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Subversive Merit: the Revision of the Classical Clever Slave As Witty Servant and Social Satirist in the Comedies of Ben Jonson

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Subversive Merit: the Revision of the Classical Clever Slave As Witty Servant and Social Satirist in the Comedies of Ben Jonson SUBVERSIVE MERIT: THE REVISION OF THE CLASSICAL CLEVER SLAVE AS WITTY SERVANT AND SOCIAL SATIRIST IN THE COMEDIES OF BEN JONSON A dissertation presented by Cory Grewell to The Department of English In partial fulfillment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the field of English Northeastern University Boston, Massachusetts August, 2008 1 SUBVERSIVE MERIT: THE REVISION OF THE CLASSICAL CLEVER SLAVE AS WITTY SERVANT AND SOCIAL SATIRIST IN THE COMEDIES OF BEN JONSON A dissertation presented by Cory Grewell ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Northeastern University, August, 2008 2 Abstract This dissertation argues that the key to Jonson’s revision of the classical comic paradigm is his employment of an unsettled and subversive English servant figure, derived literarily from the clever slave that is at the heart of the action in classical comedies, and employed by Jonson as an on-stage satirist. This character’s literary inheritance from the classical clever slave and his relationship to the contemporary stereotype of the English servant figure are explored in detail. The dissertation goes on to analyze the ways that Jonson uses these servant figures to expose and ridicule vices specific to the social contexts of each of the comedies that it surveys. The analysis draws attention to cultural, economic and political currents in Elizabethan and Jacobean London and attempts to demonstrate how Jonson’s situating of what I call the satiric servant within a staged contemporary social milieu works to critique the social vices of his time. Most of the vices surveyed are either resultant from or closely related to the commercialization of patronage in the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods and the unprecedented social mobility that accompanied it. Jonson’s plays consistently deride the promotion of unworthy characters to positions of rank and honor on account of their wealth and lament the under-valuing of virtue in English society. Specific vices associated with the commercialization of patronage that come under attack are the selling of titles of honor and the marketing of projects and monopolies. The dissertation analyzes the development of the satiric servant character and its role in satirizing the specific vices of sixteenth and seventeenth century England over the entire course of Jonson’s career, beginning with the early humors comedies and extending through the Caroline plays, which Dryden famously labeled, the dotages. In its analysis, this project seeks to historicize Jonson’s use of classical comic dramaturgical methods for the purposes of social satire. 3 Acknowledgements Foremost I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee for shepherding me through this process. I would like to extend thanks especially to Professor Kathy Howlett for being my mentor in the study of Renaissance drama, not just for this project, but for the whole of my tenure at Northeastern University, and for pushing me to be a more meticulous and thorough scholar. I would also like to thank the other members of my committee, Professor Francis Blessington for his steady guidance and common-sense approach to literary study, and Marina Leslie for her kind, apt, and sagely advice in navigating this process, especially in the early stages of the project. I am very grateful to Northeastern University for the Dissertation Writing Fellowship that I received during my last semester of writing, which was crucial to my project’s timely completion. I would like to thank past professors as well for the inspiration and guidance they have provided, without which, I would not have reached this point. First, Professors John Hotchkiss, Kurt Hild, and John Pilkey of The Master’s College in Santa Clarita, CA, who inspired me to embark upon this career path. Special thanks are due to Professor Hotchkiss, who has been like a vocational father to me. Also, thanks are due to Professor Stanley Stewart of the University of California, Riverside, whose period of influence, albeit brief, continues to have an enormous impact on my approach to Renaissance literature. A deep debt of gratitude is due to my friends and colleagues in the graduate program at Northeastern, without whom, I would not have succeeded. I especially want to acknowledge Amy Kaufman, Alex Moffett, Hania Musiol, Tiffany Conroy, and Kurt Moellering, as well as my compatriots in the entering class of 2001, Nichole DeWall, Amy Carleton, and Jennifer Martin. Finally, I would like to thank other family and friends, all of whom have provided tremendous support in various ways throughout this process: Mom and Dad, for obvious reasons; Brad Smith, for being a willing sounding board; Benjamin Olding, for a healthy perspective; and various other friends at Park Street Church for cheering me on. Of course, I owe the most thanks of all to my wife, Nicole, who has rejoiced and suffered with me through the ups and downs of this process, and without whom, this project never would have succeeded. This dissertation is in many real ways a product of her support every bit as much as of my research. 