Knowledge Commons | David Nicol | Activity https://hcommons.org/members/davidnicol/activity/ Activity feed for David Nicol. Sat, 04 Apr 2026 15:59:16 -0400 https://buddypress.org/?v=10.6.0 en-US 30 hourly 2 3afa3896a00ae023716b3c8bdd297914 David Nicol replied to the topic Act Five in the discussion The Birth of Merlin Reading Group https://hcommons.org/groups/the-birth-of-merlin-reading-group/forum/topic/act-five/#post-31418 Tue, 19 May 2020 23:20:58 -0400 OK, I hate to be a pooper, but I have issues with this Act. Not with scene 5.1 (that's a scene - wow!), but ultimately 5.2 is a bit of a squib. Of course my main complaint is, where's my boy the Clown? How does he feel about Joan being taken away to pine away in some weird bower? Doesn't he have any bon mots to share with us at the end? Nope, he…[Read more]

]]> cede71e565b45726127ae038b8cbd741 David Nicol replied to the topic Act Four in the discussion The Birth of Merlin Reading Group https://hcommons.org/groups/the-birth-of-merlin-reading-group/forum/topic/act-four/#post-31211 Tue, 12 May 2020 14:09:35 -0400 Oh! And Pete, I love your point that magicians can be author-proxies. This is really interesting given that Rowley plays the Clown. If you're right, he's kind of fighting with himself. Shutting himself up.

Or if the play is a collaboration, maybe the Clown is Rowley and Merlin is Webster???

]]> 9ebcdccb83531f68b4a43006538c94de David Nicol replied to the topic Act Four in the discussion The Birth of Merlin Reading Group https://hcommons.org/groups/the-birth-of-merlin-reading-group/forum/topic/act-four/#post-31210 Tue, 12 May 2020 14:05:56 -0400 Pete, thanks for those fantastic suggestions about the Clown/Joan/Merlin relationship. Love the idea that it's kind of a meta battle over what kind of play this is.

Anything that can help me like Acts 4 and 5 more is very gratefully received!

]]> b10fa1b33b814f7be42d1354ab8dac21 David Nicol replied to the topic Act Four in the discussion The Birth of Merlin Reading Group https://hcommons.org/groups/the-birth-of-merlin-reading-group/forum/topic/act-four/#post-31202 Mon, 11 May 2020 22:28:53 -0400 So many staging challenges!

  • In his Catalogue, Martin Wiggins points out that since the dragons are able to stop and start fighting on cue, they are probably performed by actors in costume.
  • Sadly, Wiggins has nothing to say about the stone that kills Proximus, which is quite baffling; I will say that in Day, Rowley and Wilkins' The Travels of…

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]]> 3bd1f955223a877052f1a6f090d6c109 David Nicol replied to the topic Act Three in the discussion The Birth of Merlin Reading Group https://hcommons.org/groups/the-birth-of-merlin-reading-group/forum/topic/act-three/#post-31201 Mon, 11 May 2020 21:38:16 -0400 Hi Nora, I think what you're trying to say may be tied up with the central weirdness of most Ancient Britain plays of this period. They're all messed up because they depict native Britons being invaded by foreign Saxon "Other" - boo hiss! Except the Saxons are the ancestors of the English, i.e. "us". So, we're the foreign Other. A lot of these…[Read more]

]]> dae7bc29f66052ece8c05d29cb8ad05a David Nicol replied to the topic Act Three in the discussion The Birth of Merlin Reading Group https://hcommons.org/groups/the-birth-of-merlin-reading-group/forum/topic/act-three/#post-31035 Wed, 06 May 2020 02:36:31 -0400 I don't even know where to start. So much awesome in one act. I can only offer random thoughts.

There's some good poetry here! It has a smoothness that you don't often get with Rowley. I like, "This world is but a masque, catching weak eyes, / With what is not ourselves but our disguise, / A vizard that falls off, the dance being done, / And…[Read more]

]]> e633c379f54a4601eac93b42de2fa9d6 David Nicol replied to the topic Act Two in the discussion The Birth of Merlin Reading Group https://hcommons.org/groups/the-birth-of-merlin-reading-group/forum/topic/act-two/#post-31013 Tue, 05 May 2020 12:04:39 -0400 To answer Nora's question...

The structure of the three plots, up to this point, certainly seems to match something like The Witch of Edmonton, where each of Dekker, Rowley, and Ford took responsibility for one plot line (again, if I’m remembering correctly?)….then again, everything’s about to start crashing together in Acts 4 and 5, so who knows?…

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]]> dc62fb1bd63c3749430fdad4cbbd976a David Nicol replied to the topic Act Two in the discussion The Birth of Merlin Reading Group https://hcommons.org/groups/the-birth-of-merlin-reading-group/forum/topic/act-two/#post-30804 Wed, 29 Apr 2020 01:42:05 -0400 So much stuff to talk about! Great comedy, weird poetry and a battle of magic! Some random observations:

  • This comedy is very funny. If you rummage the shelves of your local academic library (not easy right now, I know) you might find a very obscure edition of this play, created to accompany a revival at Theatr Clywd in the 80s and featuring an…

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]]> 09a0357da3eb0325e6439c2bd9317444 David Nicol replied to the topic Act One in the discussion The Birth of Merlin Reading Group https://hcommons.org/groups/the-birth-of-merlin-reading-group/forum/topic/act-one/#post-30690 Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:11:17 -0400 I'm gonna be honest, I never mentioned asides in my book!  I'm not aware (though admittedly have not thought much about it) of Rowley having any particularly unusual uses of asides in his other plays beyond The Changeling.

Which leads to the interesting question of authorship! I would love it if we could think more about who wrote this play as…[Read more]

]]> ffac967a28611584a19a3bf3a7276c82 David Nicol replied to the topic Act One in the discussion The Birth of Merlin Reading Group https://hcommons.org/groups/the-birth-of-merlin-reading-group/forum/topic/act-one/#post-30502 Mon, 20 Apr 2020 20:51:44 -0400 It was interesting to read Act One, because when I read this play before I was mostly interested in the Clown, so I tended to skim-read the serious bits. But they're actually fun! Artesia is a great role; she's reminding me of Tamora in Titus Andronicus.

Modesta is interesting. She makes me think of the other holy virgins who reject marriage in…[Read more]

]]> f1254cc9c66bb3de6942ee1cc1626385 David Nicol replied to the topic Act One in the discussion The Birth of Merlin Reading Group https://hcommons.org/groups/the-birth-of-merlin-reading-group/forum/topic/act-one/#post-30479 Mon, 20 Apr 2020 00:33:10 -0400 I'll have some comments on Act 1 soon, but, before we start, can I get some practical stuff out of the way? This play was originally called The Child hath Found his Father and was written in 1622 for Prince Charles's Men, who were then performing at the Curtain in Shoreditch.

I'm making a special point of saying this because the information was…[Read more]

]]> 107b93c42f43bf78d93ed513d72cfb37 David Nicol replied to the topic Welcome! Introduce Yourself in the discussion The Birth of Merlin Reading Group https://hcommons.org/groups/the-birth-of-merlin-reading-group/forum/topic/welcome-introduce-yourself/#post-30302 Tue, 14 Apr 2020 16:34:25 -0400 Hello, I'm Dave! I have read this play more often than I care to admit, although I can never remember exactly what happens in it. My general perception is that the first three acts are fantastic and then it goes off the rails. But I look forward to being corrected.

I once wrote a book about Middleton and Rowley's collaborations. Birth of Merlin…[Read more]

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