Thomas Norton, Gorboduc

Sudeshna Kar Barua (Independent Scholar - Asia)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.03: English Writing and Culture: Renaissance (Elizabethan and Jacobean periods) , 1485-1625.
Vol. editors: William M. Hamlin (Washington State University), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University), Ema Vyroubalova (Trinity College Dublin)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1562

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play

Resources

On the 18^th of January 1561, the Queen of England watched the gentlemen of the Inner Temple perform a play written by two members of her Parliament, Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton. It was the inaugural performance of Gorboduc, the first tragedy written in the English language and also the first full-length secular English play that had severed all ties with the Church and the Churchyard. Nine months after this performance, probably on 22^nd of September 1561, the first text of Gorboduc was published and William Griffith’s version was later followed by John Day or Daye’s 1570 edition.

For the plot of their tragedy Sackville and Norton must have turned to Geoffrey of …

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1952 words

Citation: Kar Barua, Sudeshna. "Gorboduc". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 May 2008 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=24350, accessed 24 November 2024.]

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