The Battle Of Alcazar, 1597

by George Peele

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Genres: War, Drama

108 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1907

About the author

George Peele had a Master of Arts degree from Oxford University, which he noted in the signatures of most of his works as a poet, playwright, and translator. His plays include The Arraignment of Paris, Edward I, The Battle of Alcazar, The Old Wives' Tale, and David and Bethsabe, and several pageants. He is also believe to have written The Troublesome Rein of John, King of England, and portions of William Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and Henry VI trilogy. His interests lay strongly in the pastoral and romantic, and his allusions to classical mythology are earthy and treat the gods as people rather than personifications. As had his father, bookkeeper James Peele, he spent much of his life in debt, although most likely this was due to bad business investments in spite of many trumped-up charges of wanton behavior derived from a biographical jest book, disregarding the fact that such books interpolated most of the notable people of the era.

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strangely, the book that this play from the 1590s most reminded me of was Emma Sky's The Unravelling, about the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq, because it had so many similarities: a young, inexperienced leader invading a completely unknown country, because he'd been told by an unscrupulous fantasist that everyone would come out in support the invasion, whose main justification for the action was the God was on our side, and He would sort everything out, and everything goes to shit quite quickly; and this is despite the people who understood stuff, saying "Are you sure? This looks a bit dodgy to me". And foreign rulers saying "Sure we'll support the war effort, but we've just got this other thing to do first. And this. And this. Tell you what, you go ahead, and we'll join in later".

Sure, George W Bush didn't bring boat loads of laundresses and courtesans to Iraq, and to be fair he was trying to overthrow the child-killer, as opposed to innocently supporting and trying to reinstate him (as Sebastian of Portugal was doing), and his totally inept military action didn't destroy the entire ruling class of his own country and cause civil upheaval in Europe (though Tony Blair's support for it did destroy the British Labour Party for a generation), but this play really does show that we learn absolutely nothing from history.

This is a really good Early Modern play, if one could get over the (sort of half-hearted but in a sense that makes it so much worse) racism, against the "black Moor" Muly Mahamet, who is constantly (and unnecessarily) referenced as black. Charles Edelman says George Peele (in the Revels edition, the one I read) is having a practice run for Aaron the Moor in Titus Andronicus (which most scholars now seem to think is at least half George Peele's work these days), but whereas Aaron is a fully rounded Machiavel (and in many ways the most coherent character in that play) Muly Mahamet is simply evil.

Still, mostly pretty darn good.

[James F · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting work given the subject matter, though not one of his best plays for style, The Battle of Alcazar (Complete original title: The Battell of Alcazar, fovght in Barbarie, betweene Sebastian king of Portugall, and Abdelmelec king of Morocco. With the death of Captaine Stukeley) takes up a contemporary historical event which took place only ten years before the play was written. I won't summarize the plot, since it follows the history reasonably closely and I have already reviewed a non-fiction account of the battle. Like Shakespeare in his history plays, Peele condenses the chronology somewhat to make for a more dramatic story; the annotated edition I read, from the Elizabethan Drama website (http://elizabethandrama.org/) notes most of the points on which the play diverges from the historical facts. Writing for an English audience, Peele emphasizes the role of the English "renegade" Stuckeley, and exaggerates the size and importance of his contingent. Most of the female characters seem to be Peele's invention.

[Kristen Feigel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Historical plays are not my niche interest, so perhaps my review is biased in a negative light. This play was confusing at times, though it could have been due to the non-fiction elements of the social and historical context of the time. This is a piece that requires undivided attention and a LOT of prior knowledge of the time. I had both, and I was still confused for a lot of my reading. The redeeming qualities of the play were the monologues and soliloquies throughout; the writing itself was quite beautiful at times. While this is a play I can honestly say I can't see myself voluntarily picking up again, I am glad to have read it.

[Gill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written for the original Admiral's men; not quite so easy to work out which role Alleyn had. It retells relatively recent history, the story of a battle ten years before it was written in which the King of Portugal died, as did an Irish mercenary whose main intention had been to recover Ireland for the Catholics. In the middle of the play there is thus a scene in which he is warned repeatedly that God is clearly on Elizabeth's side and Britain is too tough to attack anyway. A few months after the Armada this would have gone down extremely well with a London audience!

[jules · Rating 2 out of 5]

interesting for its place in the canon of early modern english drama but to be honest this feels more like a retelling of some historical events than a story with characters

[Геллее Салахов Авбакар · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Battle of Alcazar is a Piece of Theater that discuss the main event of the Battle of Alcazar held in Morocco. It was so called the battle of the three kings. It took the events from the beginning of the mobilization to the deep spot of the Battle. the Story was written in a very classical English with a Poetic style, It worths being performed in the Stage.