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Bonduca: A Tragedy, Volume 33, issue 1
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
430 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1647
About the author
Francis Beaumont
813 books22 followersborn 1584
English poet Francis Beaumont wrote his major works, plays, including The Maid's Tragedy and The Coxcomb , with John Fletcher in the 1610s.
Francis Beaumont, a dramatist in the Renaissance theater, most famously collaborated.
A justice of the common pleas of Grace Dieu near Thringstone in Leicestershire fathered Beaumont, the son, born born at the family seat. Broadgates hall (now Pembroke College, Oxford) educated him at 13 years of age in 1597. Following the death of his father in 1598, he left university without a degree and entered the Inner Temple in London in 1600 to follow in his footsteps.
Beaumont worked not long as a lawyer, accounts suggest. He studied Ben Jonson; Michael Drayton and other dramatists also acquainted him, who decided on this passion. He apparently first composed Salmacis and Hermaphroditus in 1602. The edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica describes 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 commendatory verses to Volpone of Jonson. Collaboration of Beaumont perhaps began early as 1605.
They hit an obstacle early in their dramatic careers with notable failures; The children of the Blackfriars in 1607 first performed The Knight of the Burning Pestle of Beaumont; an audience rejected it, and the epistle of the publisher to the quarto of 1613 claims, failed to note "the privie mark of irony about it;" they took satire of Beaumont as old-fashioned drama. It received a lukewarm reception. In the following year of 1608, Faithful Shepherdess failed on the same stage.
In 1609, however, the two collaborated on Philaster , which the men of the king performed at the globe theater and at Blackfriars. The popular success launched two careers and sparked a new taste for comedy. John Aubrey related a mid-century anecdote; , they lived in the same house on the Bankside in Southwark, "sharing everything in the closest intimacy."
About 1613, Beaumont married Ursula Isley, daughter and co-heiress of Henry Isley of Sundridge in Kent; she bore two daughters, one posthumous. After a stroke between February and October 1613, he ably composed no more than an elegy for Lady Penelope Clifton, who died 26 October 1613.
People buried his body in Westminster abbey. People celebrated Beaumont during his lifetime and remember him today as a dramatist.
English poet Francis Beaumont wrote his major works, plays, including The Maid's Tragedy and The Coxcomb , with John Fletcher in the 1610s.
Francis Beaumont, a dramatist in the Renaissance theater, most famously collaborated.
A justice of the common pleas of Grace Dieu near Thringstone in Leicestershire fathered Beaumont, the son, born born at the family seat. Broadgates hall (now Pembroke College, Oxford) educated him at 13 years of age in 1597. Following the death of his father in 1598, he left university without a degree and entered the Inner Temple in London in 1600 to follow in his footsteps.
Beaumont worked not long as a lawyer, accounts suggest. He studied Ben Jonson; Michael Drayton and other dramatists also acquainted him, who decided on this passion. He apparently first composed Salmacis and Hermaphroditus in 1602. The edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica describes 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 commendatory verses to Volpone of Jonson. Collaboration of Beaumont perhaps began early as 1605.
They hit an obstacle early in their dramatic careers with notable failures; The children of the Blackfriars in 1607 first performed The Knight of the Burning Pestle of Beaumont; an audience rejected it, and the epistle of the publisher to the quarto of 1613 claims, failed to note "the privie mark of irony about it;" they took satire of Beaumont as old-fashioned drama. It received a lukewarm reception. In the following year of 1608, Faithful Shepherdess failed on the same stage.
In 1609, however, the two collaborated on Philaster , which the men of the king performed at the globe theater and at Blackfriars. The popular success launched two careers and sparked a new taste for comedy. John Aubrey related a mid-century anecdote; , they lived in the same house on the Bankside in Southwark, "sharing everything in the closest intimacy."
About 1613, Beaumont married Ursula Isley, daughter and co-heiress of Henry Isley of Sundridge in Kent; she bore two daughters, one posthumous. After a stroke between February and October 1613, he ably composed no more than an elegy for Lady Penelope Clifton, who died 26 October 1613.
