Chrononhotonthologos
Encyclopedia
Chrononhotonthologos is a satirical
play by the English
poet and songwriter Henry Carey
from 1734. Although the play has been seen as nonsense verse
, it was also seen and celebrated at the time as a satire on Robert Walpole
and Queen Caroline
, wife of George II.
The play is relatively short on the page, as it relies heavily upon its songs and theatrical effects for stage time. It concerns King Chrononhotonthologos and Queen Fadladinida of Queerummania who face an invasion by the Antipodeans
(who are inverted people from the other side of the world). The king defeats the entire Antipodean army, leaving behind only the Antipodean king, who is taken to prison. The Queen sees the captive king, falls deeply in love, and mourns her virginity
(for the king had never consummated their marriage). She prays to Cupid
and Venus
, and she gets her wish to lose her virginity and her husband. Chrononhotonthologos, in camp, takes offence at a piece of pork, slaps his general, and is killed by the raging general. The general creates a bloodbath before killing himself. The Queen is thus a widow maid and is free to marry the king's courtiers. The two courtiers take offense at her preference, and so she decides merely to pay them each night for their sexual services. The play ends thereupon with all well.
of opera
and of theatrical spectacle
at the same time that it is itself a spectacular. The Antipodeans, who have their heads where their midsections should be, who walk upon their hands, etc., advance in columns (literally standing upon each other) rather than ranks, and the performance has a great dumbshow
with them. The captured Antipodean king in his cell (the only Antipodean who would need to be in the stage foreground) was most likely a special effect himself, as he has no lines. The dances that are indicated throughout, several of which without apparent motivation, are similarly present simply for the effect on the senses.
In general, the play burlesques the absurdity of operatic plots, as well as the most inexplicable habits of contemporary tragedy. Carey consistently undercuts the lofty expectations of the kingdom-in-crisis plot by having the feared enemy be the Antipodean (or Acrostic
) and by having the characters travesty the repetitive verse of tragedy. When King Chrononhotonthologos visits General Bombardinian in his tent after single handedly destroying the Antipodean army with a glare, the general orders,
and then backtracks to announce that they only have pork. The King takes deadly offense at being offered pork, and so he slaps the general, and the general's heroic pride forces him to stab the king in return. When the general regrets his regicide, he calls out, in a parody of Richard III
,
When the doctor confirms the king's death, Bombardinian tells him to go to the next world and fetch the king's soul back (and stabs him), only to say to the air, in mock tragic grief, "Call'st thou Chrononhotonthologos?/ I come! your Faithful Bombardinian comes" and kill himself. If this arbitrary bloodbath (motivated by the king's hyperbolic vanity and the general's hyperbolic pride) is not enough of a deflation, when the Queen comes in to bewail her virginity, her lady simply says, "I'll fit you with a Husband in a Trice;/ Here's Rigdum Funnidos
, a proper Man,/ If anyone can please a Queen, he can" (I. v 61-4). When Rigdum Funnidos's friend declares that he must be king or die, the queen replies, "Well, Gentlemen, to make the Matter easy,/ I'll have you both, and that, I hope will please ye." Deciding at last that marriage is complicated (after her lady offers a formulaic complaint about marriage), the Queen concludes the play with,
The parody of bad tragedy and inflated spectacular also occurs in the names involved. These tongue twisters are nonsense, but they are also parodies of the ignorantly contrived exotic names used by contemporary opera and tragedy. Where William Shakespeare
and Thomas Otway
had chosen foreign locations for their plays to mask the fact that they were commenting upon England, by the 1730s a strange-sounding foreign location was a generic expectation of tragedy. More important than the linguistic parody, however, is the parody in the characterization. King Chrononhotonthologos begins the play offended by sleeplessness, declaring,
The king's overblown greatness is such that those royal eyes are enough to destroy the entire enemy army. The queen orders about the sky and stars. The general demands that the entire earth be conquered so that the king might have a meal. This repeated hyperbole
is pushed to the point of absurdity to create a burlesque
of opera's impossible characters. On the one hand, these parodies are superficially delightful and satirically a relief from the bombast of hack-written and alloyed tragedy
, but, on the other hand, they are part of a darker political satire taking place in the play.
