Sir John Oldcastle

The Life of Sir John Oldcastle and The First Part of the True and Honourable History of the Life of Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, the good is an English Renaissance Drama. Taken from Anthony Munday and Michael Drayton, Robert Wilson and Richard Hathwaye who wrote it for the theater group of the Admiral 's Men. It was first performed in 1599 and 1600 printed. A second part of the play seems to have existed, has been lost. That in his time very successful piece was later published in part as a piece of William Shakespeare.

Content

The Life of .. plays shortly after the accession of King Henry V.. This planning an invasion of France, but has previously only consolidate his power in the home and fight different threat. The piece shows Oldcastle as a precursor of the Reformation, which is driven by the corruption of the official Catholic Church in a proto- Protestantism. Thus it consists of the wrath of the Bishop of Rochester, who follows Oldcastle. As Lollarde Oldcastle part of the conspiracy against the king should be. However, Oldcastle not only refuses to participate, but even tries to warn Henry. Henry, through his advisors astray is doing nothing to save Oldcastle. The piece ends with a dramatic escape from the Tower of London and a court hearing. Oldcastle manages to be acquitted before a secular court, and flee to Wales. The action continued in the Second Part of The Life of ... fort from which, however, no content is delivered.

Formation

It's about John Oldcastle. This was a friend of Henry V: but heretics and leader of the Lollards. The piece was commissioned by the political allies of William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham. The real Oldcastle was an ancestor of Cobham. Through a play a prominent London stage they tried to increase Cobham's reputation with the queen and important court officials. It was also a response to Shakespeare's Henry IV. In this historical Oldcastle emerged as alienated character Falstaff on, which is characterized by its trunk and gluttony. The Life of .., performed by the rival theater company the Lord Chamberlain's Men Shakespeare should oppose this characterization somewhat.

The authors received on October 16, 1599 a payment of £ 10 and then the beginning of November of the year again ten shillings "for free ". Both the bonus and the print output just a year after the creation of the play point to a box office hit.

The same documents that attest to the payment for "the First Part", have made ​​a payment of four pounds for the second part. The theater company also made in March 1600 purchases for the piece. In the Stationers ' Company also received a request to print the piece. The follow-up piece, however, is lost and nothing recorded about its contents.

As Shakespeare's play

Over the centuries, the piece was often viewed as a work of Shakespeare. The culprit is a print from the year 1619, the Shakespeare specifies that the author and the work served as part of Shakespeare 's complete works. The author's name Shakespeare so that for example the two German translator of Shakespeare Ludwig Tieck and August Wilhelm Schlegel was handed down through the wide dissemination of this pressure, many who regarded the work as a Shakespeare play. While Schlegel held the piece for one of the best and most mature plays of Shakespeare, posterity was less gracious. Most critics since the 19th century describe it as tedious and tiring pseudo- Shakespeare, in which not a single line could be of Shakespeare himself.