Thomas Heywood

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The Fair Maid of the West , 1631

Thomas Heywood (* around 1573 in Lincolnshire , England ; † August 16, 1641 in London ) was an English actor and playwright who was one of the most productive and popular playwrights in the heyday of Elizabethan and Jacobean theater.

life and work

A Pleasant Comedy, Called a Maidenhead Well Lost , 1634

There are few reliable sources and reliable information about the life of Thomas Heywood. He was probably born in Lincolnshire in 1573 or 1574, the son of clergyman Robert Heywood, and presumably attended Cambridge University until his father's death in 1593 without obtaining a degree.

Around 1594 he began a career as an actor and playwright in London and was active at the latest from 1598 in the environment of Philip Henslowe and his acting company The Admiral's Men . Although Heywood used the classical education he had acquired in Cambridge for his work, he also served the stage tastes of the less educated audience in various theaters. At the same time he made a name for himself at court and designed a series of mask games , some in collaboration with Inigo Jones . Between 1631 and 1637 Heywood was instrumental in the design of seven spectacular productions on the occasion of the Lord Mayor's Shows in London.

According to his own statements, Heywood worked on over 220 pieces as an author, co-author or editor. However, only a fraction of his works has survived; only about 16 pieces can be clearly assigned to his authorship. Although Heywood's work was hardly noticed by posterity in the overpowering shadow of Shakespeare , he was one of the most famous characters in the theater of that time and the most popular authors on the Elizabethan and Jacobean stages. For a long time, however, Heywood was misunderstood by later critics as a scribe who was driven by the demand for new pieces. Only the bourgeois tragedy A Woman Killed With Kindness , written in 1603 (dt. She died of her husband's kindness , 1964) was generally regarded as a successful masterpiece.

Heywood's work includes history games such as Edward IV (1600) or If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody (1605 and 1606) and romantic-exotic adventure comedies such as The Fair Maid of the West (printed 1631). Heywood also wrote long didactic poems and a panoramic dramatization of the classical mythology of all four world ages. With his Apology for Actors (1612) he reacted to the pamphlet attacks of anti-theater Puritan circles. Similar to Sir Philip Sidney , Heywood expressed his belief in a reforming power of poetry in his Apology , which, in contrast to Sidney, he saw primarily in drama. However, this power of change inherent in drama can only develop if the stage depicts real life and truth.

Accordingly, he had not staged his adultery drama A Woman Killed with Kindness as a bloodthirsty aristocratic revenge tragedy as early as 1603 . Heywood's particular achievement was to bring characters on stage who corresponded to the time and the private civic environment of his audience; Instead of the classic revenge motif, Heywood focused on topics such as forgiveness and pity or guilt and repentance in this piece. In this way, A Woman Killed with Kindness became groundbreaking for the development of civic tragedy .

Heywood's comic interludes also had a major impact on the development of English comedy. In a characteristic way, Heywood adopted in his interludes the perspective of the little man widespread in folk literature, who struggles with witty wit and peasant cunning through a life whose amenities are extremely unevenly distributed due to the existing social order.

Heywood's extensive work occasionally lacks the linguistic brilliance of the great contemporary authors; nevertheless, from today's point of view, his plays offer a living mirror of the enormous abundance and diversity of English Renaissance theater .

Heywood probably died on August 16, 1641 or shortly before, and was buried in London's St. James's Church in Clerkenwell .

Works (selection)

  • The First and Second Parts of King Edward the Fourth (around 1600)
  • A Woman Killed with Kindness (1603, printed 1607)
  • If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody (two parts, 1605 and 1606)
  • The Fair Maid of the Exchange (1607)
  • The Royal King and the Loyal Subject (1615 and 1618; printed 1637)
  • The Fair Maid of the West or a Girle Worth Gold (printed 1631)
  • The English Traveler (1633)
  • The Late Lancashire Witches (1634 with Richard Brome )
  • A Maidenhead Well Lost (1634)
  • Love's Mistress, or The Queen's Masque (1636)
  • A Challenge for Beauty (1636)
  • The Wise-Woman of Hoxton (printed 1638)
  • Fortune by Land and Sea (printed 1655), in collaboration with William Rowley
  • The Golden Age (1611), The Silver Age (1612), The Brazen Age (1613) and The Iron Age (two-part, 1632)
  • Loves Maistresse or The Queens Masque (printed 1636)
  • The Tragedy of the Rape of Lucrece (1608)
  • The Conspiracie of Cateline and Warre of Jugurth , translations of Sallust's works (1608).
  • An Apology for Actors, Containing Three Brief Treatises (1612, edited edition for the Shakespeare Society 1841)
  • Gynaikeion or Nine Books of Various History Concerning Women (1624)
  • England's Elizabeth, Her Life and Troubles During Her Minority from Time Cradle to the Crown (1631)
  • The Hierarchy of the Blessed Angels (1635), didactic poem
  • Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas Selected Out of Lucian (1637)
  • The Life of Merlin (1641)