, or an anti-Walpolean, and he identified with Alexander Pope
, in particular, in his stance on the 18th century's cultural polemic (see Augustan poetry
for the issues behind Ambrose Philips and Alexander Pope's poison pen battle). Pope had been a consistent enemy of Ambrose Philips
's, and Philips was a stand-in for an entire slate of Whig
political views. Attacking Philips was attacking what Philips stood for, and Carey achieved fame first by satirizing Philips's second set of ode
s (which had been dedicated to Robert Walpole) with his Namby Pamby
. Namby Pamby had made Carey one of the darlings of the Tory opposition to Walpole.
In 1728, John Gay
's The Beggar's Opera
had satirized Robert Walpole and opera, both, and it had proven enormously successful. However, Walpole had Gay's follow up, Polly, suppressed. Walpole's direct intervention in the stage prompted a new round of satires, including Chrononhotonthologos. However, Chrononhotonthologos is a far more dangerously political satire than Gay's The Beggar's Opera or Henry Fielding
's Tom Thumb
had been. Tom Thumb (1732) had introduced a parody of operatic plots and Walpole by focusing on a mythical kingdom where the queen would fall in love with an absurd character, but Carey goes much further by having the Queen fall in love with an absurd character and then walk away with two unrelated and unmotivated characters while, at the same time, having the king die due to vanity.
The real life political events that are partially encoded in the play concern Caroline of Ansbach
and George II. In the 1720s, George II, then Prince of Wales
, had opposed his father bitterly and aligned himself with the Tory party, while his father fostered Robert Walpole (thanks to Walpole's playing up of suggestions that the Tories disapproved of the Hanoverian succession
). Because of his fears of Jacobites
, George I kept Walpole in power, while George II favored anyone else. George II's mistress, Mrs Howard, was a strong Tory and a woman who favored John Gay and others of the Tory wits. Toward the end of George I's life, Caroline of Ansbach attempted a reconciliation of father with son, and when George II came to the throne, she was the one who pushed for Robert Walpole. Mrs. Howard's influence was diminished to nothing, and George II, although still disliking his wife, did not involve himself in politics, leaving the field clear for her to continue to give power to Robert Walpole.
John Gay had been promised patronage by Mrs. Howard, and that doomed his chances of actual preferrment when George II became king, for it earned him the enmity of Queen Caroline. The friends and admirers of Gay (including Alexander Pope and Henry Carey) regarded this political game as a personal and moral betrayal. Chrononhotonthologos, therefore, is not innocent in its depiction of a queen who never makes love with her husband, a husband who has no idea about politics but only wishes to be flattered, and, most particularly, of a queen who falls in love with contrariness and takes two minor ministers as her competing gigolos.
These political and topical allusions are not necessary for contemporary readers and viewers of the play. The nonsense verse and the immediate parody of opera are entertaining, but the political satire hidden beneath the frivolty was one component of the play's success.
's King of Lilliput
has a royal title ending in "Ully Mully Goo," the nonsense sounds and weighs the same as the titles of real kings and, implicitly, is just as meaningful). Later authors, like Edward Lear
, would cite Carey as a precursor.
The play is also one of the first examples of a parodic opera. Although The Dragon of Wantley would be more fully an opera, Chrononhotonthologos is a spectacular that is also an exaggeration of spectaculars. There had been farce spectacles before. In the era of the competing playhouses and the Restoration spectacular
, the playhouses that had no capacity for special effects put on farces of the plays they could not stage. However, those plays had concentrated more specifically on effects than on the total experience of bombast, unmotivated dance, pompous music, and special effects, and Carey's play attacks not a specific rival, but an entire genre.
