Thomas Middleton

Thomas Middleton (1580 – July 1627) was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. Middleton stands with John Fletcher and Ben Jonson among the most successful and prolific playwrights who wrote their best plays during the Jacobean period. He was one of the few Renaissance dramatists to achieve equal success in comedy and tragedy. Also a prolific writer of masques and pageants, he remains one of the most notable and distinctive of Jacobean dramatists.

Middleton was born in London and baptised on 18 April 1580. He was the son of a bricklayer who had raised himself to the status of a gentleman and who, interestingly, owned property adjoining the Curtain Theatre in Shoreditch. Middleton was just five when his father died and his mother's subsequent remarriage dissolved into a 15-year battle over the inheritance of Thomas and his younger sister – an experience which must have informed and perhaps incited his repeated satire at the expense of the legal profession.

Middleton attended Queen’s College, Oxford, matriculating in 1598, but he did not graduate. Before he left Oxford (sometime in 1600 or 1601), he wrote and published three long poems in popular Elizabethan styles. None appears to have been especially successful, and one, his book of satires, ran foul of an Anglican Church ban on verse satire and was burned. Nevertheless, his literary career was launched.

In the early 17th century, Middleton made a living writing topical pamphlets, including one – Penniless Parliament of Threadbare Poets – that was reprinted several times and became the subject of a parliamentary inquiry. At the same time, records in the diary of Philip Henslowe show that Middleton was writing for the Admiral's Men. Unlike Shakespeare, Middleton remained a free agent, able to write for whichever company hired him. His early dramatic career was marked by controversy. His friendship with Thomas Dekker brought him into conflict with Ben Jonson and George Chapman in the War of the Theatres. The grudge against Jonson continued as late as 1626, when Jonson's play The Staple of News indulges in a slur on Middleton's great success, A Game at Chess. It has been argued that Middleton's Inner Temple Masque (1619) sneers at Jonson (then absent in Scotland) as a "silenced bricklayer."

In 1603, Middleton married. In the same year an outbreak of the plague forced the theatres in London to close, while James I came to the English throne. These events marked the beginning of Middleton's greatest period as a playwright. Having passed the time during the plague composing prose pamphlets (including a continuation of Thomas Nashe's Pierce Penniless), he returned to drama with great energy, producing almost a score of plays for several companies and in several genres, most notably city comedy and revenge tragedy. He continued his collaborations with Dekker, and the two produced The Roaring Girl, a biography of the contemporary thief Mary Frith.

In the 1610s, Middleton began a fruitful collaboration with the actor William Rowley, producing Wit at Several Weapons and A Fair Quarrel. Working alone he produced his comic masterpiece, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, in 1613. His own plays from this decade reveal a somewhat mellowed temper. Certainly there is no comedy among them with the satirical depth of Michaelmas Term and no tragedy as bloodthirsty as The Revenger's Tragedy. Middleton was, at the same time, increasingly involved with civic pageants. This last connection was made official in 1620, when he was appointed chronologer of the City of London. He held this post until his death in 1627, when it passed to Jonson.

Middleton's official duties did not interrupt his dramatic writing; the 1620s saw the production of his and Rowley's tragedy The Changeling, and of several tragicomedies. In 1624, he reached a peak of notoriety when his dramatic allegory A Game at Chess was staged by the King's Men. The play used the conceit of a chess game to present and satirise the recent intrigues surrounding the Spanish Match. Though Middleton's approach was strongly patriotic, the Privy Council silenced the play after nine performances, having received a complaint from the Spanish ambassador. Middleton faced an unknown, probably frightening degree of punishment. Since no play later than A Game at Chess is recorded, it has been suggested that this included a ban on writing for the stage.

Middleton died at his home at Newington Butts in Southwark in 1627, and was buried on 4 July in St Mary's churchyard. The old church of St Mary's was demolished in 1876 to facilitate road-widening, and its replacement was destroyed in the Second World War and not rebuilt. The old churchyard where Middleton was buried survives as a public park in Elephant and Castle.

