Thomas Shadwell, Psyche, 1675
Facets of Apuleius’ Golden Ass in the Brotherton Collection at Leeds
Apuleius, Opera, 1588
Philander, The Golden Calf, 1749
Voltaire, La Pucelle d'Orleans, 1762
William Adlington, Cupid and Psyche, 1903
Harold Edgeworth Butler, Cupid and Psyche, 1922
Boccaccio, 1511
Minturno, 1559
Thomas Shadwell, Psyche, 1675
Thomas Shadwell, Psyche, 1675 (2)
Jean de la Fontaine, Les Amours de Psyché et de Cupidon, 1814
Joseph Beaumont, Psyche, or love's mystery, 1702
Thomas D'Urfey, A new song in honour of the glorious assembly at Court on the Queens birthday
Mary Tighe, Psyche or The legend of love, 1812
Christoph Wieland, Fragments of Psyche, 1767
William Morris, The earthly paradise, 1868-70
A note by William Morris on his aims in founding the Kelmscott Press, 1898
William Morris collected by Alf Mattison
Robert Bridges, Eros and Psyche, 1885
Victor de Laprade, Psyché, 1857
Edward Carpenter, The story of Eros and Psyche, 1900
Walter Pater, Marius the Epicurean, 1885
Georges Jean-Aubry and Manuel de Falla, Psyché : poème, 1927
Pierre Louÿs, Psyché, 1927
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.
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