Irene (play)
Encyclopedia
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
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...
written between 1726 and 1749 by Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
. It has the distinction of being the work Johnson considered his greatest failure. Since his death, the critical consensus has been that he was right to think so.
Irene was Johnson’s only play, and was first performed on 6 February 1749 in a production by his friend and former pupil, David Garrick
David Garrick
David Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson...
. The play was a commercial success and earned Johnson more money than anything else he had written up to that point. It was never revived during his lifetime, and there is no subsequent evidence of any other full-scale productions of Irene anywhere until 1999, making it one of the most unsuccessful plays ever written by a major author.
Background
Johnson began writing Irene around 1726 when he first began to work in his father's bookshop. While in the bookshop he befriended Gilbert Walmesley, the Registrar of the Ecclesiastical Court of Lichfield. Johnson would discuss Irene with Walmesley, and read him some of the early drafts. At one point, Walmesley told Johnson that "he was making Irene suffer so much in the first part of the play that there would be nothing left for her to suffer in the later part". Johnson joked that there was "enough in reserve... I intend to put my heroine into the ecclesiastical court of Lichfield which will fill up the utmost measure of human calamity".Johnson wrote a considerable part of Irene in 1737 while teaching at Edial Hall School
Edial Hall School
Edial Hall School was a school established in 1735 by Samuel Johnson at Edial, near Lichfield. Here, Johnson taught Latin and Greek to young gentlemen...
, the academy he had founded in 1735. Johnson spent his evenings working on his play while ignoring his wife Elizabeth
Elizabeth Porter
Elizabeth Jervis Porter was the wife of Samuel Johnson.Born Elizabeth Jarvis , her first marriage was to Henry Porter, a Birmingham merchant, with whom she had three children...
(known as Tetty). This provoked David Garrick
David Garrick
David Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson...
, his student, to perform a skit mocking the incidents, although the incidents he portrayed were more than likely his own fabrications. However, the play was written mostly for Mrs. Johnson; she was fond of it and hoped it would be a success. Her belief in the play inspired Johnson to finish it and push to have it performed. When Edial Hall failed, Johnson travelled to London and brought the unfinished manuscript with him. In 1737, Johnson tried to submit Irene to Charles Fleetwood, the owner-manager of the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, but Fleetwood rejected it on the grounds that there was no patron and his theater was catering to other types of performances. Johnson tried in 1741 to have the unperformed play printed, but this too failed. He seems to have continued to revise it over the next several years, since a manuscript notebook contains draft material made not earlier than June 1746.
It was not until Garrick took over as manager of Drury Lane Theatre that the play was guaranteed a production. By this point Johnson was hard at work on his Dictionary
A Dictionary of the English Language
Published on 15 April 1755 and written by Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary, is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language....
, but he found time for further work on Irene.
Play
Richard Knolles
Richard Knolles was an English historian, famous for his account of the Ottoman Empire, the first major description in the English language....
's Generall Historie of the Turkes (1603), although he also made some use of George Sandys
George Sandys
George Sandys was an English traveller, colonist and poet.-Life:He was born in Bishopsthorpe, the seventh and youngest son of Edwin Sandys, archbishop of York. He studied at St Mary Hall, Oxford, but took no degree...
's Relation of a Journey...containing a Description of the Turkish Empire (1615), Herbelot
Barthélemy d'Herbelot de Molainville
Barthélemy d'Herbelot de Molainville , French Orientalist, was born at Paris.He was educated at the University of Paris, and devoted himself to the study of oriental languages, going to Italy to perfect himself in them by converse with the orientals who frequented its seaports...
's Bibliothèque Orientale (1697) and Humphrey Prideaux
Humphrey Prideaux
Humphrey Prideaux , Doctor of Divinity and scholar, belonged to an ancient Cornish family, was born at Padstow, and educated at Westminster School and at Oxford....
's Life of Mahomet (1697).
In Knolles's work, the Sultan
Sultan
Sultan is a title with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", and "dictatorship", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who...
Mahomet
Mehmed II
Mehmed II , was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire for a short time from 1444 to September 1446, and later from...
conquers Constantinople in 1453 and captures a Greek Christian named Irene. He decides to take her as his mistress, and while pursuing her romantically he ignores his duties as a monarch. Soon, the kingdom is falling apart from neglect and the subjects begin to riot, so Mahomet kills Irene in order to prove his dedication to his people. Johnson alters the story to emphasise the theme of Irene's temptation. His Mahomet offers Irene a deal: if she becomes a Muslim, he will preserve her life and give her power at his court.
IRENE:
Forbear — O do not urge me to my ruin!
MAHOMET:
To state and pow'r I court thee, not to ruin:
Smile on my wishes, and command the globe.
