Campaspe: A most excellent comedy of Alexander, Campaspe, and Diogenes played before the Queen's Majesty on Twelfth Day at night, by her Majesty's children, and the children of St. Pauls. [1584]

by John Lyly

A moste excellent comedie of Alexander, Campaspe, and Diogenes played beefore the Queenes Maiestie on twelfe day at night, by her Maiesties children, and the children of Poules. Alexander and Campaspe Lyly, John, 1554?-1606. Date of 1584

122 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 17, 2015

About the author

(c. 1553 or 1554 – November 1606) An English writer, best known for his books Euphues,The Anatomy of Wit and Euphues and His England. Lyly's linguistic style, originating in his first books, is known as Euphuism.

Reviews

[Jed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lyly underrated

[Yorgos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alexander takes a holiday in Athens: the philosophers ponder, the wily pages bounce around like pinballs, Diogenes barks at passers-by, the painter paint, the warriors gesticulate menacingly and love is in the air. No real stakes, no real trouble. Everybody speaks in perfectly balanced and assonant sentences. Everyone in the audience knows the stories and gets all the references. Delightful!

This is the first true romantic comedy -- really it's the archetypal Elizabethan comedy, coming in just over the midpoint of her reign (when the drama got good) but not so late as to be plagued by the dark anxieties of the late Elizabethan/Jacobean. Also, this play invented comic prose drama, which is a big deal.

Read in the World Classics Five Elizabethan Comedies. Very spare notes, but right where I needed them. And Lyly is for enjoying the rhythm of the sentences anyway, allusions be damned. Three stars because Pixy Stix are fun but they're nobody's favorite.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Campaspe feels a bit short, as if John Lyly kind of ran out of steam towards the end, and the sinister King Alexander goes "Well, as you two are in love, you might as well get married, then." What?

It's not a crazy or as erotic as Galathea, nor as mythic as Endymion, but it's fun.

Two bits are especially good:
Apelles the painter is in love with his model Campaspe. If you've ever been a teenager in (slightly helpless) love, this is a scene you will recognise. My god, reading it made me think: has John Lyly read my teenage love diaries?
Diogenes the Cynic insults everyone from my barrel (like you do). It's kind of a Groucho Marx part, an insult comic with set-ups. Almost everything he says is rude and funny.

I don't need to see this, but it was an effortless read.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was enjoyable though not wholly an easy read.