Summary: Past Foreign [Yeomen]
Assignment 1 – Chapter Summary by Jimmy Stevens
- Williams, Carolyn. “The Past Is a Foreign Country: The Yeomen of the Guard.” Chapter 11 (pp. 294-311) in Gilbert and Sullivan: Gender, Genre, Parody. Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 2008.
Gilbert and Sullivan’s Yeomen of the Guard, or The Merryman and his Maid (1888) was perhaps the closest the duo came to creating a serious opera. The story revolves around a melodramatic romantic web, in which Phoebe is in love with condemned Colonel Fairfax, and conspires to free him. Meanwhile, Jack Point and Elsie, two travelling jesters, appear in town. Elsie is drafted to become Fairfax’s wife before he is to be executed. After a series of prison escapes and changing situations, the opera concludes with both the likely and the unlikely couples marrying but leaving Jack heartbroken.
Yeomen is one of the duo’s most interesting operas, as it contains several elements that are unique within the Gilbert and Sullivan canon. One of the most striking examples is the prominence of nostalgia (it is set in 16th-century England) rather than parody in the plot. Williams examines nostalgia within the plot by discussing the “Merrie Olde England” trope that appears throughout this historical setting, with elements of wandering jesters and the stylized speech that resembled Shakespearean dialogue. Nostalgic elements within the music also appeared, with old English musical styles making appearances in the score, such as the “Strange adventure” unaccompanied madrigal and the archaic scoring of the introduction to Jack Point’s “I ‘ve jibe and joke.”
While nostalgic elements are prominently featured throughout the opera, both Gilbert and Sullivan used many modern artistic conventions to provide the opera with a more serious tone. Gilbert’s borrowing from both past and contemporary British literary giants are seen throughout the plot, with the character of Jack Point bearing a strong resemblance to many of the jesters in Shakespearean plays, and with jailor Wilfred Shadbolt bearing a strong resemblance to Quilp in Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop (1841).
Another curiosity of Yeomen is its break from the traditions of the previous Savoy operas. Noticeably absent are the oppositional gender choruses that were staples in many other Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Only in Act II when the women briefly chide the guardsmen for allowing Fairfax to escape does the male vs. female element appear. Rather, the chorus is divided into an all-male Guardsmen chorus, and a standard SATB chorus of Townspeople. Likewise, parody does not form a prominent element of the plot structure. While comedic elements do appear throughout, they never supersede the overarching dramatic tone of the opera, and the comedy is more situational rather than representative.
Sources:
Williams cites several primary sources, such as Dickens novels and Shakespeare plays, to compare the libretto with other works of literature, as well as reviews from the premiere of the opera.