Robert Armin

Title page of Armin's 1609 book The History of the two Maids of More-Clacke ; the woodcut shows Armin on stage.

Robert Armin (* presumably 1563 in King's Lynn ; † 1615 in London ) was an English comedian and member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men . He became the leading actor in the troupe associated with William Shakespeare , replacing William Kempe's departure in 1600. As a comedy writer, he wrote The History of the Two Maids of More-clacke , Foole upon Foole , A Nest of Ninnies (1608) and The Italian Taylor and his Boy .

It was Armin's merit to transform the role of the clown or medieval fool from a stupid servant to a comedian with a witty wit.

Becoming

"... the clown is wise because he plays the fool for money, while others have to pay for the same privilege." (The clown is clever because he plays the fool for money, while others have to pay for the same privilege.) - Leslie Hotson in Shakespeare's Motley .

Armin was one of three children of John Armyn II from King's Lynn , a well-known tailor and friend of John Lonyson , a goldsmith from the same town. His brother John Armyn III. became a clothes dealer in London. Robert did not follow his father into the profession and instead learned the craft of his friend Lonyson in 1581 in the London guild of goldsmiths ("Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths"). Lonyson was the foreman of the Royal Mint in the Tower of London , a position of great responsibility. The training position brought Armin into a life and social circle that he would never have seen as a simple tailor from Norfolk. Lonyson died in 1582 and Armin's tutor became another. According to a story recorded in the book Tarlton's Jests , the famous comedian and favorite clown of Queen Richard Tarlton became aware of him. Armin was hired to collect money from a boarder at Tarlton's inn. Disappointed about his refusal to pay the money, Armin wrote a few chalk verses on the wall; Tarlton noticed this and added wittily to the lines, in which he also stated that he would make Armin his apprentice. Even if this anecdote has not been proven, Armin had a literary reputation even before completing his goldsmith training in 1592. In 1590 his name is found in a preface to a religious treatise A Brief Resolution of the Right Religion . Two years later he was mentioned as a ballad writer by Thomas Nashe (in Strange News ) and Gabriel Harvey (in Pierce's Supererogation ). However, none of his works are known to have been preserved.

The Chandos Company

Sometime in the 1590s Armin became a member of an acting troupe ("Chandos's Men") under the patronage of William Brydges, 4th Baron Chandos . With this troupe, about whom little is known, Armin is said to have toured from the western Midlands to East Anglia . The way he worked in the ensemble can be assessed from his roles in his book The History of the Two Maids of More-clacke . The 1609 foreword to the book shows that it portrayed Blue John , a Tarlton and William Kempe style clown ; He also seems to have absorbed himself intensely in the role of Tutch , a funny clumsy man, as he later played in London.

Little precise information has survived about Armin's time with the Chandos's Men. A dedication from 1604 to Brydges widow suggests a personal acquaintance with the Brydges family; a mention in another work says that Armin, like Kempe, worked for a time as a solo artist. The pair of books that Armin published around the turn of the century show an artist who has dedicated himself to his craft. Fool Upon Fool (1600 and 1605; reissued in 1608 as A Nest of Ninnies ), offers the joke of various real weirdos that Armin knew personally. In the same year he published Quips upon Questions , a collection of seemingly improvised dialogues with his hand figure ( quirk ), which he called Signor Truncheon . In it he demonstrates his style; Instead of talking to the audience like Tarlton did and entering into a battle of wits, he joked with various fictional characters, improvised songs, or commented on a person or event. Armin also reported in this work that he would travel to Hackney either on Tuesday, December 25, 1599 or on Tuesday, January 1, 1600, to wait for his "very honorable good master". This may have been Baron Chandos, who visited Edward la Zouche, 11th Baron Zouche over the holidays, or more likely Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford , who lived in Hackney.

The first editions of these two books were ascribed to a "Clonnico de Curtanio Snuffe" - which corresponds to "Clown des Curtain Theaters " and his stage name "Snuff (e)". The 1605 edition names the same author, but changes the "Curtain" to "Mundo", which means the Globe Theater ; it was not called by its real name until 1608, although the earlier names would have been sufficient to identify it to Londoners.

Another work of uncertain date (it was published in 1609) is The Italian Tailor and his Boy . A translation of a story by Giovanni Francesco Straparola that may reflect a little of his family background. He was the son of a tailor and saw parallels with the Italian tailor's apprentice. The ruby ​​ring mentioned in the piece is reminiscent of the goldsmith's apprentice that he was.

