"In the next place we may reckon Affability and Courtesie; which as it is amiable in all, so it is singularly so in women of Quality, and more universally necessary in them then in the other Sex.  For men have often charges and emploiments which do justify, nay perhaps require somwhat of sternness and austerity; but women ordinarily have few or no occasions of it, and those who have well digested the former Lectures of Meekness and Compassion, will not be apt to put it on unnecessarily."

Allestree, Richard. The ladies calling in two parts. 1676.

I started off looking for something to do with widows and male authority.  I ended up with this.  I feel that it is somewhat reminiscent and representative of how women were supposed to behave.  The Duchess however is not meek at all and she does not subject herself to the men in her life and she, I believe, is even stern with Antonio.  She is bold enough to defy her brothers by getting married, enjoy herself while they are gone, try to hide her husband, and bear his children under their noses!

I also feel this picture is representative of the Duchess before her brother starts to punish her.  She was definitely in control of her life and enjoying it.

Widows!

I am interested in the Duchess' role as a widow in this historical period, and how her actions would be seen by the audience in this light. As a widow, the Duchess no longer retains her virginity, which, as we have discussed, is massively important in this period. But as a widow, she has lost it honorably. What course of action, then, would be seen as moral by her contemporaries? I kept asking myself this as I read the play; surely Ferdinand and the Cardinal are seen as villains, but the overt sexuality and secrecy of the Duchess and Antonio's relationship would certainly raise some eyebrows as well. To shed some light on this subject I turned to I "The treasure of vowed chastity in secular persons. Also the widdowes glasse." a treatise on the importance of chastity, with a special focus on widowhood. The authors initially espouse on "that noble, and worthy state of chast Widdowhood."

Initially, the authors discuss "that noble, and worthy state of chast Widdowhood,"saying, "from hence it is manifest...for Widdowes also to vow Chastity, so that without a mortall sin, & being guilty of damnation, they could not marry againe." The Duchess so far seems to be in hot water. Even accounting for her rather hasty and perhaps dubious marriage to Antonio, the Duchess' main focus should have been on preserving her chastity. They go on, however, to concede that for "such widows, who being freed from the yoake and gouernement of their husbands, liue dissolutly, become idle, pratlers, wanton, curious, running vp and down to their neighbours houses, & the like," a second marriage could be appropriate, as it would at least lend some semblance of legitimacy to the fallen widow. Far from recommending them, the authors only concede that second marriages "are yet to be preferred before the condition of a Brothell-house" and no more.

While certainly, when faced with the scheming Cardinal and incestuous Ferdinand, the audience sympathises with the Duchess, it is likely that she would not escape the audiences judgment unscathed. The authors of "The treasure of vowed chastity" seem to think that, having lost her virginity, a young widow loses control of herself. How does this complicate our reading? Well, it increases the sense of scandal that pervades the play; this is not just a play about villains and heroes, but one in which seemingly every character is debauched or scheming to some degree. It also makes one wonder if the Cardinal and Ferdinand's actions would have been seem as more reasonable to audiences at the time, a scary thought but in line with the sort of thinking that would assume that young widows' only two destinations are a scandalous second marriage or a brothel house.


"The treasure of vowed chastity in secular persons. Also the widdowes glasse." Written by the RR. Fathers Leonard Lessius, and Fuluius Androtius, both of the Society of Iesus. 1621.

http://bert.lib.indiana.edu:2286/search/fulltext?SOURCE=var_spell.cfg&ACTION=ByID&ID=D00000998441640000&WARN=N&SIZE=181&FILE=../session/1235760748_7227&SEARCHSCREEN=CITATIONS&DISPLAY=AUTHOR&ECCO=N

