Gomera, Norandine also refuses full knighthood; he likes drink and women too much to accept the monastic vows.
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...
in the canon of 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...
and his collaborators. It was initially published in the first 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...
of 1647
1647 in literature
The year 1647 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* Thomas Hobbes becomes tutor to the future Charles II of England.* Plagiarist Robert Baron publishes his Deorum Dona, a masque, and Gripus and Hegio, a pastoral, which draw heavily on the poems of Edmund Waller and John Webster's...
.
Date and source
No firm information is available on the play's date of authorship or earliest stage production. The cast list for the original King's Men'sKing'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...
production, added in the second Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1679
1679 in literature
This article lists some of the most significant events of the year 1679 in literature.-Events:*John Locke returns to England from France.*Étienne Baluze becomes almoner to King Louis XIV of France....
, cites Richard Burbage
Richard Burbage
Richard Burbage was an English actor and theatre owner. He was the younger brother of Cuthbert Burbage. They were both actors in drama....
, Henry Condell
Henry Condell
Henry Condell was an actor in the King's Men, the playing company for which William Shakespeare wrote. With John Heminges, he was instrumental in preparing the First Folio, the collected plays of Shakespeare, published in 1623....
, Nathan Field, Robert Benfield
Robert Benfield
Robert Benfield was a seventeenth-century actor, noted for his longtime membership in the King's Men in the years and decades after William Shakespeare's retirement and death.Nothing is known of Benfield's early life...
, John Underwood
John Underwood (actor)
John Underwood was an early 17th century actor, a member of the King's Men, the company of William Shakespeare.-Career:Underwood began as a boy player with the Children of the Chapel, and was cast in that company's productions of Ben Jonson's Cynthia's Revels and The Poetaster...
, John Lowin
John Lowin
John Lowin was an English actor born in the St Giles-without-Cripplegate, London, the son of a tanner. Like Robert Armin, he was apprenticed to a goldsmith. While he is not recorded as a free citizen of this company, he did perform as a goldsmith, Leofstane, in a 1611 city pageant written by...
, Richard Sharpe
Richard Sharpe (actor)
Richard Sharpe was an actor with the King's Men, the leading theatre troupe of its time and the company of William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage...
, and Thomas Holcombe
King's Men personnel
King's Men personnel were the people who worked with and for the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the King's Men from 1594 to 1642...
, indicating that the play was performed in the 1616–19 period — after Field joined the troupe in 1616 but before Burbage's death in March 1619.
The authors depended upon the Filocolo of Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular...
as their source, specifically the section of that work called "The Thirteen Questions of Love."
Authorship
Scholars, from F. G. FleayFrederick 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...
to 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...
and after, have attributed the authorship of the play to Fletcher, Field, and 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....
. While not unanimous on all points, critics have generally favored a division of authorship along these lines:
-
- Field — Acts I and V;
- Fletcher — Act II;
- Fletcher and Massinger — Acts III and IV.
The play was roughly contemporaneous with The Queen of Corinth
The Queen of Corinth
The Queen of Corinth is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy in the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators. It was initially published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.-Date:...
, another work by the same trio of writers. The play's villainess is called Zanthia in Act I, and Abdella through the remainder of the play, suggesting that the text was set into type from the authors' "foul papers" or working draft. The name conflict would have been corrected in the theatre promptbook.
Politics
In the period in which the play was written, King James IJames I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
was pursuing a policy of Spanish appeasement; the play's choice of subject, the Knights of Malta
Knights Hospitaller
The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta , also known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta , Order of Malta or Knights of Malta, is a Roman Catholic lay religious order, traditionally of military, chivalrous, noble nature. It is the world's...
, has been interpreted in light of that policy, as a gesture at royal flattery. Modern critics have focused on the play's Christian/Muslim conflict, its sexual politics, and the racism of making the play's villain an African woman.
Synopsis
The play is set on MaltaMalta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
, in the era when the Knights of Malta used that island as their base in their conflict with the Ottoman Empire
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...
. The action opens with a soliloquy by the play's villain, Mountferrat, a French member of the Order. Mountferrat, one of the Order's most formidable warriors, has reached a point in his life when he is no longer willing or able to adhere to his monastic vows. He maintains a sexual relationship with an African serving woman, Zanthia; more recklessly, he has also been propositioning Oriana, sister to Valetta, the Grand Master of the Order. Oriana has spurned his overtures, though she has kept them secret to avoid a scandal that would damage the Order's reputation. Zanthia, a longtime servant of Oriana, has learned to imitate her mistress's handwriting, in a plan to use that skill against Oriana.
