Fictional Remembrances of Sir Thomas More: Part II/II– Early Seventeenth Century

Abstract

This article focuses on how artistic works such as plays and literature in 16th and 17th-century England dealt with the fictional presence of Sir Thomas More. Among Tudor statesmen, Thomas More had a special appeal as a topic of thought during the Elizabethan–Jacobean period, quite apart from his opposition to the marriage which led to the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The range of works considered covers the Marian, Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. These works compose a heterogeneous and intriguing group in which every piece has its own particular way of remembering Thomas More. Six works are presented here: the dialogue Il Moro (1556) by Ellis Heywood; a late morality play, The Longer Thou Livest the More Fool Thou Art (1569), by William Wager; a novel, The Unfortunate Traveller (1594), by Thomas Nashe; and three plays, Cromwell (1602), by an unknown dramatist, Sir Thomas More (1600–1603/4), by five different dramatists, and Henry VIII (1613), by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher. Due to the scope of this research, the article is written in two parts. This part explores the last three seventeenth-century fictional works by John Fletcher and Shakespeare, an anonymous play and the collaborative play by Anthony Munday, Henry Chettle, with additions by Thomas Heywood, Thomas Dekker and William Shakespeare.