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Philaster
Philaster is a tragicomedy by Beaumont and Fletcher which has much in common with Shakespeare's late plays such as The Winter's Tale.
Set in a fictionalised Sicily, it has the complex plot of love,
disguise and the threat of death much loved by early modern
theatre-goers.
This edition provides an authoritative, modernised text by a leading
scholar with detailed on-page commentary notes giving readers a deeper
understanding of the play. The comprehensive, illustrated introduction
discusses Philaster from a performance perspective as well as
its relation to Shakespearean drama, and places it in its historical
and critical contexts.
Set in a fictionalised Sicily, it has the complex plot of love,
disguise and the threat of death much loved by early modern
theatre-goers.
This edition provides an authoritative, modernised text by a leading
scholar with detailed on-page commentary notes giving readers a deeper
understanding of the play. The comprehensive, illustrated introduction
discusses Philaster from a performance perspective as well as
its relation to Shakespearean drama, and places it in its historical
and critical contexts.
340 pages, Paperback
First published June 30, 1620
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About the author
Francis Beaumont
812 books19 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 - 21 of 21 reviews
August 22, 2025
Alas, the dramatis personæ spoils the twist. Spoiler alert! He was a she all along!
I wonder how Philaster was staged in the 17th century? Was the audience supposed to suspect Bellario’s secret? When were the first hints dropped? Was it shocking or obvious?
It’s risky but also tremendous fun to read modern ideas about gender and identity back into Renaissance theater. Bellario is obviously trans. The plan is literally to live as a boy forever. And his/her/their love for Philaster gives serious I don’t want to be with you, I just want to be you vibes.
The play didn’t grab me with the intensity of A King and No King; nor was it as funny as Knight of the Burning Pestle or The Wild Goose Chase. But as a madcap adventure with generous helpings of sex and genderfuckery, Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding doesn’t disappoint.
My Beaumont and Fletcher reviews so far:
The Maid’s Tragedy
The Knight of the Burning Pestle
A King and No King
The Faithful Shepherdess
The Wild Goose Chase
Bonduca
I wonder how Philaster was staged in the 17th century? Was the audience supposed to suspect Bellario’s secret? When were the first hints dropped? Was it shocking or obvious?
It’s risky but also tremendous fun to read modern ideas about gender and identity back into Renaissance theater. Bellario is obviously trans. The plan is literally to live as a boy forever. And his/her/their love for Philaster gives serious I don’t want to be with you, I just want to be you vibes.
The play didn’t grab me with the intensity of A King and No King; nor was it as funny as Knight of the Burning Pestle or The Wild Goose Chase. But as a madcap adventure with generous helpings of sex and genderfuckery, Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding doesn’t disappoint.
My Beaumont and Fletcher reviews so far:
The Maid’s Tragedy
The Knight of the Burning Pestle
A King and No King
The Faithful Shepherdess
The Wild Goose Chase
Bonduca
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March 12, 2025polyamory DOES save them!
September 9, 2025
I never thought I would find a prince I hate more than Hamlet
February 7, 2026
I am not that big a fan of Hamlet but I also don't enjoy the Jacobean obsession with love triangles or whatever so that was hard to get past. However Bellario is such an interesting character you could seriously write 500 PhD theses just stemming from them. I also love the political messaging and have a lot of fond memories reading through this with my partner aloud.
November 20, 2025
A play about gender and kingship is so specifically for me.
March 5, 2024
A fascinating book: in so many ways like Cymbeline (the introduction makes it clear there is a connection between the two, but no one can quite tell which influenced the other), with smatterings of Hamlet and Henry IV part one, as well as some rampant renaissance misogyny and a bizarre gender-twist at the end, this play has to be read (and it would be fab to see it performed one day).
What this play makes clear is that ideas like trans and non-binary (even if not the words) have been with us for at least 400 years. There is a queer love-triangle going on at the centre of this, and I suspect there was much more of "this sort of thing" than one would necessarily suspect from a cursory read of the history books.
Coming back to this a year and a half later, the play seems much more in the Seneca-Racine mould, where people turn their emotions up to 11, but there are these odd moments, such as the almost Leslie Phillips priapus of Pharamond, a man who would not be out of place in a 1960s "Doctor at Large" movie, and the surprisingly modern power of rumour and (QAnon-style) disinformation (again, a lot about people's sex lives - what else?).
Add to this, a character somewhere between asexual and trans, the play is both modern and ancient.
What this play makes clear is that ideas like trans and non-binary (even if not the words) have been with us for at least 400 years. There is a queer love-triangle going on at the centre of this, and I suspect there was much more of "this sort of thing" than one would necessarily suspect from a cursory read of the history books.
Coming back to this a year and a half later, the play seems much more in the Seneca-Racine mould, where people turn their emotions up to 11, but there are these odd moments, such as the almost Leslie Phillips priapus of Pharamond, a man who would not be out of place in a 1960s "Doctor at Large" movie, and the surprisingly modern power of rumour and (QAnon-style) disinformation (again, a lot about people's sex lives - what else?).
Add to this, a character somewhere between asexual and trans, the play is both modern and ancient.
November 2, 2018
One scene in each act. Not a bad story, pretty entertaining.
**spoiler alert**
Prince Pharamond is literally found sleeping with Megra and everyone just forgives and forgets, but Megra makes up a lie that Arethusa slept with Bellario and it's instantly the scandal of the century.
