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Sexual Violence in Jacobean and Caroline Comedy Laughing Matters: Sexual Violence in Jacobean and Caroline SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN JACOBEAN AND CAROLINE COMEDY LAUGHING MATTERS: SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN JACOBEAN AND CAROLINE COMEDY BY ERIN JULIAN, M.A., B.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy. McMaster University © Copyright by Erin Julian, September 2014 McMaster University DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (2014) Hamilton, Ontario (English and Cultural Studies TITLE: Laughing Matters: Sexual Violence in Jacobean and Caroline Comedy AUTHOR Erin Julian, M.A. (McMaster University), B.A. (Brock University) SUPERVISOR Professor H.M. Ostovich NUMBER OF PAGES vii, 292. ii Abstract This dissertation examines representations of sexual violence in Jacobean and Caroline comedy. While representations of rape in early modern tragedy have received considerable attention, criticism has largely overlooked the extent of sexual violence in early modern comedy – in part because comedy tends to represent sexual violence in ways that do not match up with recognisable rape scripts. This project argues, however, that, like rape, the sexual violences of comedy “humiliate and induce fear, constraining the activities and choices of victims” (Anderson and Doherty 21). The study particularly examines dramatic representations of whore shaming, rape hearings, and cuckoldry in order to discuss how sexual violence is encoded in comic tropes, the comedic genre, and early modern culture generally. This systematic sexual violence took a daily toll on the lives of early modern women, limiting their ability to give meaningful consent, to control their bodies and sexual expressions, and to make choices within marriage. But while comedy often invites its audience to laugh at sexually violated women, rendering the violence they experience acceptable, it can also invite us to see that violence as violence – thereby challenging the ethics of our laughter. iii Acknowledgements I have been incredibly fortunate in the varied sources of support I have received while working on this project. I am indebted to Drs Helen Ostovich, Melinda Gough, and Eugenia Zuroski Jenkins, who have provided me with encouragement and insight throughout my Master’s and Doctoral degrees. Helen has been an unfailingly generous supervisor. She has lent me her expertise on performance and early modern culture, helped me develop the ideas in this dissertation, and taught me to be a better reader and editor of my own work. She has also provided many opportunities to publish, attend conferences, and give lectures. I am, moreover, endlessly grateful to her for sharing her conversation, sense of humour, and love of Jonson (and for introducing me to James Shirley!). Melinda has consistently encouraged me to think incisively and asked the sorts of probing questions that open up one’s work in new and exciting ways. Additionally, she has always provided meticulous reading and commentary which has brought out the clarity in my writing. (She has never yet failed to correct my numerous subject-verb disagreements!) I am grateful, also, for the wit and warmth she brings to every conversation. Gena has always asked challenging and rewarding questions at my oral defenses (MA, comps, and PhD) that have not only led to lively conversations but which also promise to shape future iterations of this project. Additionally, her knowledge of late-seventeenth-century literature, drama, and criticism has provided an invaluably broad perspective on the ideas in this dissertation and on my conception of the early modern period as a whole. She also shared with me many enjoyable conversations about teaching, writing, and academic life generally while I was a TA in her course in my final year. I am indebted to my external examiner, Karen Bamford, whose book on sexual violence was one of the keystones of my dissertation. She was also a patient and friendly presence at my defense and posed questions which, along with her thoughtful and diligent comments during the revision process, will prove instrumental to the shaping of this project in future. I am grateful also to Aurelia Gatto, Antoinette Somo, and Ilona Forgo-Smith, who have always provided the information necessary to survive TAing and degree work (and who patiently endured my tardy email replies). I am grateful to the department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster for supporting my doctoral work for the past five years with graduate funding, TA and RAships, and award nominations, and to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for their financial support in the form of a Canada Graduate Scholarship; to the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities and the Hamlin Family Fund of the