Security shall spread her shield before thee,
And Love infold thee with his downy wings.
(Irene II. vii ll. 79–83)
ASPASIA:
Ah! let me rather seek the convent's cell;
There where my thoughts, at intervals of pray'r,
Descend to range these mansions of misfortune,
Oft' shall I dwell on our disastrous friendship,
And shed the pitying tear for lost Irene.
IRENE:
Go, languish on in dull obscurity;
Thy dazzled soul with all its boasted greatness,
Shrinks at th' o'erpow'ring gleams of regal state,
Stoops from the blaze like a degenerate eagle,
And flies for shelter to the shades of life.
(Irene III. viii. ll. 93–102)
As a result of her decision to become Mahomet's queen, Irene becomes ensnared in a complex power struggle between his various advisors: the First Visier
Vizier
A vizier or in Arabic script ; ; sometimes spelled vazir, vizir, vasir, wazir, vesir, or vezir) is a high-ranking political advisor or minister in a Muslim government....
Cali Bassa, the Aga Mustapha, and the officer Abdalla, who is suffering from unrequited love for Aspasia. Mahomet becomes convinced that Bassa, with Irene's complicity, is plotting against him. Two of Abdalla's captains kill Irene, but with her dying words she reveals that Bassa's true accomplice was the Greek soldier Demetrius, Aspasia's lover, who has safely escaped with his loved one. On learning that Irene had not been conspiring against him, Mahomet is distraught:
MAHOMET:
Robb'd of the maid, with whom I wish'd to triumph,
No more I burn for fame or for dominion;
Success and conquest now are empty sounds,
Remorse and anguish seize on all my breast;
Those groves, whose shades embower'd the dear Irene,
Heard her last cries, and fann'd her dying beauties,
Shall hide me from the tasteless world for ever.
(Irene V. xii. ll. 42–48)
The play is written in blank verse
Blank verse
Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the sixteenth century" and Paul Fussell has claimed that "about three-quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse."The first...
but, as Walter Jackson Bate claims, "reads like heroic couplets from which the rhyme has been removed, and couplets in which the poet has so much anxiety to keep a strict regularity of meter that other considerations — even of style and rhythm alone — become sacrificed." It is evident from the scansion
Scansion
Scansion is the act of determining and graphically representing the metrical character of a line of verse.-Overview:Systems of scansion, and the assumptions that underlie them, are so numerous and contradictory that it is often difficult to tell whether differences in scansion indicate opposed...
of the above lines that Johnson pronounced "Irene" in its Classical form with three syllables, aɪˈriːniː , and not in the contemporary form ˈaɪriːn .
Stage history
David Garrick's acceptance of Irene for production prompted Johnson to finish rewriting the play. Garrick changed the play's title to Mahomet and Irene, and requested changes that would make the play more acceptable to his sense of theatrical style. Johnson was initially opposed to the changes and complained that Garrick "wants me to make Mahomet run mad, that he may have an opportunity of tossing his hands and kicking his heels". Johnson's friend John Taylor resolved the dispute and Johnson ultimately carried out Garrick's suggestions, which included revising Irene's death scene so that she would be strangled onstage, instead of offstage as originally written.Mahomet and Irene opened on 6 February 1749. Elizabeth Johnson was unable to attend the performance because of illness. Johnson arrived at the theatre in the kind of clothing he considered as the "distinction of dress" required of a playwright; he wore "a scarlet waistcoat with gold lace and a gold-laced hat". The Prologue "soothed the audience, and the play went off tolerably, till it came to the conclusion". The conclusion in question was Irene's onstage strangulation, which upset the audience and provoked shouts of "Murder!". The actress quickly left the stage; for all successive performances Garrick restored Johnson's original ending.
The play was performed for nine nights, by the standards of 18th century London a very respectable run. Johnson received £195 17s
Shilling (United Kingdom)
The British shilling is an historic British coin from the eras of the Kingdom of Great Britain and the later United Kingdom; also adopted as a Scot denomination upon the 1707 Treaty of Union....
. for the performances. Robert Dodsley published the playscript on 16 February 1749 and Johnson received an additional £100. Perhaps ironically, in view of its later eclipse, this made Irene the most financially lucrative work Johnson had yet written: during this period of his career, only the Dictionary earned him more money.
Cast
Hannah PritchardHannah Pritchard
Hannah Pritchard was an English actress.Born Hannah Vaughan and married to an actor William Pritchard at a young age, she first attracted attention as a singer at Bartholomew Fair in 1733 She was born on 11th July 1711 to her father Oliver Pritchard. Her mothers name is not known...
played the role of Irene and Garrick cast himself in the role of Demetrius. Other notable actors in the play's original cast were Susannah Maria Arne
Susannah Maria Arne
Susannah Maria Cibber , also known as Susannah Maria Arne, was a celebrated English singer and actress and the sister of the composer Thomas Arne. Although she began her career as a soprano, her voice lowered in the early part of her career to that of a true contralto...
