INSET FORMS OF ART IN THE PLAYS OF PHILIP MASSINGER Joame Marie Rochester A thesis submitted in confonnity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto O Copyright by Joanne Marie Rochester 2000 National Library Bibliothèque nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographi Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wdlingîor, Ottawa ON K1AW OnawaON K1AW Canada canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence aiiowuig the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sel1 reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microfonn, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de rnicrofiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts &om it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. INSET FORMS OF ART IN THE PLAYS OF PHILlP MASSDJGER Jo~M~Marie Rochester PhD 2000 Graduate Department of English, University of Toronto ABSTRACT This thesis examines the use of metatheatrical inset pieces in the work of Philip Massinger, the dominant professional playwright of the London stage in the reign of Charles the First ( 1625- 1642). Although al1 Renaissance drama contains metatheatrical insets, the Caroline period is particularly nch in these devices. 1 examine Massinger's use ofsuch insets to posit some reasons for the development of a peculiarly Caroline metadrama and to examine their dramaturgical function in his plays. Massinger's presentation of inset pieces focusses on their function as spectatorial objects - pieces of art which are interpreted by spectators - which permits him to theatrically examine the process of spectatorship, and thus, to analyse the process of theatre itself. The introduction maps out the Caroline theatrkal landscape, surveying some of the potential causes for the development of self-reflexive drama in the period, and placing Massinger within this context; the thesis itself focusses on Massinger's use of four fonns of inset art. The first chapter examines Massinger's staging of pieces of visual art - paintings and statues - as metadramatic insets, objects which are read by spectators on the stage. The focus of the chapter is the dramaturgical use of the miniature of me Pîcture (1629); Massinger structures the plot of his play around Mathias's reactions to his 'readings' of this image. The second and third chapters examine Massinger's two types of inset masques; Chapter Two focusses on masques which are staged for a single on-stage audience, and which simply function as drarnatic images. Chapter Three examines the masques of 77ze City Madam (1 633) and A Very Wonran (1634), both of which are ostensibly staged for a single audience member, who is then watched by a second on-stage audience who judge his reactions to the show he sees. Both masques fuaction, like the miniature of Tire Picrrrre, to allow access to the interior of their spectators. The final chapter examines the plays-within of The Roman Actor ( 1626), Massinger's metatheatrical analysis and defence of his stage. This thesis would not exist were it not for a number of very patient people: Alexander Leggatt, who supe~sedit. The members of my Thesis Reading group (Susan Carter, Tanya Hagen, Tanya Wood, Margaret Reeves, Kelly Quim and Holly Forsythe) who read, critiqued and corrected it. And my parents, Hamy James and Tordis Rochester, who paid for it. 1 am also grritehl for the financial assistance provided by the University of Toronto in the form of a Connaught Fellowship and an Open Fellowship. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1. Visual Art as Dramatic hset: The Picture. II. Lnset Masques: 77ze Duke of Milan, The Picture, The Guardian III. inset Masques: The City Madam. A Very Wonran IV. The Play Within the Play: ï%eRoman Actor Conclusion. Works Consulted. LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 1. Three [sic] godlie martyrs bumed in Srnithfield. Woodcut from Foxe, Acres utzd Monzrnienfs. 1563. 5th ed. 2 vols. London: P. Short by the Assignment of John Day, 1596. II: 1845. Fig. 2. The burning of two Women. Woodcut fiom Foxe, Actes and Morrumertts. 1563. 5th ed. 2 vols. London: P. Short by the Assignrnent of John Day, 1596. II: 1718. Fig. 3. The buming of William Wolsey and Robert Pigot, Martyrs. Woodcut fiom Foxe, Actes and Monriments. 1563. 5 th ed. 2 vols. London: P. Short by the Assignment of John Day, 1596. II: 1558. Fig. 4. A Table describing the burning of Bishop Ridley and father Latimer at Oxford, D. Smith there preactiing at the time of their martyrdome. Woodcut fiom Foxe, Actes urrd Morrttmenfs. 1563. 