The Sea Voyage
Encyclopedia
The Sea Voyage is a late Jacobean comedy written by John Fletcher
and Philip Massinger
. The play is notable for its imitation of Shakespeare's
The Tempest
.
on 22 June 1622
. The Sea Voyage was acted by the King's Men
; the second Beaumont/Fletcher folio of 1679
provides a partial cast list of the original production, which includes Joseph Taylor
, William Ecclestone
, Nicholas Tooley
, John Lowin
, and John Underwood
, all members of the troupe.
The play was entered into the Stationers' Register
on 4 September 1646
, and received its initial publication in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio
of 1647
.
. Cyrus Hoy
observed that Fletcher's hand dominates in Acts I and IV, as Massinger's does in Acts II, III, and V. There is some crossover in the portions, though scholars are divided as to whether the play was revised into its final form by Fletcher (as Hoy thought), or by Massinger.
and John Nicoll.
era, The Sea Voyage was revived by the King's Company
in an adaptation called The Storm. The adapted version premiered on 25 September 1667
, with both King Charles II
and Samuel Pepys
in the audience, as Pepys records in his Diary. Pepys liked the play so much — especially the added songs and dances — that he saw it again the next evening. The King's Company staged the play to beat the competition: William Davenant
's and John Dryden
's adaptation, The Tempest, or The Enchanted Island, would premier on 7 November the same year. Another adaptation of The Sea Voyage, titled The Commonwealth of Women, was produced by Thomas d'Urfey
in 1685
. D'Urfey's version proved even more popular after the turn of the eighteenth century, being performed in 1702, 1707, 1708, and 1710. D'urfey made the hero an Englishman instead of a Frenchman, and an honest pirate to boot, anticipating Gilbert and Sullivan
's The Pirates of Penzance
by nearly two centuries.
The ship struggles to reach a nearby island; the crew toss overboard cargo, belongings, even treasure, in an attempt to lighten the load. The second scene shifts perspective to two men stranded on the same island. Two Portuguese castaways, Sebastian and his nephew Nicusa, have long suffered privation on this barren rocky island; they watch as the ship endures the storm, and they see the survivors make their way to the beach. Their conversation reveals that they were victims of a pirate attack, which divided them from another Portuguese ship that carried Sebastian's wife and other members of their family.
The Frenchmen meet Sebatian and Nicusa, but behave with hostility and menace; while the French fall to fighting over treasure the two Portuguese have salvaged, Sebastian and Nicusa escape in the Frenchmen's ship, leaving the new arrivals behind. The French crew find that the island is as bleak and inhospitable as Sebastian and Nicusa had indicated; they are soon suffering severely from hunger and thirst. There is abundant material concerning this privation, perhaps intended as comedy; at one point, Lamure, Franville and Morillat (who represent colonial Europeans at their worst — brawling, cowardly, greedy, selfish, etc.) are ready to kill Aminta and eat her, before she is rescued by Tibalt and Albert.
Sebastian and Nicusa had informed the French that they sometimes heard sounds of other people, but were never able to locate and reach these mysterious individuals. Albert and Aminta also hear these sounds, and Albert swims across a "hellish river" to find them, though he is suffering from wounds sustained in brawls with Franville and company. (The geography of the play's fictional location is confused at best; the islands are separated by a river, or else a "black lake.") The people Albert finds are a community of women, living without men like Amazons
. Led by a fifty-year-old woman named Rosilla and her daughter Clarinda, the women have developed a strongly anti-male ideology under their leader's tutelage; but they also realize that they need men to propagate a new generation, and the younger women are curious about, and eager for contact with, the new arrivals. Rosilla bows to the popular will enough to allow some contact: the women can meet the men, choose partners from among them if they will; of any children born from such contact, the girls will be kept and the boys returned to their fathers. Clarinda is excited about this arrangement, since she has fallen in love with Albert — which creates a conflict with Albert's commitment to Aminta. And there is much flirting and chivalric-style courtship among the men and women.
The plan quickly falls through when the Frenchmen try to court the women with jewels taken from Sebastian's treasure — and the women recognize their own possessions. The Amazons imprison the men, and appear to be planning their execution. But a new ship arrives to change the situation. Aminta's brother Raimond has captured/rescued Sebastian and Nicusa while searching the seas for Aminta. Sebastian and Rosilla are husband and wife, and the two branches of their family are happily re-united. It is revealed that the Portuguese colonists in the New World have been oppressed by French pirates, which generated the initial conflict situation. Along with the reunion of Sebastian and Rosilla, Raimond and Clarinda form a couple, which helps to palliate the resentments of the two groups, French and Portuguese; and Albert and Aminta are free to marry as well.
