Claim Now The Beggars Opera Written By John Gay Ready In Interactive Format
it may be odd to read a musical, this is fascinating to me! It was written for the stage and employed many popular tunes from the day.
Here's a sample from Page
"A fox may steal your Hens, Sir
A Whore your Helath and Pence, Sir
Your Daughter robs your chest, Sir
Your wife may Steal you Rest, Sir.
A Thief you Goods and Plate,
But this is all but picking
With Rest, Pence, Chest and Chicken
It ever was decreed, Sir,
If Lawyer's Hend is fee'd , Sir
He steals you whole Estate.
Another from p,
If the Heart of a Man is deprest with Cares,
The Mist is dispell'd when a Woman appears
Like the Notes of a Fiddle, she sweetly, sweetly
Raises the Spirits and charms our Ears,
Roses and Lilies her Cheeks disclose,
But her ripe Lips are more sweet than those
Press her,
Caressher,
With Blisses,
Her Kisses
Dissolve us in Pleasure and Soft Repose.
Parody and interesting politics, Iffy on the entertainment factor but I suspect that's a product in a large part due to having read and not seen this.
I'm sureth century audiences went absolutely berserk though especially having understood all the references firsthand, I like the idea of this book in that it is a low class opera but there wasnt enough to keep me interested in the play.
I know there is a lot of political satire in this book but I wasnt invested enough to look that up so that I could actually get the references.
I think it could be quite funny watching the play but reading it wasnt enough for me, On one hand, this was a fantastic meditation on genre and class in eighteenthcentury drama, On the other hand, it was otherwise kind of absolutely pointless, Only read it because its a requirement for school, but I did find the social cirques ofs England interesting enough.
Very strange to read this in thest century, These days everyone treats the poor/disadvantaged etc very nicely well, everyone except Martin Amis, For his time, you might say the same of Gay, but every character in this book full of poor people is a criminal or scumbag of some other kind.
So not so sympathetic. On the other hand, that's a good thing: there's no way you can depict the evils of poverty without making the impoverished at least a little offputting.
If they're all nice and happy, what's the problem with impoverishment But the opening and closing dialogues are very cutting parodies of Italian Opera, and the plot contrivances of both those operas and fictions in general, as well as the disproportion between the punishments the vicious poor and the vicious rich suffer.
It's pretty funny, but I suspect it would be better on stage than on the page, and certainly some of the humor must be lost to history.
I enjoyed the footnotes more then the actual play, I didn't care for any of the characters and it portrayed women poorly, The ending was also clipped and fairytale like, I wonder if seeing it live would make it more enjoyable, . . Some very humorous parodies of English folk songs in here This is by faaaar the best eighteenth century play I've read.
It's Dickensian in its portrayal of the underbelly of English society whores, criminals, highwaymen, corrupt lawyers,
It's comical and moving and poignant by turns, and I'm kind of in love with Macheath even though he is categorically THE WORST.
I want to write fanfiction about the gang and Macheath and Polly and Lucy it just captures the imagination so
easily.
It's also weirdly feminist in parts when it means to be comical,
Either way, a very enjoyable read and much recommended by me! By all accounts this play has aged horribly.
I mean how many times and in how many variations can you read about women being called nearly every version of "woman with loose virtue" But, despite this, the play works, very well, extremely well.
The reason for this, for me, is that the play never overindulges or comes off as exploitative in any way.
It's a boisterous and funny look at a certain place in a certain time where and when the virtues of everyone were in question.
And John Gay makes wonderful copy of this as one of the greater overriding themes of the work, that corruption unifies the high and low of society, it's hilarious to see how similar human beings really are when it comes to doing wrong and falling far short of the ideals that religion and philosophy have codified.
In addition to this Gay never seems to lose the controlling hand over his characters, They're all bastards, bitches, and rogues, but Gay never stops to obsess over who and what makes these people tick.
The wonderful concomitant pacing truly allows you to go with the narrative and just enjoy the amorality,
So read this and enjoy it for what it is: a short but biting burlesque that elucidates beautifully how human weakness and professional corruption really knows no income.
Meh.
I wanted to like it more than I actually did, perhaps I didn't because generally plays and books that are from that time period I rarely find easy reads.
I did however love everything by Moliere and I also loved ' She stoops to conquer ' but that might not be as old as this, I've forgotten when that was written.
.
"Consider, girl, you can't have the man and the money too, So make yourself as easy as you can, by getting all you can from him, "Beggars Opera is first performed inin England during the era of Enlightenment, This is set in the seedy world of crime and prostitution, its a comedy satire and groundbreaking for its time.
According to the helpful essay and notes in this edition, it was popular and ran fornights which it describes as a record.
The essay also mentions this is the first musical and says how this would inspire others, naming Bertolt Brecht, Threepenny Opera,, and, much later, Alan Ayckbourn with A Chorus of Disapprovaland Stephen Jeffrey, A Convicts Operal/.
It also gives some social context and the history of how this play came about and how it was thought John Gay had the right kind of wit and style to tackle it.