5th ed. 2 vols. London: P. Short by the Assignment of John Day, 1596. II: 1606. I thank the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library and the Centre for Reforrnation and Renaissance Studies for allowing me to reproduce images in their collections. Introduction This thesis investigates of the use of inset forms of drarnatic and non-dramatic art (visuai art, masques-within, and plays-within) in the plays of Phillip Massinger, who, as the head playwright for the King's Men from 1625 to his death in 1640, was the dominant professional playwright of the London stage in the reign of Charles the First (1625-1642). Massinger's plays and the drama of his immediate contemporaies stand somewhat apart, in both attitude and structure, fiom the body of Renaissance Drama as a whole; the thesis began as an attempt to explain this difference. Its final form is rooted in my interest in Massinger's plays, in the drama of the Caroline period, and in general problems of spectatorship and interpretation. It examines Massinger's use of the commoner inset forms (images, masques, and plays-within) in his drarna, and explores how his use of them differs from the work of earlier Renaissance dramatists. In particular, the thesis explores the dramaturgical fùnction of these forms in his drama; that is, how he uses the reactions of the on-stage spectators to the inserts to structure his plays. Finally, it attempts to rough out a sense O fMassinger's overall understanding ofdrarnaturgical structureand drarnatic function.' ' This analysis of the audience-play relationship is based on cunent treatments of spectatorship,contemporary staging and audience response (including treatments of antitheatricaIity) in the period; these include Jonas Barish Tite Antif!reatr-icalPrejudice, Celia Daileader, Eroticism on file Renaissance Stage, Andrew Gurr, Playgoing in Shakespeare S London, Mic hael Shurgot, Stages of Play: Shakespeare S Theatrical Energies in Eiizabethan Per$ormance, and Meredith Anne Skura, Shakespeare the Actor and fhe Purposes of Playing. Papers on spectatorship, the audience and the dramdaudience relation include Peter Carlson, "Judging Spectators", Marco De Marinis, "The Dramaturgy of the Spectator", Katharine Eisaman Maus, "Homs ofDilernrna: Jealousy, Gender However, because Massinger's use ofthese forms is rooted in his particular historical moment - Massinger is a Caroline playwright, and his dramatic practices are related to those of his immediate contemporaries - this introduction will begin by mapping the Caroline theatrical landscape, and will explore some of the reasons for the development of explicitly metatheatrical plays in the period, before situating Massinger in his critical context and finaIly, discussing the form of the thesis itself. The Caroline playwrights, the last generation of writers to enter a long-established and somewhat crowded theatrical marketplace, were aware of their status as the inheritors of and Spectatorship in English Renaissance Drama", Louis A. Montrose, "The Purpose of Playing: Re flections on a Shakespearian Anthropology", Michael Neill, "' Wits most accomplished Senate': The Audience of the Caroline Pnvate Theatres", Lois Potter, "Seeing and Believing", and BrowneIl Salomon, "Visual and Aura1 Signs in the Performed Renaissance Play". There is, similarly, a large arnount of material which deals with the play-within, both on the Renaissance stage and in the drama as a whole. General studies include: Abel, Metatheatre: A neiv view of Dramatic Form, Anne B arton, 77ze Idea ofthe Play, CaIderwood, Shakapearian Metadrama, Jackson Cope, The Theatre and the Drearn, Robert Egan, Drarna within Drama, George Forestier, Le Théâtre dans le Tltéâtre sur la Scène Française du WIISiècle, Richard Hornby, Drarna, Metadrama and Perception, Alvin Kernan, Tlie Playwright as Magician, Pauline Kieman, Shakespeare S 7ïieot-y of Drama. Sidney Homan, When tfte 7ïteater Turns to Ifself;and Robert Nelson, ïïze Play-within a Play. Papers, most of which deaI specifically with the issue of Renaissance metadrama, include Jonas Barish, "Three Caroline Defenses of the Stage", Barbara Baines, "Kyd's Silenus box and the limits of perception", Arthur Brown, " The Play within the Play: An Elizabethan Dramatic Device", Dieter Mehl, "Forrns and Functions of the Play within a Play", Charlotte Spivack, "Alienation and Illusion: The Play- within-a-Play on the Caroline Stage" George Forestier "Le Théâtre dans le Théâtre", Alvin Keman, "'This Goodly Frame, the Stage': The Interior Theatre of Imagination in English Renaissance Drama", Thomas Hyde, "Identity and Acting in Elizabethan Tragedy", Glenn Steinberg, "You know the plot/ We both agreed on?": Plot, Self-consciousness and The London Merchant in Beaumont's T11eKtzigllt of the Burning Pestle" and Lorraine Wynne, "The Poetic Function of the Stage Audience and Embedded Performance in Drama". Of particular interest are the papers collected in ïïze Show Witlrin,the proceedings of a 1990 conference which dealt with inset forms in English drama between 1550 and 1642.