**spoiler alert**
Prince Pharamond is literally found sleeping with Megra and everyone just forgives and forgets, but Megra makes up a lie that Arethusa slept with Bellario and it's instantly the scandal of the century.
February 20, 2019
dissappointed after the island princess and the tamer tamed but still v obsessed with fletcher
July 8, 2024
This Beaumont and Fletcher collaboration starts out great and ends up rather disappointing. Whether this is due to the division between the playwrights - if, say, Beaumont wrote the beginning and Fletcher the end, or vice versa - I don't know and I'll resist looking it up until after I've finished writing this review. Philaster has some good verse, some interesting characters (the libertine Pharamond is particularly good value) and a fascinating set-up: in some ways it's obviously a re-writing of Hamlet but with a bit of Twelfth Night and maybe a hint of Coriolanus, and with a focus on lust and sexual scandal that feels akin to Jacobean city comedy. However, Philaster himself is a bit of an idiot, and things start to get silly in Act 3 and sillier in Act 4. Fletcher himself famously defined a tragicomedy as a play that "wants deaths, which is enough to make it no tragedy, yet brings some neere it, which is inough to make it no comedie"—but the "neere it" here consists of some histrionics and suicide threats from Philaster, and an exchange of flesh wounds between three characters, two major and one minor. The resolution (enter the citizenry) has been set up well in advance, but the mob itself feels like it has been parachuted in from another play: a poor man's Henry IV, perhaps. The Arden editor, Suzanne Gossett, writes that, if performed today, "with a little inventiveness Philaster can still please"—but I can't see it being a big hit.
Division of authorship? Seems to have been split up throughout the play. Oh well.
Division of authorship? Seems to have been split up throughout the play. Oh well.
December 4, 2024
The dramatic trick this keeps playing is to bring characters to the edge of death and then pulling back. The subtitle ‘Love Lies a-Bleeding” gestures towards that – the main couple are both near mortally wounded but recover and are united at the end through a twist that makes less sense the more you think about it. The blood that is shed is proof of their honour. The most radical aspect of the play is that it is the intervention of the people against a tyrannical king that delivers the happy ending. Shakespeare borrowed some elements of this play for Cymbeline and improved on them in almost every way.
March 20, 2023
Felt a little long, but beautifully written & so enjoyable to read
March 7, 2024
must a play be good? can it not simply be bisexual and transgender and unhinged?
November 20, 2022
crazy ass play. presents gender as an unfixed, and unstable, category. and has the first instance of female crossdressing I've come across in a Renaissance play where no one (not even the audience) knows it's occurring. ideas about 'foreignness' and travel are interesting through the lens of Renaissance expansionism, exploration, and cultural cross-pollination. could be taken to consider the rise of print culture and its proliferation throughout Renaissance culture. solid play.
April 27, 2013
Most of the business with the princess is ridiculous, she falls in love with this random man for no foreseeable reason, at one point she tells him to kill her and gets pissed at someone else for trying to stop him from killing her, then after she's gone through this horrible run of pretty much everyone wanting to kill her for having premarital sex that she didn't have-- she cheerily gives murderous lover boy permission to sleep around??? What the what? Anyway Bellario has some beautiful declarations of love, and there's a trip to cannibal town that gives us such gems as someone wanting to build a university and then put this person's nose on the gate, it really gives you nostalgia for the days when cannibals had values.
July 27, 2010
Worth checking out if you're interested in Jacobean tragicomedy. This play of jealousy and deception has some great characters. I especially liked Megara and Galatea as to women with completely opposite sensibilities. While the plot may become ridiculous at point, it is rarely boring. It should be noted that the new Arden Edition is excellent. I'm used to having to read the works of Shakespeare's contemporaries that are poorly edited and devoid of footnotes. I really feel as though I got a much better understanding of this work because of how well it was packaged. If you're going to read this, it's worth shelling out the extra cash for the Arden edition.
May 22, 2025
Read as part of the Shakespeare Institute "Extra Mile" online readathon in the lockdown summer of 2020
Beaumont and Fletcher in all probability, and part of the repertoire of the King's Men (Shakespeare's company) at the Globe and Blackfriars Theatre around 1609. A bonkers play with lots of the classic period tropes - angry father, maligned, innocent princess, girl disguised as a boy. A rather splendid Spaniard prince who is creepy as heck, and a number of people stirring the plot and spreading nasty rumours. Good fun to read, with some entertaining bits that would work really well on stage.
Beaumont and Fletcher in all probability, and part of the repertoire of the King's Men (Shakespeare's company) at the Globe and Blackfriars Theatre around 1609. A bonkers play with lots of the classic period tropes - angry father, maligned, innocent princess, girl disguised as a boy. A rather splendid Spaniard prince who is creepy as heck, and a number of people stirring the plot and spreading nasty rumours. Good fun to read, with some entertaining bits that would work really well on stage.
February 6, 2008
if you want to read a renaissance play about gender mayhem, this one's for you.
February 16, 2008
I liked the poetry but the plot of this play is rather weird - I suppose it's a tragicomedy. The ending leaves one character forlorn while most of the others are happy.
July 29, 2015
There are some legitimately beautiful lines in this play, but the plotting is scattered to the four winds and the reveal at the end was a groaner.
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May 2, 2019Megra!!
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews