‘If the head be evill the body cannot be good’: Legitimate Rebellion in Gascoigne and Kinwelmershe’s Jocasta
Ward, Allyna E.
Early Modern Literary Studies 14.1/Special Issue 18
Abstract
The collaborative translation that was the first English version of Euripides’ play Phoenissae, the tragedy Jocasta, first performed during the Christmas revels in 1566 at Grays Inn , addresses the question of obedience to a tyrant. The authors, George Gascoigne and Francis Kinwelmershe, based their translation on Ludovico Dolce’s Renaissance Senecan-imitation of Euripides’ tragedy as a study in obedience and resistance. The drama was performed in the Great Hall during a period when Gascogine was searching for patronage, but was not printed until 1573 in A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres. In the prefatory matter Gascoigne addresses ‘al young Gentlemen’ and the ‘lustie youthes’ of England and claims the purpose of his text is for moral instruction. Because the play was included in Gascoigne’s prose writings he reached a broader audience than standard playbooks. His address to gentlemen, scholars and general readers (the advertisement begins, ‘To the Readers generally / a generall advertisement of the Author’), points to the emphasis in the text on the understanding of the language of tyranny and resistance.
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