Widow's Tears

by George Chapman, Ethel E. Smeak (Editor)

EARLY ENGLISH WIT, POETRY & SATIRE. Imagine holding history in your hands. Now you can. Digitally preserved and previously accessible only through libraries as Early English Books Online, this rare material is now available in single print editions. Thousands of books written between 1475 and 1700 can be delivered to your doorstep in individual volumes of high quality historical reproductions. The power of literary device was never more in its prime than during this period of history, where a wide array of political and religious satire mocked the status quo and poetry called humankind to transcend the rigors of daily life through love, God or principle. This series comments on historical patterns of the human condition that are still visible today.++++The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition++++The vviddovves teares a comedie. As it was often presented in the blacke and white Friers. Written by Geor. Chap.Chapman, George, 1559?-1634.Printer's name from STC.[A]2 B-K4 L2 .[80] p.London : Printed [by William Stansby] for Iohn Browne, and are to be sold at his shop in Fleet-street in Saint Dunstanes Church-yard, 1612.Greg, I, 301. /STC (2nd ed.) / 4994EnglishReproduction of the original in the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery++++This book represents an authentic reproduction of the text as printed by the original publisher. While we have attempted to accurately maintain the integrity of the original work, there are sometimes problems with the original work or the micro-film from which the books were digitized. This can result in errors in reproduction. Possible imperfections include missing and blurred pages, poor pictures, markings and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature.

Genres: Drama, Classics, Class

122 pages, Paperback

First published July 13, 2010

About the author

George Chapman (c. 1559 – 12 May 1634) was an English dramatist, translator, and poet. He was a classical scholar whose work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman has been identified as the Rival Poet of Shakespeare's sonnets by William Minto, and as an anticipator of the Metaphysical Poets of the 17th century. Chapman is best remembered for his translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey (as commemorated by Keats), and the Homeric Batrachomyomachia.

Reviews

[Yorgos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man it's nice to read a Revels edition where it seems like the editor actually likes the play. Akihiro Yamada absolutely KILLED it in this one. Really went above and beyond. Comprehensive yet accessible and very well-written. Revels always have too many notes for me, but in this one the excess was minimal. I think maybe a little too conservative textually but better to under-emmend than over-emmend so can't really complain. Really nice edition; a real pleasure to read.

The play is good. Not great, good. Chapman is obviously not a very good poet but he IS a good dramatist and so this play works. It's not a masterpiece, it's not actually all that funny, but it works. Critical consensus (from the like 15 people who have read this play total) is that it's more a satire than a comedy. I'm not sure I buy that--like yea in the last act the author is just ripping into incompetent bureaucrats, but on the whole the play is framed as a comedy. First three acts much better than the last two. Pretty misogynistic: NOT painting women in the best of lights. On the other hand as Yamada points out Thrasalio is a very good character and a lot of fun. Much better than A Trick to Catch the Old One which I just read, yet somehow it's received less than one tenth the critical attention. Looking forward to reading more Chapman.

Nice step in my goal to read some of Shakespeare's contemporaries. Got it at a pop-up sale for cheap, read almost all of it in one day. Lotsa fun. 3.6 for the play, rounded up for the v. nice editing by Yamada.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was seriously recommended Chapman's comedies, having only read his tragedies. and, er...

Well, the first three acts are funny in a sort of Adam Sandler-style way. Tharsalio tries to trick the rich widow Eudora into falling in love with him; getting someone to say "Don't fall in love with him: he's sexually insatiable; brought seven women to orgasm in one night and they all fell in love with him". It's kind of funny that it works, but because he's such a scum bag you are constantly thinking: she can do better than him. Much.

The last two acts are: he has suggested to his brother Lysander that his wife will move on as soon as he's dead, and Lysander wants to prove him wrong. So he fakes his own murder, then, after his widow has been fasting, praying, mourning and grieving for four days, he pretends to be a soldier, gets her (and her maid) drunk, seduces her and has sex with her in his family tomb on his own coffin, and gets her to fall in love with him. He then tells her he killed her husband, and she still loves him. It's bleak, shocking, satirical, but is it funny? No, it's just creepy.

Maybe a live performance of this would convince me otherwise, but (reading it) this is a deep-down unpleasant play: maybe it'd come across as a 1600s Joe Orton comedy, but it feels like a nasty piece of work.

[Gill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite the ominous name this is a comedy. There are two plots - in one an aristocratic widow is persuaded to marry a bit of a scoundrel (but one who is very good in bed, we are told!) while in the other a virtuous woman is persuaded to believe her husband is dead, declares her intention to starve to death in his tomb, but is then almost seduced by her actual non-dead husband in disguise.

It makes that much sense in reading aloud too. Chapman had a fluent way with verse and prose, so this gallops along, and one can hear echoes and foreshadowing of some plays by his rather more famous contemporary, Shakespeare. Quite good fun to read, but a little too misogynistic for a modern stage, I feel.

Read as part of the REP online readathon of plays in the repertoire of the early Jacobean Children's Companies.