國立中山大學外國語文學系 碩士論文

Department of Foreign Languages and Literature National Sun Yat-sen University Master Thesis

論湯瑪士‧戴可與湯瑪士‧米德頓之詹姆士王時期 城市喜劇中的社會動盪及空間感

The Social Instability and Spatialities in Thomas Dekker’s and Thomas Middleton’s Jacobean City Comedies

研究生：林柏豪 Po-Hao Lin 指導教授：李祁芳 博士 Dr. Chi-fang Sophia Li

中華民國 107 年 1 月 January 2018 學位論文審定書

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Acknowledgements

The thesis could not have been completed without the intellectual advice and spiritual support from many important ones. Thanks could never be said enough, but there are people that I particularly want to address my greatest gratitude to by this opportunity. First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Chi fang Sophia Li, for her insightful advice and motivational encouragements. I could always remember the afternoon when she agreed to become my advisor without hesitation. Dr. Li is a scholar that I look up to and a role model for me to follow. In my writing process, she would patiently go through every single line and paragraph to ensure that I was on the right track. Her intellectual suggestions always help me be more accurate in thinking and finish my chapters step by step. It is such an honor and pleasure to be her advisee. Meanwhile, I would also like to thank all the teachers who once instructed me in the DFLL in the past few years. I have incurred my debts of gratitude in their constant inspirations to me. I am particularly grateful to Dr. Difeng Chueh, who is not only a teacher but also a friend. His positive life attitude always reminds me of being optimistic and fearless. He shall receive the most gratitude from me. Thirdly, I would like to pay the most tribute to my parents and sister, who always offer me the unrequited care and support in the long journey of becoming a scholar. Life is hard, but with them, it becomes whole and sweet. Without their heartfelt support, I could never have reached the finishing line. It goes without saying that “A friend in need is a friend indeed.” There are friends whom I undoubtedly owe to. Their warmth and caring words can always pull me back from frustration and boost my confidence to face the upcoming challenges. I shall give my thanks to them for being the indispensable and helpful part in my life. Last but not least, I am indebted to DFLL and NSYSU for giving me admission four years ago. I feel fortunate because studying here not only enriches my knowledge but also broadens my horizons. Moreover, I would like to pay my gratitude to the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Education for offering me the handsome funding to work as a Research and Teaching Assistant. This way, I can simultaneously devote myself to the academe, and focus more on my thesis. With the supports mentioned above, I can finally tackle the journey filled with challenges and prove myself in the end that I am far more capable than I expected.

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摘要

本論文檢視湯瑪士‧戴可及湯瑪士‧米德頓在詹姆士國王時期所書寫的城市

喜劇，以探討社會動盪與空間感。城市喜劇作為一種受歡迎的文類當可視為十七

世紀初的社會縮影。戴可與米德頓以倫敦市民的眼光，洞悉倫敦城的變動，並且

將之諷刺於創作。劇本誇大地呈現道德的衰微，也重置不同階級、職業、與性別

之空間。戴可與米德頓不只娛樂大眾，同時也批判了岌岌可危的社會秩序、空間

裡的道德觀及性別角色。

本論文透過四個章節審視社會不同層面的問題。第一章概觀了歷史文獻與行

為禮儀之書，以重構作品中的社會背景，目的為探查早期詹姆士王時期社會動盪

的可能原因。第二章分析不同社會階層的人物，以顯現統治階級與漸興的商人階

級之間的道德僭越。第三章著重於以空間的視角，審視社會中的各式衝突。我借

用亨利‧列斐伏爾對於公共與私密空間的觀察，佐以我對「管制空間」的定義，

提供戴可與米德頓作品新的詮釋觀點。末章專注於空間中的性別角色。本論文藉

由四部城市喜劇中的女性，主張女性所表現的自主性可作為抗衡男性威權的一大

立基。

經由四部城市喜劇之探討，本論文試圖提供十七世紀英國文藝復興戲劇的詮

釋觀點，希冀在此領域為台灣研究貢獻微薄之力。

關鍵字：湯瑪士‧戴可、湯瑪士‧米德頓、城市喜劇、詹姆士王一世、社會動盪、 空間感、道德空間、性別空間

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Abstract

The thesis interrogates the social instability and spatialities by investigating Thomas Dekker’s and Thomas Middleton’s Jacobean city comedies. City Comedy as a popular genre can be viewed as the miniature of the society in the early seventeenth-century Jacobean England. As Londoners, Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton observe the change of the city and satirize it in their plays. The decline of morality and the rearrangement of different social spaces in various classes, occupations, and genders are dramatically presented. Dekker and Middleton not only entertain the public but also criticize the social (dis)order, the space of (im)morality, and space of genders at stake. The four chapters in this thesis examine different aspects of the society through four city comedies. The first chapter surveys historical documents and conduct books to restore Dekker’s and Middleton’s texts to their social contexts, the purpose of which is to scrutinize the possible reasons for social instability in the early Jacobean era. The second chapter analyzes the characters in different social strata to showcase the moral transgressions of the ruling class and the rising merchant class. The third chapter focuses on the social conflicts from the perspective of space. I borrow Henri Lefebvre’s observations on public and private space and I define the concept of “the confined space” so as to interpret anew Dekker’s and Middleton’s plays. The final chapter pays attention to the space of gender. By investigating women’s roles, the thesis argues that women’s individuality is shown as a standpoint to contrast men’s authority. Through the four chapters, I attempt to provide a new reading of the English Renaissance in the early seventeenth century and to contribute to the related research in Taiwan.

Keywords: Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton, city comedy, King James I, social instability, spatialities, moral spaces, gendered spaces

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Table of Contents

學位論文審定書 ...... i

Acknowledgements ...... ii

摘要 ...... iii

Abstract ...... iv

Introduction A New Reading of Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton ...... 1 Chapter I Unsettling England since 1604 ...... 19 Chapter II The Unstable Social Structure and (Im)moral Citizens ...... 31 Chapter III

Voices of the Land and Conflicting Geographies of (Im)morality ...... 50

Chapter IV Uncommon Women in Gendered Space: Daughter, Mother, Wife, and Whore ..... 76 Conclusion ...... 101

References ...... 103

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Introduction

A New Reading of Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton

Thomas Dekker’s and Thomas Middleton’s satirical talents in city comedy enrich the English Renaissance in the early seventeenth century. As Shakespeare’s contemporaries, Dekker and Middleton pave a new and different way in the circle of theatre and in the world of literature. Both writers are well-achieved both in individual presentations and collaborated projects. Through their plays, we can see an unstable society in the early seventeenth century. The thesis will focus on the genre city comedy and discuss the social instability and different spaitialities.

Some research questions should be raised before the thesis goes on prior to the further discussions. First, every character in their comedies is (im)morally exaggerated in speech and behavior. Moreover, the plots are deliberately designed with conflicts of moral values and gender issues. From this point, much research on Dekker and

Middleton points out that the society in the early seventeenth century is not stable, but what is the cause? Second, if it is unstable as Dekker and Middleton present, how can we find out the possible reasons? Moreover, what are the hidden messages of Dekker’s and Middleton’s satirical plays? Do they detest and not feel any sense of the society in the early seventeenth century.? To answer the questions, I need to resort to the historical texts to unearth the possible reasons for the social instability. This is to discover how

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Dekker and Middleton present such instability by examining the conflicts between people from different social status and between different spaces. The discovery can clarify what exactly Dekker and Middleton attempt to convey in their texts.

Although much research on Dekker and Middleton has been done for the past decades, the central research focus is either on the issues of authorship or on the tradition and the novelty. Moreover, the research on Dekker and Middleton is comparatively scanty compared with that on other well-known writers, such as William

Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, or Ben Jonson. Only a few scholars in Taiwan concentrate on the two writers, and thus the thesis aims to provide a new reading of

Dekker and Middleton by discussing four city comedies and to broaden the domain of

Renaissance studies in Taiwan.

Why Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton?

Dekker and Middleton show their unique satirical intentions through writing city comedy, a genre popular in the late Elizabethan and the early Jacobean eras. Their way of dealing with certain social issues is rather different from how their fellow writers do.

Before Dekker and Middleton gain their popularity, they have demonstrated their potential in writing satire. According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

(DNB), Middleton had created Microcynicon: Six Snarling Satyres when he was just a student of the University of Oxford, and whereby he was named “microcynic” (DNB)

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79). Later, he left Oxford without a degree but he started to nurture himself by working in the playhouse and collaborating with other senior playwrights, including Michael

Drayton, Anthony Munday, and John Webster. Thomas Dekker, also a satirist, was an important collaborator of Middleton. Dekker is eight years older than Middleton, but their satirical intentions unites the two writers. Dekker was once involved in the “war of the theatres” (698) and thus he created Satiro-mastix as “a response to Ben Jonson’s attack” (698). The two playwrights have much in common and thus they collaborated to show their sharp observations of London in writing 1 The Honest Whore (1604) and The

Roaring Girl (1611).