Finally, in the context of Augustan drama
, Carey's play is one of the ones that led to the Licensing Act
of 1737, when the theaters would be subject to official censorship
. After the successes of Tom Thumb and Chrononhotonthologos, theaters staged increasingly vicious attacks on the ministry. These satires were progressively more dangerously near an attack on the crown.
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
play by the English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
poet and songwriter Henry Carey
Henry Carey (writer)
Henry Carey was an English poet, dramatist and song-writer. He is remembered as an anti-Walpolean satirist and also as a patriot. Several of his melodies continue to be sung today, and he was widely praised in the generation after his death...
from 1734. Although the play has been seen as nonsense verse
Nonsense verse
Nonsense verse is a form of light, often rhythmical verse, usually for children, depicting peculiar characters in amusing and fantastical situations. It is whimsical and humorous in tone and tends to employ fanciful phrases and meaningless made-up words. Nonsense verse is closely related to...
, it was also seen and celebrated at the time as a satire on Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG, KB, PC , known before 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British statesman who is generally regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of Great Britain....
and Queen Caroline
Caroline of Ansbach
Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach was the queen consort of King George II of Great Britain.Her father, John Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, was the ruler of a small German state...
, wife of George II.
The play is relatively short on the page, as it relies heavily upon its songs and theatrical effects for stage time. It concerns King Chrononhotonthologos and Queen Fadladinida of Queerummania who face an invasion by the Antipodeans
Antipodes
In geography, the antipodes of any place on Earth is the point on the Earth's surface which is diametrically opposite to it. Two points that are antipodal to one another are connected by a straight line running through the centre of the Earth....
(who are inverted people from the other side of the world). The king defeats the entire Antipodean army, leaving behind only the Antipodean king, who is taken to prison. The Queen sees the captive king, falls deeply in love, and mourns her virginity
Virginity
Virginity refers to the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. There are cultural and religious traditions which place special value and significance on this state, especially in the case of unmarried females, associated with notions of personal purity, honor and worth...
(for the king had never consummated their marriage). She prays to Cupid
Cupid
In Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of desire, affection and erotic love. He is the son of the goddess Venus and the god Mars. His Greek counterpart is Eros...
and Venus
Venus (mythology)
Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...
, and she gets her wish to lose her virginity and her husband. Chrononhotonthologos, in camp, takes offence at a piece of pork, slaps his general, and is killed by the raging general. The general creates a bloodbath before killing himself. The Queen is thus a widow maid and is free to marry the king's courtiers. The two courtiers take offense at her preference, and so she decides merely to pay them each night for their sexual services. The play ends thereupon with all well.
Parody
The play is a parodyParody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
of opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
and of theatrical spectacle
Spectacle
In general, spectacle refers to an event that is memorable for the appearance it creates. Derived in Middle English from c. 1340 as "specially prepared or arranged display" it was borrowed from Old French spectacle, itself a reflection of the Latin spectaculum "a show" from spectare "to view,...
at the same time that it is itself a spectacular. The Antipodeans, who have their heads where their midsections should be, who walk upon their hands, etc., advance in columns (literally standing upon each other) rather than ranks, and the performance has a great dumbshow
Dumbshow
Dumbshow, also dumb show or dumb-show, is a traditional term for pantomime in drama, actions presented by actors onstage without spoken dialogue. It is similar to the masque...
with them. The captured Antipodean king in his cell (the only Antipodean who would need to be in the stage foreground) was most likely a special effect himself, as he has no lines. The dances that are indicated throughout, several of which without apparent motivation, are similarly present simply for the effect on the senses.
In general, the play burlesques the absurdity of operatic plots, as well as the most inexplicable habits of contemporary tragedy. Carey consistently undercuts the lofty expectations of the kingdom-in-crisis plot by having the feared enemy be the Antipodean (or Acrostic
Acrostic
An acrostic is a poem or other form of writing in which the first letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word or a message. As a form of constrained writing, an acrostic can be used as a mnemonic device to aid memory retrieval. A famous...
