Thomas Middleton
Thomas Middleton (1580-1627) was one of the most prolific and important playwrights of his age. Born the son of a London gentleman and bricklayer, Middleton attended Oxford University but did not take... Read more
Thomas Middleton (1580-1627) was one of the most prolific and important playwrights of his age. Born the son of a London gentleman and bricklayer, Middleton attended Oxford University but did not take a degree. Instead, he began a career as a professional writer, publishing two poems while still a student. By 1602 he had begun writing plays for the Admiral’s Men in London, and shortly after was producing comedies for the all-boy playing companies at St. Paul’s and the Blackfriars. For the King’s Men, he collaborated with Shakespeare on TIMON OF ATHENS and apparently adapted and revised both MACBETH and MEASURE FOR MEASURE after Shakespeare’s death. Like Shakespeare, Middleton produced works in all four major dramatic genres: comedy, history, tragedy, and tragicomedy. Often hypothesized to be the Anonymous author of THE REVENGER’S TRAGEDY, he was particularly known for satirical comedies set in contemporary London—including MICHAELMAS TERM; THE ROARING GIRL, co-authored with Thomas Dekker; and A CHASTE MAID IN CHEAPSIDE—as well as tragedies of courtly vice, such as WOMEN BEWARE WOMEN and the wildly popular A GAME AT CHESS, which created a political controversy that ended Middleton’s playwriting career. Middleton also participated in the political and civic life of London, writing one of the speeches for the “Magnificent Entertainment” that greeted the new King James to London in 1603 and publishing pamphlets describing the effects of plague and of poverty on Londoners. Beginning in 1613, Middleton wrote several Lord Mayor’s Pageants, the public, civic equivalent to the kind of private court masque that concludes WOMEN BEWARE WOMEN, and in 1620 he was appointed City Chronologer, a post he held until the end of his life.