Who was John Fletcher?

John Fletcher (1579–1625) was a Jacobean English dramatist who wrote comedies and tragedies, often in collaboration with Francis Beaumont and others, from about 1606 to 1625. Fletcher began working with Beaumont around 1607. Together, they wrote for the Children of the Queen’s Revels and later for the King’s Men at the Globe and Blackfriars theatres. After Beaumont's retirement in 1613, Fletcher collaborated with Philip Massinger, who succeeded him as the King’s Men's main playwright in 1625, as well as Nathan Field and William Rowley. He also wrote plays on his own. Some of Fletcher's best solo works include The Faithfull Shepheardesse , The Mad Lover , and The Loyall Subject . In addition to Beaumont, Fletcher also collaborated with other playwrights such as Thomas Middleton. Fletcher also collaborated with William Shakespeare on The Two Noble Kinsmen .

A dramatist is a writer of plays. John Fletcher (1579-1625) was an English Jacobean dramatist who wrote both alone and in collaboration with other dramatists, most notably Francis Beaumont, between about 1606 and 1625. The masterpieces from Beaumont and Fletcher's collaboration, Philaster , The Maides Tragedy , and A King and No King, display features that distinguish Fletcher's style, such as fairy-tale settings and sensational plots. After Beaumont's retirement in 1613, Fletcher collaborated with Philip Massinger, Nathan Field, and William Rowley.

During which period did John Fletcher write his plays?

John Fletcher, an English Jacobean dramatist, wrote his plays primarily during the Jacobean era (1603–1625). He collaborated with Francis Beaumont and other dramatists on comedies and tragedies from about 1606 to 1625. After Beaumont's retirement in 1613, Fletcher frequently collaborated with Philip Massinger and others. Some of Fletcher's best unaided plays, such as The Faithfull Shepheardesse and A Wife for a Moneth, were written between approximately 1608 and 1624.

What kinds of plays did John Fletcher create?

John Fletcher was an English Jacobean dramatist known for both comedies and tragedies. He frequently collaborated with Francis Beaumont and other playwrights from about 1606 to 1625. Fletcher's individual plays, such as The Faithfull Shepheardesse , The Mad Lover , and The Loyall Subject , often feature intense emotional displays within extraordinary situations. His comedies, such as The Wild-Goose Chase , are noted for their urbanity, irony, and wit. He also collaborated with other dramatists such as Thomas Middleton and Philip Massinger.

With which other famous playwright did John Fletcher work?

John Fletcher collaborated with several famous playwrights of the Jacobean era. He worked most notably with Francis Beaumont between approximately 1606 and 1613, co-writing comedies and tragedies. After Beaumont's retirement, Fletcher collaborated with Philip Massinger , who succeeded him as the King's Men's chief playwright in 1625. Other playwrights Fletcher worked with included Nathan Field and William Rowley. Fletcher also collaborated with William Shakespeare on The Two Noble Kinsmen around 1612–14.

How did John Fletcher influence English theater after his death?

John Fletcher, an English Jacobean dramatist, significantly shaped English theater, particularly through tragicomedy, even after his death in 1625. His works often featured characteristics that distinguished his style from contemporaries like Shakespeare , including remote settings, emotional rhetoric, sensational plots with extreme choices, and characters embodying vices and virtues rather than individual personalities. Fletcher's influence is evident in the continued performance and adaptation of his plays, both those written alone and in collaboration, with his work with Francis Beaumont remaining particularly notable. His approach to tragicomedy, characterized by mixing tragic elements into mainly comic dramas, helped to popularize the genre, influencing later playwrights who adopted his techniques of blending humor with serious themes.

John Fletcher

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Baptized:: December 20, 1579, Rye, Sussex, England

Died:: August 29, 1625, London

Notable Works:: “A King and No King”; “A Wife for a Moneth”; “Fifty Comedies and Tragedies Written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher”; “Philaster”; “The Faithfull Shepheardesse”; “The False One”; “The Maides Tragedy”

Movement / Style:: Jacobean age

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John Fletcher

English dramatist

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Top Questions

Who was John Fletcher?
John Fletcher (1579–1625) was a Jacobean English dramatist who wrote comedies and tragedies, often in collaboration with Francis Beaumont and others, from about 1606 to 1625.

