An Elegy for the Restoration Playwright, E. Polwhele?
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Very little is known of the seventeenth-century female playwright E. Polwhele, one of the first women to write for the professional stage. Manuscripts survive of two plays that vary in terms of genre and quality: The Faithful Virgins (c. 1670) is an old-fashioned rhymed tragedy that takes unsubtle satirical aim at Charles II’s promiscuity, while the modish comedy, The Frolicks (dated 1671), sparkles with wit and a raunchiness that seems to anticipate the libertine comedies that would come to characterize the decade’s dominant theatrical direction.1 There is no record of either being publicly performed, though it seems likely that at least The Faithful Virgins reached the stage. In the dedication to Prince Rupert that precedes The Frolicks, Polwhele claims authorship of another drama, now lost, called Elysium, which may have been a religious masque.2 The only other work (and the only printed text) to have been linked to Polwhele is a panegyric poem addressed to James, Duke of York, published in 1672; this was authored by a ‘Mrs E. P.’, and is tentatively accepted to be the work of the playwright.3 Scholarship has shed little light on the identity or background of the author of these works, though candidates have occasionally been proposed. Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume present a case for Elizabeth Polwhele (c. 1651–91), the daughter of a Devonshire nonconformist minister, who would marry another prominent West Country preacher in the 1670s. Far removed from court and theatrical circles, such a woman is, as they admit, a ‘startling’ candidate (particularly for authorship of the risqué and modish Frolicks). Jane Stevenson and Peter Davidson have proposed that the Oxford fellow John Polwhele (1586–1648) may have had a daughter after he entered the Church to become a Devonshire vicar in 1622, and that she could have been the playwright.4 While he seems to have had some literary interests, there is no evidence that this man had a daughter. Stevenson and Davidson suggest that it is ‘likely’ that any child was born in the 1620s or 1630s, and that consequently Polwhele’s ‘public debut as a playwright was not made in extreme youth, but in later life’: this reasoning, however, is contradicted by Polwhele’s own words in the dedication to The Frolicks in 1671, where she describes herself as a ‘young woman’.5 More recently, Ann Hollinshead Hurley has argued that it would be more fruitful to look for E. Polwhele ‘among those with experience in the Restoration court’; she suggests a new candidate—an ‘Elnora Polewheele’, christened in 1643 and born to a Staffordshire gentry family.6 Beyond the dates being plausible, however, there is nothing to connect the plays to any of these women, and E. Powhele’s identity remains obscure. I would like to highlight a printed reference, not previously noted, to a ‘Mrs E. P.’ who may have been the playwright. In 1685, the Whig political writer John Tutchin (1660?–1707) published a volume of his poetry which includes translations of Horace, a pastoral verse drama, several satirical poems, three elegies, and various miscellaneous pieces. The first two elegies (appearing consecutively) are for established satirical writers: one is written in memory of the poet John Oldham (d. 1683), and the other remembers the notorious libertine poet John Wilmot, second earl of Rochester (d. 1680).7 Later on in the collection is a more personal elegiac poem, entitled ‘On the Death of Mrs E. P. Who Died of the Small Pox’.8 It is notable that similar appellations appear elsewhere in connection to Polwhele: the author of the printed panegyric is named as ‘Mrs E. P’, and the title page of The Frolicks manuscript states that the play is ‘written by Mrs: E: P.’. Little tangible information is provided by Tutchin about his female subject: the poem reveals only that she was Tutchin’s ‘best Friend’, though there are intriguing moments that hint at some form of public identity and adverse popular reception (p. 70).9 Typically rhapsodic, the elegy outlines the otherworldly virtues of this ‘Sacred Maid’, who was misunderstood in life by ‘unjust, unkind’ ‘Mistaken Mortals’. Tutchin’s praise that ‘While thou wer’t here we thought thee Womankind’ suggests that Mrs E. P. possessed some extraordinary qualities (or talents) that raised her above her sex, and he regrets ‘How oft have we blasphem’d thy Name’, a statement that again implies public hostility, perhaps recalling the opprobrium levelled by some critics at the more prominent female playwright, Aphra Behn.10 Parallels to an author who has failed to find deserved acclaim or appreciation continue to be invited: Tutchin labours over an extended simile comparing the dead woman to an ‘Unprais’d, unenvy’d’ classical hero, ignored by the ‘illiterate crowd’ who ‘knows not his real worth’ (p. 71). The allusion to the subject dying before she ‘cou’d enough dispence | The sweets of Wit, and solid fruits of Sense’, also indicates creative output, and might prompt us to remember the fashionable wittiness of The Frolicks (p. 71). Tutchin consoles himself that the deceased woman has entered a heavenly room reserved for ‘Only good Poets and good Women’ (p. 73), an ambiguous phrase that leaves open the possibility that E. P.’s virtuosity lay not only in her sex but in her literary ability; an alternative reading of the line—that Tutchin is positioning himself as the ‘good poet’ in an act of self-aggrandisement—would seem inappropriate to the elegiac mode (not to mention inaccurate). Mrs E. P. seems also to have been something of a pioneer, though in what area is unclear. Tutchin compares his subject—‘Too bright for Mortal Eyes to gaze upon’—to ‘a beauteous Comet’ (pp. 71–72), an analogy frequently applied to (and employed by) women who were unusually educated or had, as Annette Kreis-Schinck argues, ‘ventured out of their traditional spheres’.11 Like a portentous comet, E. P.’s purpose had been to ‘tell the World the Events of Fate; | The falls of Crowns, and overthrows of State’, but she died prematurely before ‘the Omens are entirely done’ (p. 72). She is figured as a prophetess, and it is tempting to speculate that this insight might have found an outlet in written works that could be read or performed (The Faithful Virgins does indeed depict the downfall and death of a lecherous ruler). Read in the context of the political turmoil of the early 1680s, this meteorological comparison might also imply some radical purpose or allegiances (Tutchin’s own oppositional politics would earn him notoriety and punishment later in 1685 following his involvement in the Monmouth rebellion). His disapproval of Charles II’s court is evident within his volume, which begins in a censorious vein with ‘A Satyr against Vice’, an invective against the (very) recently deceased King, and is immediately followed by ‘A Satyr against Whoring’. As for the playwright E. Polwhele, her political leanings are difficult to ascertain: The Faithful Virgins is intensely critical of the court but The Frolicks is dedicated to one of its most prominent members. Evidence throughout the volume demonstrates that Tutchin aspired to cultivate a poetic reputation and to establish himself amongst a literary milieu. He attempts to forge links to famed poets through at least two of the elegies; he discusses his relationship with his ‘Charming Mistress’ poetry (‘A Letter to a Friend’, p. 64); his own poetic credentials are expounded upon at length (see ‘The Preface’, sigs A2r–A4v); and he includes his own pastoral drama, The Unfortunate Shepherd. The collection is, however, scattered with disparaging references to what Tutchin perceived to be the immorality of the public stage; professing a devotion to satire, he condemns contemporary drama, announcing, ‘Damn’d be your Plays, and all Stage-Fops that write!’ (‘A Satyr Against Vice’, p. 9). Despite his distaste, he is nevertheless attuned to the theatrical world: he alludes specifically to Dryden—the ‘Bawdy Sot’—and the Poet Laureate’s controversial 1678 play The Kind Keeper; or, Mr Limberham (‘Letter to a Friend’, p. 66). The inclusion of Tutchin’s own pastoral drama demonstrates a willingness to overlook these moral compunctions when it came to his own work (or at least to differentiate between different forms of playwriting), and his antipathy need not preclude a friendship with another contemporary (former) dramatist. If we are to pursue the notion that Tutchin’s Mrs E. P. was the playwright E. Polwhele, then this puts her (premature) death at some point before February 1685 when the volume was entered into the Stationers’ Register (Rochester had died five years earlier, so her death was not necessarily recent). The evidence provided here is inconclusive at best, but further investigation may bring us a step closer to situating this shadowy dramatist within a community that included John Tutchin; it is plausible that Tutchin, who was himself ‘Plagu’d’ by ‘soft deluding Poetry’ (‘Letter to a Friend’, p. 64), could have found a kindred spirit in Polwhele who, in the dedication to The Frolicks, admits to experiencing ‘disquiet’ along with ‘all others who are haunted with poetic devils like me’.12 We currently know nothing of E. Polwhele’s life or work after 1672, and it is to be hoped that further discoveries will illuminate her background, literary connections, and dramatic career.
Source: Notes and Queries
Author: Jennie Challinor
Institution: University of Birmingham
Language: English
Subfield: Classics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,461
OpenAlex ID: W4402955679