Gammer Gurton's Needle

by John Still, Charles Whitworth (Editor)

Formerly attributed to John Still, Gammer Gurton's Needle, written between 1552 and 1563, is now thought to be by William Stevenson, a fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge University, where the play was first performed in the 1560s. The play is an extraordinary achievement and – with Nicholas Udall's Ralph Roister Doister – one of the first two comedies in the English language. John Gassner calls Gammer Gurton's Needle a lively farce, close to the folk spirit of Elizabethan country life: "It is, indeed, a distinctly folksy play with its village setting, its rustic manners, and its flavorsome dialogue written in fluid rhymed verse." That Gassner also seems to believe the play is "wholesome," means, perhaps, that he has ignored the playwright's central conceit – whereby the play's eponymous needle is functioning as a (quite obvious) euphemism.

Genres: Drama, Plays, Classics, Read For School

Paperback

First published January 1, 1575

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

John Still (1543?-1608) was a bishop of Bath and Wells.

Reviews

[Florin Durbaca]

This literary work (an English comedy play) is representative of the last healthy heartbeats of the great historical and cultural darkness that was the Middle Ages.
Although the subject may seem trivial, for me, this comedy sparked not only laughter and melancholy but also a critical spirit (the evolution of human characters in the context of continuous progress on all technical fronts).
It has already been a few weeks since I read this play.
It has remained in my memory as a pleasant read... it stirred a nostalgia for a long-lost childhood (childhood holidays were spent in the Romanian countryside). The resemblance not only of the setting but also of the sources of conflict showed me how similar these can be from one era to another.
Furthermore, the Romanian translation that I had the honor of reading had a fabulous, sparkling exchange of lines... I don't know how this is found in other translations.
Also, it's quite amusing to realize that no matter how much the rest of the world tries to take itself seriously in its maturity... there will always be free spirits who will create chaos in the lives of the former, just for fun.
In the end, for me, it was not just an amusing read...
With this, I conclude my first humble review on Goodreads. I accept any kind of criticism. Correct, well-intentioned criticism and the free and polite debate of ideas have remained, from my point of view, among our few anchors in a daily reality...


Ro❤️💛💙Aceasta opera literară (teatru englez, comedie) este reprezentativă ultimelor bătăi sănătoase de inima ale marelui întuneric istoric și cultural, care a fost evul mediu.
Deși subiectul este unul care poate părea banal.. pentru mine, aceasta comedie a stârnit nu numai râsul și melancolia, cât și spiritul critic (evoluția caracterelor umane, in contextul progresului continuu pe toate liniile tehnice).
Au trecut deja câteva săptămâni de când am citit această piesă de teatru.
Mi-a rămas în memorie ca o lectură plăcută.. a stârnit melancolia unei copilării de mult pierdute (vacantele in copilărie, erau petrecute în mediul rural românesc) asemănarea nu numai a cadrului cat și a motivelor de conflict.. mi-a arătat cât de asemănătoare pot fi acestea de la o epocă la alta.
In plus traducerea în limba română pe care eu am avut onoarea sa o citesc.. a avut un schimb de replici fabulos, spumos.. nu știu cum este regăsită aceasta.. in alte traduceri
De asemeni, este chiar amuzant să realizezi, că oricât de mult încearcă restul lumii să se o in serios în maturitatea ei... Vor exista întotdeauna și oameni liberi.. care vor crea haos în viața celor de mai sus, doar pentru amuzament.
In final, pentru mine a fost o lectură nu numai amuzanta..
Cu asta închei prima mea umilă recenzie pe goodreads, accept orice fel de critica. Critica corecta, bineintentionata și dezbaterea de idei în mod liber și politicos.. au rămas din punctul meu de vedere printre putinele noastre ancore într-o realitate cotidiană..... ...

[Tilly]

It's difficult not to have reservations about a play which, in its opening prologue, declares its subject matter to be nothing more than the loss of, subsequent search for, and eventual discovery of a sewing needle - even if, like myself, you're a huge Samuel Beckett fan. Indeed, if it's an intricate or captivating plot you're looking for, it might be worth skipping ahead to the seventeenth-century and immersing yourself in some Shakespeare or at the very least holding out for some Marlowe or Kyd. Yet this play has its own charms, my favourite being the unexpectedness of its comically offensive language register. Until encountering this play, 'early modern drama' sounded serious, academic and dry - an assumption light years away from the catfighting scenes that see Gammer Gurton and Dame Chat calling each other "slut", "bitch", "hog" and "cut" (you have to imagine the 'n', modern readers, and yes, they really were that forthright). This was sillier than I expected, and at times too puerile for my tastes, but it provided an interesting example of an early modern play and gave me a newfound appreciation for the work of Kyd and Marlowe and for the sheer talent of Shakespeare when it came to remaking the English drama scene.

[Aaron Thomas]

A truly delightful bit of nonsense. This is difficult to read, of course, being closer to Middle English than the English of Shakespeare or Jonson, but only at first! Once one gets used to the way Ich stands for I and a few other phrases that are used over and over in the text, things begin to go much more speedily.

The play itself is so stupid and so fun. It's an absurd farce about losing a needle, in which neighbors fight with one another and a doctor nearly loses his head. This text (and its wonderfully fun characters) feels like the plays in Jody Enders' collection The Farce of the Fart more than anything else. In any case, Gammer Gurton's Needle struck me as fun from start to finish, and the number of sexual puns in this comparatively short play is absolutely out of control. If the characters aren't talking about needles and britches, they're talking about candles, cocks, and henhouses or coming in the back instead of coming in the front. There are extended, absurd bits in which one character swears with his hand on his backside and then kisses the backside for lack of a Bible. It's comedy aimed at schoolboys, but Gammer Gurton's Needle is a true comic gem.

[Shaun]

One of the major barriers to my enjoyment of this play was the archaic nature of the language. Even with a slightly modernized spelling, the text is still syntactically closer to Middle English, and the poetic nature of the text further obscures some of the meaning. It is a delightful piece, and I imagine that it would come alive with a skilled group of actors, but the text itself is not as enjoyable as it would seem to be.

I would recommend this one read aloud, as that seems to get the language moving more than sitting down to read intensively. The rhymes and wordplay seem to be more oriented that way as well. It is indeed, a play.

[Ashley]

read for school

[leah]

nonsense