Players and Bear-baiting and More (oh my)

Now that we know all about sex and marriage in "A Chaste Maid in Cheapside," lets look at some of the historical context behind this play and its place in London in the early 17th century and on the stage. Some interesting things to consider:

Middleton has been called a "realist" by some critics. Most the other city comedies that we've read have been dismissed as too unrealistic/ridiculous. What would you consider to be the realistic elements of this play (justifying these critics) in London 1613(ish)? [if you think that such critics are talking nonsense, why do you think "Chaste Maid.." is inaccurate]

• How about in a modern portrayal?
• Thinking on that, how might compare instances in this play to similar ones in the modern reality (ex. menage-a-trois, cultural capitol acquisition, jabs at education) In what cases are these considered "socially acceptable?"

Something interesting to notice, the resolution of this play disbands the wittoling/cuckoldry of the Allwits & Whorehound, but has planted the seeds for another to grow between Touchwood Senior & the Kixes. Might Middleton be suggesting something about society in London as a breeding ground for infidelity and blind-eyes? Do we see this new triangle following the path of the one that has just collapsed (to the benefit of the Allwits and demise of Whorehound)?

I will save most of the staging concepts and theatrical elements for class discussion, but (without looking it up) consider what sort of theatre might be ideal for this performance and why. After pondering that, for class, have a look at the image (given in class on Tuesday) of The Swan Theatre. Think about what a stage house like this means for the players and the audience (where are they located in relation to each other). Consider moments in the play where Middleton inserts an "aside" - comments directed at the audience which the other characters cannot hear. Note particularly moments that might be particularly comical when an aside is somehow heard by another character (ex. see 1.1.104-107 [Sir Walter. Here you must pass for... you mumble, Davy.], 1.1.128-132[Yellowhammer. Bless us all!... cannot see the top of 'em.] - my lines are slightly different from the anthology, apologies) Think about what this does in the performance: a character delivers a side comment to the audience and his peer alerts him to having perceived such a comment. How might asides be taken differently depending on the sort of stage house used?

Familiar Patterns and New Insights in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside

A Chaste Maid in Cheapside follows many of the patterns that we have come to recognize as characteristic of renaissance comedy. Another city comedy, the play shows us more of the hustle-bustle of London. The play boasts a shopkeeping father, in this case a goldsmith, who wants his daughter to marry a well-to-do gentlemen. She of course, is in love with the “less worthy” Touchwood. Characters like “Whorehound” and “Touchwood” have names that are as literally descriptive as those that we have seen in the Alchemist and the play comments on religion with the appearance of puritans, and presents corrupt mass promoters that again match the Alchemist’ Puritan “collectors”. All ends of the play seem to tie up neatly as the characters launch into celebration at the end of the play.
The play, however, provides new insight on the institution of marriage that has been only slightly touched upon in the previous comedies that we have read. Chaste Maid uses three marriages and two betrothals to show us the dynamic and sometimes corrupt nature of marriage. Perhaps the most fascinating of the relationships is the twisted triangle between Allwit, his wife, and Whorehound. Sir Walter Whorehound has taken Mrs. Allwit as his mistress, and to his delight, this leaves the lazy Allwit, a “cuckold” with no responsibility. He says of Whorehound that, “He’s maintained my house this ten years; not only keeps my wife but’ a keeps me and all my family. I am at his table; he gets me all my children; puts me to nothing”( 1.2.16 ) In speaking to Yellowhammer, Allwit relates his marriage to a sort of business deal a way to make a “ living as other trades thrive, butchers by selling flesh, poulters by venting conies” (4.1.236). In this instance, marriage is manipulated to turn a profit. This corruption seems bizarrely acceptable. When Yellowhammer is told that his daughter’s betrothed is having an affair with a married woman, he admits to that he has “kept a whore (himself), and had a bastard” (4.1.268), so as if this practice is “normal”, and almost dear to him, he will allow the marriage to proceed.
We then have two opposing couples, one that is unable to reproduce and one that is “too” fertile and must separate. The Touchwoods must remove themselves from the passion that has brought them so many children. Their plight has brought Touchwood Sr. to understand that, the “feast of marriage is not lust, but love and care of the estate”. The Kix’s seem to think passion must be more necessary than love. The two who cannot get pregnant, bicker and quarl about their situation. Their fighting leads them to compare marriage to death in saying that, “marriage and hanging go by destiny”(3.3.59). Ironically, infidelity brings about an answer to the couples’ problems, as Touchwood impregnates Lady Kix. In light of these relationships, the Welsh (who is betrothed to Tim) is not very believable in her assertion that “Sir if your logic cannot prove me honest, there’s a thing called marriage, and that makes me honest” (5.4.115). For the play has depicted the institution of marriage as anything but honest. These dynamic relationships may help us to further understand the theater’s portrayal of social and familial roles at the time.

