Beaumont, Francis

Francis (1586-1616), and Fletcher, John (1576-1625), two English dramatic writers. Little is known of the lives of these two men except that for ten years they were so closely associated as friends and literary partners that we rarely hear their names separately. Beaumont was educated at Oxford; Fletcher at Cambridge. They drifted to London. Their intimacy began in 1608 and continued until broken by Beaumont's death. Together they produced about fifty-two plays. The best known are The Maid's Tragedy, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Philaster, and The Faithful Shepherdess. Of the two, Fletcher was undoubtedly the greater poet. He was more inventive and his style showed more grace and delicacy. Beaumont was the weightier, the more earnest of the two. The contemporaries of these dramatists placed them above Shakespeare; but as a fact their work marks the decadence of the drama. Their plays are full of romance and beauty, but they lack the vigor, the depth, the insight into character shown in Shakespeare's work. They are also lacking in moral tone, in fact, have been called "studiously indecent."

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