(using her professional name "Mrs. Cibber"
Theophilus Cibber
Theophilus Cibber was an English actor, playwright, author, and son of the actor-manager Colley Cibber.He began acting at an early age, and followed his father into theatrical management. In 1727, Alexander Pope satirized Theophilus Cibber in his Dunciad as a youth who "thrusts his person full...
) as Aspasia and Spranger Barry
Spranger Barry
Spranger Barry was an Irish actor.-Life:He was born in Skinner's Row, Dublin, the son of a silversmith, to whose business he was brought up...
as Mahomet.
The complete cast list, according to the first edition, is as follows:
- Mahomet, Emperor of the Turks — Mr. Barry
- Cali Bassa, First Visier — Mr. Berry
- Mustapha, A Turkish Aga — Mr. Sowden
- Abdalla, An Officer — Mr. Harvard
- Hasan, Turkish Captain — Mr. Usher
- Caraza, Turkish Captain — Mr. Burton
- Demetrius, Greek Nobleman — Mr. Garrick
- Leontius, Greek Nobleman — Mr. Blakes
- Murza, A Eunuch — unlisted
- Aspasia, Greek Lady — Mrs. Cibber
- Irene, Greek Lady — Mrs. Pritchard
- Attendants on Irene — unlisted
Critical response
Irene has never been the most admired of Johnson's works. Even James BoswellJames Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson....
found it wanting:
Analysed into parts, it will furnish a rich store of noble sentiments, fine imagery, and beautiful language; but it is deficient in pathos, in that delicate power of touching the human feelings, which is the principle end of the drama. Indeed Garrick has complained to me, that Johnson not only had not the faculty of producing the impressions of tragedy, but that he had not the sensibility to perceive them.Johnson's friend Bennet Langton
Bennet Langton
Bennet Langton was an English writer and a founding member of the Literary Club. He is best known for his close friendship with writer Samuel Johnson and his numerous appearances in James Boswell's book The Life of Samuel Johnson....
recorded the author's own later disenchantment with the piece:
At another time, when one was reading his tragedy Irene to a company at a house in the country, he [Johnson] left the room; and somebody having asked him the reason of this, he replied, "Sir, I thought it had been better."'The early 20th century consensus of opinion was summed up by George Sampson in 1941: "Of his early tragedy Irene [...] it is enough to say that its moral dialogues, its correctness of plan and its smoothness of verse do not suffice to give it any rank as drama." T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
suggested an explanation for the play's unpopularity and neglect:
His verse has none of the dramatic qualities; it is correct, but correctness in such isolation becomes itself a fault. The play would be more readable to-day, if he had written it in rhyme; the whole would be more easily declaimed, and the good things more easily remembered; it would lose none of its excellence of structure, thought, vocabulary and figures of speech. What would be mellifluous in rhyme, is merely monotonous without it.
F.R. Leavis argued that Boswell's criticisms of the play - "that [Johnson] has no sense of the theatre, and worse, cannot present or conceive his themes dramatically" - were "obvious", and that Irene was a failure because Johnson's best poetry (such as The Vanity of Human Wishes
The Vanity of Human Wishes
The Vanity of Human Wishes: The Tenth Satire of Juvenal Imitated is a poem by the English author Samuel Johnson. Written in 1749 , it was completed while Johnson was busy writing A Dictionary of the English Language and it was the first published work to include Johnson's name on the title page.As...
) was "a poetry of statement, exposition and reflection: nothing could be remoter from the Shakespearean use of language [...] than the Johnsonian." Like Eliot, Leavis suggested that the play might have been better if Johnson had not been determined to write it in blank verse:
He is clearly determined that his verse shall not be changed into the 'periods of a declaimer', and that it shall not be said that the audience cannot easily perceive 'where the lines end or begin' (see his remarks on blank-verse in the Life of Milton). In couplets, of course, he couldn't have written so dismally. With the absence of rhyme and of the movement goes the absence of wit. And without the wit he is without the Johnsonian weight.Johnson biographer Walter Jackson Bate has attempted to defend Irene, arguing that the reason why it is considered so bad is that the reader cannot help being aware that "it is by one of the masters of English prose style (who also had a powerful command of one kind of poetic style), and it is also by one of the supreme critics of literature in whatever language". Bate claims that if contemporary readers were able to encounter the play without knowing who had written it, "it would not seem too bad"; but since we cannot forget Johnson's achievements in other fields of literature, reading Irene is an especially depressing experience: "the heart begins after a while to sink except in the most resolute Johnsonian, and sometimes even then."