Captain Underwit (1649): British History Changing Series


Posted October 25, 2021 by faktorovich

A country comedy about the absurdly corrupt purchases of military titles.

 
Captain Underwit has succeeded in becoming a “paper” Captain by bribing the Lieutenant with favors and a below-value land-purchase. Underwit then sends his servant Thomas to purchase books to prepare him to actually carry out military duties, but Thomas instead purchases the “Shakespeare” Folio, and other impractical or irrelevant books in a manner that echoes Don Quixote’s belief he could imitate the actions of knights in romance novels. Meanwhile, Underwit withdraws from London into his father-in-law Sir Richard’s country estate. Underwit hires Captain Sackburie to build his military acumen, but Sackburie only has him perform a few military dances before they escape to drink at a tavern. The plot then digresses from these heavy subjects to romantic entanglements as Sir Richard’s wife (Lady) attempts to have an affair with Sir Francis, and Sister flirts with Mr. Courtwell, and Lady’s maid, mistress Dorothy, devises a fraudulent scheme to make suitors falsely believe she comes from an aristocratic family to secure a husband. There are gems under this visage of simplicity, as Engine is attempting to bribe his way into a monopoly on periwigs, and Device the poet recites elegant songs to Sister that he is not sure if he has plagiarized. The introductory materials explain that the plagiarism of the “Catch” dice-game-song that repeats in the “James Shirley”-bylined Poems &c. (1646) re-affirms Percy’s ghostwriting of most “Shirley”-bylined plays as well as Captain, instead of proving “Shirley’s” authorship of this group of texts, as critics have previously claimed.

Paperback: 150pp, 6X9”: $20: 979-8-75012-043-7; Hardcover: $25: 979-8-75012-101-4; Kindle EBook: $9.99; LCCN: 2021949420. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09K1WW6NP

The first 14 volumes of the British Renaissance Re-Attribution and Modernization Series have been released. Volumes 1-2 describe the computational-linguistic authorial-attribution method I used to re-attributed 284 texts from the British Renaissance, and provide other types of proof to support these re-assignments. Volumes 3-14 present never-before modernized to be readable dramas, poetry and historical sources with annotations, introductions, and visuals that explain these texts and their re-attributions. The author/translator, Anna Faktorovich, is available for interviews or to write articles about this project similar to those already posted on this project’s main website: https://anaphoraliterary.com/attribution.
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Issued By Anna Faktorovich
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Categories Books , Literature , Publishing
Tags attribution , britain , renaissance , theater , william shakespeare
Last Updated October 25, 2021