Cyril Tourneur (1575 – February 28, 1626) was a Jacobean dramatist who enjoyed his greatest success during the reign of King James I of England. His only well-known work is The Revenger's Tragedy (1607), a play which has alternatively been attributed to Thomas Middleton. Events February 13 - Henry III of France is crowned at Reims February 14 - Henry III of France marries Louise de Lorraine-Vaudémont June 28 - Oda Nobunaga defeats Takeda Katsuyori in the battle of Nagashino, which has been called Japans first modern battle. ... February 28 is the 59th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Events September 30 - Nurhaci, chieftain of the Jurchens and founder of the Qing Dynasty dies and is succeeded by his son Hong Taiji. ... The term Jacobean refers to a period in English history that coincides with the reign of James I (1603 – 1625). ... A dramatist is an author of dramatic compositions, usually plays. ... James VI and I (James Stuart) (June 19, 1566 – March 27, 1625) was King of Scots, King of England, and King of Ireland and was the first to style himself King of Great Britain. ... The Revengers Tragedy is a Jacobean revenge tragedy performed in 1606 and published in 1607. ... Events January 20 - Tidal wave swept along the Bristol Channel, killing 2000 people. ... Thomas Middleton (baptized April 18, 1580, died 1627) was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. ...

Life

Cyril Tourneur was possibly the son of Captain Richard Turner, a water-bailiff and, later, lieutenant-governor of Brill in the Netherlands. Tourneur too served in the Low Countries, for in 1613 there is a record of payment to him for carrying letters to Brussels. He enjoyed a pension from the government of the United Provinces, possibly by way of compensation for a post held before Brill was handed over to the Dutch in 1616. For other uses of the word Brill see Brill (disambiguation) Brill is a village in Buckinghamshire, England, close to the border with Oxfordshire. ... The Low Countries, the historical region of de Nederlanden, are the countries (see Country) on low-lying land around the delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse (Maas) rivers. ... Events January - Galileo observes Neptune, but mistakes it for a star and so is not credited with its discovery. ... Nickname: The Capital Of Europe, Comic City City of a 100 Museums Map showing the location of Brussels in Belgium Coordinates: Country Belgium Region Brussels-Capital Region Founded 797 Founded (Region) June 18, 1989 Mayor (Municipality) Freddy Thielemans Area    - City 162 (Region) km²  (62. ... Map of Dutch Republic by Joannes Janssonius United Netherlands redirects here. ... == {| align=right cellpadding=3 id=toc style=margin-left: 15px; |- | align=center colspan=2 | Years: 1613 1614 1615 - 1616 - 1617 1618 1619 |- | align=center colspan=2 | Decades: 1580s 1590s 1600s - 1610s - 1620s 1630s 1640s |- tall> 16th century - 17th century - 18th century |} randomised 1616 was a leap year starting on Friday...

In 1625, he was appointed by Sir Edward Cecil, whose father had been a former governor of Brill, to be secretary to the council of war. This appointment was cancelled by Buckingham, but Tourneur sailed in Cecil's company to Cadiz. On the return voyage from the disastrous expedition, he was put ashore at Kinsale with other sick men and died in Ireland on the 28 February 1626. (M.BR.) Events March 27 - Prince Charles Stuart becomes King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland. ... Viscount Wimbledon, was a title in the Peerage of England. ... This article is about the Spanish city. ... Market Street in Kinsale, one of the towns oldest thoroughfares Kinsale (Cionn tSáile in Irish) is a town in County Cork, Ireland. ... February 28 is the 59th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Events September 30 - Nurhaci, chieftain of the Jurchens and founder of the Qing Dynasty dies and is succeeded by his son Hong Taiji. ...

Writings

A difficult allegorical poem called The Transformed Metamorphosis is his earliest extant work; an elegy on the death of Prince Henry, son of James I of England, is the latest. The two plays on which his fame rests, The Revenger's Tragedy and The Atheist's Tragedy, were published respectively in 1607 and 1611. Tourneur's only other known works are a lost play, The Nobleman, some contributions to Sir Thomas Overbury's Book of Characters, and an epicede on Sir Francis Vere. This poem conveys the poet's ideal conception of a perfect knight or happy warrior, comparable, by those who may think fit to compare it, with the more nobly realized ideals of Chaucer and of Wordsworth. Elegy was originally used for a type of poetic metre (Elegiac metre), but is also used for a poem of mourning, from the Greek elegos, a reflection on the death of someone or on a sorrow generally. ... Henry Stuart, Prince of Wales Henry Frederick Stuart, Prince of Wales (February 19, 1594 - November 6, 1612) was the eldest son of King James VI of Scotland/James I of England and Anne of Denmark. ... James VI and I (James Stuart) (June 19, 1566 – March 27, 1625) was King of Scots, King of England, and King of Ireland and was the first to style himself King of Great Britain. ... The Revengers Tragedy is a Jacobean revenge tragedy performed in 1606 and published in 1607. ... Events January 20 - Tidal wave swept along the Bristol Channel, killing 2000 people. ... Events June 23 - Henry Hudsons crew maroons him, his son and 7 others in a boat November 1 - At Whitehall Palace in London, William Shakespeares romantic comedy The Tempest is presented for the first time. ... Thomas Overbury Sir Thomas Overbury (1581 - September 15, 1613), English poet and essayist, and the victim of one of the most sensational crimes in English history, was the son of Nicholas Overbury, of Bourton-on-the-Hill, and was born at Compton Scorpion, near Ilmington, in Warwickshire. ... Francis Vere (1560-1609), English soldier, was the son of Geoffrey Vere of Crepping Hall, Essex, and nephew of John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford. ... Chaucer: Illustration from Cassells History of England, circa 1902 Chanticleer the rooster from an outdoor production of Chanticleer and the Fox at Ashby_de_la_Zouch castle Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. ... William Wordsworth, English poet William Wordsworth (April 7, 1770 – April 23, 1850) was a major English romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their 1798 joint publication, Lyrical Ballads. ...