) and by having the characters travesty the repetitive verse of tragedy. When King Chrononhotonthologos visits General Bombardinian in his tent after single handedly destroying the Antipodean army with a glare, the general orders,
- "Traverse from Pole to Pole; sail round the World,
- Bring every Eatable that can be eat:
- The King shall eat, tho' all Mankind be starv'd." (I v, 11-14)
and then backtracks to announce that they only have pork. The King takes deadly offense at being offered pork, and so he slaps the general, and the general's heroic pride forces him to stab the king in return. When the general regrets his regicide, he calls out, in a parody of Richard III
Richard III (play)
Richard III is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591. It depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of Richard III of England. The play is grouped among the histories in the First Folio and is most often classified...
,
- "Go, call a Coach, and let a Coach be call'd,
- And let the Man that calls it be the Caller;
- And, in his calling, let him nothing call,
- But Coach! Coach! Coach! O for a Coach ye Gods!"
When the doctor confirms the king's death, Bombardinian tells him to go to the next world and fetch the king's soul back (and stabs him), only to say to the air, in mock tragic grief, "Call'st thou Chrononhotonthologos?/ I come! your Faithful Bombardinian comes" and kill himself. If this arbitrary bloodbath (motivated by the king's hyperbolic vanity and the general's hyperbolic pride) is not enough of a deflation, when the Queen comes in to bewail her virginity, her lady simply says, "I'll fit you with a Husband in a Trice;/ Here's Rigdum Funnidos
Rigdum Funnidos
Rigdum Funnidos is a character in Henry Carey's Chrononhotonthologos . Rigdum Funnidos is the comically plain-spoken contrast to the bombastic Aldiborontiphoscophornio. Both are courtiers, but whereas Aldiborontiphoscophornio might explain, when asked who Somnus is,Rigdum Funnidos is a character...
, a proper Man,/ If anyone can please a Queen, he can" (I. v 61-4). When Rigdum Funnidos's friend declares that he must be king or die, the queen replies, "Well, Gentlemen, to make the Matter easy,/ I'll have you both, and that, I hope will please ye." Deciding at last that marriage is complicated (after her lady offers a formulaic complaint about marriage), the Queen concludes the play with,
- "Gentlemen! I'm not for Marriage,
- But, according to your Carriage,
- As you both behave to Night,
- You shall be paid to Morrow."
The parody of bad tragedy and inflated spectacular also occurs in the names involved. These tongue twisters are nonsense, but they are also parodies of the ignorantly contrived exotic names used by contemporary opera and tragedy. Where William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
and Thomas Otway
Thomas Otway
Thomas Otway was an English dramatist of the Restoration period, best known for Venice Preserv'd, or A Plot Discover'd .-Life:...
had chosen foreign locations for their plays to mask the fact that they were commenting upon England, by the 1730s a strange-sounding foreign location was a generic expectation of tragedy. More important than the linguistic parody, however, is the parody in the characterization. King Chrononhotonthologos begins the play offended by sleeplessness, declaring,
- "These Royal Eyes thou (Somnus) never more shall close.
- Henceforth let no Man sleep, on Pain of Death:
- Instead of Sleep, let pompous Pageantry,
- And solemn Show, with sonorous Solemnity,
- Keep all Mankind eternally awake.
- Bid Harlequino decorate the Stage
- With all Magnificence of Decoration...." (I. i. 63-7).
The king's overblown greatness is such that those royal eyes are enough to destroy the entire enemy army. The queen orders about the sky and stars. The general demands that the entire earth be conquered so that the king might have a meal. This repeated hyperbole
Hyperbole
Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally....
is pushed to the point of absurdity to create a burlesque
Burlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...
of opera's impossible characters. On the one hand, these parodies are superficially delightful and satirically a relief from the bombast of hack-written and alloyed tragedy
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
, but, on the other hand, they are part of a darker political satire taking place in the play.
Political satire
Henry Carey was a ToryTory
Toryism is a traditionalist and conservative political philosophy which grew out of the Cavalier faction in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It is a prominent ideology in the politics of the United Kingdom, but also features in parts of The Commonwealth, particularly in Canada...