The Duchess as a moral ideal

The Duchess is by far one of the strongest female characters portrayed. She is confident in her personal choices and is continually forced to defend those choices to the men in the play. The contrast between how the Duchess is played and how her brothers perceive her actions point heavily to a precast notion of how a woman should act in almost EVERY situation. Her brother Ferdinand in particular has much to say about who his sister should marry as well as when. Despite the constant issues with her brother, the Duchess is still able to retain an amazing amount of power over her estate, considering that the Duchess is able to have three children by Antonio without her brothers discovering who the father is till much later. To me, this points to a certain amount of control over her environment despite several attempts by Ferdinand’s spy to infiltrate her secrets. I scanned through EEBO using the terms incest, bastard and widow in an attempt to see how these issues were dealt with in law. I found several transcripts of trials for women who killed their own bastard children to men who killed their wives over bastard children. I was surprised to find clustered in this search a positive towards women. “Female pre-eminence, or, The dignity and excellency of that sex above the male an ingenious discourse / written orignally in Latine by Henry Cornelius Agrippa ... “, a heck of a title for what seems to be a rather positive take on the superiority of women over men. While it is clear from the text that this is an attempt to pander to Queen Katherine, this article seemed heavily out of place with the majority of texts claiming women as loose and not to be trusted. Many of the stories in the article include women who leave their positions of high status to follow after banished husbands or women who go against political odds to show a higher moral authority. In the Duchess of Malfi, the moral high road seems to be given to the Duchess despite her murder. It is her brothers, the men, that show this same contrast between the sexes. The Duchess’s loyalty to Antonio over her brothers seems to put her in a higher category of praise than that of her evil brothers.
http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2003&res_id=xri:eebo&rft_id=xri:eebo:citation:13337383

I am very interested in the Duchess, overall, as a character. She is just a woman, and in this time period women were still not given much power. Granted, she is a duchess, but her power is limited. It astounds me the level of authority the Duchess takes for herself. What really intrigues me in this play is how the she handles her wedding with Antonio. She has an assertive, strong personality—so much so that she ignored normal social mores for weddings and she conducted her own marriage with Antonio. She decides to go against her brothers’ adamant please that she not remarry, and weds Antonio anyway (even though she is not a widow, nor virgin!). She then risks having children out of wedlock (at least it appears this way), rather than expose her marriage to Antonio, a man of slightly lower class.

I chose an excerpt from the poem below to demonstrate the importance and weight marriages had in the early modern period, and how the fact that the Duchess chose to forego this tradition reveals her strong personality. This poem expresses the positive aura that weddings and wedding feasts had in the time period, especially with the traditional marriage of a man and a female virgin. The speaker is describing a very traditional ceremony that celebrates the event of a female virgin marrying. The focus remains on the bride throughout the poem, making a point to highlight the virgin’s youth and beauty—two things the Duchess once had, but is perhaps now losing (which almost does not matter, considering the Duchess gave up having a formal ceremony at all).

Descriptio Egredientis Sponsae.

At length comes forth the Bride (in all parts rare)*
Full ripe for man (of Venus the iust care:)
A Virgins face, a Virgins chast active
She weares. Now modest blushes kindle fire
Within her bashfull cheeke, which by degrees
Growes still more hot, and warmes all that she sees.
The youthfull fri•, dispersed here and there,
On tip-toe mooue, to see this starre appeare,
And rise with such refulgence: on each hand
The aged Fathers and the Matrons stand,
And make a reuerent Lane for her to passe:
She makes them thinke vpon the time that was,
Their prime, their youth, their strength (now gone and wasted)
And Nuptiall sweets, which they before ha•e tasted.
…
But she in youth, strength, state maiesticall,
In vntoucht puritie, pulchritude, all
That beautifies the Sex. Thus is the Bride
Brought to the place, where she must now reside.


Poem taken from the Seventh book from:
Gynaikeion: or, Nine bookes of various history. Concerninge women inscribed by ye names of ye nine Muses. Written by Thom: Heywoode.Heywood, Thomas, d. 1641.London: Printed by Adam Islip, 1624.
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A03206.0001.001

Fixation on basically anything besides God himself may get you into trouble.