Aside from the play’s commentary on relationships, the play provides us with a bunch of juicy new “tid-bits” for discussion. We can think about some of these questions for Tuesdays class:

• This is the first time we have seen “gossips.” What role do these peculiar characters take on in the play? Do they provide actual insight into the corruption that they try to sniff out?
• We hear a lot about the hoity-toity nature of Tim as a “Cambridge man”. He is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and tries to impress people by babbling in Latin. At one point he says obnoxiously, “Come I from Cambridge, and offer me six plums?” Is the play mocking higher education or just those who consider themselves above the less educated?
• This play ends, as do Shoemaker and Knight of the Burning Pestle, in celebration. Yellowhammer exclaims, “So fortune seldom deals two marriages with one hand, and both lucky. The best is, one feast will serve them both” 5.4.125. What can we say about the way in which these complicated plays are summed up by jovial gatherings? Is this a necessary aspect of a comedy, or is it a cop-out, a way of maintaining a “comedic stance”, sending audiences dancing out of the theater after being exposed to some serious issues.

The Citizen and his Wife are some very odd ducks...

Why would Beaumont choose to include them in such a strong and mocking fashion? There are times when the two of them are attempting to crack witty jokes between every line of 'The London Merchant,' a city comedy doomed to fail from the beginning of their involvement in its plot. We've discussed them in some detail in Tuesday's class, and with Nate Leonard, graduate student in Renaissance drama at UMass, attending Thursday's class to go over staging and audience culture in Blackfriars during this time, we'll be talking about them a lot more. (Sorry to those of you who find them obnoxious!)

These characters are guiding forces that manipulate the audience into following what Beaumont intended to be felt through the play. Nell has difficulty separating the players from their characters. This is shown through her obvious favoritism to Humphrey: "didst thou ever see a prettier child?" This and other mistakes she and her husband make gives us the idea that they are first-time theater-goers and blind to the culture of such plays. We had mentioned that this lent a feeling that audiences would come away more cultured and educated after attending such plays, but mainly it is meant to give the audience an idea of what they should NOT be thinking about the play. The Citizen and his Wife have views entirely opposite to what should be taken: Jasper should be favored over Humphrey, Mistress Merrythought and Michael should be thought of as irritatingly sober fools rather than protaganists, and the boy players should be given a bit more credit for making this entire thing up as they go along. By creating obnoxiously ignorant characters unafraid to speak their mind, Beaumont has effectively used a kind of reverse psychology to control how the audience thinks of characters and plots within this play.

A few questions to keep in mind:

• Who is the target audience of this play? Citizens such as this grocer, or higher class citizens? How would this affect the reaction of the audience?
  
• How would the Blackfriars theatre change the audiences' experience of this play? The Blackfriars is much like the Cockpit or the Phoenix in it's layout (refer to your handout of Inigo Jones' diagram of the theatre.) An indoor 'private' theatre lit entirely by candlelight may provide an entirely different feel than an outdoor naturally lit one. Could the effects of the lighting and the sense of privacy change the audience's experience?
  
• Most importantly, how is the city comedy of 'The London Merchant' similar to Dekker's 'The Shoemaker's Holiday?' What perspective does each take on city life, class, and mercantilism? How do the two plays differ and how are they alike?

I look forward to hearing your answers to these questions in class, and feel free to ask any staging or dramatic questions of Nate as they come to you!

How the Puritans are portrayed in "The Alchemist" in Relation to Their Place in Society at the Time

As we discussed on Tuesday, there is definite tension between the Puritan characters in "The Alchemist" and Face and Subtle. Subtle and Face treat Ananias inhumanely and unfairly, and Face is not punished for his fraud of cruelty at the end of the play. Moreover, Jonson clearly shows his dislike towards Puritans in many instances in the play. For example, Puritans are portrayed as only "deal[ing] justly" (2.5.58)  with other Puritans, highlighting an irony in the Puritan faith, as they claim to be "faithful Brother[s]" (2.5.7), but in "The Alchemist," they are unfaithful by participating in Alchemy.

In Jean Howard's "The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England," he discusses the tension between Puritans and the theater. He states that, "Written in 1577 by a nonconformist preacher with Puritan learnings, this tract constructs the theater as one of an ensemble of institutions and practices destroying the religious and social fabric of England. Northbrooke [the preacher], stages the tract as a dialogue between an old man coming from church and a young man who has missed services because of his dedication to the life of idle pastimes, the worst of which are playing, dicing, and facing... For a time, at least, the church and the theater were posited as symbolically opposed places."

This passage made me think of our discussion on Tuesday about "The Alchemist" representing England itself, and how the tension between theater, and Jonson himself, and the puritans, is clearly portrayed, just as it existed in England at the time. 

Week Eight: What's in a Name?

All of the characters in Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist have what might be considered odd names. Each individual listed in the play’s dramatis personae seems to be named after the personality trait that best characterizes him or her and bears some correlation to his or her particular role in the play.