Being a Londoner is another contributing factor to their achievements. Both are

Londoners and must have gone through every impactful change from the Elizabethan to the Jacobean eras. The social changes in the nation and London become the major target the two playwrights satirize. In their plays, we can easily note that the parallel dramatizations of honesty/dishonesty, madness/sanity, and morality/immorality are exaggeratedly amplified and satirized. Compared with Shakespeare, who usually centers his plays with the problems that bother aristocrats, such as, love and hatred, forgiveness and revenge, loyalty and betrayal, and foreign warfare and domestic struggle, Dekker and Middleton feature their city comedies with more concentration on “the London scenes of low life” and “the strong feeling for the London locality” (Gibbons 109).

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City comedy can be viewed from two perspectives. First, its portrayal of the everyday life is entertaining and understandable for all the citizens. Academically speaking, Dekker and Middleton enrich the literary diversity of the English Renaissance in the early Jacobean period. Second, Dekker and Middleton make city comedy a social criticism of the conflicts and the changes in the early Jacobean times. They present morally problematic characters who transgress the social norms, and that may be writers’ intention to mock social madness and disorder. Moreover, the plots are often set to satirize the changes and the conflicts between different values, social statuses, and even genders. Under no circumstances should Dekker’s and Middleton’s efforts in city comedies be underestimated or neglected. They bring vitality to the genre and make it important. Dekker and Middleton create their works with the consciousness of London and aggressiveness in satirizing the absurdity and the disorder of the society. Their writing of city comedies helps Dekker and Middleton stand out among their fellow writers and be worthy of more attention. Their importance and achievements can be seen in the following discussions, each of which offers significant findings and contributions to the studies of the English Renaissance.

Literature Review

In The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker (1950), edited by Fredson Bowers,

Dekker’s plays are systematically and carefully compiled with the investigations into

4 other older versions. The book is presented as a scholarly edition in four volumes. Some years later, Cyrus Hoy complements Bowers’ work with the introductions of and commentaries on the texts. Her version is titled Introduction, Notes, and Commentaries to Texts in ‘The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker’, published in 1980. It not only makes Dekker’s works more accessible but also strengthens the literary status of

Dekker.

To look at city comedy, Brian Gibbons in his Jacobean City Comedy (1968) regards ‘city comedy’ as a “new dramatic genre” (1). He maps out its characteristics in chapter I “City Comedy as A Genre.” In chapter II, Gibbons exemplifies the relationship between social and economic background as a contributing factor to the writing of the genre; in other words, he provides a view from external factors into Dekker’s and

Middleton’s texts. Economy and politics impact the writing of city comedy, differentiating the theme from the traditional plays. Moreover, the notion of money also changes with the practice of proto-capitalism in the early seventeenth century. The aforementioned issues make city comedy be a satirical agent to the contemporary society. Gibbon’s research successfully gives a clearer definition of the genre. However, there are some shortcomings in this book: Ben Jonson seems to have received more attention than other writers. Jonson and his works are mentioned many times more than

Middleton’s and Dekker’s. Although chapter III is a discussion about Jonson and

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Middleton, the overall proportion is still inadequate. It seems to imply that speaking of city comedy, Jonson’s achievement is second to none. Gibbons elevates the status of

Jonson, but Dekker and Middleton may have had more popularity and appeal to the citizens since they truly provide a miniature of “reality” to the audiences and the readers.

With Gibbons’ introductory guidance, we are more aware of the significance of city comedy, but to make up the shortcoming, I would like to employ the readings of Dekker and Middleton to characterize the specialty of city comedy.

For the research on Dekker, The Review of Thomas Dekker: An Analysis of

Dramatic Structure (1969) by James H. Conover is an essential work since it provides detailed findings of Dekker’s plays. Conover commences the book by inspecting characters’ actions in different scenes and acts. With the analysis of characters, the writer connects the analyses to Dekker’s writing skill in structure by comparing his other works. In the Introduction, Conover directly points out that the controversy of

Dekker’s authorship either in his own plays or the collaborative ones should be settled by “external evidences” (14). Moreover, the book provides some case studies of six plays, including The Shoemaker's Holiday, Old Fortunatus, II Honest Whore, The

Whore of Babylon, If This be Not a Good Play, the Devil is in It, and Match Me in

London. All of the six plays are examined carefully, but as the introduction of the book says, these chapters mainly focus on authorship and Dekker’s writing skill in building

6 up his structure. However, similar approaches are employed in the analyses of analyzing the six plays, and lacks some refreshing findings for readers. The importance of the book cannot be denied, but the book fails to provide o analytic aspects, to reach out to other contemporary playwrights, and to make comparisons with other writers’ works; otherwise, the findings would be much more fruitful.

In 2007, the Oxford University Press published Thomas Middleton: The Collected

Works (The Oxford Middleton) (2007) edited by Gary Taylor and John Lavagnino. It was the first complete compilation of Thomas Middleton’s works. Gary Taylor co-edited The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works (The Oxford Shakespeare)

(1988) with Stanley Wells. After The Oxford Shakespeare, Taylor edited The Oxford

Middleton for the purpose of canonizing the literary status of Middleton. In the past,

Middleton was regarded as a minor writer in literature studies. However, he started to gain more attention almost four hundred years later than his death, with the publication of The Oxford Middleton. By publishing the collected works, Through the compilation, where Middleton’s achievements in comedy, tragedy, and historical plays are listed,

Taylor argues that the playwright should enjoy the same literary status as Shakespeare does (Taylor and Lavagnino 25).1 Moreover, Middleton is the only acknowledged and the only commissioned writer by Shakespeare’s own company to revise Measure for

1 See Gary Taylor and John Lavagnino Thomas Middleton: The Collected Works, Oxford UP, 2007. 7

Measure (1604) after Shakespeare passed away.2 Middleton, as Taylor compliments, is a versatile writer prolific in productions. The Oxford Middleton includes a detailed introduction to Thomas Middleton. The first section “Lives and Afterlives3” written by

Taylor himself, traces Middleton thoroughly from his family background to his literary contribution and influences. The rest of the compilation includes the writer’s complete works: comedy, tragedy, tragicomedy, and pamphlet. Moreover, Taylor offers detailed introductions, footnotes, and commentaries on every play. These references help readers look at the texts with comprehensive scopes of literature, economy, politics, law, and religion. The Oxford Middleton not only elevates Middleton’s literary status in the

Renaissance studies but also provides a thorough map for readers to explore.

With the pioneering study of Middleton and city comedy, Suzanne Gossett edits

Thomas Middleton in Context (2011) to broaden the scope of Middletonian studies in six chapters: “Middleton and the London Context,” “The National and International

Context,” “The Theatrical Context,” “The Context and Conditions of Authorship,”

“Social and Psychological Contexts,” and “Afterlives.” Together they offer more inclusive knowledge about Middleton, which is credited to thirty-seven scholars..

However, the richness of the book is also the weakness of it. The book covers various topics, but these articles fail to offer a deeper and more comprehensive observation of

2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 25-58. 8

Middleton. Take my thesis for example, the article “Women’s Life Stages: Maid, Wife,

Widow (whore)” by Jennifer Panek inspires the thesis the most in the discussion on women’s power and individuality, but for the rest of the compilation, there are only a few chapters consisting of gender issues. As a result, to make gender issues a more pivotal research target, I hope to supplement the topic more by viewing gender from the perspective of space and to show the value of the interrelationship between gender and space.

Research in Taiwan

In the past two decades, the number of theses themed on Dekker and Middleton is comparatively small, but each thesis provides the academia with rich and valuable findings. By searching through National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations in

Taiwan (NDLTD), I found four theses related to Dekker and Middleton. In 1996,

Hwa-Chi Chang did her MA thesis “Devil’s or Victim’s? Middleton’s Female

Characters in Changeling and Women Beware Women.” The thesis mainly focuses on unruly women who transgress the social norms. Instead of looking at how the society condemns these women, Chang emphasizes how patriarchal society impacts the formation of a woman’s characteristics. Similar to Chang’s thesis, my argument in chapter four argues for women’s uncommonness and how women overthrow patriarchal limitations in spaces. In the past, almost no one in Taiwan has interpreted women’s

9 individuality from the point of space. Thus, I hope to offer a new interpretation of

Dekker and Middleton and to make my thesis a supplement to Chang’s thesis.

Shin-Yu Wu writes his thesis “From Reality to Metaphor: Latent Cityscape in

Thomas Middleton’s City Comedies” in 2008. Wu’s thesis argues that the space of city in Middleton’s plays is the direct representation of the contemporary world of commerce. Both of us use Henri Lefebvre’s idea of public space and private space to interpret city comedy. He argues that space can be commercialized and become a metaphorical agent between “the social reality” and “a vision of the city.” However, I suggest in my thesis that space can be moralized and gendered to show moral corruptions and social instability.

