The Earl of Essex: A Tragedy, in Five Acts

Jones, Henry, 1721-1770Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.5
Word count
73K words
Chapters
8

Tags

English Originals Dramatic Literature Historical TragedyCourt PoliticsPolitical CareerCourt IntrigueTragic HeroPower GameFive-Act PlayClassical DramaElizabethan EraBritish Drama

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Earl of Essex: A Tragedy, in Five Acts by Henry JonesAuthor: Jones, Henry, 1721-1770,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Feb 25, 2010

Editor's review

Henry Jones was born in Ireland in 1721. This five-act tragedy centers on the rise and fall of the Earl of Essex, favorite of Elizabeth I, and is a typical example of eighteenth-century English verse tragedy. The play places its historical figures within the tensions of power, favor, and ambition, advancing conflict through court dialogue and soliloquy, with carefully rhythmical language and an emotional register inclined toward classical restraint and pathos. For the general reader it is less a strong-plot drama of the kind common on today's stage than a window onto eighteenth-century English theatrical taste and the tradition of the history play. Available as a free Project Gutenberg e-book, it is easy to obtain and suits students of theater history and English literature for close reading, as well as readers interested in Elizabethan history as supplementary material. Readers should note the five-act structure and verse dialogue; a companion account of the historical background will make the play easier to enter.

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Reading tips

  1. Learn the basic historical facts about the Earl of Essex first; the characters' motives will then be clearer.
  2. Read in stages according to the five-act structure, reviewing after each act how the conflict advances and relationships shift.
  3. Read some soliloquies and dialogue aloud to feel the rhythm and emotion of the verse.
  4. Compare with your experience of reading Shakespeare's history plays to see how eighteenth-century tragedy differs in technique.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8

FAQ

Is this play suitable for direct staging? It was written for the stage as a five-act tragedy and has a complete dramatic structure and dialogue. But as an eighteenth-century work, its verse dialogue and classical sensibility differ from what contemporary audiences are used to; a production would usually require cuts or modernization, and the result would depend on the approach taken.
Can I understand it without knowing British history? You can read it, but your understanding will suffer. The play turns on the Earl of Essex's rise in favor and his downfall; knowing the basic outline of late Elizabethan court politics will help you grasp the characters' situations and the roots of the conflict. Reading a brief historical introduction first is recommended.
Why read an eighteenth-century play rather than Shakespeare? Eighteenth-century English tragedy inherited the classical tradition while developing its own sensibility. Jones's work shows how English history plays and verse tragedy changed after Shakespeare. For readers studying theater history or seeking to broaden their reading of classical drama, it offers a sample distinct from Shakespeare's.

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About the author

Jones, Henry, 1721-1770 Author · British · 1721–1770

Henry Jones (1721–1770) was an English poet known in the eighteenth century for his verse and his literary connections. Public information about his life is limited; what can be confirmed is his nationality, his dates, and the era to which he belonged. One work by him is held in this collection: The Earl of Essex: A Tragedy, in Five Acts. This shows that his writing also extended to drama and drew on English historical figures and events for its subject matter. On the available evidence, his work was closely tied to the poetic tastes and social circles of the literary world of his day. Though his output was small, it reflects the common eighteenth-century English path of a man of letters writing both poetry and plays. Details of his life, education, and the full range of his work remain to be further examined, and readers should not draw excessive inferences from these limited records.