As an example, let us examine Sir Epicure Mammon. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “epicure” refers to an individual “who gives himself up to sensual pleasure” or “is choice and dainty in eating and drinking” (OED), and “mammon” means an “inordinate desire for wealth or possessions, personified as a devil or demonic agent” (OED). In the play, the character Mammon comes across as a very covetous fellow whose purpose in visiting Subtle (whom he believes to be an alchemist) is to transform what he owns into something far more valuable in an effort to satiate his cupidity: “This night I’ll change/ All that is metal in my house to gold” (Alchemist II.i.29-30).

Jonson may have used this unique technique as a vehicle for depersonalization. In a sense, the names of the characters in the play do not refer to specific individuals, but rather to general characterizations of the various types of people one might encounter in the London of Jonson’s day. The play, therefore, is not as much an analysis of one particular group of knaves and their deceitfulness as it is a commentary on the behaviors of the diverse occupants of Renaissance London. Essentially, Jonson’s play serves to scrutinize a society. Do you agree or disagree with this assertion? If you agree with it, how might this sense of depersonalization differentiate the London of Jonson from that of Thomas Dekker in The Shoemaker’s Holiday?

Our wills and fates

In his lectures on Shakespearean Tragedy, A.C. Bradley declares that Hamlet is "a man who at any other time and in any other circumstances than those presented would have been perfectly equal to his task" (93-94). The task referred to is, of course, the one the ghost of his father has assigned to him--to kill his uncle Claudius. For some reason, Hamlet is unable to complete his task until the last possible moment. Bradley notes that Hamlet assumes he can obey the ghost at any time, and does not need reassurance; he could easily raise the people against the King, because Laertes has absolutely no trouble doing so; the play-within-the-play is to convince himself of Claudius's guilt; and finally, Hamlet has no specific plot or plan to actually kill Claudius (84). Considering these facts about Hamlet's situation, what do you think is the cause of Hamlet's delay?

In addition to his delay, Hamlet's will is equally important to the action of his play; for as much as Hamlet does not do, we are that much more intrigued by what he does do. He puts on an antic disposition for Ophelia's sake (II. i.); he requests first a speech about the murder of Priam, and then "The Murder of Gonzago" to be played before his uncle (II. ii.); he kills Polonius (III. iv); he manages to exact the execution of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern once they arrive in England (V. ii.). And yet, in the last scene, as if he has decided to resign from pulling the strings of the puppets who inhabit his play, we hear him say things like "Let be" (V. ii. 223), and "Let it be" (V. ii. 359). But since the last thing he does is kill Claudius, what can we infer about the state of Hamlet's will in the end? What is Shakespeare saying by contrasting Hamlet's will with his delay? What does this do to our impression of Hamlet as a character? How do other characters highlight Shakespeare's theme of will versus fate?

The World of London

The Shoemaker’s Holiday takes place in a very bustling and cosmopolitan London. As Professor Deutermann stated, the population of the City roughly quadrupled during the era that the play was written. The surge in population was no doubt a major boon for culture and commerce within the city yet I feel it also minimized the importance of the individual. Guilds, partnerships, and the like became the new smallest functional unit of society at least within the bourgeois classes. Collaboration replaced the individualism of life in small towns and villages. The individual became insignificant in the midst of multitudes of people, ceased to be pragmatically productive as a result, and quickly faded into irrelevance, if not saved by others. In short, Jane is a victim of the alienation that comes with the urban landscape. Scene 4 in Act the Third tells how Jane has, after leaving the shoemaking shop, vanished into London: “Marge: And So, indeed, we heard not of her, but I hear/she lives in London; but let that pass. “


Similarly, the urban landscape promoted a sense of worldly alienation. Events outside of the city are largely disregarded as happenings on the fringe. In a world inexperienced for the most part with metropolises and lacking any sort of communicative technology, I can only think it natural that the city would become one’s world. The city brought together various people, diplomats, and merchants from all over and was in a sense a microcosmic world that did indeed take precedence over the world at large for city dwellers such as Simon Eyre, his band, and even the King who seemingly disregards the war until the final two lines of the play. In this respect, one would think Ralph is very much the outsider, having survived the war in France though returning home crippled. However, Ralph, despite his wounds, is very quickly reabsorbed into typical bourgeois life by the City and its occurrences, further, the characters closest to Ralph make only slight inquiries about Ralph’s wounds, almost developing a stigma towards them due to their origins “outside of their world”, so to speak.


The City and its society is all important in the play, and though comedic at times, it illustrates the roll of cities in the time to come and their attractiveness - living in a city provided the means to rise in society, just like Eyre's ascension (however fanciful it was), and loosened the rigidity of a socially stratified society. Ironically, London provided the means to get ahead while simultaneously providing the means to get left behind by both society and the world at large.