Middleton: Summary and Conclusions

Abstract

Thomas Middleton apparently began his solo writing career as a dramatist by writing The Phoenix for the Children of Paul’s, a play possibly intended to restore that Company’s reputation following the scandal over The Old Joiner of Aldgate (see Gair, 1982: ch. 5). In this play (now lost), George Chapman had put on the Paul’s stage barely disguised representations of local men and women involved in vigorous legal wrangling over a marriage. It had been commissioned by one of those involved — a bookbinder named Flaskett whose business premises were in Paul’s Yard — in an attempt to influence the court case in his favour. When it looked like the play might get him into trouble, however, Flaskett was able to argue that no commentary on affairs outside the theatre was intended, declaring that the play was ‘onely a meere Toye which had idle applications of names according to the Inventors disposicion thereof’, even though the play’s success resulted precisely from the audience being able to identify the protagonists. It seems appropriate, therefore, that Middleton should conclude his playwriting career by producing a scandal on the grand scale, representing characters playing out their parts not in the neighbourhood of St Paul’s Cathedral, but on the world stage.