The Sea Voyage is one of the shortest plays in the canon of Fletcher and his collaborators; The Tempest, concommitantly, is the second shortest play in Shakespeare's collected works. The reason may be that both plays devote a greater-than-usual proportion of their theatrical space and time to their special effects.
, The Sea Voyage has attracted the attention of some late twentieth century critics and scholars as part of the literature of colonialism
and anti-colonialism.
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...
and Philip Massinger
Philip Massinger
Philip Massinger was an English dramatist. His finely plotted plays, including A New Way to Pay Old Debts, The City Madam and The Roman Actor, are noted for their satire and realism, and their political and social themes.-Early life:The son of Arthur Massinger or Messenger, he was baptized at St....
. The play is notable for its imitation of Shakespeare's
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"...
The Tempest
The Tempest
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
.
Performance and publication
The Sea Voyage was licensed for performance by the Master of the RevelsMaster of the Revels
The Master of the Revels was a position within the English, and later the British, royal household heading the "Revels Office" or "Office of the Revels" that originally had responsibilities for overseeing royal festivities, known as revels, and later also became responsible for stage censorship,...
on 22 June 1622
1622 in literature
The year 1622 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*February 28 - Loiola, a Latin comedy mocking the Jesuits, is acted at Cambridge; the performance is repeated before King James I on March 12.*March 12 - Teresa of Ávila The year 1622 in literature involved some significant...
. The Sea Voyage 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...
; the second Beaumont/Fletcher folio of 1679
1679 in literature
This article lists some of the most significant events of the year 1679 in literature.-Events:*John Locke returns to England from France.*Étienne Baluze becomes almoner to King Louis XIV of France....
provides a partial cast list of the original production, which 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....
, William Ecclestone
William Ecclestone
William Ecclestone or Egglestone was an actor in English Renaissance theatre, a member of Shakespeare's company the King's Men.Nothing is known with certainty about Ecclestone's early life...
, 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 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...
, and 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...
, all members of the troupe.
The play was entered into the Stationers' Register
Stationers' Register
The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including printers, bookbinders, booksellers, and publishers in England...
on 4 September 1646
1646 in literature
The year 1646 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*March 24 - The King's Men petition Parliament for three and a half years' back pay; this is despite the London theatres officially remaining closed through the middle 1640s...
, and received its initial publication 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...
.
Authorship
The shares of the two collaborators, Massinger and Fletcher, are relatively easy to distinguish, due to Fletcher's distinctive pattern of linguistic usagesStylometry
Stylometry is the application of the study of linguistic style, usually to written language, but it has successfully been applied to music and to fine-art paintings as well.Stylometry is often used to attribute authorship to anonymous or disputed documents...
. Cyrus Hoy
Cyrus Hoy
Cyrus Hoy was a literary scholar of the English Renaissance stage who taught at the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University, and was the John B. Trevor Professor of English at the University of Rochester...
observed that Fletcher's hand dominates in Acts I and IV, as Massinger's does in Acts II, III, and V. There is some crossover in the portions, though scholars are divided as to whether the play was revised into its final form by Fletcher (as Hoy thought), or by Massinger.
Sources
The play begins with a storm, and features a desert island and castaways at a banquet, just as in The Tempest. In addition to Shakespeare's play, the collaborators consulted recent accounts of actual explorations, including those of William StracheyWilliam Strachey
William Strachey was an English writer whose works are among the primary sources for the early history of the English colonisation of North America...
and John Nicoll.
After 1660
In the RestorationEnglish 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, The Sea Voyage was revived by the King's Company
King's Company
The King's Company was one of two enterprises granted the rights to mount theatrical productions in London at the start of the English Restoration. It existed from 1660 to 1682.-History:...
in an adaptation called The Storm. The adapted version premiered on 25 September 1667
1667 in literature
-Events:* The Roman Catholic Church places the works of René Descartes on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.* Molière's play, Tartuffe, is banned.* Edmund Castell is imprisoned for debt....
, with both King Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
and Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man...
in the audience, as Pepys records in his Diary. Pepys liked the play so much — especially the added songs and dances — that he saw it again the next evening. The King's Company staged the play to beat the competition: William Davenant
William Davenant
Sir William Davenant , also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned both the Caroline and Restoration eras and who was active both before and after the English Civil...
's and 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...
's adaptation, The Tempest, or The Enchanted Island, would premier on 7 November the same year. Another adaptation of The Sea Voyage, titled The Commonwealth of Women, was produced by Thomas d'Urfey
Thomas d'Urfey
Thomas D'Urfey was an English writer and wit. He composed plays, songs, and poetry, in addition to writing jokes. He was an important innovator and contributor in the evolution of the Ballad opera....
in 1685
1685 in literature
The year 1685 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* Antoine Furetière is expelled from the French Academy.* in London, the year sees one of the major theatrical flops of the Restoration era: Albion and Albanius — an allegorical drama in praise of Charles II, with text by...