, or an anti-Walpolean, and he identified with Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
, in particular, in his stance on the 18th century's cultural polemic (see Augustan poetry
Augustan poetry
In Latin literature, Augustan poetry is the poetry that flourished during the reign of Caesar Augustus as Emperor of Rome, most notably including the works of Virgil, Horace, and Ovid. In English literature, Augustan poetry is a branch of Augustan literature, and refers to the poetry of the...
for the issues behind Ambrose Philips and Alexander Pope's poison pen battle). Pope had been a consistent enemy of Ambrose Philips
Ambrose Philips
-Life:He was born in Shropshire of a Leicestershire family. He was educated at Shrewsbury School and St John's College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow in 1699. He seems to have lived chiefly at Cambridge until he resigned his fellowship in 1708, and his pastorals were probably written in...
's, and Philips was a stand-in for an entire slate of Whig
British Whig Party
The Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...
political views. Attacking Philips was attacking what Philips stood for, and Carey achieved fame first by satirizing Philips's second set of ode
Ode
Ode is a type of lyrical verse. A classic ode is structured in three major parts: the strophe, the antistrophe, and the epode. Different forms such as the homostrophic ode and the irregular ode also exist...
s (which had been dedicated to Robert Walpole) with his Namby Pamby
Namby Pamby
Namby Pamby is a term for affected, weak, and maudlin speech/verse. However, its origins are in Namby Pamby , by Henry Carey.Carey wrote the poem as a satire of Ambrose Philips and published it in his Poems on Several Occasions...
. Namby Pamby had made Carey one of the darlings of the Tory opposition to Walpole.
In 1728, John Gay
John Gay
John Gay was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera , set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch...
's The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today...
had satirized Robert Walpole and opera, both, and it had proven enormously successful. However, Walpole had Gay's follow up, Polly, suppressed. Walpole's direct intervention in the stage prompted a new round of satires, including Chrononhotonthologos. However, Chrononhotonthologos is a far more dangerously political satire than Gay's The Beggar's Opera or Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....
's Tom Thumb
Tom Thumb
Tom Thumb is a character of English folklore. The History of Tom Thumb was published in 1621, and has the distinction of being the first fairy tale printed in English. Tom is no bigger than his father's thumb, and his adventures include being swallowed by a cow, tangling with giants, and becoming a...
had been. Tom Thumb (1732) had introduced a parody of operatic plots and Walpole by focusing on a mythical kingdom where the queen would fall in love with an absurd character, but Carey goes much further by having the Queen fall in love with an absurd character and then walk away with two unrelated and unmotivated characters while, at the same time, having the king die due to vanity.
The real life political events that are partially encoded in the play concern Caroline of Ansbach
Caroline of Ansbach
Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach was the queen consort of King George II of Great Britain.Her father, John Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, was the ruler of a small German state...
and George II. In the 1720s, George II, then Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales is a title traditionally granted to the heir apparent to the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the 15 other independent Commonwealth realms...
, had opposed his father bitterly and aligned himself with the Tory party, while his father fostered Robert Walpole (thanks to Walpole's playing up of suggestions that the Tories disapproved of the Hanoverian succession
House of Hanover
The House of Hanover is a deposed German royal dynasty which has ruled the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg , the Kingdom of Hanover, the Kingdom of Great Britain, the Kingdom of Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
). Because of his fears of Jacobites
Jacobitism
Jacobitism was the political movement in Britain dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland, later the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Kingdom of Ireland...
, George I kept Walpole in power, while George II favored anyone else. George II's mistress, Mrs Howard, was a strong Tory and a woman who favored John Gay and others of the Tory wits. Toward the end of George I's life, Caroline of Ansbach attempted a reconciliation of father with son, and when George II came to the throne, she was the one who pushed for Robert Walpole. Mrs. Howard's influence was diminished to nothing, and George II, although still disliking his wife, did not involve himself in politics, leaving the field clear for her to continue to give power to Robert Walpole.
