“Men Like Stage-Players Act Variety of Parts”: Performing Melancholic Parts on the Early Modern Stage

Graduate School “MEN LIKE STAGE-PLAYERS ACT VARIETY OF PARTS”: PERFORMING MELANCHOLIC PARTS ON THE EARLY MODERN STAGE Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Leicester by Stephanie Collins MA, BA (Hons) College of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities 2020 “Men like Stage-Players Act Variety of Parts”: Performing Melancholic Parts on the Early Modern Stage Stephanie Collins This thesis articulates the importance and influence of medical understandings of humoural theory, particularly melancholy, on English drama of the late 1580s to the 1620s. Using a case study approach of early modern dramatic texts by playwrights such as Shakespeare, Marlowe, Kyd, Chapman, and Middleton, amongst others, alongside an examination of key pieces of medical and religious writing, this thesis investigates the interrelationship between medicine and the theatre which occurred throughout the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries to question why dramatists were so concerned with the medicalisation of drama, and the dramatization of medicine. This thesis applies Judith Butler’s concept of anatomical sex, gender identity, and gender performance to the experience of emotion. Building on research by Gowland, Lund, and Langley, the study identifies melancholy as a performative emotion, both in that it is often performed and that its symptoms lend themselves to spectacle. This leads us to discuss both the performances of “anatomical” emotion, and the idea that emotion is something which can be performed, convincingly or otherwise. Taking its cue from Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), this thesis identifies three types of melancholy which were most regularly being presented on the early modern stage: scholarly melancholy, revenger’s melancholy, and love melancholy. This thesis looks at the ways the representations of these melancholic types often overlap, how one melancholy could lead to or be influenced by another kind, and the connotations and significance of these interrelationships. Chapter One begins by looking at the portrayal of scholarly melancholy, and how it can be used alongside love melancholy and religious melancholy, focusing on Doctor Faustus (1589-1592), Love’s Labour’s Lost (1595), and Hamlet (1599). Chapter Two’s focus on the revenge tragedies of the late 1500s – early 1600s also sees an interest in Hamlet, alongside works by Kyd and Middleton to highlight the way melancholy began to be portrayed specifically as a performative emotion, with links to excessive theatricality. Chapter Three’s focus shifts towards comedy and the different ways in which melancholy could be used in comedy – both as something to laugh at, and as something which could derail the traditional comic ending in texts such as The Merchant of Venice, Monsieur D’Olive, and Every Man in His Humour. Chapter Four moves forward to the work of John Ford in the 1620s and highlights the relationship between Ford and Burton which we see in The Lover’s Melancholy, ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, and The Broken Heart. Returning to the tragedies, Chapter Four suggests that the work of Ford represents a culmination of the melancholic discourses which have come before, as scholarly melancholy, vengeful melancholy, love melancholy, and even comic melancholy combine in what could be considered medical drama. Acknowledgements I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the following people: - To my extraordinary supervisory team, Professor Sarah Knight and Doctor Mary Ann Lund: without your inexhaustible support, wisdom, and encouragement, this thesis would never have made it onto the page. - To all of the teachers who have encouraged me, especially Mrs Ritchie, whose insistence that I play Jane Eyre has led to a lifetime of love for the theatre, and to Professor Dzelzainis, whose encouraging words to an undergraduate student ignited a love for research. - To my mother and father, for putting up with the tears of joy, frustration, and despair. For encouraging me to go to university in the first place, and for playing taxi to and from Leicester for eight years! Thank you for listening to me as I read aloud essays, chapters, and eventually lectures. You are truly the greatest people a girl could be lucky enough to call parents. Your kindness, your generosity, your love is something which astounds me every day. Thank you, thank you, thank you. - To Sandy Thompson, for standing by me all the way through this process, throughout the highs and the lows. Thank you for always believing in me and my research, and for never giving up on me, even when I try to drag you halfway around the world. Thank you for not thinking I was mad when I told you I wanted to start a theatre company - and thank you