Work edition

  • The Dramatic Works of Thomas Heywood. 6 volumes, Russel & Russel Verlag, New York 1969 [first edition 1874]

literature

  • Barbara Joan Baines: Thomas Heywood. Twayne Publishing, Boston, Mass. 1984.
  • Frederick S. Boas: Thomas Heywood. Williams & Norgate Publishing House, London 1950.
  • Michael D.Wentworth: Thomas Heywood, a reference guide. GK Hall Publishing, Boston, Mass. 1986.

Web links

Commons : Thomas Heywood  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Author: Thomas Heywood  - Sources and full texts (English)
Wikiquote: Thomas Heywood  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Renate Schruff: Heywood, Thomas. In: Metzler Lexicon of English-Speaking Authors . 631 portraits - from the beginning to the present. Edited by Eberhard Kreutzer and Ansgar Nünning , Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-476-01746-X , p. 271.
  2. ↑ See Thomas Heywood, English actor and playwright . On: Encyclopædia Britannica . Retrieved June 30, 2015. See also Thomas Heywood Facts . On: Your Dictionary . Retrieved June 30, 2015.
  3. ↑ See Gerald Eades Bentley: Profession of Dramatist in Shakespeare's Time, 1590-1642, more detailed on the contractual ties between Heywood and Henslowe . Princeton University Press 1972, p. 118. Available online for a fee from Verlag Walter de Gruyter [1]
  4. ↑ See Renate Schruff: Heywood, Thomas. In: Metzler Lexicon of English-Speaking Authors . 631 portraits - from the beginning to the present. Edited by Eberhard Kreutzer and Ansgar Nünning , Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-476-01746-X , p. 271. See also Thomas Heywood English actor and playwright . On: Encyclopædia Britannica . Accessed June 30, 2015. Likewise, Thomas Heywood Facts . On: Your Dictionary . Retrieved June 30, 2015.
  5. ↑ See Renate Schruff: Heywood, Thomas. In: Metzler Lexicon of English-Speaking Authors . 631 portraits - from the beginning to the present. Edited by Eberhard Kreutzer and Ansgar Nünning , Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-476-01746-X , p. 271. See also Thomas Heywood English actor and playwright . On: Encyclopædia Britannica . Retrieved June 30, 2015.
  6. ↑ See Renate Schruff: Heywood, Thomas. In: Metzler Lexicon of English-Speaking Authors . 631 portraits - from the beginning to the present. Edited by Eberhard Kreutzer and Ansgar Nünning , Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-476-01746-X , p. 271. See also Dietrich Rolle: The drama at the time of Elizabeth and the early Stuarts. In: Josefa Nünning (Ed.): The English Drama. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1973, without ISBN, pp. 203-273, here pp. 233f.
  7. ↑ See Christian W. Thomsen: From the Interludes to Marlowe's death. In: Josefa Nünning (Ed.): The English Drama. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1973, without ISBN, pp. 67–140, here p. 75.
  8. ↑ See Renate Schruff: Heywood, Thomas. In: Metzler Lexicon of English-Speaking Authors . 631 portraits - from the beginning to the present. Edited by Eberhard Kreutzer and Ansgar Nünning , Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-476-01746-X , p. 271. See also Thomas Heywood English actor and playwright . On: Encyclopædia Britannica . Retrieved June 30, 2015.
  9. ↑ See Thomas Heywood Facts . On: Your Dictionary . Retrieved June 30, 2015. See also Thomas Heywood English actor and playwright . On: Encyclopædia Britannica . Retrieved June 30, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Heywood, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English actor and playwright
DATE OF BIRTH around 1573
PLACE OF BIRTH Lincolnshire , England
DATE OF DEATH August 16, 1641
Place of death London