Middleton wrote in many genres, including tragedy, history and city comedy. His best-known plays are the tragedies The Changeling (written with William Rowley) and Women Beware Women, and the cynically satirical city comedy A Chaste Maid in Cheapside. Earlier editions of The Revenger's Tragedy attributed the play to Cyril Tourneur, or refused to arbitrate between Middleton and Tourneur. Since the statistical studies by David Lake and MacDonald P. Jackson, however, Middleton's authorship has not been seriously contested, and no further scholar has defended the Tourneur attribution. The Oxford Middleton and its companion piece, Thomas Middleton and Early Modern Textual Culture, offer extensive evidence both for Middleton's authorship of The Revenger's Tragedy, for his collaboration with Shakespeare on Timon of Athens, and for his adaptation and revision of Shakespeare's Macbeth and Measure for Measure. It has also been argued that Middleton collaborated with Shakespeare on All's Well That Ends Well.

Middleton's work is diverse even by the standards of his age. He did not have the kind of official relationship with a particular company that Shakespeare or Fletcher had. Instead he appears to have written on a freelance basis for any number of companies. His output ranges from the "snarling" satire of Michaelmas Term (performed by the Children of Paul's) to the bleak intrigues of The Revenger's Tragedy (performed by the King's Men). His early work was informed by the flourishing of satire in the late Elizabethan period, while his maturity was influenced by the ascendancy of Fletcherian tragicomedy. His later work, in which his satirical fury is tempered and broadened, includes three of his acknowledged masterpieces. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, produced by the Lady Elizabeth's Men, skilfully combines London life with an expansive view of the power of love to effect reconciliation. The Changeling, a late tragedy, returns Middleton to an Italianate setting like that of The Revenger's Tragedy, except that here the central characters are more fully drawn and more compelling as individuals. Similar development can be seen in Women Beware Women.

Middleton's plays are marked by their cynicism about the human race, which is often very funny. True heroes are a rarity: almost every character is selfish, greedy, and self-absorbed. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside offers a panoramic view of a London populated entirely by sinners, in which no social rank goes unsatirised. In the tragedies Women Beware Women and The Revenger's Tragedy, amoral Italian courtiers endlessly plot against each other, resulting in a climactic bloodbath. When Middleton does portray good people, the characters have small roles and are presented as flawless. Due to a theological pamphlet attributed to him, Middleton is thought by some to have been a strong believer in Calvinism.

Middleton's work has long been praised by literary critics, among them Algernon Charles Swinburne and T. S. Eliot. The latter thought Middleton was second only to Shakespeare.

Middleton's plays were staged throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, each decade offering more productions than the last. Even some less familiar works of his have been staged: A Fair Quarrel at the National Theatre, and The Old Law by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The Changeling has been adapted for film several times, and the tragedy Women Beware Women remains a stage favourite. The Revenger's Tragedy was adapted into Alex Cox's film Revengers Tragedy, the opening credits of which attribute the play's authorship to Middleton.

