The Courier's Tragedy

[Dave Monroe]

>From J.W. Lever, The Tragedy of State: A Study of
Jacobean Drama (2nd ed.  London/New York: Methuen,
1987 [1971]), Ch. I, "Tragedy and State," pp. 1-17 ...

   "It is easy to understand why this play
[Lorenzaccio], set in sixteenth-century Italy by a
French writer [de Musset] living in the revolutionary
currents of the eighteen-thirties, should have an
electrifying effect upon Czech audiences in the winter
of 1969-70.  However, Lorenzaccio is only one example
of an approach to drama which views immediate issues
as part of a vast continuum and evokes history as an
extension of individual memory.  DeMusset's play bears
a generic resemblance to many Jacobean tragedies, with
their court settings, their pervasive atmosphere of
idealism and corruption, their ambivalent finales.  On
the Jacobean stage contemporary issues constantly lurk
below the surface of historical or fictitious
settings.... for audiences of the time, the relevance
was sufficiently clear.  Chapman explicitly drew
attention to the parallels bewteen his protagonist
Byron and the Earl of essex, executed for treason in
1601.  Less direct, but unmistakable in their tenor,
are the recurrent allusions to royal favourites,
scheming politicians, sycophants, and the network of
informers and secret agents through which the
contemporary state controlled the lives of its
nationals....  [Jonson] was cited before the Privy
Council in connection with [Sejanus].  Already in 1597
he had been imprisoned for his share in the comedy The
Isle of Dogs, described as containing 'very seditious
and slanderous' matter'; care was taken so that no
trace of this play should survive.... In 1606 Marston
was driven to hide away from London for approximately
two years beacuse of his share in the play Eastward
Ho.  Chapman's two-part play Byron led, as a result of
protests by the French ambassador, to the arrest of
three of teh actors.  Chapman himself managed toe
scape, but scenes from The Tragedy of Byron were cut
out and never appeared in print, while most of Act Iv
in Byron's Conspiracy has similarly vanished.  Even
closet dramas not intended for public performance, or
publication, might endanger the author.  Fulke Grevile
mentions that, following the advice of his friends, he
destroyed his Antony and Cleopatra, written during the
Queen's reign, rather than run the risk of parallels
being found in it to the relationship of Elizabeth and
Essex.  It seems to me a fair surmise that Shakespeare
for similar reasons put off the writing, or at least
the performance, of his own Antony and Cleopatra--teh
historical sequel to Julius Caesar--until some five
years after Queen Elizabeth's death.
   "That the theater should be intensely concerned
with politics was inevitable in a time of acute
tension...." (pp. 2-3)

Cf. not only ...

"... Oedipa found herself after five minutes sucked
utterly into the landscape of evil Richard Wharfinger
had fashioned for his 17th-century audiences, so
preapocalyptic, death-wishful, sensually fatigued,
unprpeared, a little poignantly, for that abyss of
civil war that had been waiting, cold and deep, only a
few years ahead of them." (Lot 49, Ch. 3, p. 65)

"'Trystero enjoyed counter-revolution in those days. 
Look at England, the king about to lose his head.  A
set-up.'" (Lot 49, Ch. 6, p. 158)

   "'You know, blokes,' remarked one of the girls, a
long-waisted, brown-haired lovely in a black knit
leotard and pointed sneakers, 'this all has a most
bizarre resemblance to that ill, ill Jacobean revenge
play we went to last week.'
   "'The Courier's Tragedy,' said Miles, 'she's right.
The same kind of kinky thing, you know ....'" (Lot
49, Ch. 3, p. 63)

But also, of course ...

"... the mystery of why the dread name should have
appeared in print only around the middle of the 17th
century.  How had the author of the pun on 'this
Trystero, dies irae' overcome his reluctance?  How had
half the Vatican couplet, with its suppression of the
'Trystero' line, found its way into the Folio?  Whence
had the daring of even hinting at a Thurn and Taxis
rival come?  Bortz maintianed there must have been
some crisis inside Tristero grave enough to keep them
from retaliating.  Perhaps the same that kept them
from taking the life of Dr. Blobb." (Lot 49, Ch. 6,
pp. 162-3)

"'What made you feel differently than Wharfinger did
about this, this Trystero.'  At the word, Driblette's
face abruptly vanished, back into the steam.  As if
switched off.  Oedipa hadn't wanted to say the word. 
He had managed to create around it the same aura of
ritual reluctance here, offstage, as he had on." (Lot
49, Ch. 3, p. 79)

Good question.  And note the televisual Driblette here
as well, "As if switched off."  Hm ...

"'If I were to dissolve in here,' speculated the voice
out of the drifting steam, 'be wahed down the drain
into the Pacific, what you saw tonight would vanish
too....'" (Lot 49, Ch. 3, p. 79)

"'Randy walked into the Pacific two nights ago,' the
girl told her finally." (Lot 49, Ch. 6, p. 152)

Hm ...

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