Thomas Middleton

Thomas Middleton (baptised 18 April 1580 – July 1627; also spelt Midleton) was an English Jacobean playwright and poet.

In the early 17th century, Middleton made a living writing topical pamphlets, including one – Penniless Parliament of Threadbare Poets – that was reprinted several times and became the subject of a parliamentary inquiry.

Having passed the time during the plague composing prose pamphlets (including a continuation of Thomas Nashe's Pierce Penniless), he returned to drama with great energy, producing almost a score of plays for several companies and in several genres, notably city comedy and revenge tragedy.

In the 1610s, Middleton began a fruitful collaboration with the actor William Rowley, producing Wit at Several Weapons and A Fair Quarrel.

He also became increasingly involved with civic pageants, and in 1620 became officially appointed as chronologist to the City of London, a post he held until his death in 1627, when it passed to Jonson.

Such official duties did not interrupt Middleton's dramatic writing; the 1620s saw the production of his and Rowley's tragedy The Changeling, and of several tragicomedies.

Though Middleton's approach was strongly patriotic, the Privy Council silenced the play after nine performances, having received a complaint from the Spanish Ambassador.

Middleton died at his home at Newington Butts in Southwark in 1627, and was buried on 4 July in St Mary's churchyard.

[7] However, since the statistical studies by David Lake[8] and MacDonald P. Jackson,[9] Middleton's authorship has not been seriously contested, and no further scholar has defended the Tourneur attribution.

His early work was informed by the flourishing of satire in the late Elizabethan period,[13] while his maturity was influenced by the ascendancy of Fletcherian tragicomedy.

A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, produced by the Lady Elizabeth's Men, skilfully combines London life with an expansive view of the power of love to effect reconciliation.

A Chaste Maid in Cheapside offers a panoramic view of a London populated entirely by sinners, in which no social rank goes unsatirised.