Fletcher began working with Beaumont around 1607. Together, they wrote for the Children of the Queen’s Revels and later for the King’s Men at the Globe and Blackfriars theatres. After Beaumont's retirement in 1613, Fletcher collaborated with Philip Massinger, who succeeded him as the King’s Men's main playwright in 1625, as well as Nathan Field and William Rowley. He also wrote plays on his own.

Some of Fletcher's best solo works include The Faithfull Shepheardesse, The Mad Lover, and The Loyall Subject. In addition to Beaumont, Fletcher also collaborated with other playwrights such as Thomas Middleton. Fletcher also collaborated with William Shakespeare on The Two Noble Kinsmen.
2 Britannica Sources
1. John Fletcher
2. William Shakespeare: Collaborations and spurious attributions
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What is a dramatist?
A dramatist is a writer of plays. John Fletcher (1579-1625) was an English Jacobean dramatist who wrote both alone and in collaboration with other dramatists, most notably Francis Beaumont, between about 1606 and 1625. The masterpieces from Beaumont and Fletcher's collaboration, Philaster, The Maides Tragedy, and A King and No King, display features that distinguish Fletcher's style, such as fairy-tale settings and sensational plots. After Beaumont's retirement in 1613, Fletcher collaborated with Philip Massinger, Nathan Field, and William Rowley.
3 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
During which period did John Fletcher write his plays?
John Fletcher, an English Jacobean dramatist, wrote his plays primarily during the Jacobean era (1603–1625). He collaborated with Francis Beaumont and other dramatists on comedies and tragedies from about 1606 to 1625. After Beaumont's retirement in 1613, Fletcher frequently collaborated with Philip Massinger and others. Some of Fletcher's best unaided plays, such as The Faithfull Shepheardesse and A Wife for a Moneth, were written between approximately 1608 and 1624.
3 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
What kinds of plays did John Fletcher create?
John Fletcher was an English Jacobean dramatist known for both comedies and tragedies. He frequently collaborated with Francis Beaumont and other playwrights from about 1606 to 1625.

Fletcher's individual plays, such as The Faithfull Shepheardesse, The Mad Lover, and The Loyall Subject, often feature intense emotional displays within extraordinary situations. His comedies, such as The Wild-Goose Chase, are noted for their urbanity, irony, and wit. He also collaborated with other dramatists such as Thomas Middleton and Philip Massinger.
2 Britannica Sources
1. John Fletcher
2. Francis Beaumont
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
With which other famous playwright did John Fletcher work?
John Fletcher collaborated with several famous playwrights of the Jacobean era. He worked most notably with Francis Beaumont between approximately 1606 and 1613, co-writing comedies and tragedies. After Beaumont's retirement, Fletcher collaborated with Philip Massinger, who succeeded him as the King's Men's chief playwright in 1625. Other playwrights Fletcher worked with included Nathan Field and William Rowley. Fletcher also collaborated with William Shakespeare on The Two Noble Kinsmen around 1612–14.
3 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
How did John Fletcher influence English theater after his death?
John Fletcher, an English Jacobean dramatist, significantly shaped English theater, particularly through tragicomedy, even after his death in 1625. His works often featured characteristics that distinguished his style from contemporaries like Shakespeare, including remote settings, emotional rhetoric, sensational plots with extreme choices, and characters embodying vices and virtues rather than individual personalities.

Fletcher's influence is evident in the continued performance and adaptation of his plays, both those written alone and in collaboration, with his work with Francis Beaumont remaining particularly notable. His approach to tragicomedy, characterized by mixing tragic elements into mainly comic dramas, helped to popularize the genre, influencing later playwrights who adopted his techniques of blending humor with serious themes.
3 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

John Fletcher (baptized December 20, 1579, Rye, Sussex, England—died August 29, 1625, London) was an English Jacobean dramatist who collaborated with Francis Beaumont and other dramatists on comedies and tragedies between about 1606 and 1625.

