The Old Wife's Tale

by George Peele, Charles Whitworth (Editor), Peele

New Mermaids are modernized and fully-annotated editions of classic English plays. Each volume

The playtext, in modern spelling, edited to the highest bibliographical and textual standards
Textual notes recording significant changes to the copytext and variant readings
Glossing notes explaining obscure words and word-play
Critical, contextual and staging notes
Photographs of productions where applicable
A full introduction which provides a critical account of the play, the staging conventions of the time and recent stage history; discusses authorship, date, sources and the text; and gives guidance for further reading.

Edited and updated by leading scholars and printed in a clear, easy-to-use format, New Mermaids offer invaluable guidance for actor, student, and theatre-goer alike.

Genres: Plays, Theatre, Fantasy

60 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1595

About the author

George Peele had a Master of Arts degree from Oxford University, which he noted in the signatures of most of his works as a poet, playwright, and translator. His plays include The Arraignment of Paris, Edward I, The Battle of Alcazar, The Old Wives' Tale, and David and Bethsabe, and several pageants. He is also believe to have written The Troublesome Rein of John, King of England, and portions of William Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and Henry VI trilogy. His interests lay strongly in the pastoral and romantic, and his allusions to classical mythology are earthy and treat the gods as people rather than personifications. As had his father, bookkeeper James Peele, he spent much of his life in debt, although most likely this was due to bad business investments in spite of many trumped-up charges of wanton behavior derived from a biographical jest book, disregarding the fact that such books interpolated most of the notable people of the era.

Reviews

[savanna renee lambert · Rating 5 out of 5]

genuinely had me laughing out loud at parts

[jessica]

Excellent for its time, creative, comical, and inspiring. Also absolutely laborious to read.

[Richard Rogers · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of this is pretty entertaining. With a play-within-a-play structure, you have an old woman telling the story, sitting off to one side with two men listening, while it's enacted on the stage. There's something charming about this, and it feels like modern drama made for kids. It's much easier to understand than a lot of drama from that era, which makes it more fun to read, but it kinda falls apart (IMO) in the second half.

The action gets sorta messy and only gets worked out via some ghostly deus ex machina. The plot is meaningless; nobody's effort has any discernible impact on the outcome. Some women find husbands basically by accident, or the working of fate; they didn't do anything to make it happen. Several characters go up against the villain, an ancient sorcerer, and get defeated easily, with zero drama. The hero, though, defeats the sorcerer, but only with the unexpected help of a ghost. Yes, he helped bury the man whose ghost then wants to repay him, but that's his only contribution to his success. Without supernatural help, he would have failed, too.

So, there is no plot. Not really. There are conflicts, but no meaningful striving to overcome them. Stuff happens. Winners win and losers lose, with all of it wired by the author. Compared to other plays of the time and since, the plot feels rudimentary and filled with dramatic cheating, without the hero winning through his own efforts. In effect, it's a pageant, a spectacle, and that's fine. I bet it was fun to watch.

So, three stars seems about right. Pretty fun, but not structured in the way we've come to expect in such stories.

[Barbora · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was lots of fun and easily understandable (minus the odd parts).

[Perry Whitford · Rating 4 out of 5]

A charming little romp, written by a contemporary of that good Mr Shakespeare.

Three servants get lost in a wood, a blacksmith offers them a roof for the night and his wife's storytelling prowess ("I'faith, gammer, a tale of an hour long were as good as an hour's sleep") whereupon her characters take on a life of their own and invade the stage. The old wife and her guests are variously excited, scared and even boring as the action unfolds.

The play within a play is about the beautiful Delia ("as white as snow and as red as blood"), who has been abducted and enthralled by Sacrapant the sorcerer. Her lover and two brothers have gone on a quest to free her.

An old man is also afflicted by the sorcerer's spell. He helps the other characters by way of some gnomic sayings which act like good spells, e.g. "Start not aside from every danger, / Be not afeard of every danger; / Things that seem are not the same."

Not much is known about George Peele, what little biographical information survives suggests he was a violent sleazeball, not the kind of guy likely to write this light-hearted mishmash of fairytale tropes (Sleeping Beauty, Jack and the Beanstalk), happy songs and fairyfied frolics.

A different midsummer night's dream.

[Anne Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two books with the same title--written in 1580's--very Elizabethan. A play within a play--could also be a fairy tale.