In 2013, Wei-hua Juan finishes his thesis “Power, Material, and Male Desire in

Arden of Faversham, The Changeling, and The Duchess of Malfi.” Juan compares

Middleton’s The Changeling with two other works to discuss male desire for material and power. Juan’s focus is mainly on male’s actions and responses in early modern

London under the influence of proto-capitalism. The thesis surely provides many clues about how men pursue higher social status and power. It also discusses the conflicts among middle-class men. Moreover, Juan looks deep into men’s sexual desire by examining Middleton’s The Changeling. The thesis pays much attention to maleness; on the contrary, women’s roles are rarely reviewed. To complement the lack, my thesis

10 offers a complete scope of women and sees how women survive under men’s control and desire.

Han-jia Tsai’s thesis “Spatial Politics in Four Early Modern English Witchcraft

Plays” is another thesis that talks about space and women. The thesis attempts to discover why and how women are considered witches and how they are ill-treated in the aspect of body or space. While the name ‘witch’ may be a bad reputation for women, it can also be used as a means to reflect the injustice women encounter at that time, and from there we can think about how unfairly the minority are treated nowadays.

In addition to the books and theses reviewed above, here are some journal articles that are worth our attention. First, in response to the core value of The Oxford Middleton,

Lukas Erne publishes “‘Our Other Shakespeare’: Thomas Middleton and the Canon.”4

He raises a fundamental question: how and why Middleton can be our other

Shakespeare. The essay first praises Gary Taylor’s achievement in editing. However,

Erne then shows his concerns for Middleton’s qualification. Compared with

Shakespeare, in terms of the total number of existing plays and genres, Erne regards

Shakespeare as somebody who is more respectable. Middleton writes eight tragedies, fourteen comedies, and six tragicomedies, whereas Shakespeare writes ten, thirteen, and five in each genre. Overall, Middleton’s works seem to outnumber Shakespeare’s, but

4 Lukas Erne. "Our Other Shakespeare": Thomas Middleton and the Canon." Modern Philology, vol. 107, no. 3, Feb. 2010, pp. 493-505. 11

Shakespeare writes eight more historical plays than Middleton does. Furthermore, Erne comments on Middleton’s legitimacy, “In fact, some of Taylor’s more hyperbolic affirmations could equally be made for Fletcher, though neither really qualifies as ‘our other Shakespeare’” (499). He also claims that “It is not uncommon to think of English

Renaissance as the home to two very different literary giants, but the other one has not been Middleton but Milton” (498). Even though Middleton is indeed not prolific in writing history play, it does not mean that his achievement should be denied. More importantly, Middleton himself and his works represent the richness of the contemporary London since he often sets his plays in the early stage of the metropolis.

Middleton’s works are more valuable as a stepping stone in the research on early modern London, and that also corresponds to Erne’s statement, “We can now see the

English Renaissance stereoscopically, from the perspective so two very different geniuses” (498). Studying Middleton enriches the research content of the English

Renaissance. As far as Erne is concerned, he does not agree with Taylor’s approach and purpose of canonizing Middleton, and from taht we can assume Erne privileges

Shakespeare as the only and irreplaceable icon. However, in my opinion, first, the purpose of Taylor’s The Oxford Middleton is to diversify the study of the English

Renaissance with London as the starting point. Second, Taylor tries to claim that even a minor writer like Middleton deserves the same the same attention as Shakespeare does.

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To answer the fundamental question previously raised, we can think it over from the opposite side: how and why Middleton cannot be our other Shakespeare? Every writer deserves our respect and we should value their contribution. Taylor makes Middleton another Shakespeare based on his own research, but under no circumstances does he mean that other minor writers are inferior to Shakespeare.

“The Secular Morality of Middleton’s City Comedies” by Derek B. Alwes puts much emphasis on “morality,” which is the main theme of my thesis. At the beginning of the article, he rebukes the Herbert Jack Heller’s declaration over “whether

Middleton’s works are immoral, amoral, or moral” is now “exhausted” (101). However,

Alwes claims that the moral issue will not be suspended. The article supports the ground of my thesis to focus on the decline in morality. The writer asks “what is Middleton’s point? What is his final moral position?” (103). To find out the answer, Alwes locates morality on character’s repentance since self-redemption is the outcome of committing immorality. Once a person starts to repent, it indicates that his moral value is unearthed from his sin. For example, Penitent Brothel in A Mad World, My Masters learns to repent for his adultery after the appearance of Succuba for his inner conscience is awakened. Later, Alwes places his scope on the effect of religion on the people. He traces the role of religion in Middleton’s plays, only to find the influence of it is ineffectual. He concludes that the “play conspires to dismiss religious values as

13 irrelevant to the world of the play” (106-107). Religion provides the moral standard for the people to follow, but Middleton manages to distance morality from the everyday life.

Through city comedy, Middleton presents a world where religion is ineffective in one’s morality and spirits. Whether one has morality does not have anything to do with religion, but has something to do with his will as Alwes says “religious practices have failed to guarantee ethical human behavior” (115). The article places morality as the topmost issue and showcases the worth of further research in this field. The thesis will continue to study the relationship between morality and the people and between morality and spaces with hope to explore more possibility of research.

In Jean E. Howard’s “Civic Institutions and Masculinity in Dekker’s The Honest

Whore5” the social instability comes from “cultural transition” (Howard par. 4). City comedy gained popularity at the time when King James I came to the throne and it was also the time when society became discrepant in the ideas of old and new culture. As the previous discussion, city comedy is taken as a criticism of society. Howard further discovers Dekker’s familiarity with virtues and vices of people as his material for his satirical approach. Since it was the age of change from old to new, the social order was becoming loose and conflicts were taking place. According to Howard, people at that time were negotiating “kinds of cultural problems” (Howard par. 2). For example,

5 Jean E Howard. "Civic Institutions and Masculinity in Dekker’s The Honest Whore." Early Modern Culture, no. 1, 2000, http://emc.eserver.org/1-1/howard. 14

“Londoners explored their role in vastly expanding market economy and negotiating the particular class tensions, especially between gentry and merchants, exacerbated by that expansion” (Howard par. 3). Moreover, gender also became an issue that the conventional masculinity and femininity are being challenged, too. Gender issues are the target that Dekker satirizes in 2 Honest Whore with the line Hippolito humiliating

Bellafront that she has no soul. At the first sight, the passage is presented as the degradation on women, but as a matter of fact, it is Dekker’s deliberate criticism in disguise as Howard suggests, “These crimes . . . are more likely to be committed by the play’s gallants than by Bellafront” (para. 14). Gender, in Dekker’s language, becomes a significant factor that influences the social stability. To explore the issue further, the thesis tries to look at the gender role from the perspective of space and to clarify how gender sexualizes space and reflects the unsteadiness of early seventeenth-century

England.

My Approach

To understand the social instability of the early seventeenth century, the thesis will present four chapters through different perspectives. The first chapter aims to offer an overview of the late sixteenth and the early seventeenth centuries by referring to historical documents in order to build up the social and historical context in terms of religion, politics, economy, and laws, to explain the cause of decline of moral values,

15 which leads to the collapse of social structure. Kate Aughterson edits The English

Renaissance: An Anthology of sources and Documents (1998), which includes various important extracts of historical documents. For example, in part one, she offers the crucial paragraphs of The Book of Common Prayer6, and Certain Sermons or

Homilies7to inform her readers of the attitude and the conducts corresponding to

Christianity in the English Renaissance. In part three “Society and Social Life”,

Aughterson compiles a variety of regulations and declarations that the contemporary citizens should obey. To stabilize the society, serious norms were established in the period of Queen Elizabeth I. For instance, The Sumptuary Laws (1574) was enacted by the Queen to regulate the proper garments to be worn according to one’s rank and occupation. Part seven “Gender and Sexuality” collects plenty of social theories and theological concepts toward gender, marriage, and the duty at home. Take 7.5 for example, Aughterson shows the important extract of Vives’ The Office and Duty of an

Husband (1553). It demonstrates the role of husband and wife bound “by the auctor of nature” and denounces the sin of committing lechery. The last part, “Exploration and

Trade” presents many clues of the commercial motivations, military purposes, and explorative narrations of the foreign land in the English Renaissance. By reading these historical documents, the thesis hope to delineate the picture of the early seventeenth

6 Kate Aughterson. “The Book of Common Prayer,” The English Renaissance: An Anthology of Sources and Documents. Routeledge. 19-23. 7 Ibid. “Certain Sermons or Homilies”. 23-25. 16 century and locate the “how and why” of the decline of moral values and the instability of the social structure. My second chapter will look into the change of social ranks of which citizens in different statuses transgress their positions. I try to examine their plays from the perspective of different social strata with the hope to find out how (im)morality is presented. The chapter mainly focuses on two Middleton’s works: A Mad World, My

Masters, and The Chaste Maid in Cheapside to see the moral decline in different social statuses. In the next two chapters, I want to apply Henri Lefebvre’s arguments in The

Production of Space (1974) to interpret afresh Dekker’s and Middleton’s city comedies whose theatrical representations of daily lives, in my view, are deeply associated with

Lefebvre’s observation on The Critique of Everyday Life (1947; 1961; 1981). Lefebvre is important because “space is a social product” and the significance of the spatialities is socially produced. In Chapter three, I argue that the geographical specificities of the little character create the contradictory and conflictual spaces. Under the pens of Dekker and Middleton, the public spaces, private spaces, and confined spaces (e.g. Bethlem and

Bridewell) are socially constructed in order to offer moral critiques of dishonesty, corruption, and madness in 1&2 Honest Whore.

