“Plot me no Plots”: The Theatre as Local Pride

In our previous posts on Galatea and AWKK, we discussed the ways those plays complicate our understanding of early modern English constructs of gender, patriarchy and class by holding up to view unexpected kinds of affective relations—romantic, familial, hierarchical (between masters and servants, for instance) etc. As Orlin and Bynum argue, these work of performed fiction give us a new vantage on everyday life in bygone ages. As we work through The Knight of the Burning Pestle, one way of getting past the habitual (and limiting) reading of the play as anti-bourgeois satire is to ponder its tendency to hail the “everyday” world that exists outside of the dramatic plot, and the affection with which it does so.  

The contrast I am after is basically this: while critics tend to chalk up the Citizens’ interruptions of The London Merchant to Beaumont’s disdain for his audience’s tastes, we shouldn’t overlook the way that these moments celebrate the everyday life of average Londoners. The Morris Dance in Interlude IV is one example of the way Beaumont indulges in “something done for the honor of the city” and the pleasure of its multitude (Interlude IV, 15-6).

William Kempe (a famous comic player) dancing the morris, from a woodcut frontispiece in his book Kempe’s Nine Days’ Wonder, 1600.

We can put this civic-mindedness in context: in John Norden’s 1653 Map of London, notice the coats of arms representing particular guilds (including the grocers) that frame the layout of the streets. Historically, maps would be marked by the insignia of royal or aristocratic patrons. But London in the early modern period is increasingly becoming a site framed by the citizenry. Tradespeople and men and women in service (like Rafe and his sweetheart, Susan) are the folk who avail themselves of London's services and who inhabit its streets, churches, theatres, and households. They are the community that constitutes--in a roughly egalitarian way--and embodies the city. 


For this prompt, I want you to think about how the play, like Norden's map, represents the nation’s capital to favor and please the middling sort. Your job is to find specific evidence for the argument that despite its elitist reputation, The Knight of the Burning Pestle reserves its greatest affections for the City and the citizenry. (Of course, well-supported counter-arguments are welcome, too). Note: the best kind of proof usually comes in the form of either 1) a subtle reading of a big moment or 2) a provocative extrapolation from a telling detail.