I have found the fixation on the Duchess by her twin brother both interesting and disturbing. When we look closely at the thoughts or actions that Ferdinand has towards the Duchess, we can clearly see that he desires an incestuous relationship.The scene in which Ferdinand is holding the naked dagger is a somewhat perverse thing. Ferdinand is unable to decide what exactly it is that he wants from her. I compared and contrasted this though with Antonio's fixation of The Duchess and the way he goes about making her out to be a sort of statue or saint...constantly focusing on her and idolizing her.As the play itself serves as a sort of deconstruction of Catholicism, so does the relationship that lies between Ferdinand, The Duchess, and Antonio. Antonio's fixation can be seen as the "worshiping of a saint" or idolatry, while Ferdinand's thoughts or tried actions/gestures serve to destroy this idolatry-like protestant values and actions
at the time.
http://eebo.chadwyck.com/search/full_rec?SOURCE=pgimages.cfg&ACTION=ByID&ID=38159501&FILE=../session/1235755584_23683&SEARCHSCREEN=CITATIONS&VID=29171&PAGENO=135&ZOOM=100&VIEWPORT=&SEARCHCONFIG=var_spell.cfg&DISPLAY=AUTHOR&HIGHLIGHT_KEYWORD=param(HIGHLIGHT_KEYWORD)
Even though this picture is a process of a monke poisoning a King, it is very relate able to the same idea of ridding idols or figured of worship besides God himself from the public eye. The King, his majesty, could have been seen as a similar figure as the Duchess-someone who was idolized and went against the protestant grain.

Author: Foxe, John, 1516-1587.
Title: Actes and monuments of matters most speciall and memorable, happening in the Church Date: 1610 Reel position: STC / 1925:01
Copy from: Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery

This image summarizes much of the evil present in this play. If hypocrasy and deceit were to be added to the list of things that lead to the bloody downfall than I think it might be a complete list written specifically according to the lessons learned from The Duchess of Malfi. According to this image adultery, murder, and ambition lead to the bloody downfall. All of these elements do indeed contribute to the large amount of blood and falling downwards at work in Duchess. For me, the two most reprehensible characters in the play are The Cardinal and Bosola. While Ferdinand is detestable, in my mind I write him off as mentally unstable as is. I seem to say to myself, "Yes he did horrible things, which he should be held accountable for, but he had too much power for a man as unbalanced as he was." The Cardinal is guilty of all three of the above-mentioned sins. He is an adulterer, having an affair with Julia. He is a murderer, ordering the killing of his sister. And he is ambitious. He is fond of his status as a "great man" and guards his status agressively out of a love for his power and an ambition for more. Bosola, the other character I respect least, is guilty of murder and amibition. I have no sympathy for Bosola. His melancholy attitude amounts to self-pity in my eyes. In trying to put responsiblity for his bad actions elsewhere he never owns his own actions. He wishes he were a better man than he is, and in his ambition to become a "great man" he just pushes himself further and further from his goal. There is a stark contrast between two ideals of what a great man is. Bosola's goal is to be a great man like the cardinal, one with power and class, but with no integrity. The other great men are not men of status. Antonio, for example, is from a lower class than the others, but he is a posessor of truth and integrity. Delio is another; a true and steadfast friend, which is something none of the other "great men" had. To over-emphasize my point, phony "great men" are ambitious and murder people and have no friends they can truly trust, and real great men are men of integrity, with loving relationships.

-Image: Author: Anon. "The Bloody Downfall of Adultery, Murder, Ambition." 1615...