His father, Richard Fletcher, was minister of the parish in which John was born and became afterward queen’s chaplain, dean of Peterborough, and bishop successively of Bristol, Worcester, and London, gaining a measure of fame as an accuser in the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots, and as the chaplain sternly officiating at her execution. When not quite 12, John was apparently admitted pensioner of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and two years later became a Bible clerk. From the time of his father’s death (1596) until 1607 nothing is known of him. His name is first linked with Beaumont’s in Ben Jonson’s Volpone (1607), to which both men contributed encomiums.

Fletcher began to work with Beaumont probably about 1607, at first for the Children of the Queen’s Revels and its successor and then (from c. 1609 until Beaumont’s retirement in 1613) mainly for the King’s Men at the Globe and Blackfriars theatres. After 1613 he often collaborated with or had his plays revised by Philip Massinger, who actually succeeded him in 1625 as chief playwright of the King’s Men; other collaborators included Nathan Field and William Rowley. Throughout his career he also wrote plays unaided. He died in the London plague of 1625 that killed some 40,000 others; the antiquarian John Aubrey claimed that he had lingered in the city to be measured for a suit of clothes instead of making his escape to the country.

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The canon of the Beaumont and Fletcher plays is approximately represented by the 52 plays in the folio Fifty Comedies and Tragedies… (1679); but any consideration of the canon must omit one play from the 1679 folio (James Shirley’s Coronation) and add three not to be found in it (Henry VIII, Sir John van Olden Barnavelt, A Very Woman). Of these 54 plays not more than 12 are by Beaumont or by Beaumont and Fletcher in collaboration. Another 3 were probably collaborations with Beaumont and Massinger. The others represent Fletcher either unaided or in collaboration with dramatists other than Beaumont, principally Massinger.

The masterpieces of the Beaumont and Fletcher collaboration—Philaster, The Maides Tragedy, and A King and No King—show, most clearly in the last, the emergence of most of the features that distinguish the Fletcherian mode from that of Shakespeare, George Chapman, or John Webster: the remote, often pseudohistorical, fairy-tale setting; the clear, smooth speech rising to great emotional arias of declamatory rhetoric; the basically sensational or bizarre plot that faces the characters with wild “either–or” choices between extremes and that can be manipulated toward a sad or a happy ending as the playwrights choose; the sacrifice of consistency and plausibility in characterization so that patterns can be made out of constantly shifting emotional states and piquant situations can be prolonged.

Of Fletcher’s unaided plays, The Faithfull Shepheardesse, The Mad Lover, The Loyall Subject, The Humorous Lieutenant, Women Pleas’d, The Island Princesse, and A Wife for a Moneth (all between c. 1608 and c. 1624) are perhaps the best. Each of these is a series of extraordinary situations and extreme attitudes, displayed through intense declamations. The best of these are perhaps The Loyall Subject and A Wife for a Moneth, the latter a florid and loquacious play, in which a bizarre sexual situation is handled with cunning piquancy, and the personages illustrate clearly Fletcher’s tendency to make his men and women personifications of vices and virtues rather than individuals. The best of Fletcher’s comedies, for urbanity and consistency of tone, is probably The Wild-Goose Chase, a play of episodes rather than of intricate intrigue, but alive with irony and easy wit.

Lastly, there are the Fletcherian plays in which others besides Beaumont had a hand. Wit at Several Weapons is a comedy that might have been written wholly by Thomas Middleton; and The Captaine (to which Beaumont may, however, have contributed) is a lively, complex play of sexual intrigue, with tragic dilemmas too. Notable among the numerous plays in this group are The False One and The Beggars Bush. The former is an original, incisive, and moderately subtle treatment of the story of Caesar and Cleopatra, which may well have aided John Dryden to compose All for Love and for which the greater credit goes to Massinger. The latter is worth reading for its “version of pastoral,” which genially persuades the audience that it is better to be a country beggar than a tyrannical king.

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