George Lillo

George Lillo (born February 3, 1691 in London , † September 4, 1739 in Rotherhithe (London) ) was an English playwright.

Life

George Lillo was born in Moorfields or Moorgate in the City of London . First he became a partner in his father's goldsmith and jewelry business. He began his writing activity in 1730. Between 1730 and his death in 1739 he wrote (at least) eight pieces. His first play was the ballad opera "Silvia" or "The Country Burial". He wrote it to build on the success of John Gay 's The Beggar's Opera. The play was received only moderately and only performed on three evenings in Lincoln's Inn Fields and one evening in Covent Garden in March 1738, here reduced to two acts.

The following year he published "The Merchant of London" or "The Story of George Barnwell" (1731). With this work he created not only his most important, but also one of the most popular and most frequently produced pieces of the 18th century. It was performed by a royal ensemble in October 1731, in the presence of George II and Queen Caroline. With this piece Lillo reinvented the theme of dramatic tragedy and showed that tragic falls by middle and lower class citizens were also worth depicting. The play was based on a 17th century ballad about a murder in Shropshire. Lillo dedicated a letter to Sir John Eyles, a prominent member of the London business class, before the text and the plot begin. Lillo's domestic tragedy thus presented itself as the theater's turning away from the court in the direction of the city. On the one hand, Lillo had thus revived the bourgeois tragedy, which in the past enjoyed a certain popularity on the Jacobean stage with merchant and handicraft games (for example with Thomas Dekker and Thomas Heywood ), on the other hand, the merchant of London represented a major change in theater and especially in tragedy. Charles Dickens used "the affecting tragedy of George Barnwell" in his novel Great Expectations .

Concerned that the audience expected morally correct pieces that corresponded to Christian values, he wrote the patriotic piece, "Britannia and Batavia", in 1734 for the royal wedding of Princess Anne to William IV of Orange-Nassau . His next piece was "The Christian Hero" (1735), a retelling of Skanderbeg's story . The pieces "Lillo Fatal Curiosity" (1737) and "Marina" (1738) followed. The latter was based on the play Pericles by William Shakespeare . His last work, "Elmerick" or "Justice Triumphant", was performed posthumously in 1740. During his lifetime, the later works, apart from the merchant from London, were only moderate successes.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ James L. Steffensen: Lillo, George (1691 / 1693-1739) . In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press, 2004.
2. ↑ James L. Steffensen: Lillo, George (1691 / 1693-1739) . In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press, 2004.
3. ^ Peter Hynes: Exchange and Excess in Lillo's London Merchant . In: University of Toronto Quarterly 72.3 . 2003, p. 679-697 (English).
4. ^ Antiquity Through The Eighteenth Century . In: Gainor, J. Ellen, Stanton B. Garner, Jr., and Martin Puchner (Eds.): The Norton Anthology of Drama . tape 1 . WW Norton & Company, Inc, New York 2009 (English).
5. ^ Peter Hynes: Exchange and Excess in Lillo's London Merchant . In: University of Toronto Quarterly 72.3 . 2003, p. 679-697 (English).
6. ^ Antiquity Through The Eighteenth Century . In: Gainor, J. Ellen, Stanton B. Garner, Jr., and Martin Puchner (Eds.): The Norton Anthology of Drama . tape 1 . WW Norton & Company, Inc, New York 2009 (English).
7. ↑ James L. Steffensen: Lillo, George (1691 / 1693-1739) . In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press, 2004.
8. ↑ James L. Steffensen: Lillo, George (1691 / 1693-1739) . In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press, 2004.