Printed at London : [By George Eld] for R. H[iggenbotham] and are to be sold at his shop at the Cardinalls Hat without Newgate, [1615

Cardinal Cruelty

In The Duchess of Malfi, John Webster paints a cruel and sinister picture of the Catholic church through the Duchess' brother, The Cardinal.  This image reminded me of the Cardinal's cold cruelty.  He has not, as of yet, exhibited any outbursts of emotion like his brother Ferdinand.  Instead, the Cardinal is more of the brains behind the operation, the one who cooly calculates and uses others to execute his plans.  In this illustration, the Pope is treading upon the neck of Fredrick the Emperor, which perfectly captures the complete and utter power of the Catholic Church.  The Catholic Church, as depicted in this image as well as in The Duchess of Malfi, seems to be an empire of its own, one that trumps the power of any other kingdom.  The Cardinal has the most agency out of anyone in the entire play; for the most part, he can do whatever he wants when he wants with whom he wants, because no one can punish him, as he has God on his side.  He wields the power of his priesthood in order to carry out dark and cruel deeds, and seems to have little, if any, remorse for using his title and image of goodness in order to commit crimes of the utmost cruelty.

Foxe, John.  Actes and Monuments.  London, 1596.

Chaste Widows

"To this little Treastise, I have adioyned the WIDDOWES GLASSE, the which I humbly intreate you, to present, in my Name, to your two most worthy Sisters, who for the long, constant & most exemplar professio of that noble and worthy state of chast Widdowhood, may seeme to clayme a iust Title therunto."

Lessius, Leonardus. The treasure of vowed chastity in secular persons. Also the widdowes glasse. Trans. I.W. P. Saint Omer: English College Press, 1621.

I was planning to look at widows during this time to better understand what behavior was traditionally expected of them. If this is a typical example though - and it was the only one I found - then widows are expected by some to be chaste. Based on the book's title his dedication seems to be going towards secular individuals, not just widows, who have chosen chastity over remarriage or sinning through fornication. A woman like Margery Kempe would probably embody the type of average person who is choosing chastity for her own life. What was interesting to me was that prior to studying this play, the only widow I can think of is Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare's wife, who was a widow when they married. The accounts I had read of this never seemed to indicate that marrying a widdow was some societal abnormality, though that Shakespeare did and an older woman at that, seemed always something of a point of confusion.

Knowing the feelings of the Jesuit priest who wrote this, might not shed as much illumination as would a text by a secular person, but it does put the desires of both the Cardinal and of Ferdinand into a more complete image of what was expected by society at the time. Widows were expected to be chaste because they had already given of themselves to their husbands. Now that this duty of serving one's husband had been fulfilled, there was no further need of the women to once again be in a position to engage in sexual activity where and when it could be avoided appropriately, as is the case with a widow like the Duchess.

A Woman's Humor

"THe next humor that is incident to a Woman, is, when the Husband hauing entred very young into Lobs-pound, and there fettered himselfe by his too much folly, for a vaine hope of ticklish delights, which lasted but for a yeare or two, hath matched himselfe with a very froward and peruerse woman (of which sort there are too many) whose whole desire is to be Mis|tresseand to weare the Breeches; or at least to beare as great a sway as himselfe. But hée being craftie, and with all crabbed, will in no wise suffer this vsurped soueraigntie, but in sundrie manners withstands it."(Dekker, 1604)

This passage comes from a chapter entitled:" The humour of a curst Queane, maried to a froward Husband." I found the amount of control and individual resolve the Dutchess demonstrates to be highly interesting. Copies of the text this quote is located in were sold in 1604 (roughly eight years before the play was published). The attitude towards the woman maintaining a strong position in a relationship is highly negative. However, in "The Dutchess of Malfi," Webster causes the audience to relate and sympathize with the Dutchess. Although there is an obvious lack of support for many of the Dutchess' decisions, Webster still introduces the idea of a marriage largely governed by a woman in a somewhat positive manner. If this passage is an accurate reflection of the times, Webster decided to focus his play on a highly controversial concept.

The bachelers banquet: or A banquet for bachelers vvherein is prepared sundry daintie dishes to furnish their tables, curiously drest, and seriously serued in. Pleasantly discoursing the variable humours of vvomen, their quicknesse of wittes, and vnsearchable deceits.
Dekker, Thomas, ca. 1572-1632,, La Sale, Antoine de, b. 1388?,, Tofte, Robert, d. 1620,
London: Printed by T. C[reede] and are to be solde by T. Pauier, 1604.

http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A20038.0001.001

Advice and Authority

The Duchess is a woman with clear ambition and authority. She actively pursues Antonio in Act I and in Act III she makes the plans and gives the orders for evading her brothers’ grasp. Meanwhile, her brother Ferdinand is unsure of what he wants or how to get it. The following poem reflects a similar gendered relationship:

Among the many rare and speciall gifts,
That in the female sexe are found to sitte,
This one is chiefe, that they at meerest shifts,
Giue best aduise, and shew most readie witte,
But man except hee chewes and thinks, and fifts,,
How euerie part may aunswere to their fit,
By rash aduise doth often ouer-shoote him,
And doth accept the things that doe no
Single illegible letterboote him.
Idem. (Albott, X 3 ^v-X4 ^r )

While the poem speaks to the wisdom of women (seen in the Duchess’ quick hatching of escape plans) and the alternatively indecisiveness and rashness of men (Ferdiand on discovering his sister’s secret marriage), it does not put women in the same position of power as men. The poem states that women give the best advice, indicating that they are advising others rather than making decisions and giving orders themselves like the Duchess. Though they may give good advice, women are clearly not given any position of power.

With this sort of thinking in the air, it is interesting to consider how the audience would have reacted to the Duchess’ decisive and authoritative actions in comparison to the male characters, especially considering the easy comparisons to recent English monarchs. One’s reading of the Duchess in the lens of gender and power is further complicated by the fact the Duchess would be played by a man. The poem makes it clear that there is no easy reading of the power and gender dynamics in The Duchess of Malfi.

Albott, Robert, fl. Englands Parnassus.London, 1600. Early English Books Online. Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery. 26 Feb 2009 http://bert.lib.indiana.edu:2286/search/full_rec?action=ByID&source=pgimages.cfg&ID=99835965&VID=203&PAGENO=162&SUBSCRIBER_TCP=Y&FILE=../session/1235701961_27399&SEARCHCONFIG=var_spell.cfg&HIGHLIGHT_KEYWORD=default

Coupled Twins

I have found the idea of twins, and how their duality, plays a role in the "Duchess of Malfi." The most compelling aspect of this idea is the fact that Ferdinand has a very interesting desire for his sister. While he can neither succumb to his desire nor can he walk away from his sister, Ferdinand remains a troubling character insofar as he compells us to think about relationships, especially those between male and female twins, in a unique way. Does he only desire the Duchess, his sister, for her body or is there a more pyschological reason behind his intense desire to have her in his life? Is the reason he becomes jealous purely out of lust or is there another reason why he pursues her so intensely?

This image and the quote that I found that goes with it, "Beauty and love are like coupled twins...who both at once received birth, nurtriment, and death" are important to understanding the "Duchess of Malfi" because they suggest a type of relationship between Ferdinand and the Duchess that goes far beyond both ordinary sibling love and lustful desire (Baron, act 2, scene 3). "Coupled twins" is very suggestive of the desire for the other in a set of twins, but it also suggests that thier lives are intricately intertwined. By this, I mean to say that Ferdinand and the Duchess's lives are separate yet conjoined. This could suggest an interpreation that Ferdinand seeks to join with his sister the same way they were joined in birth, and the same way they will ultimately be joined in death (as suggested by "who both at once received birth, nurtriment, and death"). In the image, the hearts are pierced together as if they could not be separated. This is could be suggestive of the idea that once something is joined it can never be separated. This is what I believe Ferdinand feels. As such, perhaps his desire for his sister is not just corporal but also intensely psychological. He needs her just as he needs air and water because she is part of him, just as they were created in the same womb, at the same time.

Image and text taken from EEBO:

Baron, Robert. Erotopaignion, or The Cyprian academy.1647.

Correction: Better Image

Only part of my image showed up....Here is a better version:

History and Credibility

William Painter's The Palace of Pleasure is a collection of stories, including a retelling of real events that inspired The Duchess of Malfi.  The character of the Duchess is based on Giovanna d'Aragona.  This image shows the title page of The Palace of Pleasure, as published in London in 1569.  

I find it interesting that a play that makes such strong statements against women asserting authority is rooted in fact.  It seems that Webster is attempting to draw on history in order to show the calamities that occur when women of power step beyond the boundaries placed upon them by males.  Webster's version of the Duchess could easily be far different from the historical figure, but the fact that the play resembles real events would have added weight to the messages Webster intended to send to his Elizabethan audience.  Webster certainly wasn't the only playwright of this era to base his characters on historical figures.  Shakespeare wrote many plays that utilized the same strategy, including Julius Caesar, Henry VI, and Richard III.

Source:

Painter, William.  "The Palace of Pleasure."  London, 1569.  Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery.

Being One in Terms of Incest

I have found Ferdinand’s secret desire for his sister compelling and disturbing. I think it is an insight into the person of Ferdinand and his evil doings and dark personality. While it has been discussed that not even Ferdinand can reason as to what he wants from his sisters body, I chose this illustration to represent Ferdinand and the Duchess and their relationship as twins, but more so to represent the sexual incest Ferdinand desires from his sister

Ferdinand is vibrant with sexual desires and undertones for his sister, The Duchess, throughout the play. So naturally when he hears of her secret marriage and children, he becomes and outraged and damns her out of his life. Incest is never portrayed in the play, but Webster no doubt implies it through the language and actions of Ferdinand. The illustration shown above depicts two person joined together, naturally forced to rely on each other for movement. Although Ferdinand and the Duchess are not joined together physically, they were conceived together and shared the same uterus in conception. It is hard to say why Ferdinand desires incest with his sister, but perhaps all leads back to the beginning of himself and his sister literally being one. Perhaps if she were to part from him he would feel less of a person and cannot bear to see a part of him that is his sister belong to someone else. Whatever the reason, the sexual desires of incest is a leading force that moves Ferdinand to act out evil and wickedness, which in turn gives The Duchess of Malfi a dark nature and plot.

Image taken from EEBO database:
Boaistuau, Pierre. Certaine secrete wonders of nature containing a descriptio[n] of sundry strange things, seming monstrous in our eyes and iudgement, bicause we are not priuie to the reasons of them. Gathered out of diuers learned authors as well Greeke as Latine, sacred as prophane. By E. Fenton. Seene and allowed according to the order appointed. 1569.

Casting About: Staging Context Through the Archive

Interior of the library of the University of Leiden, dated 1610

Many of the posts thus far, as well as the critical readings we have discussed, have drawn from primary documents to not only provide historical context for the plays, but also, perhaps more significantly, to consider what the plays tell us about their historical moment. One of the key principals at work in the discipline of English is that we should always be productively complicating our understanding of early modern culture and experience by putting the archive and the drama in conversation. For this week, you are in charge of finding a primary source that casts some light on The Duchess of Malfi (and we have discussed how much this tragedy cries out for illumination).

As you delve into EEBO, try to focus on what you find interesting or perplexing about the play. The source you choose need not “map” onto the play directly; it is your job to account for the purchase you think it offers on Webster’s complex and unsettling drama. You may upload an image and / or a textual selection to the blog to fulfill this assignment. Please make sure to provide a citation for it, and then describe in a few sentences why you think it is pertinent. Happy hunting!

Maternal Control

My mind immediately draws back to “The Sound of Music” whose leading characters were played by children. In many of the scenes the children are singing and or dancing. Naturally, this brings joy into the hearts of its audiences and becomes a best selling musical. Something about the joy and laughter of children is significant. Perhaps it’s the look of curiosity and innocence on a child’s face that causes the average adults cynical heart to melt. Children represent purity, untainted by the folly of this world and its entire supposed splendor.

