Valentinian

by John Fletcher

John Fletcher was born in December, 1579 in Rye, Sussex. He was baptised on December 20th.As can be imagined details of much of his life and career have not survived and, accordingly, only a very brief indication of his life and works can be given.Young Fletcher appears at the very young age of eleven to have entered Corpus Christi College at Cambridge University in 1591. There are no records that he ever took a degree but there is some small evidence that he was being prepared for a career in the church. However what is clear is that this was soon abandoned as he joined the stream of people who would leave University and decamp to the more bohemian life of commercial theatre in London. The upbringing of the now teenage Fletcher and his seven siblings now passed to his paternal uncle, the poet and minor official Giles Fletcher. Giles, who had the patronage of the Earl of Essex may have been a liability rather than an advantage to the young Fletcher. With Essex involved in the failed rebellion against Elizabeth Giles was also tainted.By 1606 John Fletcher appears to have equipped himself with the talents to become a playwright. Initially this appears to have been for the Children of the Queen's Revels, then performing at the Blackfriars Theatre. Fletcher's early career was marked by one significant failure; The Faithful Shepherdess, his adaptation of Giovanni Battista Guarini's Il Pastor Fido, which was performed by the Blackfriars Children in 1608. By 1609, however, he had found his stride. With his collaborator John Beaumont, he wrote Philaster, which became a hit for the King's Men and began a profitable association between Fletcher and that company. Philaster appears also to have begun a trend for tragicomedy. By the middle of the 1610s, Fletcher's plays had achieved a popularity that rivalled Shakespeare's and cemented the pre-eminence of the King's Men in Jacobean London. After his frequent early collaborator John Beaumont's early death in 1616, Fletcher continued working, both singly and in collaboration, until his own death in 1625. By that time, he had produced, or had been credited with, close to fifty plays.

Genres: Drama

Paperback

First published January 1, 1614

About the author

born December 1579
died August 1625

English playwright John Fletcher collaborated with Francis Beaumont on romantic comedies, including Philaster (1610) and The Maid's Tragedy (1611).

John Fletcher identified as a Jacobean. He followed William Shakespeare as house for the men of the king among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivaled that of his predecessor.

In 1606, he began to appear as an author for the Children of the Queen's Revels, then performing at the Blackfriars theater. Commendatory verses by Richard Brome in the Fletcher 1647 folio place Fletcher in the company of Ben Jonson; a comment of Jonson's to Drummond corroborates this claim, although it is not known when this friendship began. At the beginning of his career, his most important association. The two together for close to a decade, first for the children and then for the King's Men. According to a legend transmitted or invented by John Aubrey, they also lived together (in Bankside), sharing clothes and having "one wench in the house between them." This domestic arrangement, if it existed, was ended by marriage in 1613, and their dramatic partnership ended after fell ill, probably of a stroke, the same year.

Though Fletcher's reputation has been eclipsed since, he remains an important transitional figure between the Elizabethan popular tradition and the popular drama of the Restoration.

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

3-12-25 This is going up a star, having just read it out loud with Reading Early Plays.

I'm not sure it's a masterpiece, but it's certainly a tour de force. Fletcher's first solo play since The Tamer Tamed, and it's like a deranged riff on Shakey's Roman plays, with four totally cracking parts, and some little ones that are worthwhile as well.

But what is brilliant on re-reading is the character of Maximus: his wife is raped by the Emperor, so he goes "I could use this!" (like you do); gets his noble BFF framed so the whole Empire turns against the Emperor, and then he becomes the Emp himself.

What is also utterly brilliant, and modern, is the court of royal enablers, who know that Valentinian is going to rape Lucina, and they deliberately set her up. I cannot think of a single member of the current British Royal family or American President whose court might behave like this.

It does go on a bit: our reading was over three hours, so it could do with a few cuts, but it has some cracking lines as well. So, worth reading, but probably out loud.

* * *
original review:
What makes The Tragedy of Valentinian different is that, like a lot of Fletcher, it doesn't really go where you're expecting: there are some curves which you go "wow!"

There's a point where the expectation is that it's going to be Women Beware Women, then Cymbeline, then it slips into a soft Titus, then the Rape of Lucrece, then a bit of the Revenger's Tragedy, then swerves into Julius Caesar (with maybe a bit of Hamlet), then into the Spanish Tragedy.

What it seems to be is an exploration of the effects of rape of all the people around, not just the person raped, where all the characters have different responses, and Maximus (Lucina's husband) has the strangest reaction of them all. Is it a play about trauma? It seems to be. And the response of the rapist's wife is fascinating, and strangely convincing, defending her husband's "honour" against those who would impugn it.

What it isn't is a "Tragedy of Valentinian": there is nothing noble about Valentinian from start to finish, so nowhere for him to fall from, except untrammelled power. It may be "tragedy of monarchy" and it is a twisted Revenge Tragedy.

So I don't think this is Fletcher's best, but I would love to see it live. I can see it working really well on the stage.

[Gill · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of Fletcher's best solo plays, though the unbelievably long dying speeches take some adjusting to - and are hard work to perform! Based on actual events of the Late Western Empire, but with a few weird twists to add the necessary Jacobean elements of poison and bizarre killings, this has some stunning scenes. Valentinian is a wonderful, carpet-chewing villain, and Maximus, who agrees with his wife that after rape suicide is her only option, dies suitably gruesomely at the end. (Historically he was stoned to death by his own soldiers, but this way works for me!).

Read as part of the Shakespeare Institute's "Extra Mile" online readathon in the increasingly bizarre lockdown autumn of 2020.