Thomas Shadwell, Psyche, 1675 (2)

This is again Shadwell’s Psyche, but in another edition; here he is more open about his motivations for writing Psyche.

The dedicatory Epistle is addressed to James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth (1649-1685; at this stage a successful general, but exiled in 1679 and, as the instigator of the unsuccessful Monmouth Rebellion, executed for treason against the crown). Shadwell praises Monmouth’s learnedness and patronage of the arts, and defends himself against accusations brought forth by his enemies who are intent on damaging his reputation with the King, namely that he has not written his plays himself, or only partly written them. The Duchess of Monmouth, he claims, has helped in clearing Shadwell of this “Aspersion”.

Shadwell addresses his reasons for writing the play in his Preface, which follows the Epistle. His work is genre-bending, he argues, since he is better known for comedies, but now, he claims, he wants to move into rhyme. He adapted his work from the French play (Lully’s Psyché), and justifies this by claiming that the French already borrowed from the Latin author of the “Fable”, Apuleius. Shadwell previously adapted plays by Molière and John Fountain, amongst others, for his own plays, so his use of the text set by Lully is not surprising.

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