The Knight of the Burning Pestle by Francis Beaumont

The Knight of the Burning Pestle by Francis Beaumont

A classic satire on chivalric romances. In the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series.

Francis Beaumont (1584. 6 March 1616) was a dramatist in the English Renaissance theatre, most famous for his collaborations with John Fletcher. Beaumont was the son of Sir Francis Beaumont of Grace Dieu, near Thringstone in Leicestershire, a justice of the common pleas. He was born at the family seat and was educated at Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College, Oxford) at age thirteen. Following the death of his father in 1598, he left university without a degree and followed in his father's footsteps by entering the Inner Temple in London in 1600. Accounts suggest that Beaumont did not work long as a lawyer. He became a student of poet and playwright Ben Jonson; he was also acquaine his passion lay. His first work, Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, appeared in 1602. The 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica describes the work as not on the whole discreditable to a lad of eighteen, fresh from the popular love-poems of Marlowe and Shakespeare, which it naturally exceeds in long-winded and fantastic diffusion of episodes and conceits. In 1605, Beaumont wrote commendatory verses to Jonson's Volpone. Beaumont's collaboration with Fletcher may have begun as early as 1605. They had both hit an obstacle early in their dramatic careers with notable failures; Beaumont's The Knight of the Burning Pestle, first performed by the Children of the Blackfriars in 1607, was rejected by an audience who, the publisher's epistle to the 1613 quarto claims, failed to note the privie mark of irony about it; that is, they took Beaumont's satire of old-fashioned drama as an old-fashioned drama. The play received a lukewarm reception. The following year, Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess failed on the same stage. In 1609, however, the two collaborated on Philaster, which was performed by the King's Men at the Globe Theatre and at Blackfriars. The play was a popular success, not only launching the careers of the two playwrights but also sparking a new taste for tragicomedy. According to a mid-century anecdote related by John Aubrey, they lived in the same house on the Bankside in Southwark, sharing everything in the closest intimacy. Beaumont died in 1616 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Although today Beaumont is remembered as a dramatist, during his lifetime he was also celebrated as a poet.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781854596246
ISBN 10	1854596241
Title	The Knight of the Burning Pestle
Author	Francis Beaumont
Series	Drama Classics
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Nick Hern Books
Year published	2001-10-26
Number of pages	128
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.