James Nielson found a reference to Kempe in a contemporary pamphlet “A Pill to Purge Melancholy” (1599) in the following line: “... that Collericke Pill of hers will easely be digested with one pleasant conceit or other of Monsier de Kempe on Monday next at the Globe. “This work cannot have anticipated the construction of the Globe Theater or Kempe's departure or Armin's entry into the Chamberlain's Men. Chris Sutcliffe (1996) and Bart van Es (2013) assign the work to Armin.

Lord Chamberlain's Men

The point in time at which Armin joined Chamberlain's Men is as mysterious as the occasion. It is widely believed to be related to Kempe's departure; However, the reasons for Kempe's departure are not clear. The traditional view that the theater company in general, or Shakespeare in particular, was starting to tire of Kempe's old-fashioned clown portrayal is still popular, although the evidence for this view is primarily in the nature of the comic roles Shakespeare wrote after 1600.

Armin played on the Globe stage from August 1600. The theater scholar David Wiles (University of Exeter) suspects that Armin joined the Chamberlain's Men as early as 1599, but continued to play as a solo artist at the Curtain Theater; he may also have played on the curtain with Kempe.

Armin is commonly associated with the "licensed fools" in the repertoire of Chamberlain's and King's Men in the connection: The Touchstone ( Touchstone ) in As You Like It , the festivals in Twelfth Night , the fool in King Lear , the Lavatch in the end good, all good and possibly also the Thersites in Troilus and Cressida , the porter in Macbeth , the fool in Timon of Athens and the merry pickpocket and ballad singer Autolycus in The Winter's Tale . Of these eight, Touchstone is the fool that sparked the greatest discussion. Harold Bloom describes him as "rancidly vicious" and writes that "this more intense rancidity acts as a touchstone to prove the real gold of Rosalind's spirit". The author John Palmer (1885-1944) contradicts and writes that "he must either be a true cynic or one who uses his cynicism variably in order to hide a fundamentally ingenious spirit". As Palmer goes on to explain , a true cynic obviously does not belong in the Arden Forest , so the clown has to be “a good guy through and through”. Touchstone / Probstein shows the face of a disgruntled cynic and is thus proof of Rosalind's clever wit. When facing both Jaques and Touchstone, she exposes their silliness and prevents the fools from making Arden Forest worse than it really is.

Feste was definitely written for Armin, as he was a scholar, singer and comedian. The firm goal is to expose the stupidity of those around him. Lears Fool, however, differs from Touchstone / Probstein and Feste as well as from other clowns of his time. Touchstone / Probstein and Feste are philosophical clowns; Lears fool is a real fool that Armin studied and recorded in writing. Armin was also able to show his studies here. The fool speaks prophetic lines, which were ignored by Lear, however, when he then left the play completely. Lear's fool is rarely there for entertainment; rather, he is present to move the action forward, to remain loyal to the king and perhaps to sort out his muddle head.

Although Armin usually played these intelligent clown roles, some scholars launched the theory that he first brought the role of Iago into the play Othello on the grounds that Iago sings two drinking songs. Because most of the drinking songs in the Shakespeare plays from 1600 to 1610 were sung by Armin's characters and that Othello was the only piece between “As You Like It” and “Timon of Athens” that Armin had no fool or clown ready to perform .

In works outside of Shakespeare he probably played the Pasarello in "The Malcontent" (by John Marston , 1603); in fact, Marston may have added the part just for him when the King's Men produced it. Armin appears in the cast list for Ben Jonson's piece "The Alchemist" from 1610; he could have represented the tobacco dealer Abel Drugger in it. He is also suspected in the role of the clown in George Wilkins ' "The Miseries of Enforced Marriage".

However, he is not included in the cast list for Jonson's piece "Catiline" (1611) and further evidence suggests that he retired in 1609 or 1610. In the foreword to Two Maids , Armin confides to the reader: "I would have played John again myself, but tempora mutantur in illis and I can't do what I wanted." Robert Armin died and was buried in November 1615.

In London he lived in the parish of St Botolph's Aldgate ; According to the records there, three of his descendants died before reaching childhood. His acting colleague at the King's Man, Augustine Phillips († 1605), left him, the "Fellow", 20 shillings ; John Davies of Hereford wrote a praising epigram for Armin . His burial is recorded in the church book on November 30, 1615.

A new kind of fool

Armin could have played a key role in the development of the fool character in Shakespeare's plays. The literary historian Leslie Hotson writes: "If there was a breathing player who could explore with Shakespeare the shadows and fickle flashes of the borderline to madness, it was Armin." Robert Armin explored every aspect of the clown, from the "natural idiot" ( i.e. mentally restricted people) to the shrewd, philosophical fool. In his studies, writings and representations, Armin shifted the representation of the fool from a peasant booby to a trained, multi-layered person. His characters - those he designed and those he portrayed - point absurdly to the absurdity of what is otherwise called normal. Instead of imitating a citizen in funny ways, he created a new fool, a highly funny fool for whom wisdom is joke and wit is wisdom.

