ABSTRACT
Iphigenia at Aulis, ‘translated out of Greek into English’ by Jane Lumley,2 has come to light in recent years as the earliest surviving English dramatic text by a woman. Despite pioneering work in the 1980s by Nancy Cotton and Elaine Beilin,3 which drew attention to its existence, the text has been discussed rather briefly by subsequent literary critics and is yet to receive sustained attention. The exact nature and status of the text has proved difficult to determine. It survives in manuscript in a volume,4 which Harold H.Child suggests ‘appears to have served as a commonplace book or rough copy book.’5 The volume also contains Jane Lumley’s Latin translations of Isocrates’ Orations, which she dedicated to her father, Henry Fitzalan, twelfth Earl of Arundel, and it is probable that Iphigenia at Aulis was also intended for him. In attempting to date Lumley’s play, Child opts for the earliest terminal date of 1549/50,6 some time soon after her marriage to John, Baron Lumley. He is careful to remind us that the play, along with her other translations,7 ‘were nevertheless in all probability, still exercises of childhood’,8 and that the text ‘is by no means either literal or complete’.9
