Look About You and The Disguises

PMLA ◽  
1929 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 835-841
Author(s):  
Fred L. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Title Page ◽  
The Rose

Fleay's suggestion that Look About You, acted by the Admiral's Men at the Rose, was written in 1599, April 17—May 26, must be rejected. He advances but two plausible arguments: (1) the title-page (1600) states that the play was “lately” acted; (2) Wadeson's comedy of The Honourable Life of the Humorous Earl of Gloucester (1601)—possibly but not necessarily a sequel to Look About You—would seem to indicate a date of 1599 or 1600 for the latter play. But “lately acted” on a title-page means little; and even if in this case it was correctly used, it may indicate only a revival of the play. Fleay's opinion must be discounted on much weightier evidence.

“Tittus and Vespacia” and “Titus and Ondronicus” in Henslowe's Diary

PMLA ◽  
1901 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-76
Author(s):  
George P. Baker
Keyword(s):  
Title Page ◽  
Titus Andronicus ◽  
Men I ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Rose

The entries in Henslowe's Diary as to “tittus and Vespacia” and “titus and Ondronicus” seem to me, if they be carefully considered, to support Mr. Fuller's conclusions in regard to the origin of Shakspere's Titus Andronicus. I believe, with him, that we have in the entries which he has quoted in his article the two plays he names as the sources for Shakspere's play—the original of G in “tittus and Vespacia”; the original of D in the “titus and Ondronicus” entered as “ne” Jan. 23, 1593–4, when the Sussex men were playing at the Rose./Note that the title-page of the first extant quarto (1600) says that the play was given by Pembroke's, Derby's, Sussex' and the Chamberlain's companies, and that—this is important—the order of the last two companies on this title-page is the order of their control of the play as shown in Henslowe's Diary. May it not be, then, that the assignment is correct and that the Pembroke and the Derby company, in the order named, used the play before the Sussex and the Chamberlain men ? I think if we assume, for the moment, that whoever put the statement on the title-page was thinking simply of a Titus Andronicus play and not of the special play before him, it may be shown that the statement was entirely correct, and that a Titus Andronicus play passed successively from Pembroke's company to Derby's, Sussex', and the Chamberlain's men. The fact that on this first quarto no author was named for the play may have helped in 'the treatment of two successive Andronicus plays as one.

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