Radical Comedy in Early Modern England (Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama)

133 Pages·2008·0.96 MB·English

by  Rick Bowers

RADICAL COMEDY IN
EARLY MODERN ENGLAND
Drawing on the generic and mythic strength of comedy and the theories of Bakhtin,
Bergson, and Hobbes, this book identifies the radical nature of early modern English
comedy. The satirical comedic actions that shape the “Shepherds’ Play,” Thomas
Dekker’s pamphlets, and the comic dramas of Marston, Middleton, and Jonson are
all driven, Bowers points out, by an ability to criticize authority, assert plebeian
culture, and insist on the complexity and innovation of human discourse. The texts
examined (including The Jew of Malta, Metamorphosis of Ajax, Antonio and Mellida,
Bartholomew Fair, The Alchemist, and A Chaste Maid in Cheapside) simultaneously
create and employ standard comedic elements. Farce, absurdity, excess, over-the-top
characters, unremitting irony, black humor, toilet humor, and tricksters of all types -
such features and more combine to satirize medical, religious, and political authority
and to implement necessary social change. Written with a narrative ease, Radical
Comedy in Early Modern England shows how comic interventions both describe
and reconfigure prevalent authority in its own time while arguing that, through early
modern comedy, one can observe the changes in social behavior and understandings
characteristic of the Renaissance.
Rick Bowers is Professor of English in the Department of English and Film Studies
at the University of Alberta in Canada.
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.
Radical Comedy in
Early Modern England
Contexts, Cultures, Performances
RICK BOWERS
University of Alberta, Canada
© Rick Bowers 2008
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Rick Bowers has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988,
to be identified as the author of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
Gower House Suite 420
Croft Road 101 Cherry Street
Aldershot Burlington, VT 05401-4405
Hampshire GU11 3HR USA
England
Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Bowers, Rick
Radical comedy in early modern England: contexts, cultures, performances. – (Studies in
performance and early modern drama) 1. English drama – Early modern and Elizabethan,
1500–1600 – History and criticism 2. English drama (Comedy) – History and criticism
3. Satire – England – History and criticism 4. Theater – England – History – 16th century
5. Theater – England – History – 17th century 6. Comic, The, in literature 7. Radicalism
in literature
I. Title
822’.0523’0903
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bowers, Rick.
Radical comedy in early modern England: contexts, cultures, performances / Rick Bowers.
p. cm.—(Studies in performance and early modern drama)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7546-6380-5 (alk. paper)
1. English drama—Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500–1600—History and criticism.
2. English drama (Comedy)—History and criticism. 3. Satire, English—History and criticism.
4. Theater—England—History—16th century. 5. Theater—England—History—17th century.
6. Comic, The, in literature. 7. Radicalism in literature. I. Title.
PR658.C6B68 2007
822.009–dc22
2007031362
ISBN 978-0-7546-6380-5
Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Figures ix
1 Introduction: Comic Performance 1
2 Enter the Comic Hero: The Performance of Mak in the Second 11
Shepherds’ Play
3 Wrestling with Comic Villainy: Barabas and other “Heels”in 23
The Jew of Malta
4 Grinning and Bearing it:A Plague of Storytelling in 37
The Wonderfull Yeare (1603)
5 Humor in High (and low) Places: Toilet Tales and 51
The Metamorphosis of Ajax
6 Marston’s Absurd Theater: The Antonio Plays 71
7 Sex, Lies, Carnival, and Class: A Chaste Maid in Cheapside 83
8 “Of What Bigness? / Huge”:Ben Jonson’s Supersized Comedy 95
Works Cited 111
Index 119
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Acknowledgments
I am fortunate to know and work with colleagues who combine intellectual rigor with
a rich and varied sense of humor, and to whom I would like to extend my thanks.
Ronald Huebert at Dalhousie University introduced me to many of the texts treated
in this book, becoming a friend as well as mentor. At the University of Alberta, Jim
Mulvihill, Steve Reimer, and David Gay have graced me with friendship, wisdom,
and renovating absurdity for many years. Former students with whom I have laughed
and learned include especially Mathew Martin, Mark Irvine, Molly Foust, Scott
Sharplin, Stephen King, Paul Dyck, and Dale Jacobs.
Collaboration with good friend and fellow Harington fan, Paul S. Smith,
consultant clinical psychologist at County Durham NHS Trust and Newcastle
University, resulted in “Wit, Humor, and Elizabethan Coping: Sir John Harington
and The Metamorphosis of Ajax,” HUMOR: International Journal of Humor
Research 17.3 (July 2004): 93–112, my portion of which, cut and revised, appears
within the argument of this book as Chapter 5. Other chapters have also appeared in
earlier, differently argued forms: Chapter 2 as “Comedy, Carnival and Grace: The
Performance of Mak in the Second Shepherds’ Play,” English Studies in Canada
28.4 (December 2002): 583–602; Chapter 3 as “The Jew of Malta and the World
of Wrestling,” English Studies in Canada 25.2 (June 1999): 137–56; and Chapter
7 as “Comedy, Carnival, and Class: A Chaste Maid in Cheapside,” Early Modern
Literary Studies 8.3 (January 2003): 1–22.
Finally and most importantly, I thank my wife Katherine Moore who continues,
with much good humor, to laugh at my jokes sometimes and always to be my
best critic.
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Figures
5.1 A Harington Toilet, The Metamorphosis of Ajax (1596) G.10364. 67
By permission of The British Library.
5.2 Cambridge Don and Devil, The Metamorphosis of Ajax (1596) 68
G.10364. By permission of The British Library.