After taking a look at Nell, she is clearly entertaining the idea of Rafe as her child as they watch him perform. Her looks of pride and adoration for his actions make her seem as though she is his mother. The wife clearly has control over every person in the play, whether she is comical or not, she has taken a motherly role over everyone. She knows what’s best, she commands actors to play an entirely different play. Perhaps, the control a parent has over their children is what Beamont is trying to portray throughout the play. Although, Mistress Merrythought loses her control and the money she stowed away for her youngest son Michael, Nell still has control. In fact she has control over the entire audience and actors of the new play. Perhaps, the real role of children is to be controlled by their parents and authority figures. The ability to control people and have them do anything you wish is something Nell seems to love. Although, she is stepping outside of her gender roles, which can’t be argued strongly due to the fact that the actor is indeed a male, she is enjoying her new found power. Taking on the role of a parent allows you to control multiple people, depending on the number of children. In this case, Nell is in control of quite a few children.

--on behalf from Kimberly Wright

The boy players in this time period seem to be innocent, with a sense of knowingness (though they are innocent, they must be aware that something is going on). For example, when Rafe is speaking soon after Nell has decided he will be a knight. Rafe gives a very short speech about his “new profession” – that is, becoming a knight. Because he was (in the play) once a grocer, he will have a burning pestle placed upon the shield “in remembrance of [his] former trade…and [he] will be called the Knight o’th’Burning Pestle.” (Act I, 266-68) Surely, because of the sort of “joke” this title was in this time period, the audience laughed when the boy player spoke these lines. If the boy was totally unaware of what these lines meant the first time he performed them, he must have at least picked up that there was something humorous about either the situation or what he was actually saying. Depending on the age of the child, he probably wouldn’t understand what a “burning pestle” could also symbolize, though he would recognize that there is something else amusing about it. Similarly, in today’s time, if a very young child repeats a curse word or any other inappropriate phrase, and a nearby adult laughs because of it, the child is likely to gain amusement from saying the curse word and repeating it, though they don’t understand exactly what the curse word means. There’s a parallel between this modern situation and with what was likely occurring with boy players in plays such as KBP or Lyly’s Galatea – the child can see that the audience is gaining a sort of pleasure (or reacting in some way, seeing as the audience might be a bit shocked while watching two boys dressed up as two girls fall in love with each other) from whatever it is the child is doing. The children, though still innocent and unaware of the deeper meaning of their actions, will at least be able to recognize that their behavior is creating a reaction from the audience—and reactions and attention are something children often love to have and create (which leads me to believe that, at least in this aspect, children might enjoy being players for plays such as these over and over).

Showstoppers

In Knight of the Burning Pestle it amazes me at how lost and confused I am when I try to imagine little children running around, singing, fighting, dancing, and especially speaking in this way.  It is one thing to imagine the adults, but young boys doing this?  It blows my mind.  The two videos really helped put the boys company's performances into some kind of organized chaos in my mind.  This makes it really hard for me to focus on one scene as I feel the overall picture is cute and ridiculous.  Imagine watching a young boy playing Venturewell dismiss an even younger boy playing Jasper.  And Jasper replies, "Sir I do liberally confess I am yours...," (p.62) so formal for young boys.  Then Jasper goes to his "love", Venturewell's daughter, another young boy playing a girl, perhaps with a falsetto, and they talk about their love and running away together.  I don't think boys companies could escape from the fact that boys playing adults is a little awkward and boys playing girls is quite funny.  So almost no matter what the show it would turn out with a comic perspective.

Galatea as well to me becomes problematic and awkward to think of children posing and posturing as Greek gods and having two of the more famous goddesses of that canon in drag!!  I wonder if they were as fallible on the stage as our youth today with their clumsy mistakes and improvising (like the second video).  Also, for me, these children's companies also make me think of mock seriousness like the Shirley Temple video.  She's cute and awkward in her importance and dress of a soldier.

