Subjectivity and Music in Early Modern English Drama

Subjectivity and Music in Early Modern English Drama Andrew Loeb Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctorate of Philosophy degree in English Department of English Faculty of Arts University of Ottawa ©Andrew Loeb, Ottawa, Canada, 2015 Loeb ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ................................................................................................................................................................ iii Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................................................. v Conventions ...................................................................................................................................................... viii Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter 1: Meanings of Music in Early Modern England ............................................................. 37 Chapter 2: Many Sorts of Music in Twelfth Night and The Roaring Girl ................................. 75 Chapter 3: Music, Magic, and Community in Early Modern Witchcraft Plays ................... 130 Chapter 4: Noise, the City, and the Subject in Epicoene .............................................................. 199 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................................... 232 Works Cited .................................................................................................................................................... 238 Loeb iii ABSTRACT Music in the early modern world was an art form fraught with tensions. Writers from a wide variety of backgrounds and disciplines engaged in a vibrant debate about the value of hearing and playing music, which could be seen as a useful tool for the refinement of the individual or a dangerous liability, capable of compelling inappropriate thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. This study analyzes music on the early modern stage and its relation to emerging ideas about subjectivity. Early modern philosophies of music, I demonstrate, are concerned with the stability of the body, the soul, and the humours and spirits that unite them, along with the individual’s capacity for autonomy and agency. In the theatre, I argue, music is frequently deployed as a strategy for experimenting with ways of imagining and performing selfhood. On one hand, it can facilitate self- fashioning, acting as a marker for such characteristics as class and spiritual condition; on the other, it can be disruptive to identity and the capacity for agency and autonomy, since music was understood as both penetrative and transformative, facilitating the disruption of one self by an other. Chapter 1, “Meanings of Music in Early Modern England,” surveys a range of early modern texts on music to demonstrate their concerns with both the performance of the self and the threat of its dissolution. Chapter 2, “Many Sorts of Music in Twelfth Night and The Roaring Girl,” examines music’s role as an imaginative strategy for improvising an unstable, hybrid gender identity, an alternative subject-position from which to speak and act in ways ordinarily denied to women. Chapter 3, “Music, Magic, Loeb iv and Community in Early Modern Witchcraft Plays,” explores witches’ uses of music to establish a sense of communal identity and to magically disrupt the communities from which they have been excluded. Finally, Chapter 4, “Noise, the City, and the Subject in Epicoene” makes a case for understanding Morose’s fear of noise in terms of early modern ideas about music, reading noise as a radical instability representative of new ways of fashioning selves in a rapidly expanding urban environment. Loeb v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It feels sort of impossible, now that I actually have to do it, to try to figure out how to thank everyone who helped this dissertation to be a thing in the world. But here goes anyway. First and foremost, Dr. Jennifer Panek, who supervised the research and writing that went into this project, deserves more credit than these few pages could ever accommodate. Her guidance and insight throughout the process have impacted everything from the dissertation’s biggest ideas down to the minutest mechanics of the writing, and I remain perpetually impressed by, and forever thankful for, her unmatched ability to figure out what I’m trying to say long before I ever know I want to say it. I would also like to thank the four examiners who read and responded to the thesis as it neared completion. Dr. Katherine Larson, Dr. Victoria Burke, Dr. Paul Merkley, and Dr. Nicholas von Maltzahn each offered important and insightful criticism, and together brought a wonderful diversity of scholarly interests to bear upon the project that have benefited it immensely and which will no doubt shape the course of my research in the future. The research and work required to complete this dissertation was made possible by generous funding that came in the form of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship and an Ontario Graduate Scholarship. The early stages of the project benefited from helpful suggestions and incisive criticism from Irene Makaryk and Paul Merkley. Helen Ostovich has, over many years, been a Loeb vi source of inspiration and encouragement, an insightful conference-panel attendee, and a generous and patient editor. Advice and ideas gleaned from participation in some fascinating conferences came from Meg Pearson, Laura Feitzinger Brown, Esther Richie, and Sarah Williams. Tania Aguila-Way, Jennifer Baker, Diane Duflot, Bethany Guenther, and the many other graduate students and professors in the University of Ottawa’s English department have been a constant source of new ideas, engaging conversation, valuable teaching advice, welcome distractions, and occasional parties. On a more personal note, I owe a tremendous debt of love and gratitude (and also probably money) to my parents, Janice and Graham Loeb, who never once showed anything other than total enthusiasm and support for a son who wanted to try to read very old books for a living. And I owe an equal gratitude to my wonderful in-laws, Brian and Lynn Palardy, who never once (to my knowledge) tried to dissuade their daughter from marrying a man who wanted to try to read very old books for a living. During the years it has taken to complete this work, the four of them have given our family more than I could ever find the means to adequately say thank you for; but off the top of my head, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to mention the unconditional love and support, the many very fine meals, a few timely family getaways, and pretty-much-on-demand babysitting. So I can at least start with those. Thank you so, so much. Then there’s Carolyn. Oh, love, how do I ever say the thing that is truest: that none of this would be here if not for you. If my heart was ever for a moment not in this, yours was enough to carry me until it was again. Loeb vii And finally, to Elliot, Alice, and Julien, who, as I write this, have never known a father who wasn’t working on this project: the three of you, more than anyone else, have made this all worthwhile. This, like everything, is for you. Loeb viii CONVENTIONS Quotations from early modern sources throughout the dissertation retain their original spelling and punctuation with the exception of i/j, u/v, vv/w, and long s usages, which have been silently modernized for readability. First mentions of plays in the text are followed by a parenthetical indication of the date of first performance, while the associated entries in the Works Cited give the publication information for the print source consulted in each case. All early modern printed documents were consulted through scans made available by Early English Books Online (EEBO). Loeb 1 INTRODUCTION Near the end of Act 3, scene 2 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (c.1602), the young prince responds to questions from Guildenstern regarding his “antic disposition” with what seems at first like a non sequitur. Taking a recorder from a passing musician, Hamlet presents it to Guildenstern and asks, “Will you play upon this pipe?” (3.2.350-51).1 When Guildenstern admits that he cannot, that he in fact has no skill in music at all, Hamlet reveals his conceit: Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out the heart of my mystery, you would sound me from my lowest note to [the top of] my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. ‘Sblood, do you think I am easier to be play’d on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you fret me, [yet] you cannot play upon me. (3.2.364-72) Hamlet’s image of himself as a pipe that Guildenstern cannot play at first seems like a fairly straightforward metaphor for his recognition that his friend is trying to manipulate him into revealing the private motivations for his unpredictable behaviour. It suggests that if Guildenstern cannot play a simple recorder, he certainly cannot make Hamlet “discourse most eloquent music” (3.2.359). His manipulations are transparent, clumsy, and will reveal nothing. But why, exactly, is the truth of Hamlet—the “heart” of 1 Unless otherwise noted, quotations

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