People buried his body in Westminster abbey. People celebrated Beaumont during his lifetime and remember him today as a dramatist.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 17, 2025
Bonduca is a fascinating play, but I wish Bonduca herself had more scenes. A pagan queen who led a tribe of Britons in revolt against their Roman occupiers in 60 AD, burning Londinium to the ground, Bonduca and her two daughters (whose parts are so small they aren’t even given names) steal every scene they’re in. But Fletcher insists on spending at least thrice the time with various tiresome men. Instead of giving Bonduca the staring role she deserves—if only on the grounds that he’s written her and her daughters to be the most interesting—Fletcher substitutes Caratach, a British chieftain imported from a few decades earlier in history.
Caratach is played as noble to the point of foolishness and spectacularly misogynistic (“home and spin, woman, spin, go spin!” he shouts after Bonduca—his queen, remember—at a critical moment). And yet, though Caratach seems to be the play’s hero, I don’t think he’s quite meant to be taken seriously. He has a whiff of parody about him. And by the end, a whiff of treason, too. But then, treason is always a question of who has the right—or power—to rule. And Bonduca is deeply ambivalent about both the invading Romans and rebelling Natives. If, as literary scholar Claire Jowitt suggests, the play is an allegory of England’s fledgling colony in Virginia, it’s a dizzyingly complex one.
Early modern tragedy and comedy were defined by their endings. In comedy, marriage mends the world; in tragedy, it is death that makes the world right. On the last page of the tragicomedy Bonduca, the world is left unraveled.
Caratach is played as noble to the point of foolishness and spectacularly misogynistic (“home and spin, woman, spin, go spin!” he shouts after Bonduca—his queen, remember—at a critical moment). And yet, though Caratach seems to be the play’s hero, I don’t think he’s quite meant to be taken seriously. He has a whiff of parody about him. And by the end, a whiff of treason, too. But then, treason is always a question of who has the right—or power—to rule. And Bonduca is deeply ambivalent about both the invading Romans and rebelling Natives. If, as literary scholar Claire Jowitt suggests, the play is an allegory of England’s fledgling colony in Virginia, it’s a dizzyingly complex one.
Early modern tragedy and comedy were defined by their endings. In comedy, marriage mends the world; in tragedy, it is death that makes the world right. On the last page of the tragicomedy Bonduca, the world is left unraveled.
December 11, 2025
I've only read Bonduca once (and Fletcher normally gets better on repeated readings) but this does not look like peak Fletcher, only really getting going around Act Three, and then having some stunningly good scenes (the daughters torturing the boyfriends, Penyus vacillating about whether to kill himself, Caratach trying to protect his young nephew Hengo from the news that they've lost the war and one or both of them is shortly going to die) in the last hour or so.
Bonduca herself (a weird spelling of Boudicca) is a bit of a nothing part, apparently cut down when one of the King's Men's apprentices (Richard Robinson, who had juts played the Duchess of Malfi) graduated to young men parts, and another left under mysterious circs (Walter Haynes, deciding to retrain as a carpenter), and the company missing good actors for women.
I read in the Waller edition, which had some of the swears (including some really quite innocuous ones) deleted, which was quite cute.
Bonduca herself (a weird spelling of Boudicca) is a bit of a nothing part, apparently cut down when one of the King's Men's apprentices (Richard Robinson, who had juts played the Duchess of Malfi) graduated to young men parts, and another left under mysterious circs (Walter Haynes, deciding to retrain as a carpenter), and the company missing good actors for women.
I read in the Waller edition, which had some of the swears (including some really quite innocuous ones) deleted, which was quite cute.
September 30, 2020
"Bonduca" is Early Modern for "Boudicca/Boadicea", in this case with added Caractacus, to show the mere women what a Real Hero is. The storyline is loosely based on the Iceni revolt of the 60s CE, with added subplots, killings, suicides et al. Quite entertaining, though Fletcher seemed to be addicted to very long deathbed speeches at this stage in his career.
Read as part of the Shakespeare Institute "Extra Mile" online readathon in the weird Covid-19 autumn of 2020.
Read as part of the Shakespeare Institute "Extra Mile" online readathon in the weird Covid-19 autumn of 2020.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews