Table Of ContentDisguise on the
early MoDern english stage
Disguise devices figure in many early modern English plays, and an examination
of them clearly affords an important reflection on the growth of early theatre as
well as on important aspects of the developing nation. In this study Peter Hyland
considers a range of practical issues related to the performance of disguise.
He goes on to examine various conceptual issues that provide a background to
theatrical disguise (the relation of self and “other”, the meaning of mask and
performance). He looks at many disguise plays under three broad headings. He
considers moral issues (the almost universal association of disguise with “evil”);
social issues (sumptuary legislation, clothing, and the theatre, and constructions of
class, gender and national or racial identity); and aesthetic issues (disguise as an
emblem of theatre, and the significance of disguise for the dramatic artist). The
study serves to examine the significant ways in which disguise devices have been
used in early modern drama in England.
Peter Hyland is Professor of Early Modern Literature and Drama, at Huron
University College, The University of Western Ontario, Canada.
Studies in Performance and
Early Modern Drama
General Editor’s Preface
Helen Ostovich, McMaster University
Performance assumes a string of creative, analytical, and collaborative acts that, in defiance
of theatrical ephemerality, live on through records, manuscripts, and printed books. The
monographs and essay collections in this series offer original research which addresses
theatre histories and performance histories in the context of the sixteenth and seventeenth
century life. Of especial interest are studies in which women’s activities are a central feature
of discussion as financial or technical supporters (patrons, musicians, dancers, seamstresses,
wigmakers, or ‘gatherers’), if not authors or performers per se. Welcome too are critiques of
early modern drama that not only take into account the production values of the plays, but
also speculate on how intellectual advances or popular culture affect the theatre.
The series logo, selected by my colleague Mary V. Silcox, derives from Thomas
Combe’s duodecimo volume, The Theater of Fine Devices (London, 1592), Emblem
VI, sig. B. The emblem of four masks has a verse which makes claims for the increasing
complexity of early modern experience, a complexity that makes interpretation difficult.
Hence the corresponding perhaps uneasy rise in sophistication:
Masks will be more hereafter in request,
And grow more deare than they did heretofore.
No longer simply signs of performance “in play and jest”, the mask has become the “double
face” worn “in earnest” even by “the best” of people, in order to manipulate or profit from
the world around them. The books stamped with this design attempt to understand the
complications of performance produced on stage and interpreted by the audience, whose
experiences outside the theatre may reflect the emblem’s argument:
Most men do use some colour’d shift
For to conceal their craftie drift.
Centuries after their first presentations, the possible performance choices and meanings
they engender still stir the imaginations of actors, audiences, and readers of early plays. The
products of scholarly creativity in this series, I hope, will also stir imaginations to new ways
of thinking about performance.
Disguise on the
Early Modern English Stage
PETEr HyLAND
University of Western Ontario, Canada
First published 2011 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © 2011 Peter Hyland
Peter Hyland has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to
be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only
for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Hyland, Peter, 1943-
Disguise on the early modern English stage. -- (Studies in
performance and early modern drama)
1. Disguise in literature. 2. Appearance (Philosophy) in
literature. 3. English drama--Early modern and
Elizabethan, 1500-1600--History and criticism.
4. Theater--England--History--16th century. 5. Theater
and society--England--History--16th century.
I. Title II. Series
822.3'09384-dc22
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hyland, Peter, 1943-
Disguise on the early modern English stage / Peter Hyland.
p. cm. -- (Studies in performance and early modern drama)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7546-4152-0 (hardback) 1. Theater--England--History--16th century. 2.
Theater--England--History--17th century. 3. Disguise--England--History. 4. Costume--
England--History. I. Title.
PN2590.D58H95 2011
792.02'6--dc22
2010052535
ISBN 9780754641520 (hbk)
ISBN 9781315577562 (ebk)
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Bibliographical Note ix
Introduction 1
1 Disguise on the Early Modern Stage 15
2 The Performance of Disguise 37
3 “’Tis I”: Revelations 53
4 Disguise and Genre 69
5 Disguise as Metatheatre 91
6 The Reception of Disguise 111
7 “Now am I most like my self ”: Disguise and Identity 131
Bibliography 153
Index 165
For Theresa, who does all the real work.
Acknowledgements
I have been interested in the employment of disguise on the early English stage
for many years, and over that time I have published a number of essays on the
subject. Inevitably, my view of some of the material has changed since I started
work on it. Portions of this book, some in quite different form, have appeared
in Ariel, AUMLA, Early Theatre, Research Opportunities in Medieval and
Renaissance Drama, Shakespeare Bulletin, Southern Review, and University of
Toronto Quarterly.
This page has been left blank intentionally
Bibliographical Note
Many of the plays that feature in this study do not exist in modernized texts. For
the sake of consistency I have, where possible, used recent modernized texts, and
in all other cases of old texts I have modernized the spelling.
Citation of texts is unfortunately an area in which consistency has not been
possible. Modern editions generally use conventional act/scene/line numbering, as
do some older ones. Some editions, especially from the nineteenth century, number
lines throughout the text (that is, not starting again at one for each new scene); and
some do not number them at all. Original early modern texts themselves differ, but
in most cases lines can only be located by page signature numbers. The best I have
been able to do is to identify quotations in whatever way offers the most accurate
means for the reader to identify their original location.
For the dates of the first staging of early modern plays I have used Alfred
Harbage, Annals of English Drama, 975–1700, revised by S. Schoenbaum.
London: Methuen, 1964.