In Chapter Four where the production of space is gendered (masculine v.s. feminine), I look into the ways in which women’s different statuses (daughter, mother, wife, and whore) are produced. The purpose is to glimpse the use of social spaces of

17 early seventeenth-century society. Through the four chapters, I hope that my thesis will offer a new reading of Dekker’ and Middleton’s plays.

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Chapter I Unsettling England since 1604

The change of the rulers caused a great deal of impact on the English society from

1604 when King James VI of Scotland became King James I of England. Such an impact has a significant bearing on aspects of life, including class, occupation, religion, and gender. Two Elizabethan popular playwrights, Thomas Dekker and Thomas

Middleton, make every effort to satirize what they observe in their satirical city comedies and to reflect the reality to the audiences.

Although Dekker and Middleton do not receive as much attention as other playwrights, such as William Shakespeare or Christopher Marlowe, their works contain many messages of social instability which will shed new light on what we know about

Elizabethan life. As a result, this chapter aims to trace the possible reasons to explain the strange phenomenon by restoring Dekker’s and Middleton’s texts to their contemporary social context. This chapter will address the important historical context of Dekker’s and Middleton’s texts that will affect our perceptions of class, occupation, and gender in order to search the answer to my research question: what makes the

English society in early Jacobean London unstable? And where do Dekker and

Middleton place their satirical focus in city comedy?

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Longstanding Feuds between England and Scotland

The succession of Queen Elizabeth had been a serious issue before 1603 because of her celibacy. To solve the problem, the King James VI of Scotland, the nephew of the

Queen, was regarded as the very legitimate one to succeed her throne. As a matter of fact, Queen Elizabeth I had corresponded with James several times to converse on his rights and validity before 1603. “Although Elizabeth had refused to name him as her heir, she had given him verbal assurances and written promises that she would do nothing to prejudice his rights” (Susan Gossett 27). The Queen wished to settle the succession as early as possible. She even “backed up her words by undermining the position of James’s potential English rivals” (Gossett 27). However, the entire matter was far more complex and there were debates over his legitimacy. First of all, King

James was a Scot and “should be excluded from consideration because of his foreign birth” (Susan Doran 29) due to the longstanding feuds over the centuries. Barry Coward describes how King James was treated: “he was an alien and came from a nation hated by the English” (104). Many Englishmen did not look forward to his arrival. See, for example, the voices of the dissent in the festival text of The Magnificent Entertainment

Given to James I, in which Dekker and Middleton had a part. Consanguinity as he possessed with Queen Elizabeth, he was still strongly opposed by the Court and the

Church.

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Apart from being considered a foreigner, King James’ religious position was one of the reasons that did not make him welcome into England. Catholic Scotland is always a threat to Protestant England. Within the English court and parliaments, Catholics and

Protestants had debated over James’ legitimacy as the Queen was aging. England was mainly constituted by The Church of England, but Scotland by Catholicism. King James

I’s was severely refused for the fear that his arrival would violate The Act of

Supremacy8and lead England back to Catholicism. Nevertheless, English Catholics did not favor James but another Catholic princess, the Infanta Isabella, the daughter of the

Spanish King Philip II. King James’ succession was relentlessly impeded. As a result,

King James took action to ensure his right of being crowned. Ambassadors were commanded to explain to other Protestant rulers to win over their supports (Gossett 32) and also agents ordered in an attempt to prevent the Catholic party from intervening

(Gossett 33).

Before King James officially succeeded the throne, a harsh outbreak of plague with more than 30,000 casualties in 1603 delayed his entry into London’s gate as if it was providential. The plague upon his scheduled arrival was thought to be ominous, which induced more mistrust on him from the citizens. After the plague ceased, King James finally came to London and succeeded the throne in 1604. However, the society did not

8 The Act of Supremacy was firstly enacted by King Henry VIII to announce the excommunication from the Pope, and it was reinstituted by Queen Elizabeth I as the restatement of her position in 1558 21 settle down with his succession. The national feud, religious position, and the plague caused Englishmen to mistrust the new king. As Elizabethans, Dekker and Middleton witnessed the social crises in politics and of the plague. The two Elizabethan playwrights thus expressed their perception and dissatisfaction of Jacobean social strangeness through their works, in which their city comedies are charged with acerbic criticism of the new age.

Class Conflicts between King and Citizens

After 1604. King James I became ambitious to build up a new Britain and explore the new world only to cause more conflicts between him and his subjects. His ambitions can be perceived in some of his ruling policies. First, he states in a Proclamation9 to

Westminster that it was he who should unite the “two mightie, famous, and ancient kingdoms of England and Scotland, under one Emperiall Crowne.” Thus, he renewed the style of the British sovereign to be “KING OF GREAT BRITTAINE, FRANCE,

AND IRELAND, DEFENDER OF THE FAITH” (Calendar of State Papers, Domestic

Series, of the Reign of James I 159). The renewal of the style represents his determination to unite England and Scotland, and signposts a new political landmark.

However, for citizens as Dekker and Middleton, they could hardly bear the change because the change signifies the decline of the old Elizabethan values and the obligation

9 The Proclamation was imprinted at London by Robert Barker, printer to the Kings most Excellent Maiestie, 1604. 22 to accept the new world. It unavoidably generated a strong opposition and conflicts between the King and the people. Second, King James I granted more overseas explorations. Although such explorative campaigns had set off during the Elizabethan period, the ventures abroad did not earn great revenue in the last decade of Elizabethan reign. Craig Muldrew observes, “the 1590s saw a great outflow of money from England to pay for war and trade imbalances, which would compound debt repayment enormously . . . large number of unpaid debts would have had a domino effect” (Craig

Muldrew 149).10 In order to repay the huge sum of debts, King James refreshed The

Charter to the Virginia Company11to explore and settle in Virginia in North America.

The Charter announced, “We would vouchsafe unto them our license to make habitation, plantation, and to deduce a colony of sundry of our people into that part of America commonly called Virginia” (Charter to the Virginia company). James granted the utmost freedom for those who stayed in Virginia as he promised they shall have and enjoy all liberties, franchises, and immunities within any of our other dominions to all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and born within this our realm of England (Charter to the Virginia company). Robert Gray, who was commissioned by the Virginia

Company, was an active figure and encouraged people in England to take adventures to

10 Craig Muldrew. “Economic and Urban Development.” A Companion to Stuart Britain. Edited by Barry Coward. Blackwell, 2007. pp. 148-65 11 An extract from The federal and State Constitutions, colonial and other Organic Laws of the United States. Edited by W. B. Poore, Washington, 1878. 23

Virginia by writing A Good Speed to Virginia.12 As a result, King James’ overseas ambition was explicable since he was obliged to repay the debt that had been accumulating since the Elizabethan time and to collect more capitals for further explorations in order to build up his new Britain.

However, King James’ overseas expeditions affected the citizen’s life in London.

Dekker and Middleton frowned upon the overseas policies of Jacobean England. From their point of view, the foreign exploration did not help the nation get stronger but aggravated the social disorder. Through the robust overseas expansion and increasing commercial interactions drastically changed the economic structure. Merchants started to import goods into England, such as spices, wines, and tobacco. The trades of luxury goods were also robustly carried out. The soaring markets of foreign commodities boosted the domestic demand with external suppliers and personal capitals became easily obtain through these transactions, which changed the old economic structure of the Elizabethan period. As a result, the value of money gradually dissolved class distinction and accelerated class fluidity. People grew eager for easy money and were never satisfied with what they already had. The borderline between to want and to need was eradicated.

The change of the economic structure also influenced the change of class structure.

12 Robert Gray. A Good Speed to Virginia. London, 1609. 24

The middle-class merchants were making more efforts than ever to gain more profits from the booming economy. Consequently, they accumulated huge amounts of properties and wealth. For the aristocracy, they wished to possess more handsome goods from the middle-class merchants regardless of the expensiveness and rarity of goods. As a result, these ruling elites started to sell their land and property, or they even used their credit to loan money in exchange of the merchandise eagerly. The changing economy led to the overturning of the class structure, in which the financial position of the middle-class is more powerful than those aristocrats.

The restructuring of the economy and class affected gender relations. As Aaron

Kitch states, quick wealth influences human sexuality and psychology (68). The traditional gender role had been transgressed and it could be taken as a means to satisfy personal benefits. Characters in Dekker’s and Middleton’s city comedies do not obey the social tradition and transgress the traditional teaching of morals and gender, which was taught through reading the Bible and the conduct books.

Old Moral Values at Stake

The moral conduct of the general public of England was formed by biblical scriptures, conducts books, and governmental administrative policies. The Church has its authority over politics, morality and ethics, and religious rituals and holidays. Both

25 the Bible and The Book of Common Prayer (Common Prayer)13 provided the disciplines of life, of worship, and of moral standard. After King James I came to the throne, he revised biblical texts and the Common Prayer to suit the social need and to make the society more governable. Besides, there were conduct books written by intellectuals and they were widely circulated. An Exhortation Concerning Good Order and Obedience to Rulers and Magistrates (1558) repeatedly places the emphasis on order and obedience and it writes that those who do not abide by it would be given punishments by God. The social structure was firmly made and precisely prescribed.

Thomas Smith’s (1513-1577) De Repulica Anglorum offered a clear distinction for the hierarchy. People from different ranks had their position to stay and they were supposed to keep themselves there well.

Apart from the aforesaid texts, the social order was kept by the government’s policy, too. Sumptuary Laws were issued by Queen Elizabeth in 1574. According to the laws, men and women from different levels should wear the prescribed and proper clothes. Otherwise, those who violate the rules, punishments, and fine would be practiced unto. For those laboring citizens, The Statue of Artificers (1563) regulated the employment and salary for diverse artificers and laborers. Biblical texts, conduct books, administrative policies were established to help maintain the social structure and the

13 The Book of Common Prayer is compiled and adopted by the Church of England. The original book was issued in 1549 and adapted by the later monarchs to standardize the daily worship services and regulations for the subjects to follow. 26 order. However, the regulations and order above only exist on the surface according to

Dekker’s and Middleton’s city comedies. For example, in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside

(Chaste Maid), the two promoters are patrolling during Lent, checking if anyone breaks the prohibition of eating meat. However, they are actually seeking every possibility to receive bribery as the second promoter says to Allwit, “This butcher shall kiss

Newgate, ’less he turn up/ The bottom of the pocket of his apron” (Chaste Maid,

2.2.95-96). Now that the social order is being violated by the promoters, ordinary citizens would no longer regard morality as something important. This is what Dekker and Middleton manage to satirize and present to their audience: a society of disorder and disarray.

Subversions of Gender Roles

As a result of the dramatic changes in the structure of economy and class, traditional gender roles are also affected. Different genders should stay with their social position, which is a key element to maintain social stability. However, many characters in Dekker’s and Middleton’s play turn a blind eye to those teaching and indulge in cross-dressing games. For example, the notorious thief Moll Cutpurse in The Roaring

Girl dresses herself as a man and Richard Follywit in Mad World, My Masters disguises as a whore. The Sumptuary Laws were enacted to prescribe the proper clothes for different classes and genders for the purpose of maintaining social order, but what

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Dekker and Middleton present to audiences is testing and challenging of the traditional social regulations.

Moreover, women will be investigated particularly in the thesis due to the fact that they are gaining “individuality” which counteracts men’s power at home and other places. It draws our attention to see the implications of such representations. Compared with men, women are considered men’s properties since their chastity is thought to be a warranty of a good marriage and men’s asset. A Godlie Forme of Householde

Government (John Dod and Robert Cleaver 1598) writes, “no man wil looke for any other thing of a woman, but her Honestie … For in a maide, the honestie and chastitie is in stead of all” (qtd. in Panek 272). Chastity was so important that it posed influences on one’s marriage. Carroll Camden also adds, “There is no greater joy that a man can have than a loving, kind, and honest wife” (61). Although women are restricted by the solid notion of chastity, it is disdained by Frank Gullman’s mother in A Mad Word as she says to Follywit, “what would you have of a foolish virgin, sir, a wilful virgin? . . . she had grace and boldness to have put herself forward” (A Mad World, 4.5.40-44) The speech of Frank Gullman’s mother suggests that women are gaining individuality and financial independence from men because they have the ability to choose. On the contrary, women’s increasing individuality implies that traditional social structure is being undermined. Dekker and Middleton may try to showcase the devastation of

28 traditional social principles by presenting these unconventional women.

The change of regime from Queen Elizabeth to King James I has undoubtedly brought about much impact on English society since 1604. As Elizabethan playwrights,

Dekker and Middleton could barely accept the dramatic social change and thus record the social unfamiliarity in their city comedies. To answer the research question raised at the beginning of this chapter－what makes English society in early Jacobean London unstable－perhaps we can attribute it to King James’s succession and his great ambition.

Due to his nationality, religious position, and the plague in 1603, his succession was severely refused and reduced people’s belief in him. His ambitions to create his own era by changing the style of the British sovereign and to explore overseas territory posed dramatic influence on the people and provoked the fundamental changes in citizen value.

Moreover, King James’ ambitions changed the economic and hierarchical structure, which makes the old moral value decline and subvert the traditional gender role. To satisfy personal desire, moral values taught from biblical scriptures became increasingly insignificant. Gender roles also were subverted. Women’s increasing individuality destabilized the traditional social structure. In Dekker’s and Middleton’s city comedies, there are characters from various social classes and of different gender are created to satirize decadent immorality and changing gender roles to exhibit the social disorder in early Jacobean England. To discuss more of changes of the social status, the next

29 chapter will focus on various characters from different social ranks to examine how these sly citizens transgress in the rigorous social divisions.

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Chapter II

The Unstable Social Structure and (Im)moral Citizens

As the previous chapter states, the early Jacobean English social structure became unstable because it was challenged and gradually broken down by the declining moral values of every class along with the change of the monarchs and the economy. To examine the unstable social structure in early Jacobean English society, identifying the social stratification and indicating the moral corruption of the citizens is a key and crucial step. This chapter will place the emphasis on how Middleton presents his characters undermining the social structure by reading two Middleton’s representative city comedies: A Mad World, My Masters and A Chaste Maid in Cheapside.

Social Classification

An institutionalized social structure is important and enables the ruler to efficiently control the land. For decades, there was a continuous tradition of social classifications instituted by moralists or members of governmental institutes in order to provide effective approaches to commanding the subjects. In Elizabethan times, there were many moralist and clergymen who proposed different social classifications, For example, the well-respected protestant clergyman Robert Crowley (1512-1588),14 the

Privy Councilor Sir Geoffrey Fenton (1539-1608),15 and the government agent Sir

14 Robert Crowley divides the society into twelve estates in Voyce of the Last Trumpet (1549). 15 Sir Geoffrey Fenton hold onto the categorization in Form of Christian Pollicie (1574) 31

Thomas Wilson (1560-1629).16 The most influential one was that of the moralist,

William Harrison (1534-1593),17 whose social division－“four sorts: gentlemen, citizens or burgesses, yeoman, and artificers or labourers”－helps to define the stratification of the society in the Elizabethan period and influences much later to the eighteenth century. Moreover, the contemporary diplomat Sir Thomas Smith

(1513-1577), who supplements Harrison’s idea in De Republica Anglorum (1583), argues “the sort of gentleman falls on dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, and barons.”

These titles, according to Smith’s definition, belong to “nobilitas maior”18 indicating the top positions of the four strata. Moreover, there is “nobilitas minor”19 of this level, whereto the knight belongs. Knights are “nobilitas minor”; however, they share almost the same duties as “nobilitas maior,” and none has the privileged to be exempted. Both the “nobilitas maior” and “minor” are counted as gentlemen and they are expected to live by “noblesse oblige,” meaning the noble obligation of socially privileged aristocrats.

Nevertheless, the succession of title makes the difference between “nobilitas maior” and

“nobilitas maior” as Thomas Smith describes, “No man is a knight by succession.” A knight can only pass on their property and fortune by primogeniture. That explains the reason why the grandson of Sir Bounteous, Dick Follywit in A Mad World, impatiently

16 Thomas Wilson classifies the society into eight strata in The State of England Anno Dom (1600). 17 William Harrison writes his classification in A Description of England (1577), 18 To follow the original term in Latin, this thesis adopts “nobilitas maior, ” meaning “major noblemen” in English. 19 “Nobilitas minor” means “minor noblemen” in English 32 waits for his grandfather’s death. Regardless of no title being passed down, both grandfather and grandson still have something in common: the immoral lineage. The indecent habits, the calculating mind, and the descendant symbolizes the corruption of the upper class, and there are more characters of this class who forget the principles and reduce themselves to be common gentlemen.

“Common” Gentlemen

In Middleton’s plays, there are gentlemanly but unmannerly-behaved characters to showcase the decline of the upper class. For example, Sir Bounteous in A Mad World preys on the profits given by Lord Owemuch and he lusts after the courtesan’s service.

The grandson, Follywit, is not any better than his grandfather. He disguises himself as

Lord Owemuch to deceive Sir Bounteous and to “rob him” (2.2.23). These gentlemen have false determination to satisfy their personal desire, and their misconducts and crafty minds debase the highness of gentlemen.

As a knight, Sir Bounteous fails to practice the knightly codes and disremember the moral lineage of chivalric duties of “nobilita minor”. Chivalry and moral lineage are the ideals for a knight. Gail Ashton, a medieval scholar, offers a clear expectation of chivalry, “chivalry has a spiritual or moral dimension . . . and act in a virtuous, exemplary manner at all times” (46). A knight stands for an important moral and virtuous principle to those below his rank. Moreover, as the author of Chivalric

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Romances: Popular Literature in Medieval England (1983), Lee C. Ramsey, states that a knight has the responsibility of protecting the weak and the poor, and should behave as an example to the society (4). However, none of the knights presented by Middleton acts in correspondence to that code.

In 2.1. in A Mad World, when Sir Bounteous Progress learns of the arrival of Lord

Owemuch, he acts as if he were the acquaintance and greets him with all his generosity.

“My Lord Owemuch! I have heard much speech of that lord. H’as great acquaintance i’ th’ city. That Lord has been much followed” (2.1.14-16). Sir Bounteous is actually not acquainted with Lord Owemuch, and he has no clue that Lord Owemuch is a fictionalized role in his grandson’s scheme to entrap him. The false knowing of Lord

Owemuch reveals Sir Bounteous’ vanity in the later speech, “There’s not one knight i’ th shire able to entertain a lord i’ th’ cue or a lady i’ th’ nick like me” (2.1.58-60). He arrogantly boasts of himself as the only one in town who knows the manner to serve an important person with greater reputation and power. To entreat the guest, Sir Bounteous invites Lord Owemuch to dine with “hunting meal” (2.2.2) and stay overnight. He leads his guest to a well-furnished chamber and finely ornamented with a “mean lodging”

(2.2.4) and “poor cambric sheets” (2.2.4-5). Not until 2.2. does Sir Bounteous show off by saying, “Tomorrow your lordship shall see my cocks, my fishponds, my park, my champaign grounds” (2.2.17-18). Sir Bounteous is so hospitable in his acts and words

34 and would like to present the best side of him and the house, but he self-effaces his mansion by employing humble attitude.

Regardless of being humble and courteous, what lies behind Sir Bounteous’ manner is his hypocrisy and worries. For one thing, he desires to be favored by the guest Lord; for another, he feels the pressure from the peer of his rank. He regards

Owemuch as an imaginary opponent, and he cannot stand being inferior to Owemuch in the way of wealth and power. In terms of power, Sir Bounteous unquestionably possess abundantly fortune and properties. However, he subconsciously feels the inferiority to

Lord Owemuch so that he presents his valuable objects to win over this Lord. As a matter of fact, he is showing the self-insecurity through his hypocrite hospitality. Sir

Bounteous’ humble words are actually a boast in disguise. By exaggeratingly displaying his possession, he not only ensures upper-hand position but also calms his inner insecurity. Such insecurity comes from his anxiety to be downgraded when he is contrasted to Lord Owemuch since possessing more materials and wealth make gentry class much showier and it turns out to be a competition for the property. As a result, no gentleman would like to be seen to be inferior because of having less possessions.

In addition to Sir Bounteous’ vanity, his lasciviousness makes another flaw to his knighthood. The Courtesan Frank Gullman is “privately maintained” (3.2.6) and frequented by him with valuable objects. Likewise, the courtesan enjoys being doted

35 upon by this lavish man. “He’s my sole revenue, meat, drunk, and raiment” (3.2.9) says the courtesan to Penitent Brothel. Later when the courtesan and Penitent feign as patient and physician, Sir Bounteous generously bestows money and gold for the costly medicine. The lasciviousness of Sir Bounteous is so deep-rooted that he disregards the moral standard of a knight and his care of health. In spite of the risks of visiting whores, without any sense of guilt the knight replies to Gunwater, “the pox is as natural now as an ague in the spring time” (4.3.24-25). Not a try he gives to defend himself for the carnal habit, and what’s worse, he takes it for granted. For a knight, he should be generous and attentive to the people socially inferior to him, especially women (Keen 5).

Thus, it is not surprising that Sir Bounteous helps others by giving out the money to the courtesan. Nevertheless, the relationship between the knight and the courtesan is not maintained in the way of noble obligation but the way of lusty desire. The social norms and expectation of “nobilita minor” fail to be fulfilled by Sir Bounteous, who makes the evident contrast between the ideal and the actual in morality.

A similar amoral situation of Sir Bounteous is also shown in A Chaste Maid. Sir

Walter Whorehound’s dramatic presentation poses a noticeable corruption of social structure. Sir Walter Whorehound lacks self-discipline in his sexual desire. Besides continuously searching for women, he even has an affair with a wife. Compared with

Sir Bounteous, who acts more like a fool, Sir Walter Whorehound has more serious

36 moral problems. As the contemporary fashion of naming the person of illicit relation as a relative, Sir Walter also privately maintains a Welsh woman, whom he calls "niece”

(1.1.43) to hide their disgraceful relation. Besides the Welsh woman, he keeps another woman and even the entire family of hers. Master Jack Allwits, the husband of the kept woman, calls Sir Walter Whorehound as the “founder” (1.2.12) of the house. Allwit in his speech once expresses his appreciation for Whorehound’s generosity:

I thank him, he’s maintained my house this ten years,

Not only keeps my wife, but a keeps me

And all my family. I am at his table;

He gets me all my children, and pays the nurse

Monthly or weekly; puts me to nothing,

Rent, nor church-duties, not so much as the scavenger:

The happiest state that ever man was born to! (1.2.15-22)

Like Sir Bounteous in A Mad World, both of them are generous to those who are socially inferior. However, the truth behind the financial and material aids can be discovered that the two knight covers their carnal and impropriate relationship with other women in the name of noble obligation.

Despite that fact that Sir Walter Whorehound has two secretly kept women, he woos the daughter of Yellowhammer, Moll. Though two women are secretly kept, a

37 chaste maid to marry is what he needs. As aforesaid in chapter I, a woman’s chastity, which is the best guarantee for a healthy marriage, is also a precious asset to the husband. However, it is not the only reason why Sir Walter Whorehound wants to marry

Moll. His real purpose is to eliminate his filthy past by marrying a chaste woman. There is no true love between Whorehound and Moll, but merely his hidden scheme exists.

Moral ridiculousness and sexual disposition are satirized to showcase the corruption of gentlemen. As a knight, he should follow and fulfill the noble obligation and be virtuous in the society. However, Middleton does not narrate the deeds of knights as “nobilita minor.” The presentations of the two knights are rather opposite to the ideal knightly image. Although Sir Bounteous and Sir Walter Whorehound are knighted, they fail to meet the knightly code, but they live by hypocrisy. According to Oxford

Dictionary, “hypocrisy” originates from the Greek “hupokrisis,” meaning acting and pretending of a theatrical part. The two knights fall as the target as Middletonian satire and are teased with their hypocritical pretension. Middleton satirizes the two problematic and rotten characters to inform his audience of how hypocritical and corrupt the upper-class people are. The corruption of social structure can be seen not only in the upper class, but also in the middle class. Both of the upper class and the middle class play a significant role in Middleton’s satirical city comedies.

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Issues of the Middling Sorts

Along with the booming of the economy in early Jacobean times, middle-class citizens are more capable of earning more and trading, making the country flourish.

However, no matter how much the country advances in economy, in Middleton’s eyes, the social structure is collapsing, and the society is being corrupt.

A great number of middle-class characters presented by Middleton are morally corrupt. A Mad World, My Master provides informative examples of the immoral defect of the middle class. They are driven by their personal desire regardless of the moral instructions or the teaching of conducts books. In the play, a triangular relationship of the middle class happens among Master Shortrod Harebrain, his wife, and Master

Penitent Brothel. The relationship of this kind should be corrected. However, as Master

Shortrod Harebrain and his wife proceed in the play, their relationship grows abnormal with the help of the courtesan Frank Gullman. Suspecting his wife’s adulterous intent,

Master Shortrod Harebrain invites the courtesan to serve as the moral guidance for his wife. The courtesan is good-hearted and promises to heed his request, but in fact, her instruction is not so much correction as corruption. She secretly teaches Ms Harebrain her hand with a scheme to meet Master Penitent Brothel, which forms the complicated triangle relation. The success of the triangle is all attributed to the courtesan Frank

Gullman as a perfect marriage consultant.

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Moreover, the courtesan offers some pieces of advice to Ms Harebrain to act like an obedient cat to prevent his husband’s jealousy. Her advice goes as follows, “Neglect all entertain; if he bring in/ strangers, keep you your chamber, be not seen” (1.2.91-2).

