Chrononhotonthologos facts for kids
Chrononhotonthologos is a funny play from 1734 written by an English poet named Henry Carey. It's a satirical play, which means it makes fun of things. Some people thought it was just silly nonsense, but at the time, many saw it as a clever way to make fun of important people like Robert Walpole, who was a powerful politician, and Queen Caroline, the wife of King George II.
The play is quite short when you read it. It was made to be performed on stage with lots of songs and special effects. The story is about King Chrononhotonthologos and Queen Fadladinida, who rule a place called Queerummania. They face an invasion from the Antipodeans, who are strange people from the other side of the world who walk on their hands! The king bravely defeats the entire Antipodean army, leaving only their king, who is taken prisoner.
The Queen sees the captured king and falls in love with him. She feels sad because her own marriage to Chrononhotonthologos isn't what she hoped for. She wishes for a change in her life. Meanwhile, King Chrononhotonthologos is in his camp. He gets very angry about a piece of pork, slaps his general, and is then killed by the furious general. The general causes a lot of chaos. The Queen becomes a widow and is free to marry the king's courtiers. When the two courtiers argue over who she prefers, she decides to find a different way to reward them each night. The play ends with everyone seemingly happy.
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What is a Parody Play?
This play is a parody, which means it makes fun of other types of plays, especially operas and big, fancy stage shows. It does this by exaggerating everything.
Making Fun of Stage Shows
Imagine people who walk on their hands and have their heads where their middles should be! That's how the Antipodeans are shown. They march onto the stage in funny columns, standing on top of each other. The captured Antipodean king, who doesn't say anything, was probably a special effect himself. There are also many dances in the play that don't seem to have a reason; they are just there for the audience to enjoy the spectacle.
Silly Plots and Characters
The play makes fun of how silly some opera stories can be, and also the strange habits of serious plays called tragedies. Carey makes the "feared enemy" the ridiculous Antipodeans. The characters also use very repetitive and over-the-top language, just like in some tragedies.
For example, when King Chrononhotonthologos visits his general, Bombardinian, after destroying the enemy army, the general dramatically orders:
- "Traverse from Pole to Pole; sail round the World,
- Bring every Eatable that can be eat:
- The King shall eat, tho' all Mankind be starv'd."
But then he quickly says they only have pork! The King gets so offended by the pork that he slaps the general. The general, feeling insulted, stabs the king. When the general regrets killing the king, he shouts, in a funny imitation of another play:
- "Go, call a Coach, and let a Coach be call'd,
- And let the Man that calls it be the Caller;
- And, in his calling, let him nothing call,
- But Coach! Coach! Coach! O for a Coach ye Gods!"
The names of the characters are also part of the joke. They are long, silly tongue twisters like Chrononhotonthologos and Aldiborontiphoscofornio. These names sound like the fancy, foreign names used in serious operas and tragedies of the time, but they are just nonsense.
The characters themselves are exaggerated. The king is so important that he thinks his eyes alone can destroy an army. The queen orders the sky and stars around. The general demands that the whole world be conquered just so the king can have a meal. This extreme exaggeration makes fun of the unbelievable characters often found in operas. While these jokes are entertaining, they also hide a deeper political message.
Political Jokes in the Play
Henry Carey was a Tory, which means he was against the powerful politician Robert Walpole. Carey was friends with other writers who also opposed Walpole, like Alexander Pope.
Making Fun of Politicians
In 1728, a play called The Beggar's Opera by John Gay became very popular because it made fun of both Robert Walpole and opera. But when Gay wrote a follow-up play, Walpole stopped it from being performed. This made other writers, including Henry Carey, create new plays to satirize Walpole. Chrononhotonthologos was one of these.
Carey's play was even more daring in its political jokes than Gay's or Henry Fielding's Tom Thumb. Tom Thumb (1732) made fun of opera plots and Walpole by having a queen fall in love with a silly character in a made-up kingdom. But Carey went further. In his play, the Queen falls in love with a ridiculous character and then leaves with two other characters, while the king dies because of his own pride.
Hidden Messages About Royalty
The play also has hidden jokes about real-life events involving Queen Caroline and King George II. In the 1720s, George II, when he was still a prince, often disagreed with his father, King George I. The prince sided with the Tory party, while his father supported Robert Walpole.
When George II became king, Queen Caroline was the one who pushed for Robert Walpole to stay in power. This upset many of Gay's friends and admirers, including Henry Carey, who felt it was a betrayal.
Even though these political jokes might not be obvious to people watching the play today, they were a big reason for the play's success back then. The silly language and the jokes about opera were fun, but the hidden political satire added another layer of enjoyment.
Why This Play is Important
Chrononhotonthologos is a key play in the history of English nonsense verse. Carey's play uses words just for their sound, which is part of the fun. Like other nonsense writing, it makes fun of very serious types of literature. The humor comes from the silly words fitting into the structure of a serious play, suggesting that even the usual serious words might not mean much. Later writers, like Edward Lear, who wrote famous nonsense poems, looked up to Carey as an early example. The characters' names, like Aldiborontiphoscofornio, even appeared in later works and games.
This play is also one of the first examples of a parody opera. While other plays like The Dragon of Wantley were more fully operas, Chrononhotonthologos was a big, spectacular show that also exaggerated other spectacular shows. Before this, some theaters would put on funny versions of plays they couldn't afford to stage with special effects. But Carey's play didn't just attack one rival; it made fun of an entire style of theater.
Finally, in the context of plays from the 1700s, Carey's play helped lead to the Licensing Act of 1737. This law meant that theaters would be officially censored by the government. After the success of plays like Tom Thumb and Chrononhotonthologos, theaters started putting on plays that attacked the government more and more fiercely. These satires were getting dangerously close to directly criticizing the king and queen.
See also
- Augustan drama
- Augustan literature
Images for kids
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An 1818 playbill from Nova Scotia for a performance of Chrononhotonthologos and other "old" plays
