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Thomas Shadwell, Psyche, 1675

Adlington 1903c
Resource exploring aspects of The Golden Ass of Apuleius, through works from the Brotherton Collection in Leeds University Library, Special Collections.
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Resource exploring aspects of The Golden Ass of Apuleius, through works from the Brotherton Collection in Leeds University Library, Special Collections.
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Apuleius Opera 1588
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Philander 1749
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Voltaire 1762a
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Adlington 1903b
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Butler 1922
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Boccaccio 1511
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Minturno
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LockPsyche1
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Shadwell Psyche 1
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De la Fontaine, Les Amours de Psyche, 1814
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Beaumont, Psyche, 1702
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Urfey
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Mary Tighe, Psyche, 1812
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Christoph Wieland, Fragments of Psyche, 1
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William Morris, Earthly Paradise, 1
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William Morris, Zephyrus
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Mattison Morris 2
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Robert Bridges, Eros and Psyche, 1885
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Laprade, Psyche, 1
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Edward Carpenter, Eros and Psyche, 1900
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Walter Pater, Marius, 1
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Falla, Psyche, 1
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Louys, Psyche, 1
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Other genres, too, saw the importance and flexibility of Cupid and Psyche, which could legitimately be seen to represent both philosophical psychodrama and divine farce.

Thomas Shadwell (ca. 1642-1692) was a poet and comic playwright. He succeeded Dryden as the English poet laureate in 1689 after aligning himself with the successful Protestant faction in the Glorious Revolution.

He provided the libretto for the semi-opera Psyche (1675), which is based on Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Psyché (1671), with libretto by Molière and others. Matthew Locke (1621-1677) wrote the music, and the queen’s composer Giovanni Battista Draghi (ca. 1640-1708, Master of the Italian Musick to the King) provided the dances. Master of France Monsieur St. André, choreographed it, and scenes were painted by the Ingenious Artist Mr Stephenson. Ornament and Decoration of the Play were provided by Mr Betterton

The opera was first performed in 1675 in London’s recently opened Duke’s Theatre with the kind of lavish staging that was typical for Restoration theatre. The plot of Psyche is very loosely based on Apuleius; Shadwell’s Psyche is a courtly lady, loving and a little sentimental. The play is masque-like, with abstract personifications, many dances, opulent stage effects and costumes.

Shadwell published his Psyche, together with the even more lavishly produced The Tempest, also from 1674, as The English Opera, a book in which he left out Draghi’s dances.

Copyright University of Leeds

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