Moreover, she suggests her to read some “coted Scriptures” (1.2.95) and hide a “stirring pamphlet” (1.2.96) under the skirt. The courtesan promises that if she can manage the principles, she can be “an honest wife” (1.2.102). The other achievement that the courtesan makes is to cover the meeting of Ms Harebrain and Master Penitent Brothel in her house.

As a matter of fact, Master Harebrain has to take the responsibility of the affair of his wife and Penitent Brothel. He does not understand it is his jealousy that forces his wife to cheat on him. Harebrain’s jealousy is so uncontrollable and ineliminable that his wife cannot help but complains to the courtesan of how she feels:

My husband’s jealousy,

That masters hum as he doth master me,

And as a keeper that locks prisoners up

Is himself prisoned under his own key.

Even so my husband in restraining me

With the same ward bars his own liberty. (1.2.110-15)

He does not realize that the more jealous he gets, the more possibility that his wife

40 would have extramarital affairs. Not surprisingly, Ms Harebrain makes her husband a cuckold. We may assume that it is because Harebrain cannot satisfy his wife, and she is actually tired of him being so repulsive, which finally motivates her desire to take a sip of men outside the house. Moreover, these characters break down the virtue of the holiness of marriage. As A Homily of the State of Matrimony20 reads, “God hath straightly forbidden al whoredom and uncleanness.” Those who are committed to extramarital relationships are defiant and dare to challenge God’s authority because people should “stand in the fear of God and abhor all filthiness” (A Homily of the State of Matrimony). Master Shortrod Harebrain should learn to appreciate the merits of a marriage. He, as the head of the house, is supposed to be responsible to take good care of his home, and particularly he needs to pay attention to his wife since “the husband is by God’s ordinance the wife’s head, that is her defender (Eph. 5. 22), teacher, and comforter, and therefore she oweth subjections to him” (Dod and Cleaver A Godly Form of Household Government).21 Due to Harebrain’s stressful eyes on his wife, it is never a surprise that she escapes from him because the house is no longer morally intact.

Moral corruption of the middle class is another satirical theme in A Chaste Maid in

Cheapside. The Yellowhammers are a typical middle class family, but they hold high

20 The text was originally included in Certain Sermons or Homilies along with the publication of The Common Prayer, Injunctions, and Canons in 1559. The text was later edited into The Two Books of Homilies Appointed to be Read in Churches by John Griffiths in 1859. 21 John Dod, and Robert Cleaver. A Godly Form of Household Government: for the Ordering of Private Families, According to the Direction of God's Word. 1614. 41 aspirations for their son and daughter, Tim and Moll. Tim’s and Moll’s marriages are the parents’ approaches to leveling up their social status and enriching the family possessions. Moll, as the only chaste maid in the play, is enforced to marry lecherous Sir

Walter Whorehound. At the very beginning of the play, the mother, Maudline, claims the worth and the purpose of her, “You dance like a slumber’s daughter, and deserve/ Two thousand pound in lead to your marriage, / And not in goldsmith’s ware” (1.1.20-22).

Although she only deserves two pounds, her marriage to Sir Walter Whorehound will definitely promise a handsome income. For one thing, the Yellowhammers could become the legal inheritors of Sir Walter Whorehound’s huge wealth. For another, the reputation of the Yellowhammers would also be raised up. As a result, Moll must marry

Sir Walter Whorehound at any cost because marriage is an effective agent to connect the gentry and the middle class.

Marriage becomes a business between the gentry and the middle class. Before meeting the “cousin” of Sir Walter Whorehound, the parents have devised and calculated for a while:

A proper fair young gentlewoman, which I guess

By her red hair and other rank description

To be his [Whorehound’s] landed niece brought out of Wales,

Which Tim our son, the Cambridge boy, must marry.

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‘Tis a match of Sir Walter’s own ranking,

To bind us to him and our heirs for ever. (1.1.41-46)

The arranged marriage of Tim and the Welsh Woman is a flawless strategy for the

Yellowhammers to level up and acquire the great heritage of Sir Walter Whorehound.

As a matter of fact, their plan is so obvious that Sir Walter Whorehound can point it out in their first meeting. Whorehound bluntly addresses the worth of the Welsh woman to

Master Yellowhammer, “You may be bold with her on these terms; ‘tis she, sir,/ Heir to some nineteen mountains” (1.1.135-36). The arranged marriage violates the holiness of the traditional marriage, and it also becomes a merchandise in the market. The ambitions of the Yellowhammers characterize the speculating mindset of the middle class to satisfy their own desire and upgrade themselves regardless of the moral teaching and social classification, which is an indication of the futility of social structure. Besides the upper class and middle class, there are more characters presented by Middleton worth more analysis. We can turn our attention to the offerings of these two classes, and see how social structure is undermined.

Guileful Gallants and Crafty Prostitutes

Dick Follywit and the courtesan Frank Gullman are best examples of the unruly citizens. They come from different social divisions, but they fully demonstrate how calculating and corrupted their strata are. The two characters respectively play a key

43 role in the two storylines by being the very causes of the chaos in the play. They have much in common, for example, the knowledge of scheming, and the skills of feigning/disguising. Tricks are played and pranks are set in order to satisfy their own immoral purposes. When undertaking their plans, they seem to lose their mind when it comes to money. In scene 2.2., Follywit boldly yells “push! Money, money, we come for money” (2.2.26) and in scene 2.5., the courtesan craftily speaks “A trick, to make you, sir, especially happy, and yet I myself a savor by it” (2.5.4-5). Sir Bounteous, though morally flawed, rightly comments on them, “there should be a conscience, if one could hit upon’t” (2.2.48-49). In other words, those who calculate are in lack of conscience and incapable of being righteous. With all hearts managing to satisfy their personal desire, Follywit and the courtesan are the clever scheme inventors.

Although coming from different social backgrounds, Dick Follywit and Frank

Gullman share some similarities with each other. First, domestic tutelage fails in the two families, and especially the moral instructions. The immoral lineage of the two families is inherited by Follywit and Gullman. Follywit has a morally deficient and hypocritical grandfather. His lust for fame and fortune is inherited by Follywit and he longs for the grandfather’s heritages after he dies as he claims, “You all know the possibilities of my hereafter fortunes, and the humor of my frolic grandsire . . . whose death makes all possible to me. I shall have all when he has nothing; but now he has all, I shall have

44 nothing” (1.1.42-45). Though being a knight’s grandchild, Follywit does not practice the “nobilita minor”; however, he daringly speaks of death onto his sire and impatiently desires for his death. The knighthood is never exhibited in Dick Follywit. Similarly, the courtesan’s family tutelage is neglected. Her mother ignores the significance of honesty but infuses the idea that honesty is a tool which earns you “golden days” (1.1.168). The importance and value of maidenhead are denied as the mother details, “fifteen times thou know’st I have sold thy maidenhead to make up a dowry for thy marriage”

(1.1.163-64). As a mother, the job of her is supposed to instruct the correct notion of chastity instead of selling it. From the perspective of moral instruction, the domestic tutelage fails both in Allwit’s and Gullman’s home.

The second similarity between Dick Follywit and Frank Gullman is shown through their calculating minds. Both of Follywit and the courtesan are excellent schemers because they are fully aware of human nature and play as if they were hosting a game.

For example, Follywit fully grasps the nature of his grandsire as he counts:

FOLLYWIT . . . first, that my grandsire Sir Bounteous Progress is a knight of

thousands, and therefore no knight since one thousand six hundred;

next, that he keeps a house like his name, bounteous, open for all

comers; thirdly and lastly, that he stands much upon the glory of his

complement, variety of entertainment, together with the largeness of

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his kitchen, longitude of his buttery, and fecundity of his larder and

thinks himself never happier than when some stiff lord or great

countess alights to make light his dishes. (63-72)

He so understands his grandsire that he hatches his scheme with three steps by disguising to cheat on him. Firstly, he disguises himself as a fictional knight Lord

Owemuch to win over his trust and then to rob Sir Bounteous by a self-directed robbery of “a jewel in a blue ribbon of a hundred pound, besides some hundred pounds in fair spur-royals” (2.5.111-13). The second step is to disguise himself as a quean and to open the casket with “diamond, ruby, sapphire, and onyx” (4.3.42-43). The final step of his scheme is to fake a touring company “Slip” to play a comedy in the banquet. By playing these tricks, Follywit pretends to “borrow” some valuable props from Sir Bounteous to use on the stage, but he never intends to return. So smart Dick Follywit is that he takes full advantages of his grandsire and makes the most use of him. Such a resourceful mind can be also seen in how Frank Gullman treats those lascivious men around her.

