Zapolya (play)

The play is manifestly influenced by Shakespeare's "romances", in particular the tragicomedies The Winter's Tale and Cymbeline; Coleridge introduced the play as a 'dramatic poem... in humble imitation of the Winter's Tale'.^[1] Both Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale are concerned with usurpation and both feature the raising of rightful heirs in wild or pastoral environments.^[4] Coleridge probably used William Coxe's History of the House of Austria and Carolus Franciscus Palma's Notitia rerum Hungaricarum as historical sources for the setting of the play. Zapolya's character of Pestalutz, an assassin in the employ of Emerick, derives his name and profession from Schiller's Death of Wallenstein.^[5]

A reviewer of Dibdin's production in 1816 wrote that Zapolya was "of too serious a cast for the frequenters of this Theatre, and were we not fearful of giving offence we should say too good, at any rate we may be allowed to pronounce it too poetical".^[6]

• Erving, George, ‘Coleridge as Playwright’ in Frederick Burwick (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Oxford: OUP, 2009), pp.392-411
• Mays, J. C. C. (ed.), Coleridge Collected Works vol. 16: Poetical Works vol 3, part 2 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001)