The Fair Penitent is Nicholas Rowe's stage adaptation of the tragedy The Fatal Dowry, the Philip Massinger and Nathan Field collaboration first published in 1632. Rowe's adaptation, premiered onstage in 1702 and first published in 1703, was a great popular success through much of the 18th century, and was praised by critics as demanding as Samuel Johnson .In making his adaptation, Rowe eliminated characters and simplified the action "to create a more focused play than the original." He pursued "neoclassical simplicity" but in the process sacrificed the "underlying moral principles" of the original. Rowe shifted the setting from Dijon to Genoa, and changed the main characters' names:
“At length the morn and cold indifference came.”
Nicholas Rowe The Fair Penitent
Act i, scene 1. Compare: "But with the morning cool reflection came", Sir Walter Scott, Chronicles of the Canongate, chap. iv. Scott also quotes this in his notes to "The Monastery", chapter iii, note 11; and with "calm" substituted for "cool" in "The Antiquary", chapter v.; and with "repentance" for "reflection" in "Rob Roy", chapter xii.
The Fair Penitent (1703)
“Is this that haughty gallant, gay Lothario?”
Nicholas Rowe The Fair Penitent
Act v, scene 1.
The Fair Penitent (1703)
“As if Misfortune made the throne her seat,
And none could be unhappy but the great.”
Nicholas Rowe The Fair Penitent
Prologue. Compare: "None think the great unhappy, but the great", Edward Young, The Love of Fame, satire 1, line 238.
The Fair Penitent (1703)
“Is she not more than painting can express,
Or youthful poets fancy when they love?”
Nicholas Rowe The Fair Penitent
Act iii, scene 1.
The Fair Penitent (1703)
