XV - European Stage Plays
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 April 2023
Summary
Abstract
This chapter describes seventeenth century plays about the revolt. Itranges across scripts by the Englishman known as T.B., by theNetherlander Thomas Asselijn, and by the German Christian Weise, eachadapting the story to his ends. In such works, we can speak of a‘Giraffi effect’, given the influence of the account mostoften translated, and read, in Europe. It surfaces in the extraordinarydialogue in the Afterlife, between William Tell and the Neapolitancapopopolo, by David Faßmann.
Keywords: historical plays, Christian Weise, James Howell,political literature, William Tell, dialogues between dead men
In England
The Masaniello affair swiftly crossed the peninsula’s frontier. Thesole vessel, almost entirely, to carry its repute was Giraffi’sLe rivolutioni di Napoli, translated into severallanguages. In England, the event made a strong impression. For transparentlypolitical reasons, the English were quick to talk of theCapopopolo. The Royalists wielded his story against theParliamentary party as a warning, once Charles I had been beheaded. Evenbefore the English translation came out, by James Howell, a royalist writer,there appeared a “tragicomedy” by one “T.B.”:The Rebellion of Naples or theTragedy of Massenello (1649). It was at once obvious thatthis title’s Tragedy was utterly ironic. The readerencounters a play with a happy ending: a tragedy, strictly speaking, forMasaniello only.
Let us look closely at what happens in the play. In the first act, the youngman wants to free his people from the many gabelle thatgrind them down. Then he shifts ground, under the sway of Genoino, whopersuades him, rather than pursue the common good, to enrich himselfinstead. The Capopopolo’s conversion is swift. Inthe first scenes of Act II, dottore Genoino seeks him outat home, to reprove him:
Sir, I must tell you here, in the presence of your Mother, your Wife, andDaughters here likewise, that you are much to be blamed; you havecommitted more goods and monies-worth unto the fire, out of merevain-glory and ostentation, then would have made you the wealthiest manin the whole Kingdom of Naples, and so consequently the wisest, thegreatest, the best, the noblest of all the Neapolitans (Act II, scene2)
This speech, although it invites him to betray the people, stirs not theslightest reproof: Masaniello’s family, too, is ethicallyderelict.
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- MasanielloThe Life and Afterlife of a Neapolitan Revolutionary, pp. 241 - 252Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2023