The Tragedy of Tragedies

by Henry Fielding, Darryl Domingo (Editor)

Best known today for the novels Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones, Henry Fielding was just as renowned in his own time as a prolific and highly successful dramatist. Among his most popular plays was The Tragedy of Tragedies: Or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb, one of the most extraordinary parodies in English theater. The print version of the play incorporates, in an elaborate structure of annotations, a remarkable satire of heroic drama and of the pretensions and excesses of “false scholarship.”

This edition includes the text of the play itself and the text of the extraordinary notes (by Fielding’s pseudonym “H. Scriblerus Secundus”), appearing in facing page layout; extensive explanatory notes for the modern reader appear at the bottom of the page. Also included are a substantial introduction and a wide range of background materials that set the work in the context of its time. These contextual materials include contemporary reviews, excerpts from the plays that Fielding’s parody most frequently targeted, and selections from works that provided inspiration for The Tragedy of Tragedies—from contemporary versions of the “Tom Thumb” folktale to satirical writing by authors such as Alexander Pope, John Gay, and George Villiers.

Genres: Plays, Classics, Drama, 18th Century, Fiction

158 pages, Paperback

First published March 24, 1730

About the author

Henry Fielding (1707 - 1754) was an English dramatist, journalist and novelist. The son of an army lieutenant and a judge's daughter, he was educated at Eton School and the University of Leiden before returning to England where he wrote a series of farces, operas and light comedies.

Fielding formed his own company and was running the Little Theatre, Haymarket, when one of his satirical plays began to upset the government. The passing of the Theatrical Licensing Act in 1737 effectively ended Fielding's career as a playwright.

In 1739, Fielding turned to journalism and became editor of The Champion. He also began writing novels, including: The Adventures of Joseph Andrews (1742) and Jonathan Wild (1743).

Fielding was made a justice of the peace for Westminster and Middlesex in 1748. He campaigned against legal corruption and helped his half-brother, Sir John Fielding, establish the Bow Street Runners.

In 1749, Fielding's novel The History of Tom Jones was published to public acclaim. Critics agree that it is one of the greatest comic novels in the English language. He followed this success with another well received novel, Amelia, in 1751.

Fielding continued as a journalist and his satirical journal, Covent Garden, continued to upset those in power. Throughout his life, Fielding suffered from poor health. By 1752, he could not move without the help of crutches. In an attempt to overcome his health problems, Henry Fielding went to live in Portugal, but this was not successful, and he died in Lisbon in 1754.

Reviews

[amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

i am slain (this play killed me).

[Taghreed Allam · Rating 5 out of 5]

When a playwright writes a play to criticise the system, it's brave. But what about a law major, who became a magistrate, writing a play to savagely criticise the system and the PM personally? That's huge!

This is the case with "The Tragedy of Tragedies". It shouldn't, by any means, considered as utter comedy because the message behind it is so harsh that it was one of the main reasons for the "Licencing Act 1737" to protect Robert Walpole –the PM of England back then— from political sataire.

Regarding the play itself, Fielding skillfuly takes the characters of a famous legend from the folklore, tweaks them, and represents them to his audience. Everything about this work mainly revolves around overstatement and understatement; remember the complicated love triangle of Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot? Now you have way more complicated relationships in the play and guess who's the new Lancelot? Tom Thumb! You know the respected government and parliament members? Forget about them and here are two fools, they are a better representation.

Now you can see why this play was popular and we still remember it till now. Fielding is smart because he knew the people's love for King Arthur's legend so he decided to mess a little with their minds.

In addition to the hilarious scenes in the play, Fielding's comedy goes way beyond the text. It's also in the preface and the footnotes. Everything is exaggerated and the critique is directed towards literature itself by making fun of all that writers showing off their Latin and knowledge. The efforts exerted in the preface and footnotes are unbelievable.

Totally worth every minute of reading and credits to my drama professor for picking this play for our class and teaching us how to look thoroughly into such works.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tom Thumb satirizes the tropes of Arthurian legends and Jacobian dramas. Especially the last scene is a testament to this, which isn't exactly as bloody as Middleton's Women Beware Women and Other Plays, but it gets the point across. Absurdly gory, sloppily sentimental, fairy-talier than fairy-tales.
(Read because of the entry "Queen Dollalolla, the slatterpiece" in Darconville’s Cat's The Unholy Litany.)

[Nouran Mohamed]

A well developed play written by a brilliant writer . One cannot understand the specialty of the play unless he reads about it's context. Henry Fielding is not just a dramatist and a novelist; he is also a magistrate .On knowing that, the reader will feel that the play was not written only for fun but also for another greater aim. Fielding used his play as a platform to satirize . The most interesting part in that is he satirizing the literary norms. Didn't you become bored because of the overuse of notes? However, if you know that it's a part of his scheme, you certainly will find it funny. Hey you critic, you want me to write notes? Here are your notes. I will write notes about each and every detail in the play. I will tell you who took my lines and who added to them. I will tell you who found my nothing special lines the most great lines ever written. I will allude to great writers and Heroes in the most trivial situations . The Tragedy Of Tragedies is much more than an accumulation of jokes; it evokes everyone to read and think. Every time I go deeper in the context, I find it more interesting and funny.

[Bella · Rating 4 out of 5]

This actually had me cackling like bro is hilarious

[Sophia · Rating 4 out of 5]

what the fuck!*


*(positively)

[Lulu]

1731 an expanded and reworked version of one of his earlier play, Tom Thumb 1730

[Jules Bosse · Rating 3 out of 5]

She's a 10 but her name is Huncamunca

[Max · Rating 2 out of 5]

I understand, and to an extent, appreciate Fielding's satirizing of textual analysis and literary criticism, but I didn't really find the joke to be funny. The play itself is okay, though in general it feels like a pale imitation of other tragedies, and the choice of Tom Thumb as the protagonist is a bit strange, especially given Fielding's poor handling of the associated Arthurian elements. Generally speaking, I don't think there's much to recommend here, and I certainly wouldn't have read it if not for it being a required reading in one of my classes.

[Julian Munds · Rating 2 out of 5]

I cannot say this play has aged well. The poetry hampers the progression of plot. There are moments of magic but it falls flat on the modern ear. I could see a colourful oddity in its performance. It's one of those plays that should stay in the past. There's a neat moment where Merlin conjures a future theatre to tell Tom Thumb about the audiences that will flock to see his story. The best Tragedy ever written as Scriblerus says in his libelrous subscript. That's a gross overstatement.

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Written in 1731 by the hilarious Henry Fielding
It was said in its day "No one could write so fine a piece but Mr.Pope, but also, "No one could write anything so bad, but Mr. Fielding. I don't love it the way I love his "Tom Jones."

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really funny play, although many of the jokes are contextual and really could only be truly understood by someone living in the time period it was initially written. However, many of the jokes could still be good, and it was well worth the read.

[Ola El-Gohary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ew.