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Women Playwrights and the Early Modern “Closet” Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University English Dissertations Department of English 4-30-2018 LITERARY EQUIVOCATION: WOMEN PLAYWRIGHTS AND THE EARLY MODERN “CLOSET” Nancy Paxton-Wilson Georgia State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss Recommended Citation Paxton-Wilson, Nancy, "LITERARY EQUIVOCATION: WOMEN PLAYWRIGHTS AND THE EARLY MODERN “CLOSET”." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2018. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss/193 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LITERARY EQUIVOCATION: WOMEN PLAYWRIGHTS AND THE EARLY MODERN “CLOSET” by NANCY PAXTON-WILSON Under the Direction of Tanya Caldwell, PhD ABSTRACT In general, “closet dramas,” because they have been falsely considered failed stage plays, have received minimal scholarly attention. This dissertation situates itself as a re- evaluation of female authors’ manuscript and printed plays: Elizabeth Cary’s Mariam, Jane Cavendish and Elizabeth (Cavendish) Brackley’s The Concealed Fancies, Margaret Cavendish’s The Convent of Pleasure and Anne Finches’ Aristomenes, Or The Royal Shepherd. These plays use the coded rhetorical tool of literary equivocation to conceal yet reveal subversive political information which would attract the attention of the censor if acted upon the stage. INDEX WORDS: closet drama, pro-Stuart, printed plays, British literature LITERARY EQUIVOCATION: WOMEN PLAYWRIGHTS AND THE EARLY MODERN “CLOSET” by NANCY PAXTON-WILSON A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2018 Copyright by Nancy Paxton-Wilson 2018 LITERARY EQUIVOCATION: WOMEN PLAYWRIGHTS AND THE EARLY MODERN “CLOSET” by NANCY PAXTON-WILSON Committee Chair: Tanya Caldwell Committee: Malinda Gar Snow Paul Schmidt Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University May 2018 iv DEDICATION To Callan, Andrew, Elizabeth and Anne Lacey who constantly challenge themselves with new endeavors and whose support has been essential to me on this path. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank my committee members, Dr. Malinda Snow and Dr. Paul Schmidt, for their assistance and expertise throughout this project and whose commitment to literary studies inspires me every day. I want to offer a grateful thank you to my advisor, Dr. Tanya Caldwell, for several years of dedicated mentorship which has been essential to me. Her commitment to gaining recognition for Eighteenth-century women playwrights has stood as a compelling vision I have attempted to follow. Finally, thank you, Tanya, for your friendship. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .........................................................................................................V 1 INTRODUCTION: “HE ‘WAS NOT RESOLVD TO HAVE HAD IT ACTED, NOR SHOULD IT HAVE BENE HAD NOT MY NECESSITIES OVERMAISTRED ME" ................................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED. 1.1 Seminal Scholarship …………………………………………………………………….9 1.2 Performability…………………………………………………………………………..10 1.3 Female Performativity …………………………………………………………………13 1.4 Neo-Senecan Roots ……………………………………………………………………..13 1.5 Catholicism……………………………………………………………………………...15 1.6 Pro-Catholic Printers …………………………………………………………………..15 1.7 Closet Drama as Cipher………………………………………………………………..16 2 CHAPTER ONE: ELIZABETH CARY’S MARIAM: THE CATHOLIC RECUSANT AS VADE MECUM FOR POLITICAL PRESENCE………………………………..31 2.1 Early Life………………………………………………………………………………...32 2.2 The Catholic Recusant ..................................................................................................... 34 2.3 Sidney Circle ..................................................................................................................... 41 2.4 Du Perron .......................................................................................................................... 42 2.5 Edward II ........................................................................................................................... 47 2.6 Mariam .............................................................................................................................. 57 2.7 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….75 vii 3 CHAPTER TWO: WRITING AND DISSEMBLING: JANE CAVENDISH AND ELIZABETH (CAVENDISH) BRACKLEY’S CONCEALED FANCIES ............... 81 3.1 Cavendish Literary Circle ............................................................................................... 83 3.2 English Civil War ............................................................................................................. 86 3.3 Censorship Through Theatre Closures .......................................................................... 91 3.4 Star Chamber Closing and the Growth of Secret Communication ............................ 93 3.5 Dialogue Pamphlets: Pamphlet Play Debates ................................................................ 95 3.6 Marginal Plots .................................................................................................................. 98 3.7 Luceny and Tattiney ...................................................................................................... 108 3.8 Genre as code .................................................................................................................. 113 3.9 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...114 4 CHAPTER THREE: ROYALIST MATERIAL AND CULTURAL PROPERTY UNDER SIEGE: MARGARET CAVENDISH’S THE CONVENT OF PLEASURE ......................................................................................................................................... 118 4.1 Henrietta Maria: Masque, Salon, Catholicism ............................................................ 122 4.2 Cavendish Salons in Paris ............................................................................................. 133 4.3 Elizabeth Lucas and St. John’s Abbey ......................................................................... 135 4.4 Pleasure Garden ............................................................................................................. 138 4.5 Lucas Family and the Civil War ................................................................................... 144 4.6 The Convent of Pleasure ................................................................................................ 148 4.7 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 152 viii 5 CHAPTER FOUR: ARISTOMENES, OR THE ROYAL SHEPHERD: ANNE FINCH’S FABLE OF PRO-STUARTDISENCHANTMENT……………. 154 5.1 The Glorious Revolution................................................................................................ 157 5.2 Anne Finch at the Stuart Court ……………………………………………………... 158 5.3 Finch’s Political Poems .................................................................................................. 160 5.4 The English Fable ........................................................................................................... 162 5.5 Aristomenes In Mythology ............................................................................................ 165 5.6 Anne Finch as Fabulist .................................................................................................. 166 5.7 The Fox Figure………………………………………………………………………….169 5.8 Analysis of ARISTOMENES, OR THE ROYAL SHEPHERD A TRAGEDY………171 5.9 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….184 6 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................... 191 1 1 INTRODUCTION: “HE ‘WAS NOT RESOLVD TO HAVE HAD IT ACTED, NOR SHOULD IT HAVE BENE HAD NOT MY NECESSITIES OVERMAISTRED ME’ The term, “closet drama,” is associated with the Sidney Circle practices in playwrighting that began in the late 1590’s. The phrase assigns several hundred plays to a genre that is both problematic and highly debatable. In a general sense, a closet drama is defined as a play that was intended by its author to be read and never performed. The genre has consistently housed insignificant failed plays that deservedly do not warrant critical attention. The term, coined more than 200 years after the plays under consideration here were printed, was used to retroactively categorize them. The OED states that the term first occurs in print in an article in Blackwoods Ed. Mag. in 1822. Closet drama was thus defined as a play intended to be read rather than performed. Brander Mathews, in his 1908 critique, “The Legitimacy of the Closet Drama,” claims the genre as belonging to the Romantic period and echoes the OED definition as “a play that was never intended to be played” (214). He states that it is “a poem in dialogue, -- a piece of literature, pure and simple” (214). He writes that “the closet-drama is specifically intended for the closet itself, for the library and not for the stage” (214). Crucial to this definition of closet drama is the emphasis on author intent. Mathews examines a list of plays considered closet drama, including Byron’s Manfred and Tennyson’s
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