for reminding me to maybe hold off on that until I’d finished my PhD. You have been a guiding light throughout all of this, and I can’t wait to start the next chapter of life with you. - To Emma Probett – a far better academic than I could ever aspire to be, but most importantly, a brilliant friend. Your kindness, encouragement, and friendship have been an extraordinary support. Thank you for the significant contribution you have made to the completion of this research, especially for your kind suggestions and comments on Chapters Three and Four. - The cast, crew, and company of the Stamford Shakespeare Company. In particular: to Larry Wilkes and Paul Moth, for allowing me to use your pictures; to David Fensom and Caroline Stephenson, for answering my questions about Much Ado; and to all of the directors, for their vision and creativity – and most importantly, for casting me! Table of Contents 1-25: ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players’: Introduction. 26-67: ‘Lay that damnèd book aside / And gaze not on it’: Scholarly Melancholy, Solitude, and the Supernatural on the late Elizabethan Stage. 68-106: ‘The heart’s disquiet is revenge most deep’: The necessity of melancholy in early modern revenge tragedies. 107-142 ‘Am I melancholy inough?’: Comic melancholy and Melancholic Discontents 143-183: ‘Rapes, Incests, Murders’: Love melancholy in John Ford’s Caroline tragedies. 184-194: ‘Naught so sweet as melancholy’: Concluding Thoughts 195-210: Bibliography ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players’: Introduction. 1 I presume thou wilt be very inquisitive to know what Anticke or Personate Actor this is, that so insolently intrudes upon this common Theater, to the world’s view, arrogating another man’s name, whence hee is, why he doth it, and what he hath to say.2 So begins Robert Burton’s (1577-1640) compendious tract on melancholia, madness, and all its various subsets, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) – and so may begin this thesis. Like Burton’s suspicious reader, the reader of this thesis may wonder why I have dedicated so much research, and so many words, to connecting the theatre of the early modern period with the medical and religious discourse which describes and surrounds the humour, temperament, and disease of melancholy. Although I do not arrogate anyone’s name, I am indeed an ‘Anticke or Personate Actor’ who insolently intrudes upon the theatre [Figure 1]. Consequently, much of the research to which this thesis is dedicated stems from my many years of experience working in the theatre. It is from my experiences with performing Shakespeare that the inspiration for this thesis was born: melancholy abounds in Shakespeare, from Hamlet (1599) to Love’s Labour’s Lost (1595), through As You Like It (1599) and King Lear (1606). Through watching and reading plays by Shakespeare’s contemporaries and those who came before and after Shakespeare, it became clear to me that this interest in melancholy is a cultural phenomenon, not one that is specific to Shakespeare (1564- 1616) alone. It is to this that I attribute my interest in the performativity of melancholy: it has struck me many times how often characters from this period are themselves acting as other characters, how often people on the early modern stage pretend to be that which they are not. The striking overlap between this metatheatrical performativity and melancholy is an area which I sought to explore throughout this thesis, through looking at instances where melancholy is performed by those who may not truly feel it. I am also interested, however, in the ways in which theatricality and performativity creep into depictions of true melancholy on the early modern stage. In referring to “true” or “genuine” melancholy, I refer specifically to instances where the audience are asked to 1 William Shakespeare, As You Like It, ed. by Juliet Dusinberre (London: Bloomsbury, 2006), Act 2, Scene 7, Lines 140b-141. All further references will be to this edition, and will be made in-text with the abbreviation AYLI. 2 Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, ed. by Thomas C. Faulkner, Nicolas K. Kiessling, Rhonda L. Blair, 6 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), I, p.1. 1 believe that this character is truly a melancholic, like Prince Palador in The Lover’s Melancholy (published 1629) where much of the action revolves around the curing of Palador’s melancholy. Examples such as Palador, who suffers from ‘sorrow’s / Close-griping grief and anguish of the soul,’ clearly show that the theatre was interested in medicine in the early modern period, and Ford is particularly interested in ‘Melancholy’ which in Lover’s Melancholy is described as ‘the mind’s disease’ (LM, 4.2.11-12; 3.1.108, 110). The close connection between medicine and theatre can also

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