I also liked how this kindle edition sitelinkThe Beggars Opera did not let me forget I was reading a musical.
Throughout this book, the publishers included extracts of the musical sheets with the lyrics, and also the appendixes include notes about the music and composers.
The print of the text also makes it clear when words are sung if it doesnt follow a music sheet, but I was not always sure if the rest was in poetical form or prose as the lines had no breakages like a poem but at times thought there was rhyming sequence going on.
Regardless, what came through the text was the speed of performance and energy by how the play is divided into many short scenes, several are only a couple of pages in length.
These scenes make up three acts plus a prologue described here as an introduction, This opener reminded me of the opener in Goethes Faust part one but here its a twohander between a Beggar and a Player the Beggar acts more like a chorus in a Greek play indicating the comedy to come.
They both exit after noticing the actors arrive and return in ActScene, the penultimate scene before the play ends.
The Beggar sums up the play before he exits:
"Through the whole piece you may observe such a similitude of manners in high and low life, that it is difficult to determine whether, in the fashionable vices, the fine gentleman imitate the gentleman of the road, or the gentleman of the road, the fine gentleman.Kindle edition, location.
Had the play remained as I had first intended, it would have carried a most excellent moral, Twould have shown that the lower sort of people have their vices in a degree as well as the rich, and that they are punished for them.
"
The subtext that drives the play is hidden by the chaos and love rivalry that is played out.
Im not sure if I would have connected as well to this play without the extra notes in this kindle edition, and as I look through the text to write this review, what stands out is the comedy driven by irony along with some sharp witty poetry or lyrics, making me want to read it again.
Anth Century parody of the Italian Opera
December
I want to give this play a high score simply because of it's context and content, and as it is one of the only satirical operas that has survived from the earlyth Century should also give this play, or more properly opera, some credit.
Now, when we hear the word opera we usually thing of 'it's not over until the fat lady sings' and then Bart Simpson going 'is she fat enough for you' and you would actually be quite correct, because that is the type of opera that we would be thinking of in this context.
In the earlyth century we see the rise in the popularity of the Italian Opera, which was mostly fat ladies singing, and dealt with heroes, villains, and mythical stories.
They were basically the Hollywood blockbusters of the era,
So, along comes John Gay with an idea which he apparently stole off of Jonathon Swift, of Gulliver's Travels fame of making a satire of the ever popular opera.
So instead of having heroes and mythical scenes, and stories dominated by the rich and powerful he instead delved into the dark and dirty streets of inner London to take us for a satirical journey through the criminal underworld.
The problem is that on the page much of the satire does not actually come out, and further, since we are not familiar with the songs though I am sure we will be familiar with the tunes the parodying of the operatic style does not evidently come about and while I have seen a couple of musicals five to be exact I have never seen an opera.
The other interesting thing that came out with this play, or at least the commentary, is how much London has changed since these days.
Take for instance this place:
or this place:
which for those of us who know London know that these days is a very fashionable area, and also a very expensive place to set up residency.
However, back in the days of the Beggar's Opera, this could not be farther from the truth, In fact the area around central London was a crime ridden cesspool that would result in you risking your life if you even considered wondering about after dark or even not so much after dark.
This, however, was almost three hundred years ago, so it is not surprising that London has cleaned up its act a lot, with the rise of the middleclass as well as the establishment of John Wesley's church, whose mission was targeting the lower class residents of this area at the time.
Another thing that comes about, which I knew about anyway, but this play emphasised it so much more, is the popularity of Gin.
Now, I'm a beer drinker, and as such I am generally not that well disposed to spirits, however back in those days spirits were exceedingly cheap.
In fact, to some, Gin was theth century version of methamphetamine though it was not illegal, The upper classes simply did not touch it it was too cheap and the lower classes would get excessively drunk drinking it.
Also, like meth, it would be distilled in basements and apartments, and some of the product that came about was virtually poison.
The other aspect we hear about is the life of the criminal underworld, A bulk of the play takes place in Newgate Prison, and the version that I read had copious amounts of notes explaining a lot of the slang that was used.
For instance, unlike today, it actually cost the criminal money to stay at Newgate, and in fact Newgate was one of the most expensive prisons in England in which to be locked up.
Obviously nobody had listened to Thomas More when he wrote Utopia because the death penalty was still being imposed at the drop of a hat though if you could quote a verse from Psalmyou could get off because it would suggest that you were literate.
They also introduced a system of rewards for various criminals, however this led to the rise of a class known as the thiefcatchers who would purposely go out and set people up so they could get the rewards which would be paid once the thief was hung, in much the same way that rewards are offered by the police on a successful conviction.
It is interesting how there is still this belief that penal penalties including the death penalty deter crime, and all we have to do is to look back at this period of English history to know that this does not work.
If theft brings about the death penalty, then technically nobody would steal, however a lot of people still stole, and even though it was clear that you would be hung if you were caught stealing, people would still keep on doing it probably because they either believed that they were too smart to get caught, or they had nothing left to lose.
Anyway, this is a whole field of criminology, which I don't really want to go into here because I have written enough already and want to get on and do something else now.
.