The Pilgrim is a late Jacobean era stage play, a comedy

Comedy

Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

 by John Fletcher

John Fletcher (playwright)

John Fletcher was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; both during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's...

 that was originally published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio

Beaumont and Fletcher folios

The Beaumont and Fletcher folios were two large folio collections of the stage plays of John Fletcher and his collaborators. The first was issued in 1647, and the second in 1679. The two collections were important in preserving many works of English Renaissance drama.-The first folio, 1647:The 1647...

 of 1647

1647 in literature

The year 1647 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* Thomas Hobbes becomes tutor to the future Charles II of England.* Plagiarist Robert Baron publishes his Deorum Dona, a masque, and Gripus and Hegio, a pastoral, which draw heavily on the poems of Edmund Waller and John Webster's...

.

The play was acted by the King's Men

King's Men (playing company)

The King's Men was the company of actors to which William Shakespeare belonged through most of his career. Formerly known as The Lord Chamberlain's Men during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it became The King's Men in 1603 when King James ascended the throne and became the company's patron.The...

; they performed it at Court in 1621

1621 in literature

The year 1621 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*August 26 - Barten Holyday's allegorical play Technogamia, originally produced at Christ Church, Oxford in 1618, is staged before King James at Woodstock Palace...

 Christmas season. Since Fletcher's source for his plot, El Peregrino en su Patria (1604

1604 in literature

The year 1604 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*Isaac Casaubon becomes sub-librarian of the royal library in Paris.*Construction of the Red Bull Theatre in London....

), a prose romance by Lope de Vega

Lope de Vega

Félix Arturo Lope de Vega y Carpio was a Spanish playwright and poet. He was one of the key figures in the Spanish Golden Century Baroque literature...

, was first translated into English in 1621 (from the French translation, not the Spanish original), the play was likely composed and premiered on the stage in that year. The cast list added to the play in the second Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1679 includes Joseph Taylor

Joseph Taylor (17th-century actor)

Joseph Taylor was a 17th-century actor. As the successor of Richard Burbage with the King's Men, he was arguably the most important actor in the later Jacobean and the Caroline eras....

, John Lowin

John Lowin

John Lowin was an English actor born in the St Giles-without-Cripplegate, London, the son of a tanner. Like Robert Armin, he was apprenticed to a goldsmith. While he is not recorded as a free citizen of this company, he did perform as a goldsmith, Leofstane, in a 1611 city pageant written by...

, Nicholas Tooley

Nicholas Tooley

Nicholas Tooley was a Renaissance actor in the King's Men, the acting company of William Shakespeare.Recent research has shown that Tooley was born in late 1582 or early 1583; his birth name was not Tooley but Wilkinson...

, John Underwood

John Underwood (actor)

John Underwood was an early 17th century actor, a member of the King's Men, the company of William Shakespeare.-Career:Underwood began as a boy player with the Children of the Chapel, and was cast in that company's productions of Ben Jonson's Cynthia's Revels and The Poetaster...

, Robert Benfield

Robert Benfield

Robert Benfield was a seventeenth-century actor, noted for his longtime membership in the King's Men in the years and decades after William Shakespeare's retirement and death.Nothing is known of Benfield's early life...

, George Birch

King's Men personnel

King's Men personnel were the people who worked with and for the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the King's Men from 1594 to 1642...

, John Thompson

John Thompson (actor)

John Thompson was a noted boy player acting women's roles in English Renaissance theatre. He served in the King's Men, the acting troupe formerly of William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage.Thompson's career is notable for his length...

, and James Horn

King's Men personnel

King's Men personnel were the people who worked with and for the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the King's Men from 1594 to 1642...

.

The Pilgrim was both revived and adapted during the Restoration

English Restoration

The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...

 era, as were many of Fletcher's plays. Sir John Vanbrugh

John Vanbrugh

Sir John Vanbrugh  – 26 March 1726) was an English architect and dramatist, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restoration comedies, The Relapse and The Provoked Wife , which have become enduring stage favourites...

 made a prose adaptation of Fletcher's verse original that premiered at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...

 in 1700

1700 in literature

The year 1700 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* May 5 - Within a few days of John Dryden's death , his last written work, The Secular Masque, is performed as part of Vanbrugh's version of The Pilgrim....

, with a Prologue, Epilogue, and a "secular masque

Masque

The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in 16th and early 17th century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio...

" written by John Dryden

John Dryden

John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.Walter Scott called him "Glorious John." He was made Poet...

 shortly before his death. The actress Anne Oldfield

Anne Oldfield

Anne Oldfield , English actress, was born in London, the daughter of a soldier.She worked for a time as apprentice to a seamstress, until she attracted George Farquhar's attention by reciting some lines from a play in his hearing...

began her stage career in this production, in the role of Alinda. Vanbrugh's adaptation was also published in 1700, with subsequent editions in 1718 and 1753 (in London), and 1788 (in Dublin).

The play has attracted attention from critics for its portrayal of madmen and their keepers.