If Tourneur had left on record no more memorable evidence of his powers than might be supplied by the survival of his elegies, he would not claim a high place among English writers. His fame indeed rests on his two surviving plays. Little is known about their composition and The Atheist's Tragedy may well have been written earlier than The Revenger's Tragedy, although it was published later. From a literary viewpoint, The Atheist's Tragedy is generally considered as weaker than its counterpart because it is relatively clumsy and straightforwardly moralistic. It confidently reproduces themes and conventions which are characteristic of medieval Morality plays and of Elizabethan memento mori emblems. More interestingly perhaps, it uses these conventions in the context of Calvin's Protestant theology. The Revengers Tragedy is a Jacobean revenge tragedy performed in 1606 and published in 1607. ... Morality plays are a type of theatrical allegory in which the protagonist is met by personifications of various moral attributes who try to prompt him to choose a Godly life over one of evil. ... Memento mori is a Latin phrase that may be freely translated as Remember that you are mortal, Remember you will die, or Remember your death. It names a genre of artistic creations that vary widely from one another, but which all share the same purpose, which is to remind people... Emblem and symbol are often used interchangeably in day-to-day conversation without harm. ... The name Calvin origionated from the word scritonious, or ass-like. ... Protestantism is a general grouping of denominations within Christianity. ...

By contrast, The Revenger's Tragedy has long been recognized as a far more original dramatic work that takes its cue from the achievements of contemporary playwrights, notably Shakespeare. The theme of revenge is pastiched from Hamlet, but the play focuses on the atrocities of blood retribution instead of developing philosophical reflection. Vindice's macabre pose with the skull of his beloved is farcically inspired from Hamlet's contemplation of Yorick's skull. The Revengers Tragedy is a Jacobean revenge tragedy performed in 1606 and published in 1607. ... The third quarto of Hamlet (1605); a straight reprint of the 2nd quarto (1604) The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragedy by William Shakespeare and is one of his best-known and most-quoted plays. ... The third quarto of Hamlet (1605); a straight reprint of the 2nd quarto (1604) The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragedy by William Shakespeare and is one of his best-known and most-quoted plays. ... Yorick can refer to: Yorick, the deceased court jester whose skull is exhumed by the gravedigger in Act 5, Scene 1, of Shakespeares Hamlet. ...

Of this play, the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica wrote,

it is so magnificent, so simple, impeccable and sublime that the finest passages of this play can be compared only with the noblest examples of tragic dialogue or monologue now extant in English or in Greek. There is no trace of imitation or derivation from an alien source in the genius of this poet ... [T]he resemblance between the tragic verse of Tourneur and the tragic verse of Shakespeare is simply such as proves the natural affinity between two great dramatic poets, whose inspiration partakes now and then of the quality more proper to epic or to lyric poetry. The fiery impulse, the rolling music, the vivid illustration of thought by jets of insuppressible passion, the perpetual sustenance of passion by the implacable persistency of thought, which we recognise as the dominant and distinctive qualities of such poetry as finds vent in the utterances of Hamlet or of Timon, we recognise also in the scarcely less magnificent poetry, the scarcely less fiery sarcasm, with which Tourneur has informed the part of Vindice--a harderheaded Hamlet, a saner and more practically savage and serious Timon. He was a satirist as passionate as Juvenal or Swift, but with a finer faith in goodness, a purer hope in its ultimate security of triumph. This fervent constancy of spirit relieves the lurid gloom and widens the limited range of a tragic imagination which otherwise might be felt as oppressive rather than inspiriting. His grim and trenchant humour is as peculiar in its sardonic passion as his eloquence is original in the strenuous music of its cadences, in the roll of its rhythmic thunder. As a playwright, his method was almost crude and rude in the headlong straightforwardness of its energetic simplicity; as an artist in character, his interest was intense but narrow, his power magnificent but confined; as a dramatic poet, the force of his genius is great enough to ensure him an enduring place among the foremost of the followers of Shakespeare.