John Gay had been promised patronage by Mrs. Howard, and that doomed his chances of actual preferrment when George II became king, for it earned him the enmity of Queen Caroline. The friends and admirers of Gay (including Alexander Pope and Henry Carey) regarded this political game as a personal and moral betrayal. Chrononhotonthologos, therefore, is not innocent in its depiction of a queen who never makes love with her husband, a husband who has no idea about politics but only wishes to be flattered, and, most particularly, of a queen who falls in love with contrariness and takes two minor ministers as her competing gigolos.
These political and topical allusions are not necessary for contemporary readers and viewers of the play. The nonsense verse and the immediate parody of opera are entertaining, but the political satire hidden beneath the frivolty was one component of the play's success.
Context
Chrononhotonthologos occupies a central position in the development of English nonsense verse. Carey's word play appears to exist for its own sake, and the sounds of words are one source of amusement. Additionally, like other nonsense verse, the writing plays with and parodies a well identified genre of high seriousness. The nonsense achieves part of its humor by fulfilling the structural and phonetic requirements of an extant form, but substituting silly syllables for meaningful ones, thereby allowing the listener or reader to enjoy the suggestion that the usual words are empty placeholders (e.g. when Jonathan SwiftJonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
's King of Lilliput
Lilliput and Blefuscu
Lilliput and Blefuscu are two fictional island nations that appear in the first part of the 1726 novel Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. The two islands are neighbors in the South Indian Ocean, separated by a channel eight hundred yards wide. Both are inhabited by tiny people who are about...
has a royal title ending in "Ully Mully Goo," the nonsense sounds and weighs the same as the titles of real kings and, implicitly, is just as meaningful). Later authors, like Edward Lear
Edward Lear
Edward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised.-Biography:...
, would cite Carey as a precursor.
The play is also one of the first examples of a parodic opera. Although The Dragon of Wantley would be more fully an opera, Chrononhotonthologos is a spectacular that is also an exaggeration of spectaculars. There had been farce spectacles before. In the era of the competing playhouses and the Restoration spectacular
Restoration spectacular
The Restoration spectacular, or elaborately staged "machine play", hit the London public stage in the late 17th-century Restoration period, enthralling audiences with action, music, dance, moveable scenery, baroque illusionistic painting, gorgeous costumes, and special effects such as trapdoor...
, the playhouses that had no capacity for special effects put on farces of the plays they could not stage. However, those plays had concentrated more specifically on effects than on the total experience of bombast, unmotivated dance, pompous music, and special effects, and Carey's play attacks not a specific rival, but an entire genre.
Finally, in the context of Augustan drama
Augustan drama
Augustan drama can refer to the dramas of Ancient Rome during the reign of Caesar Augustus, but it most commonly refers to the plays of Great Britain in the early 18th century, a subset of 18th-century Augustan literature...
, Carey's play is one of the ones that led to the Licensing Act
Licensing Act 1737
The Licensing Act or Theatrical Licensing Act of 21 June 1737 was a landmark act of censorship of the British stage and one of the most determining factors in the development of Augustan drama...
of 1737, when the theaters would be subject to official censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
. After the successes of Tom Thumb and Chrononhotonthologos, theaters staged increasingly vicious attacks on the ministry. These satires were progressively more dangerously near an attack on the crown.
See also
- Augustan dramaAugustan dramaAugustan drama can refer to the dramas of Ancient Rome during the reign of Caesar Augustus, but it most commonly refers to the plays of Great Britain in the early 18th century, a subset of 18th-century Augustan literature...
- George II of the United Kingdom
- Robert WalpoleRobert WalpoleRobert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG, KB, PC , known before 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British statesman who is generally regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of Great Britain....
- Augustan literatureAugustan literatureAugustan literature is a style of English literature produced during the reigns of Queen Anne, King George I, and George II on the 1740s with the deaths of Pope and Swift...