John Gay's Polly: Unmasking Pirates and Fortune Hunters in the West Indies
2001; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 34; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/ecs.2001.0041
ISSN1086-315X
Autores Tópico(s)Australian History and Society
ResumoIn December of 1728, John Gay's opera, Polly, was banned from rehearsal by the Lord Chamberlain for being a filthy and libelous work. In his Preface to the opera, Gay protests that he has been accused of "writing immoralities; that [the opera] is filled with slander and calumny against particular great persons, and that Majesty it-self is endeavour'd to be brought into ridicule and contempt" (70). 1 W. E. Schultz speculates that the ban had more to do with "the report of a new play bearing Gay's name" than it did with the content; apparently, Polly followed too closely on the heels of its predecessor, The Beggar's Opera. 2 The ban did not prevent the work from being seen: not only was it printed and sold in April 1729, but by June of the same year, Gay and his publisher had injunctions brought against seventeen printers and booksellers for piracy of the work. Patricia Meyer Spacks argues that "the early history of Pollyis more interesting than the play itself." She believes Gay's opera to be a "failure" because, unlike The Beggar's Opera, which exists as a world where everyone is corrupt, in Polly, "society splits into heroes and villains; there is no doubt at all where one's sympathies are to lie." Polly and the native Indians are the honorable and virtuous characters, and the pirates, "invariably villainous," represent evil. Although she does find limited merit in the characters Ducat and Trapes, Spacks views the opera as being predictable and lacking "ironic perspective . . . throughout"; Polly, she concludes, [End Page 539] "can only be seen as an essentially frivolous and meaningless exercise. . . . There's no use flogging a dead horse, and Polly is a very dead one indeed." 3
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