Sir William Schwenck Gilbert

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert 1836-1911, English playwright and poet. He won fame as the librettist of numerous popular operettas, written in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan . While on the staff of the magazine Fun, he first became known as the author of Bab Ballads, amusing but often bitter and cynical poems, published in that magazine and collected in 1869. His first play Dulcamara was produced in 1866. It was followed by several fairly successful comedies, dramas, and burlesques. In 1871, Gilbert began his collaboration with Arthur Sullivan, lasting about 20 years, which resulted in the popular operettas for which they are famous. The first of their joint works was Thespis (1871) and the last was The Grand Duke (1896). Their most famous operettas are Trial by Jury (1875), H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), The Pirates of Penzance (1879), Patience (1881), Iolanthe (1882), Princess Ida (1884), The Mikado (1885), Ruddigore (1887), The Yeoman of the Guard (1888), and The Gondoliers (1889). Gilbert's lyrics are those of a metrical craftsman. In his songs he satirized various aspects of Victorian life: aesthetes, the navy, the law, and women's education. The Savoy Theatre, built by Richard D'Oyly Carte in 1881 to house Gilbert and Sullivan operas, gave them the name Savoy operas. About 1896 a quarrel between Gilbert and Sullivan concerning a business arrangement with Carte terminated their collaboration. Thereafter neither of them produced anything to equal their joint works.

Bibliography: See Gilbert's collected poems and plays (1947); his life and letters by S. Dark and R. Grey (1923, repr. 1972); study by H. Pearson (1957); bibliography by T. Searle (1931, repr. 1967); L. Ayre, The Gilbert and Sullivan Companion (1972).

Gilbert, Sir William Schwenck (1836–1911), English dramatist, whose name is always associated with that of Sir Arthur Sullivan, for whose music he wrote the libretti of the Savoy operas. Their collaboration began with Thespis; or, The Gods Grown Old (1871), and lasted for over 20 years, ending with The Grand Duke (1896), though The Gondoliers (1889) was the last of those which still hold the stage. The others are: The Sorcerer (1877), HMS Pinafore (1878), The Pirates of Penzance (1880), Patience (1881), Iolanthe (1882), Princess Ida (1884), The Mikado (1885), Ruddigore (1887), and The Yeoman of the Guard (1888). Utopia Limited (1893) was never revived. Gilbert wrote libretti for other composers but without success, just as Sullivan wrote music for other librettists but failed to recapture the brilliance of the Savoy operas. Yet their partnership was not a happy one, Gilbert being a man of irascible temperament and a martinet at rehearsals. He was already known as a dramatist before joining forces with Sullivan, having been encouraged by T. W. Robertson to write for the stage. His early works were mainly burlesques and extravaganzas, the first being Dulcamara; or, The Little Duck and the Great Quack (1866). Of his more serious plays the most successful were The Palace of Truth (1870), Pygmalion and Galatea (1871), Dan'l Druce, Blacksmith (1876), whose title-role was long a favourite with character actors, and Engaged (1877). He continued writing almost up to his death, but of all his works only the librettos for Sullivan have survived.

Gilbert, Sir William Schwenck (1836–1911), began in 1861 contributing regular columns of comic verse, with his own illustrations, to the magazine Fun; this was the beginning of the Bab Ballads (collected in 1869). In these he showed his ingenious metrical skill and sketched out his fantasy world, turning the odd into the ordinary, calling it ‘Topsy-Turvydom’. The ballads became the favourite literature of sailors, soldiers, lawyers, doctors, and other non-literary people, though Gilbert had a low opinion of his ballads: ‘I am a doggerel bard’, runs the refrain in one of them. Encouraged by T. W. Robertson he produced his first dramatic work, Dulcamara (1866), a burlesque based on Donizetti's opera L'elisir d'amore. His second period, which began with The Palace of Truth (1870), a poetical fantasy, included the verse plays Pygmalion and Galatea (1871); The Wicked World (1873) and a burlesque version, The Happy Land (1873), in collaboration with Gilbert Arthur À Beckett; and The Princess (1870), a ‘respectful perversion’ of Tennyson's poem. Gilbert was a great verbal rhythmist and in his third period he found his true genius in comic opera. He met Sullivan in 1869 and in 1874 D'Oyly Carte. For him Gilbert and Sullivan wrote Trial by Jury (1875), which began the series of light operas which was permanently to link the names of Gilbert and Sullivan (see Gilbert and Sullivan operas). D'Oyly Carte built the Savoy Theatre especially for the D'Oyly Carte company. The collaboration lasted for over 20 years, though after The Gondoliers (1889) there was a rift resulting from a business transaction in which Sullivan sided with D'Oyly Carte. Utopia, Limited (1893) healed the breach. Gilbert continued writing plays and operas without Sullivan; among them Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (1891), Fallen Fairies (1909), and The Hooligans (1911). He was knighted in 1907. He used the profits from his plays to build the Garrick Theatre.