Perhaps this ecstatic response should have to be directed to somebody else than Tourneur. As the play was published anonymously, and as Tourneur was only described as its author in a 1650s booklist, the attribution of The Revenger's Tragedy to him is increasingly put into doubt. External and internal evidence strongly suggests that the true author was a more distinguished Jacobean playwright called Thomas Middleton. In the Stationers' Register of 1607, The Revenger's Tragedy and A Trick to Catch the Old One can be found in the same double entry. In every other double entry of this register, the plays prove to be by the same author, and we are certain that A Trick was written by Middleton. It is also known from contemporary records that Middleton composed another play called The Viper and her Brood, of which nothing survives. Some scholars think that Viper and The Revenger's Tragedy are in fact one and the same play. William Shakespeare—born April 1564; baptised April 26, 1564; died April 23, 1616 (O.S.), May 3, 1616 (N.S.)—has a reputation as the greatest of all writers in English. ... The third quarto of Hamlet (1605); a straight reprint of the 2nd quarto (1604) The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragedy by William Shakespeare and is one of his best-known and most-quoted plays. ... For other meanings of Timon see Timon (disambiguation) Classification Genus Timon Timon lepidus Timon pater Timon princeps Categories: Wall lizards ... Frontispiece depicting Juvenal and Persius, from a volume translated by John Dryden in 1711. ... Genera Many; see text. ... The Revengers Tragedy is a Jacobean revenge tragedy performed in 1606 and published in 1607. ... The term Jacobean refers to a period in English history that coincides with the reign of James I (1603 – 1625). ... Thomas Middleton (baptized April 18, 1580, died 1627) was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. ... The Revengers Tragedy is a Jacobean revenge tragedy performed in 1606 and published in 1607. ...

Until a relatively recent period, many stage directors considered The Revenger's Tragedy and The Atheist's Tragedy as oddities whose Gothic horrors made completely alien from modern taste. Things have changed for The Revenger's Tragedy, which has been performed with increasing frequency and success since the 1980s, both in Britain and elsewhere. In 2003, this play even inspired a movie called Revengers Tragedy. However, stagings of The Atheist's Tragedy remain few and far between. Performance records for this play are scanty indeed, and we don't even know whether it was performed in Tourneur's lifetime. If, as seems likely, it is his only surviving play, he can no longer be ranked among the greatest playwrights. A theatre director oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a play by unifying various endeavors and aspects of production. ... The gothic novel is an English literary genre, which can be said to have been born with The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole. ... Revengers Tragedy is a film version of the play The Revengers Tragedy by Thomas Middleton (or perhaps Cyril Tourneur), first published anonymously in 1606. ...

Bibliography

TOURNEUR'S WORKS

• The Atheists Tragedie; or, The Honest Mans Revenge (1611)
• A Funeralt Poeme Upon the Death of the Most Worthie and True Soldier, Sir Francis Vere, Knight . . . (1609)
• A Griefe on the Death of Prince Henrie, Expressed in a Broken Elegie ..., printed with two other poems by John Webster and Thomas Haywood as Three Elegies on the most lamented Death of Prince Henry (1613)
• The Revengers Tragaedie (1607 and 1608)
• The Transformed Metamorphosis (1600), an obscure satire
• The Nobleman, a lost play entered on the Stationers Register (Feb. 15, 1612) as "A Tragecomedye called The Nobleman written by Cyrill Tourneur," the MS. of which was destroyed by John Warburton's cook
• Arraignment of London (1613), stated in a letter of that date from Robert Daborne to Philip Henslowe that Daborne had commissioned Cyril Tourneur to write one act of this play
• The Character of Robert, earl of Salisburye, Lord High Treasurer of England, "ritten by Mr Sevill Tumour" may be reasonably assigned to Tourneur; it was found in a MS in possession of Lord Mostyn (Hist. MSS. Commission, 4th Report, appendix, p. 361)

SECONDARY SOURCES John Warburton (1682-1759) was Somerset Herald of Arms in Ordinary at the College of Arms in the early 18th century. ... Philip Henslowe (c 1550 - January 6, 1616) was an Elizabethan theatrical entrepreneur. ...

• Parfitt, George, ed. The Plays of Cyril Tourneur. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1978.

• Higgins, Michael H. 'The Influence of Calvinistic Thought in Tourneur's Atheist's Tragedy', Review of English Studies XIX.73 (January 1943), 255-262.

• Neill, Michael. 'Bastardy, Counterfeiting and Misogyny in The Revenger's Tragedy', Studies in English Literature 36:2 (Spring 1996), 397-416.

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. Encyclopædia Britannica, the 11th edition The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911) is perhaps the most famous edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...