I'm not saying that out loud...make the kid do it

The use of children in The Knight of the Burning Pestle makes the playing and innuendo more acceptable to the plays audience. If this play is a celebration of class differences,then what larger class distinction is their between "adults" and children. In my experiences in theater children are generally brought in for scenes that require some aspect of child immaturity. This immaturity can allow certain subjects that may be considered too taboo to talk about into the plays conversation. Rafe and the citizen's wife allow the audience to suspend their preconceived notions of how they are suppose to behave and react to the class distinction being blurred on stage. "The children's companies offered entertainments with more promise of the novel and the naughty, whether in the 'distancing' of serious action through satire, in the exploitation of sex and violence in tragedy, or in the plots embodying the clash of large (and often vague) ideas.(p.13) Rafe and the children can misunderstand the idea of a pestle being associated with a penis and we laugh. We laugh when Rafe continues to "slay" evil and protect the innocent with his fiery "penis". The joke in an adult's mouth is almost too obscene to play.

The idea that it is OK for children to cross these lines where adults are forbidden has not been lost. In Galatea, we don't feel awkward watching the two "young girls" in the woods falling in love with each other. We see them as innocent and pure children, not as women mistaking women for men. The ending of Galatea also shows a certain amount of privilege. Both young "girls" wouldn't mind becoming young men so that they can "be" in love for real. I hardly see how it is possible for a full fledged member of the "adult" society to get away with such a blatant desire to have their sex "exchanged" for the other. We throw fits over this in modern times...are we more prudish now than in Beaumont and Lyly's period? The children are allowed to break societal norms more easily than adults. We still give children this same privilege in modern times. We wouldn't hold a child pretending to be King in the same light as a 32 yr old man claiming to be King. One we think is cute and we encourage, the other we think is crazy and we avoid. The playhouse is traditionally where adults can break the barriers to perform these roles, but children are given the privilege to break the barriers that even adults are afraid to perform on stage.

Boys Will Be Boys

The boys company portraying The Knight of the Burning Pestle on stage seems to function to heighten the comedy of the play, as well as call attention to the fact that the play is just a play.  The fact that little boys are putting on this production draws the audience into the action of the play as well as take them out.  There is no doubt about it, children are cute, and when they are on-stage, it is difficult to peel our eyes from them (watching the YouTube clip of Shirley Temple, I rarely found myself watching the men dancing around her, and had to really concentrate in order to do so: my eyes went straight to her).  Watching children dance and sing (like in the interludes and the Morris dance), must have been adorable.  However, one must also remember that "boys will be boys".  When children are concerned, things rarely go as planned, as we see in the clip from "The Parenthood".  Children make mistakes.  Children mess up.  Beaumont seems to account for, and almost plan for this, as "mistakes" are built into the structure of the play.  Nell orders for changes in the play that the actors have to adapt to, such as ordering Mistress Merrythought off the stage and calling for Rafe instead.  Furthermore, one cannot forget some of the scenes these little boys had to play.  Recall the scene with the Barber, a scene rife with jokes and references regarding syphilis, as well as descriptions of pain and violence.  I imagine this made the scene all the more ridiculous, all the more hilarious, but to what degree would these boys have known what they were saying?  It is like the first time a child repeats a profanity they overheard.  You want to punish them, but its difficult to do so as they rarely understand what they are saying and comes out sounding funny.  It seems that the fact that boys are playing these roles further increases the metatheatricality of the production.  One cannot completely be sucked into the scenes presented in this play, because little boys are delivering some of these nasty jokes, and playing some of the serious scenes.  Boys would not be delivering these lines with the comedic timing or passion of a skilled actor.  Instead, the humor seems to come from the cuteness of the children themselves, and the fact that children are playing these adult roles and very adult humor.