John Heywood

John Heywood , 1497?-1580?, English dramatist. He was employed at the courts of Henry VIII and Mary I as a singer, musician, and playwright. At the accession of Elizabeth I in 1564 Heywood, who was a Roman Catholic, fled to Belgium, where he stayed for the rest of his life. Important in the development of English comedy, Heywood was the most famous writer of the interlude, a short comic dialogue. Chief among his interludes are The Play of the Weather (1533) and The Four P's (c.1543). His other works include epigrams, proverbs, and ballads.

Bibliography: See his works (ed. by B. A. Milligan, 1956).

Heywood, John (?1497–?1580), married Elizabeth Rastell, niece of Sir T. More. Under Henry VIII he was a singer and player on the virginals. He was much favoured by Queen Mary. He published interludes, substituting the human comedy of contemporary types for the allegory and instructive purpose of the morality; but he did this in the form of narrative and debate rather than of plot and action. His principal works were The Foure PP (?1544); The Play of the Wether (1533); and A Play of Love (1534). He may also have been the author of The Pardoner and the Frere and Johan Johan the Husbande, Tyb his Wyfe & Syr Jhān the Preest, comedies of a wider scope. Heywood also wrote a dialogue called Witty and Witless, collections of proverbs and epigrams, and a long satirical poem, The Spider and the Flie (1556).

Heywood, John (c.1497–1580), English dramatist, author of a number of interludes which mark the transition from medieval plays to the comedy of Elizabethan times. He married Elizabeth Rastell, niece of Sir Thomas More, a lover of plays and playing to whom he may have been indebted for advice and encouragement. Heywood's best known work is The Playe called the foure P.P.; a newe and a very mery enterlude of a palmer, a pardoner, a potycary, a pedler (c.1520), each of whom tries to outdo the others in lying. The palmer wins when he says that in all his travels he never yet knew one woman out of patience. The text was published some 20 years later by Heywood's brother-in-law William Rastell, as were The Play of the Wether and The Play of Love (both 1533). The Dialogue of Wit and Folly, which probably dates from the same year, remained in manuscript until 1846, when it was issued by the Percy Reprint Society. Two further interludes are sometimes attributed to Heywood, The Pardoner and the Frere and Johan Johan, both published anonymously by Rastell in 1533, while he may also be the author of Thersites, sometimes attributed to Udall.