Hamilton Community Foundation for their support in my final year with an Ontario Graduate Scholarship; and to the School of Graduate Studies and Mr Walter A. Buchanan for the Buchanan’s Bounty Book Trust Prize in my second year. I am thankful to my family and friends for creating a safe and supportive environment to work through at-times difficult material. My cohort colleagues (Jesse, Heather, Cassel, iv Mike, Kasim, Amanda, Vinh, Marquita and Matt) shared classes, meals, and conversations. I am particularly grateful to Matt Zantingh for numerous cathartic conversations over coffee; to Kasim Husain for excellent discussions of theatre and excursions to art galleries; to Jessica Dell for her kindness and humour and for teaching me much about teaching during the three years we TAed together; to Nicole Lamont for sharing her friendship (and her puppy) in the last three years; to Chantelle Thauvette, for countless walks, adventures, and conversations about early modern literature, academia, and Doctor Who; to Emily West, whose generosity in friendship and whose ability to speak out against gender-based violence I truly admire; to Brandon Kerfoot, who kept me laughing from afar and whose work ethic is truly inspiring; and finally, to Kari, who has welcomed me into her family and given me a second home for many years, and to whom I owe more than I can possibly express. Finally, I am grateful for Cynthia, Lady Jane Pawlet, and Lucy, who made the writing effort more difficult but also much more fun. v Table of Contents Title Page i Descriptive Note ii Abstract iii Acknowledgements iv Table of Contents vi Description of Academic Achievement vii Introduction: Sexual Violence in Early Modern Comedy 1 Chapter One. Shaming the Whore: Prostitution and Slander on the Early Modern Stage 39 Chapter Two. Traumatic Comedies: Rape Spectacles in Measure for Measure and Volpone 113 Chapter Three. Jonson and Coverture Law: Rewriting the Cuckold Tradition in Volpone and The Devil Is an Ass 194 Conclusion. “[G]ive me that lusty lad”: Ram Alley’s Challenge to Ethical Representation 254 Works Cited 269 vi Declaration of Academic Achievement The dissertation is entirely the student’s own research contribution. vii Ph.D. Thesis – E. Julian; McMaster University – English and Cultural Studies Introduction: Sexual Violence in Early Modern Comedy Struprum, Ravishment, and Chastity: Understanding the Rape Culture of Early Modern Patriarchy Early modern England was undeniably a patriarchy. This fact seems obvious, but its significance cannot be overstated when considering the sexual violence that proliferates in seventeenth-century drama. Patriarchal ideology supported and directed the development of the legal statutes and procedures that defined and processed matters relating to sexual violence and consent, as well as cultural attitudes to rape charges and verbal and physical sexual abuse. Patriarchal ideology and its inherent misogyny were also responsible for common perceptions of what qualities (like chastity) were most valuable for women to possess, which bodies were valuable and which were not, and the attendant belief that non-valuable (that is, lower-class, non-English, sexually promiscuous or otherwise unruly) bodies could be open to sexual abuse without recrimination.1 As my chapter on rape laws and rape hearings reveals, the ways that early modern law and culture understood and defined sexual violence are primarily driven by and representative of male concerns about sexual violence and were perhaps at odds with how women might have perceived sexually violent acts, how they might have defined sexual 1 Barbara Baines, in “Effacing Rape in Early Modern Representation” (1998), quotes Bracton – “the primary Renaissance authority on rape” (70) – in his summary of the degrees to which rapists were punished, noting that while all rapists are legally to receive some punishment, whether the victim “is married or a widow living a respectable life, a nun or a matron, a recognized concubine or a prostitute”; however, Bracton goes on to qualify that “a like punishment will not be imposed for each” (71). Baines suggests that this distinction is meant to indicate that some female bodies – particularly virgins – are more valuable than others. (Certainly, the qualification tempers the enthusiasm that Corinne Saunders has for Bracton’s “remarkable” defence of the prostitute in her own history of rape laws.) 1 Ph.D. Thesis – E. Julian; McMaster University – English and Cultural Studies violence, and the legal responses they may have desired or thought adequate. Certainly, the way that early modern law defined and handled rape falls far short of what contemporary feminists would consider adequate. As historical and critical work has shown, early modern understandings of sexual violence – when they actually paid attention to rape
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