. D'Urfey's version proved even more popular after the turn of the eighteenth century, being performed in 1702, 1707, 1708, and 1710. D'urfey made the hero an Englishman instead of a Frenchman, and an honest pirate to boot, anticipating Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
's The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...
by nearly two centuries.
Synopsis
The play opens on a ship at sea, caught in a storm; the ship's Master and sailors struggle to cope, while the vessel's commander and passengers make their way on deck. Albert, a French pirate, is the captain; he is accompanied by a heterogeneous group of compatriots, including Lamur, a "usuring Merchant," Franville, "a vain-glorious gallant," and Morillat, "a shallow-brain'd Gentleman." Also present are the captain's friend Tibalt, and his love interest, Aminta. Aminta was captured by Albert, but he has since fallen in love with her, and respects her virtue and chastity. He also set out in search of her missing brother Raimond, before the storm struck.The ship struggles to reach a nearby island; the crew toss overboard cargo, belongings, even treasure, in an attempt to lighten the load. The second scene shifts perspective to two men stranded on the same island. Two Portuguese castaways, Sebastian and his nephew Nicusa, have long suffered privation on this barren rocky island; they watch as the ship endures the storm, and they see the survivors make their way to the beach. Their conversation reveals that they were victims of a pirate attack, which divided them from another Portuguese ship that carried Sebastian's wife and other members of their family.
The Frenchmen meet Sebatian and Nicusa, but behave with hostility and menace; while the French fall to fighting over treasure the two Portuguese have salvaged, Sebastian and Nicusa escape in the Frenchmen's ship, leaving the new arrivals behind. The French crew find that the island is as bleak and inhospitable as Sebastian and Nicusa had indicated; they are soon suffering severely from hunger and thirst. There is abundant material concerning this privation, perhaps intended as comedy; at one point, Lamure, Franville and Morillat (who represent colonial Europeans at their worst — brawling, cowardly, greedy, selfish, etc.) are ready to kill Aminta and eat her, before she is rescued by Tibalt and Albert.
Sebastian and Nicusa had informed the French that they sometimes heard sounds of other people, but were never able to locate and reach these mysterious individuals. Albert and Aminta also hear these sounds, and Albert swims across a "hellish river" to find them, though he is suffering from wounds sustained in brawls with Franville and company. (The geography of the play's fictional location is confused at best; the islands are separated by a river, or else a "black lake.") The people Albert finds are a community of women, living without men like Amazons
Amazons
The Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia...
. Led by a fifty-year-old woman named Rosilla and her daughter Clarinda, the women have developed a strongly anti-male ideology under their leader's tutelage; but they also realize that they need men to propagate a new generation, and the younger women are curious about, and eager for contact with, the new arrivals. Rosilla bows to the popular will enough to allow some contact: the women can meet the men, choose partners from among them if they will; of any children born from such contact, the girls will be kept and the boys returned to their fathers. Clarinda is excited about this arrangement, since she has fallen in love with Albert — which creates a conflict with Albert's commitment to Aminta. And there is much flirting and chivalric-style courtship among the men and women.
The plan quickly falls through when the Frenchmen try to court the women with jewels taken from Sebastian's treasure — and the women recognize their own possessions. The Amazons imprison the men, and appear to be planning their execution. But a new ship arrives to change the situation. Aminta's brother Raimond has captured/rescued Sebastian and Nicusa while searching the seas for Aminta. Sebastian and Rosilla are husband and wife, and the two branches of their family are happily re-united. It is revealed that the Portuguese colonists in the New World have been oppressed by French pirates, which generated the initial conflict situation. Along with the reunion of Sebastian and Rosilla, Raimond and Clarinda form a couple, which helps to palliate the resentments of the two groups, French and Portuguese; and Albert and Aminta are free to marry as well.
The Sea Voyage is one of the shortest plays in the canon of Fletcher and his collaborators; The Tempest, concommitantly, is the second shortest play in Shakespeare's collected works. The reason may be that both plays devote a greater-than-usual proportion of their theatrical space and time to their special effects.
Critical responses
Along with Fletcher's The Island PrincessThe Island Princess
The Island Princess is a late Jacobean tragicomedy by John Fletcher, initially published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.-The play:...
, The Sea Voyage has attracted the attention of some late twentieth century critics and scholars as part of the literature of colonialism
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
and anti-colonialism.