ABSTRACT
John Fletcher was the dramatist who became The King’s Men’s principal writer after Shakespeare retired in about 1613. In 1610 he published his play The Faithful Shepherdess. Though not a success in the theatre, it heralded a new fashion, followed by Shakespeare himself at the end of his career. Fletcher’s play, like its imitators, features shepherds and shepherdesses engaged in amorous misunderstandings, sometimes comically presented, which nearly lead to tragic conclusions. The happy resolution is effected with the help of magic herbs, a satyr and the god of the river. As the genre developed, the more serious roles were filled by noble characters, but the importance of magic and divine intervention in the plot remained.