When Robert Armin took William Kempe's place in Chamberlain's Men, it was viewed as "taming a clown". Armin's new comedy style brought the "urbane clown" to the stage. This moved Shakespeare to incorporate the figure of the solid into his play What You Want . A philosophical figure who causes social unrest. Feste has a place everywhere, but it doesn't belong anywhere.

"That fool of Shakespeare's, the actor Robert Armin, became so popular that finally Shakespeare wrote him out of Henry IV. In a book called A Nest of Ninnies , Armin wrote about the difference between a fool artificial and a fool natural. And the way Armin defines the two is important: the character Jack Oates is a true fool natural. He never stops being a fool to save himself; he never tries to do anything but anger his master, Sir William. A fool artificial is always trying to please; he's a lackey. "

“This Shakespeare fool, the actor Robert Armin, became so popular that Shakespeare eventually wrote him out of Henry IV. In a book called A Nest of Ninnies , Armin wrote about the difference between an artificial fool and a natural fool. And the way Armin defines the two is important: The character Jack Oates [described there] is a real fool. He never stops being a fool to save himself; he never tries to annoy his master sir william. The phony fool tries to please; he's a lackey. ""

- Ken Kesey

Modern references

• Robert Armin is an important character in the 1998 novel "The Shakespeare Stealer" by the American author Gary Blackwood.
• In the 1991 novel "Tam Lin" (Pamela Dean), Robert "Robin" Armin is a drama student in the 1970s at a small university in the middle of the United States who has an astonishingly detailed knowledge of William Shakespeare's life and work.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bednarz. James P. (2001) Shakespeare and the Poet's War , New York: Columbia UP, p. 267.
2. ^ McCrea, Scott (2005), The Case for Shakespeare: The End of the Authorship Question , Westport: Praeger, p. 169.
3. ↑ Chris Sutcliffe: The Canon of Robert Armin's Work: An Addition. Notes and searches (1996) 43 (2): pp. 171-175
4. ↑ David Wiles: Shakespeare's Clown . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
5. ↑ Garry Wills (ed.): Verdi's Shakespeare: Men of the Theater . Penguin, 2011, ISBN 978-1-101-54520-1 , pp. 88–90 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).
6. ^ Gary Schmidgall (Ed.): Shakespeare and the Poet's Life . University Press of Kentucky, 1990, ISBN 978-0-8131-3094-1 , pp. 234 (English, limited preview in Google Book search).
7. ↑ Edwin Nungezer, (1929), "A Dictionary of Actors and of Other Persons Associated with the Public Representation of Plays in England, before 1642", Oxford University Press 1929, online: https://archive.org/stream/dictionaryofacto00nung/ dictionaryofacto00nung_djvu.txt
8. ^ History of the Fool
9. ↑ The Paris Review, "Ken Kesey, The Art of Fiction No. 136 (Interviewed by Robert Faggen)"

literature

• Harold Bloom: Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human . New York: Riverhead Books, 1998.
• John Russell Brown: The Oxford Illustrated History of Theater. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Web.
• Robert Faggen: Ken Kesey-The Art of Fiction . The Paris Review: Issue 130, Spring 1994.
• Charles S. Felver, "Robert Armin, Shakespeare's Fool: a Biographical Essay." In Kent State University Bulletin 49 (1) January 1961.
• Austin Gray, "Robert Armine, the Foole." PMLA 42 (1927), pp. 673-685.
• Leslie Hotson: Shakespeare's Motley . New York: Oxford University Press, 1952.
• HF Lippincott: "King Lear and the Fools of Armin." In Shakespeare Quarterly 26 (1975), pages 243-253.
• John Palmer: Comic Characters of Shakespeare . London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1953.
• Chris Sutcliffe: Robert Armin: Apprentice Goldsmith. Notes and Queries (1994) 41 (4): pages 503-504.
• Chris Sutcliffe: The Canon of Robert Armin's Work: An Addition. Notes and Queries (1996) 43 (2): 171-175.
• David Wiles: Shakespeare's Clown . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
• PM Zall, Ed .: A Nest of Ninnies and Other English Jestbooks of the Seventeenth Century. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1970.

Web links

• Armin in the Dictionary of National Biography , 1885–1900, Volume 02