Plays

• The Phoenix (1603–4)
• The Honest Whore, Part 1, a city comedy (1604), co-written with Thomas Dekker
• Michaelmas Term, a city comedy, (1604)
• All's Well That Ends Well (1604-5); believed by some scholars to be co-written with Shakespeare based on stylometric analysis.
• A Trick to Catch the Old One, a city comedy (1605)
• A Mad World, My Masters, a city comedy (1605)
• A Yorkshire Tragedy, a one-act tragedy (1605); attributed to Shakespeare on its title page, but stylistic analysis favours Middleton.
• Timon of Athens a tragedy (1605–6); stylistic analysis indicates that Middleton may have written this play in collaboration with William Shakespeare.
• The Puritan (1606)
• The Revenger's Tragedy (1606). Earlier editions often attribute authorship to Cyril Tourneur.
• Your Five Gallants, a city comedy (1607)
• The Bloody Banquet (1608–9); co-written with Thomas Dekker.
• The Roaring Girl, a city comedy depicting the exploits of Mary Frith (1611); co-written with Thomas Dekker.
• No Wit, No Help Like a Woman's, a tragicomedy (1611)
• The Second Maiden's Tragedy, a tragedy (1611); an anonymous manuscript; stylistic analysis indicates Middleton's authorship (though one scholar, Charles Hamilton, has attributed it to Shakespeare; see The History of Cardenio for details).
• A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, a city comedy (1613)
• Wit at Several Weapons, a city comedy (1613); printed as part of the Beaumont and Fletcher Folio, but stylistic analysis indicates comprehensive revision by Middleton and William Rowley.
• More Dissemblers Besides Women, a tragicomedy (1614)
• The Widow (1615–16)
• The Witch, a tragicomedy (1616)
• A Fair Quarrel, a tragicomedy (1616). Co-written with William Rowley.
• The Old Law, a tragicomedy (1618–19). Co-written with William Rowley and perhaps a third collaborator, who may have been Philip Massinger or Thomas Heywood.
• Hengist, King of Kent, or The Mayor of Quinborough, a tragedy (1620)
• Women Beware Women, a tragedy (1621)
• Measure for Measure (1603-4); some scholars argue that the First Folio text was partly revised by Middleton in 1621.
• Anything for a Quiet Life, a city comedy (1621). Co-written with John Webster.
• The Changeling, a tragedy (1622). Co-written with William Rowley.
• The Nice Valour (1622). Printed as part of the Beaumont and Fletcher Folio, but stylistic analysis indicates comprehensive revision by Middleton.
• The Spanish Gypsy, a tragicomedy (1623). Believed to be a play by Middleton and William Rowley revised by Thomas Dekker and John Ford.
• A Game at Chess, a political satire (1624). Satirized the negotiations over the proposed marriage of Prince Charles, son of James I of England, with the Spanish princess. Closed after nine performances.

Masques and entertainments

• The Whole Royal and Magnificent Entertainment Given to King James Through the City of London (1603–4). Co-written with Thomas Dekker, Stephen Harrison and Ben Jonson.
• The Manner of his Lordship's Entertainment
• The Triumphs of Truth
• Civitas Amor
• The Triumphs of Honour and Industry (1617)
• The Masque of Heroes, or, The Inner Temple Masque (1619)
• The Triumphs of Love and Antiquity (1619)
• The World Tossed at Tennis (1620). Co-written with William Rowley.
• Honourable Entertainments (1620–1)
• An Invention (1622)
• The Sun in Aries (1621)
• The Triumphs of Honour and Virtue (1622)
• The Triumphs of Integrity with The Triumphs of the Golden Fleece (1623)
• The Triumphs of Health and Prosperity (1626)

Poetry

• The Wisdom of Solomon Paraphrased (1597)
• Microcynicon: Six Snarling Satires (1599)
• The Ghost of Lucrece (1600)
• Burbage epitaph (1619)
• Bolles epitaph (1621)
• Duchess of Malfi (commendatory poem) (1623)
• St James (1623)
• To the King (1624)

Prose

• The Penniless Parliament of Threadbare Poets (1601)
• News from Gravesend. Co-written with Thomas Dekker (1603)
• The Nightingale and the Ant (1604), also published under the title Father Hubbard's Tales
• The Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinary (1604). Co-written with Thomas Dekker.
• Plato's Cap Cast at the Year 1604 (1604)
• The Black Book (1604)
• Sir Robert Sherley his Entertainment in Cracovia (1609) (translation).
• The Two Gates of Salvation (1609), or The Marriage of the Old and New Testament.
• The Owl's Almanac (1618)
• The Peacemaker (1618)

• "Thomas Middleton," The Times Literary Supplement, 30 June 1927, pp. 445–46 (unsigned).