4 Table of Contents Abstract 3 Acknowledgments 4 Table of Contents 5 Preface 6 Chapter 1: Clever Servants: The English Servant as Satirist 11 Chapter 2: Corrupt Servants: The Servant as a Subversive Threat 99 to Social Order Chapter 3: Gullible Servants: The Satiric Servant as Dupe 209 Chapter 4: Meritorious Servants: Virtuous Servants Rewarded 300 Works Cited 377 5 Preface In an essay on “Jonson’s Classicism,” written for The Cambridge Companion to Ben Jonson , John Mulryan describes the way that Ben Jonson appropriated the methods of classical poets in his own work as follows: “Take the wisdom of the ages, and hammer it into a new form appropriate to one’s own age” (168). Mulryan’s description of Jonson’s use of classical poetic paradigms is perhaps nowhere more accurate than it is in the comedies. For in the comedies, in order to remain true to what were seen as classical prescriptions for the moral effect of the genre – i.e. to expose typical social vices to dramatic ridicule, and thus represent them “in the most ridiculous and scornefull sort that may be. So as it is impossible, that any beholder can be content to be such a one” (Sidney 176-77) – Jonson had to radically revise and update the dramaturgical standards of classical comedy so that they fit with the vices of Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Jonson’s dramatic task of keeping the moral spirit of classical comedy while making it applicable to contemporary audiences is articulated by the poet in the verse prologue to Every Man in his Humor, the first comedy included in the 1616 folio version of his Works . There, Jonson announces that his play will show, . deedes, and language, such as men doe vse: And persons, such as Comœdie would chuse, When she would shew an Image of the times, And sport with humane follies, not with crimes. Except, we make ‘hem such by louing still Our popular errors, when we know th’are ill. (21-28) 6 This announcement of matching the neoclassical moral effect of comedy with contemporary “popular errors” is repeated in some form or other in prefatory matter to nearly all of Jonson’s comedies. These announcements raise an interesting question for analysis of Jonson’s comic dramaturgy, namely, how does Jonson retain his claim to remain true to the methods of classical comedy and at the same time present a satire of contemporary cultural vice? This dissertation attempts to answer that question by arguing that the key to Jonson’s revision of the classical comic paradigm in most of his comedies is his employment of an unsettled and subversive English servant figure, derived literarily from the clever slave that is at the heart of the action in classical comedies, and employed by Jonson as an on-stage satirist. The revision of this character into the satiric servant that is the main source of moral satire in most of Jonson’s comedies preserves the classical comic ethos in that the servant character recognizably retains the subversive and witty attributes of the stock clever slave. At the same time, the character is firmly grounded in the historical context of contemporary English society. The dissertation goes on to analyze the ways that Jonson uses these servant figures to expose and ridicule vices specific to the social contexts of each of the comedies that it surveys. The analysis draws attention to cultural, economic and political currents in Elizabethan and Jacobean London and attempts to demonstrate how Jonson’s situating of what I call the satiric servant within a staged contemporary social milieu works to critique the social vices of his time. In its attempt to specifically historicize Jonson’s revision of the classical model, this dissertation bridges an important gap that exists both within Jonson criticism and between Jonson criticism and other criticism of Renaissance drama. This gap generally 7 exists between criticism that focuses on Jonson’s peculiar classicism as what Mulryan calls “a series of timeless, unvarying principles of conduct and thought” and criticism that focuses on the dramatic representation of Renaissance culture by Jonson and others as being historically conditioned (163). One of the critical tasks that I hope my dissertation accomplishes is to show specifically how “timeless” classical principles, especially as they are employed in the dramaturgy of Jonsonian comedy, are often directly conversant with sixteenth and seventeenth century English culture. Another important contribution that this dissertation makes to Jonson criticism in its historicizing of his classical dramaturgy is to show the development of Jonson’s career as a comic dramatist in its social and historical context.
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