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Advertised in its Prologue as a prequel to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, Fletcher and Massinger’s The False One is the first literary work completely to revolve around the affair between Caesar and Cleopatra. In its deployment of their liaison as a venue for the exploration and criticism of contemporary political manoeuvring and its high-spirited and pungent appropriation of Roman history, the play proves to be one of the most compelling Jacobean dramatizations of the classical past.
This Revels Plays edition offers the first fully annotated, single-volume critical edition of The False One, with a thorough introduction that provides new insights on the date and the theatre of the play’s first performance, examines the playwrights’ reworking of their sources and explores the theatrical potential of a play that has hitherto regrettably been lost to the dramatic repertory.
''This Revels edition points us to the value of reviving The False One as a staged play, quite possibly in the company of one of Shakespeare’s Roman plays or paired with Massinger’s mesmerizing tour de force, The Roman Actor. Lovascio’s twin publications of 2022 fill in a lacuna in our awareness of early modern drama centering on the Roman empire. In that sense, Lovascio has demonstrated his own willingness to emulate Curtius, by leaping into the gulf to preserve this vital but long-neglected Roman play.'
Renaissance Quarterly
'…a major contribution to the editorial history of this drama… an impressive feat of scholarship: a comprehensive edition worthy of an excellent, scholarly series. Lovascio’s edition is not only a significant milestone in the editorial history of the play; it reveals The False One as a drama that bristles with humour and spectacle worthy of performance, and offers wonderful insights into collaborative practises during the period and the presentation of Rome on the Jacobean stage.’
Early Modern Literary Studies
'Domenico Lovascio’s meticulous critical edition offers early modern theatre scholars a robust introduction to the little-known play The False One,'
Early Theatre
List of illustrations
General editors’ preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations and references
Introduction
Dating and authorship
A Blackfriars play?
Staging Rome: Republic and empire
Sources
The title
Critical reception
Stage history
The text
The false one
Appendix 1: Latin transcription of passages from Lucan’s Pharsalia cited in the Commentary
Appendix 2: ‘Look out, bright eyes, and bless the air’
Index