Editing Playwright (section)

== Etymology ==
The word "play" is from Middle English {{Lang|enm|pleye}}, from Old English {{Lang|ang|plæġ, pleġa, plæġa}} ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause").<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-04-28 |title=Definition of PLAY |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/play |access-date=2024-04-29 |website=www.merriam-webster.com |language=en |archive-date=2024-05-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240527172354/https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/play |url-status=live }}</ref> The word ''[[wikt:wright|wright]]'' is an archaic English term for a [[Artisan|craftsperson]] or builder (as in a [[wheelwright]] or [[Wagon|cartwright]]).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Definition of WRIGHT |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wright |access-date=2024-04-29 |website=www.merriam-webster.com |language=en |archive-date=2024-05-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240527172337/https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wright |url-status=live }}</ref> The words combine to indicate a person who has "wrought" words, themes, and other elements into a dramatic form — a play. (The [[homophone]] with "write" is coincidental.)

The first recorded use of the term "playwright" is from 1605,<ref>{{cite web |title=Definition of playwright |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/playwright |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180117102704/https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/playwright |archive-date=17 January 2018 |access-date=27 April 2018 |website=[[Merriam-Webster]]}}</ref> 73 years before the first written record of the term "dramatist".<ref>{{cite web |title=Definition of dramatist |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dramatist |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180127083801/https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dramatist |archive-date=27 January 2018 |access-date=27 April 2018 |website=Merriam-Webster}}</ref> It appears to have been first used in a pejorative sense by [[Ben Jonson]]<ref>{{cite web |date=2003-08-10 |title=Jonson, Ben, ''The Works of Ben Jonson'', Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Co., 1853. page 788 |url=http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/jonson/epigram49.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120712214209/http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/jonson/epigram49.htm |archive-date=2012-07-12 |access-date=2012-04-23 |publisher=Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature}}</ref> to suggest a mere tradesman fashioning works for the theatre.

Jonson uses the word in his Epigram 49, which is thought to refer to [[John Marston (playwright)|John Marston]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Allen |first=Morse S. |title=The satire of John Marston |publisher=The F. J. Heer Printing Co. |year=1920 |location=Columbis, Ohio |pages=75}}</ref> or [[Thomas Dekker (writer)|Thomas Dekker]]:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jonson |first=Ben |title=The poems of Ben Jonson |last2=Cain |first2=Thomas Grant Stevens |last3=Connolly |first3=Ruth |date=2022 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-315-69619-5 |series=Longman annotated English poets |location=Abingdon, Oxon New York |pages=42}}</ref>

:''Epigram XLIX — On Playwright''
:PLAYWRIGHT me reads, and still my verses damns,
:He says I want the tongue of epigrams ;
:I have no salt, no bawdry he doth mean ;
:For witty, in his language, is obscene.
:Playwright, I loath to have thy manners known
:In my chaste book ; I profess them in thine own.

Jonson described himself as a poet, not a playwright, since plays during that time were written in meter and so were regarded as the province of poets. This view was held as late as the early 19th century. The term "playwright" later again lost this negative connotation.