Jane of Hearts

**Jane Morrow,** known better by the handle **Jane of Hearts,** was a Sevician comic playwright and poet from the city of Morosea. Known commonly as the "New Lady of Theatre," she was one of Sevicia's leading playwrights in the seventh century A.S, and is widely credited as one of the pioneers of a more grounded form of satiric comedy in Sevician theatre, called New Comedia, as opposed to the largely absurdist and surrealist works of the fifth and sixth centuries. She was also known for her works of sapphic poetry, published collectively in a book titled *What Dio Cannot See.*

## Background and life

Born in the Sevician capital of Morosea in 609 A.S, Jane was the only child of a fisherman father and a mother who worked selling trinkets and hand-crafted items across the city. She spent the majority of her childhood helping her mother with handicrafts and house chores and quickly developed a fascination for reading, which came from attempting to read signs on the streets where her mother would sell their handmade wares. Noticing this love of reading, her mother saved up and enrolled her in a nearby school for children up to the age of sixteen, where Jane remained until she graduated in the year 625.

Her love of reading grew into a love of writing, and Jane spent the majority of her young adult life between the ages of sixteen and 21 writing plays and composing poetry. Her first major completed work was *Lords of Fish,* a satirical comedy that leant heavily on allegory to draw parallels between the lives of a group of argumentative fishermen and in-fighting among the Sevician nobility, specifically those among the Senate. It proved to be a surprising success, and was originally shown at the Rose Petal Amphitheatre in Morosea for six shows between 630 and 631. Her next four works, written over a year-long period, were each shown consecutively at the Rose Petal to large crowds of spectators. Her influence grew rapidly, and along with fellow playwrights Iophanus and Porsa she was credited with popularising a new and unique form of theatrical comedy which was named New Comedia. Over the next few years, her influence continued to grow exponentially.

## Personal life

In 634, Jane was asked to recite a handful of works of poetry at a dinner organised by leading members of Sevicia's Senate, which with some reluctance she accepted. There she met Cloe of Ida, the newly appointed Imperator of Sevicia. The two shared a mutual love of poetry and literature and began a close friendship that soon became more intimate. Jane's relationship with Cloe of Ida lasted two years, from 634 to 636, and the two maintained contact as friends until Cloe's death in 640 A.S. Jane never married and had no children, though rumours of her private life continued to circulate in Sevician society for decades.

## Later life and death

Jane enjoyed a position as one of Sevicia's leading playwrights and cultural figures for the next 30 years. In 659, she purchased the Rose Petal Amphitheatre, where she had performed her first ever play. She became an important figure once again during the 660s, when her biting, satirical mockeries of war grew in popularity amid the Anaean Wars of 660 to 667, when civil discontent was at its highest. She retired from public life in the early 670s and enjoyed a quiet life away from the public eye in Morosea. In 680, at the age of 71, she passed away in her sleep. A marble monument of her was erected outside the Rose Petal Amphitheatre in her honour, which still remains.

## Writing style and legacy

Jane was credited alongside Iophanus and Porsa as pioneering and popularising a new form of theatre in Sevician society, dubbed New Comedia. In contrast to the theatrical forms of comedy which had come before, many of which relied heavily on absurdist parody, her works focused more on language as humour, and took a less surreal, more grounded approach. A number of innovative features of the typical New Comedia play included:

* **Emphasis on real personalities and topical drama.** The majority of her plays used real figures in Sevician society, either directly as characters or through reference, and focused on relevant topics and issues pertaining to Sevician society in the mid seventh century.
* **Realist theatre.** Notably, beginning with the play *Birds, Bees, Fleas,* actors in Jane's plays never wore individual masks, which up until that point had been a staple of Sevician theatre, both comedic and tragedic.
* **Self-referential monologues.** Jane's plays, like many in New Comedia, featured no chorus or choral features. Instead, characters delivered comic monologues to the audience or to other characters, usually in poetic metre, that would often include references to both the characters themselves and the audience of the play.
* **Self-referential theatre.** A feature in more absurdist works of New Comedia, characters would occasionally mock the art of theatre itself, making themselves and the audience aware of their role in the play and their intentions in doing so.
* **Structural complexity.** New Comedia plays often had little rhyme or reason to their structure, with many either partially or entirely omitting elements such as the prologue, the epilogue, the climax, and (more commonly) choral interludes of any kind.
* **Bawdy humour.** The plays often included a great deal of raunchy jokes and humour, mostly in the form of dialogue and cleverly interwoven references, as opposed to the more farcical physical theatre of Sevicia's older comedies.
* **Realistic costumes.** Unlike much of Sevicia's theatre of comedy, which contained deliberately absurd costumes and slapstick humour, New Comedia focused instead on a more grounded, realistic approach to the presentation of its actors and themes.
* **Tragedy as comedy.** Jane herself was especially known for weaving tragic events and circumstances into her work, often vaguely disguised or passed off as humour, with the goal of making the audience uncomfortable while they laughed.
* **The theatre of politics.** Much of the work of New Comedia, especially that of the 650s and 660s, had a heavy focus on either the direct or allegorical in regards to politics, using a grounded, realistic approach to costuming and staging to emphasise the absurdity of Sevician political life in the seventh century by drawing attention away from the buffoonery of the presentation and instead towards the profundity of the dialogue.

Jane of Hearts' legacy in Sevician society is significant. Her works are considered among the finest ever written and her most popular pieces - *O Sevicia, The Witches of Kaman, and Go All Sons -* are considered seminal plays in Sevician theatrical history. Much of her life and work is examined in *Reality as Fiction: The Plays and Playwrights of New Comedia,* a book written by the Sevician scholar and senator Calas Bride.

## Works

Morrow wrote more than 40 works in her life, including a number of plays and collections of poetry that were never finished. A list of her most popular works:

* *Lords of Fish,* 630 A.S
* *With Rhyme and Reason,* 632 A.S
* *Birds, Bees, Fleas,* 632 A.S
* *Rex,* 633 A.S
* *The Bells of Eagle Palace,* 633 A.S
* *The Founding,* 637 A.S
* *Quiet,* 640 A.S
* *O Sevicia,* 644 A.S
* *Up On Prabitulan Hill,* 649 A.S
* *The Witches of Kaman,* 651 A.S
* *Arnacarum*, 656 A.S
* *Go All Sons,* 663 A.S
* *What Dio Cannot See,* a collection of poetry, published 642 A.S

## See also

Cloe of Ida

Morosea, the capital of Sevicia

New Comedia