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Thomas Deloney’s “The Gentle Craft”

Some scholars on the topic of Dekker’s “The Shoemaker’s Holiday” have argued that the characters in the play are reasonably accurate historical representations of real people in mid-century London, acknowledging the possibility that he could have deliberately chosen names of historical significance. Others disagree, believing instead that if there was influence drawn from anywhere, it was from Thomas Deloney’s “The Gentle Craft”. The pervasiveness of Deloney’s work within Dekker’s is impossible to ignore considering two of the three interwoven plots of “The Shoemaker’s Holiday” are sourced, seemingly directly, from “The Gentle Craft”. The story of Simon Eyre, the shoemaker-become-Lord-Mayor, as well as that of Crispine and Crispianus in Deloney’s work provided direct narrative inspiration for Dekker’s plotlines of Simon Eyre as well as Rose and Lacy. Where Deloney’s story follows the two lovers as they are separated by class and fear, Crispine ultimately disguising himself as a shoemaker, Dekker’s does the same, only adding extra characters to disapprove of the relationship and to add tension.