Mountferrat has also grown resentful of the newer members of the Order who are receiving the kind of attention that he enjoyed in the past. Two prominent probationers, Miranda and Gomera, are being honored for their victories; each is given the opportunity to accept promotion from "Squire at Arms" to full membership as a Knight of the Order. Both, however, refuse; Miranda, the younger man, hesitates to take the monastic vows due to qualms of conscience. Gomera, an older man, confesses that he is in love, and therefore not prepared to take the vow of chastity. He admits that he loves Oriana, and Valetta and other knights approve of the potential match. Mountferrat interrupts this scene to present Zanthia's forged letter. Oriana has received a marriage proposal from the Basha
Pasha
Pasha or pascha, formerly bashaw, was a high rank in the Ottoman Empire political system, typically granted to governors, generals and dignitaries. As an honorary title, Pasha, in one of its various ranks, is equivalent to the British title of Lord, and was also one of the highest titles in...
of Tripoli
Tripoli
Tripoli is the capital and largest city in Libya. It is also known as Western Tripoli , to distinguish it from Tripoli, Lebanon. It is affectionately called The Mermaid of the Mediterranean , describing its turquoise waters and its whitewashed buildings. Tripoli is a Greek name that means "Three...
, though she has no intention of accepting the Muslim ruler's proposal. Zanthia's forged letter indicates that Oriana will marry the Basha and will betray the Knights in the process.
Gomera rejects this slander, stating that Mountferrat is known to have pursued Oriana himself; he insists in defending Oriana in a trial by combat. Meanwhile, Miranda is engaged in warfare with the Turks; in the process, a beautiful young woman named Lucinda has come into his custody. Miranda subjects her to the kind of "chastity tests" that are such a noteworthy feature of Fletcherian drama; she passes all of them, consistently resisting his advances. Miranda had also been an admirer of Oriana; when he learns about the scandal and the coming combat between Mountferrat and Gomera, he goes to see Mountferrat. The villain plays upon Miranda's ego, suggesting that Gomera has dismissed him as a "boy." Miranda pleads to be allowed to take Mountferrat's place in the combat, and Mountferrat cynically agrees.
The combat is held; Gomera wins. Miranda's participation is not revealed until the duel is over, and the visor of his helmet is lifted. Miranda claims to have saved Miranda's honor, suggesting that he threw the combat deliberately; the implication is that Mountferrat would most likely have killed Gomera if the two had fought ("Gomera's old and stiff"). Both men appeal for Oriana's hand. Valetta decides that Gomera will marry Oriana, while Miranda becomes a knight of the Order. Mountferrat is sought as a criminal, and goes into hiding.
Gomera and Oriana settle into married life, and Oriana becomes pregnant. Zanthia/Abdella serves Oriana, and tries to provoke Gomera's jealousy over Oriana's admiration of Miranda. (The servant helps Mountferrat in his plan to seduce Oriana, because Mountferrat has promised to marry her.) In a confrontation between husband and wife, Oriana faints, and Abdella administers a sleeping potion that mimics death. Oriana is believed dead, and her body is taken to a crypt in a church. What follows borrows heavily from the climax of Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
. Mountferrat and Abdella intend to go to the church and abduct Oriana when she wakes; but Miranda and his friend Norandine come to the church first. Miranda is there to pray after his most recent chastity test of Lucinda. The two men find Oriana as she awakens, and rescue her, leaving the church with her. Mountferrat and Abdella arrive soon after, only to find that Oriana is already gone. Gomera also arrives, mourning his wife; he finds and challenges Mountferrat.
The group leaves the church to fight in the open. Both Mountferrat and his servant attack Gomera with their swords, but are unable to defeat him; Abdella decides to resolve the combat with a pistol. Her shot wounds Gomera in the arm—but the report of the pistol attracts the attention of Norandine, which leads to the apprehension of Mountferrat and Abdella. In Miranda's care, Oriana gives birth to a son. In the play's denouement, Oriana and her son are re-united with Gomera, as Lucinda is with the man who was her intended husband prior to her capture. Mountferrat is stripped of his membership in the Order, while Miranda is promoted to full membership, thus becoming the Knight of Malta of the title.
The play's comic relief
Comic relief
Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension.-Definition:...
is provided by the character Norandine, a Danish probationer who is a bluff, lusty, passionate character. Norandine's banter with his compatriots, with his surgeon, with soldiers and servants, supplies diversions of levity. Like Gomera, Norandine also refuses full knighthood; he likes drink and women too much to accept the monastic vows.