I’m fascinated with the shape of Act 2: how we move from the liminal, perilous and (as Pete says) identity-morphing space of the woods, ever closer to the court and ultimately the king’s bed-chamber – the place where legitimate heirs are begotten and patriarchy perpetuated. But something about that woodsy disorder continues to permeate all of th…[Read more]

Yes to all of this! I wonder what role Uter’s costume plays as well–from Joan’s description, we’ve been told to expect a man with ‘most rich attire,’ a feather in his hat (and ‘excellent hangers,’ ha ha etc) – does Uter walk on stage matching the description? And he gives forty or so lines of Petrarchan-ish yearning before suddenly becoming…[Read more]

One of the things I find so interesting about 2.1 is the knife-edge space between comedy and violence — that’s present in so much clowning, of course, but I think that Joan’s predicament perhaps brings it into relief for me in a slightly different way. Really interesting to think about in relation to Dave’s reminder that the Clown and Joan are a…[Read more]

So much stuff to talk about! Great comedy, weird poetry and a battle of magic! Some random observations:

• This comedy is very funny. If you rummage the shelves of your local academic library (not easy right now, I know) you might find a very obscure edition of this play, created to accompany a revival at Theatr Clywd in the 80s and featuring an…

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I’m just catching up with everyone’s comments on Act One – Act Two certainly accelerates the plot, with an abrupt pivot into magical rather than romantic/political territory.

Joan Go-too’t is reminding me of the Jailer’s Daughter from Two Noble Kinsmen – perhaps primarily just because she is apparently a working class woman cruelly rejected by a…[Read more]

Couple of initial thoughts:

One of the interesting recurring features when working on the ‘Shakespeare Apocrypha’ was the recurrent forests – see also Mucedorus and Locrine – and what happens within those forests. In 2.1, aside from the misogyny (wow) that Nora has noted, I was struck by the coincidence of the location and the focus on naming. I…[Read more]

*emendation: Nora, I obviously meant to applaud your *pronouncement* on Artesia’s awesomeness! Next time I will try to attend more carefully to the auto-correct…

Oh, these comments are fascinating! I know we’re about to move on to Act Two, but wanted to add a few thoughts. (Also, Nora, I applaud your pronunciation on Artesia!)

Thanks for the note about the play’s date, Dave; I was thinking about Hengist and the representation of the Saxons–in particular, the onstage spectacle that allows for distinctly…[Read more]

Coming to this late, as juggling work and the great homeschooling experiment has been really challenging this week… but very glad that I stole a bit of time for this in the end!

The wonderful weirdness obviously starts with the dramatis personae as several people have already noted. I love the fact that we have such straightforward descriptions…[Read more]

Hi all! I’m Kat (she/her), based in Toronto, and I’m sorry to join the group so late. I stumbled on The Birth of Merlin a few years ago while researching the chapter on monstrosity in my book (Unfixable Forms, forthcoming from Cornell UP–on disability, performance, and early modern English drama); a short section of this chapter thinks about how…[Read more]

I’m gonna be honest, I never mentioned asides in my book!  I’m not aware (though admittedly have not thought much about it) of Rowley having any particularly unusual uses of asides in his other plays beyond The Changeling.

Which leads to the interesting question of authorship! I would love it if we could think more about who wrote this play as…[Read more]

Eoin, that point you make about the similarities with Middleton’s asides is one that (from memory???) Dave explores in his book on Middleton & Rowley’s collaborations — he makes a very convincing argument that their collaborative work influences the way that they write as solo playwrights, too, with each picking up some stylistic bits and pieces…[Read more]

This might just be because I read it recently and it’s on my mind, but the introduction of Artesia is giving me “Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay” vibes. Artesia has a kind of magical power over Aurelius in a way that echoes both Friar Bacon’s magical silencing of his rival (and do I vaguely recall that there’s a magical context later in this play?),…[Read more]

Finally got round to reading this. I’m getting a lot of King Lear but it’s of course also very obviously not like Lear and I like its tonal ambiguities. I’m registering Lear partly because, despite my aspirations to the contrary, I simply know Shakespeare’s plays better than I do those of other writers (even if I like to think I’m fairly w…[Read more]

Hi everyone. I just learned this existed tonight, so I’m also a bit of a latecomer. I’m Andrew (he/him/his), and I teach and very occasionally do something like research at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario (kinda north-east of Toronto). My work centers on music in the early modern theatre and I am very slowly embarking (think, like,…[Read more]

Pete, thank you for bringin up the messy quarto — it’s actually one of my favourite things about this play, and somehow I feel like the hot mess of its 1662 printing matches the wackiness of the play’s contents. I also like the confusion it creates around asides, and that Aurelius speech you’ve quoted is a great example. What’s everyone hearing?…[Read more]

Was anyone else reminded of Love’s Labour’s Lost? Sort of a comparison by inversion–since obviously Artesia succeeds more quickly at getting a Welcome and makes the opposite bargain of LLL’s Princess–but the beginning of the scene sets up an agreement of lords that immediately meets the (feminine) agent of its undoing.

I’m also curious about…[Read more]

Hi folks! Latecomer hopping in to the Birth of Merlin party. I’m Sawyer (they/them/theirs or he/him/his). I’m finishing up my last dissertation year at UC Davis where I work on early modern drama, performance studies, and queer/trans studies. My research has mostly been on contemporary Shakespeare performance and how institutions negotiate making…[Read more]

In relation to David’s point about Artesia being like Tamora, I’d also compare Estrild from Locrine. Edwin’s ‘She was woo’d afore she came, sure’ is a great cynical line, and I love these set-ups where everyone onstage apart from one person (who is the most powerful) can see exactly what’s going on.

Picking up on Anna’s comment about Aurelius…[Read more]