The courtesan Frank Gullman knows how to earn herself profits not only by corporal transaction but also by her wits. The same as Follywit, the courtesan is a manipulator, too, and she has knowledge of how to conduct business with men. If we look at her from a more modern perspective, a businesswoman is a much better title for her rather than a courtesan. In A Mad World, she repeatedly demonstrates her wit

46 through the business with different men for different purposes. In 1.2., she first starts her business with the jealous Master Shortrod Harebrain to “convert” his wife into an ideal wife and she earns her a “ruby” (1.2.152). However, she does not actually convert

Ms Harebrain but “directs” (1.2.83) her to feign obedience in front of men, which is successfully practiced in 3.1. when there are visitors coming to Harebrain’s house. Next, she conspires with Master Penitent Brothel against Sir Bounteous, Inesse, and

Possibility by disguising a doctor and a patient. When scheming with Penitent Brothel, she says, “I’ll counterfeit a fit of violent sickness” (2.5.23-24) to stop those men from her. Her wit succeeds again in deceiving men into offering money. She pretends sickness, which prompts Sir Bounteous to give out money to buy medicine. She is also

“feigning farting and excreting” (3.2.170) to daunt Inesse and Possibility away.

The highlight of the courtesan’s cleverness lies in the latter part of 3.2. She smuggles Penitent Brothel to meet with Ms Harebrain inside her house. In order to cover the noises made by the secret couple, the courtesan speaks loudly to Harebrain who is listening apart behind the door. She pretends to converse with Ms Harebrain with words that she knows Harebrain would like to hear: “Love him, honour him, stick by him. He lets you want nothing that’s fit for a woman, and to be sure on’t, he will see himself that you want it not” (3.2.201-04). She fully controls the entire situation and fully understands what men desire. After all these things are finished, she will be

47 rewarded handsomely. With her brilliant wit, she can conduct her business like a modern businesswoman.

Follywit and the courtesan are two parallel characters in manipulating in A Mad

World presented in the two plots. Both of their families fail to provide them with a healthy home education. The traditional chivalric lineage and moral values cease to pass down to the later generation. Besides their wrong moral tutelage, they are skillful at cheating. Follywit is clever and knows the weakness of his grandfather so that he entraps him to acquire his fortune. Similarly, the courtesan also knows human nature so well that she manipulates them like toys and is even rewarded with gifts. The two characters best demonstrate the problematic moral values in the Jacobean period.

Conclusion

Middleton critiques the contemporary society by subverting the social hierarchy.

Upper-class people, such as the “nobilita minor” Sir Bounteous, are criticized and satirized for their hypocrisy. Lechery is another sin Middleton attacks by presenting Sir

Walter Whorehound’s ridiculous sexual relationship with various women. The middle class, the most fundamental proportion of the contemporary society, best projects their moral dilemma. Characters from different social strata are criticized and dramatized in order to inform the audiences of what actual world they lived in. Although Middleton satirizes and critiques these characters, the happy ending in each of Middleton’s city

48 comedies perhaps suggests that he still remains hopeful in human nature.

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Chapter III

Voices of the Land and Conflicting Geographies of (Im)morality

Since the social structure was disrupted by the change of regime and economy, many social conflicts were taking place and spread to all walks of life. These conflicts are rooted in different social classes between the aristocrats and the middle class, or among the middle-class citizens. Moral values and virtues of different social statuses clash with one another. Different characters, different moral decisions of different cultural social values lead to a glaring social discrepancy. In Dekker’s and Middleton’s city comedies, we can perceive these conflicts by hearing the voices made by little characters and by seeing the spaces (im)moralized by various citizens. These conflicts point out serious struggles between old and new social orders, which constitutes the motif of the two city comedies, 1&2 Honest Whore.

Play as a Miniature of the Society

Dekker and Middleton’s city comedy best project the social conflicts between characters of different social status. Ideally, no matter what status characters belong to, they all follow a commonly accepted moral standard. However, the moral standard in the Jacobean era is conditioned by the change of social order. 1&2 Honest Whore best present the change of moral standards of the contemporary citizens. When the social order changes, the social conflicts happen.

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On the purpose of showing the conflicts between status, the playwrights exemplify different worlds of society to the audiences. These worlds of society are featured with specific settings and diverse characters, e.g. the creation of new theatrical spaces of middle-class citizens. Dekker’s and Middleton’s city comedy unsettles the notions of traditional comedy in the presentation of characters and space, which helps illustrate the ways in which social conflicts and changes happen. The characters in 1&2 Honest

Whore are more socially diverse. Unlike Shakespeare’s works whose characters are drawn more from the gentry or nobility, the characters in Dekker and Middleton’s comedies come from different ends of social strata. Moreover, the leading characters in

1&2 Honest Whore are not like traditional protagonists or moral exemplums. Take

Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure (c.1603-1604) for example, it was performed in the same year as 1 Honest Whore. Although Measure could be considered Shakespeare’s first city comedy and it is generally accepted to be a collaborative work with Middleton, the play still could not shake off the colour of Shakespearean romanticism and the characters are not varied enough to reveal the complexity of the society. The plots, either main plot or subplot, are mostly going around the Duke of Vienna and the deputized ruler Angelo, and the gentleman Claudio and his comrades. However, the leading figures of 1&2 Honest Whore are but commoners, Candido a patient madman and Bellafront an honest whore.

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Compared with the character’s backgrounds in Shakespearean comedies, Dekker’s and Middleton’s plays are more diverse in characters and more socially realistic, which best mirrors the social conflicts since a play itself is a miniature of the society.

Little Characters behind the Scene

Voices of little characters are heard and presented in Dekker’s and Middleton’s comedies. By using “little characters” I mean those who are lower class and socially inferior compared with the upper class. In 1&2 Honest Whore, playwrights give us a list of little characters who are rarely seen on the Shakespearean stage. They are linen draper, whores, bawds, or pimps, who mark an evident social distinction and present moral contrast to those from higher social rank. Each status demonstrates its social value and ideology, and consequently, due to the social diversity, conflicts usually happen among characters of the lower class and the upper class. In 1 Honest Whore,

Bellafront plays the leading character and her presence offers a vivid contrast between a little character and aristocrats. Owing to her occupation, which is often regarded as a voiceless and insignificant role, she is the one being exploited the most. Matheo demands her to “entertain this gentleman (Hippolito) respectively, and bid him welcome”

(6.182-83). Hippolito does not embrace the bidding; instead, he grows disgusted with such a base woman, saying “she’s some sale courtesan” (6.212). The depreciation of

Hippolito showcases an evident value conflict of morality and occupation. He despises a

52 whore’s dishonesty by mocking her popularity among customers, “that if all your committers stood in rank, They’d make a lane, in which your shame might dwell, and with their spaces reach from hence to hell” (6.380-82), and he even belittles her “as base as any beast” (6.387). However, Hippolito never realizes that Bellafront is the most honest woman throughout the play since he is blinded by his own false value toward a woman. Ironically, Bellafront reforms at the end of 1 Whore, but Hippolito’s rightness deforms in part 2. We hear the confession of a whore stating her determination to convert herself to an honest woman: “Some means I’ll try. Would all whores were as honest now as I” (6.507-08). The conflict between little characters and upper class also show up when the Duke and his comrades visit the Bethlem and Bridewell. The two places serve the function of healing madness and correcting indecent conducts; consequently, it should be places of seriousness. However, the duke and his companies treat the visit as an entertainment.

DUKE. How shall the interim hours by us be spent?

FLUEELO. Let’s all go see the madmen. (15.101-02)

Same as Hippolito, the duke and the gallants hold a false notion of a whore. Whore’s voices and performance, though rumbustious, unravel their own way of life, which is utterly contrary to the duke’s and the gallants’ misconception. Even if they are whores taken to Bridewell, they are never subdued to these men.

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DOROTHEA. … Do ye take me for a base spittle-whore? In troth,

gentlemen, but you carry not the minds of gentlemen, to abuse a

gentlewoman of my fashion.

LODOVICO. Fashion? Pox a your fashions, art not a whore?

DOROTHEA. Goodman Slaue.

DUKE. O fie, abuse her not, let vs two talke,

What mought I call your name, pray?

DOROTHEA. I’m not ashamed of my name, Sit, my name is Mistris Doll

Target, a Westerne Gentlewoman. (5.2.280-87)

When questioned by the Duke and other men, she does not retreat; instead, she pronounces her name boldly in front of them. Her bravery against big characters is worth much attention since it is rarely seen that a whore would be named in

Shakespeare’s plays, and more importantly, it poses a powerful image of a whore contrasting reputed aristocrats. Not only surprised by the unruly languages, the Duke and his men are curious about a whore’s garment, questioning, “Is she a Citty-dame, she’s so attyred?” (5.2.351). Another whore called Penelope Whorehound dressed like a

“citizen’s wife” is questioned how she gets her dress and wear it decently as a wife. She defends herself, “No God is my Iduge, sir, I am in for no debts, I payd my Taylor for this Gowne, the last fiueshillings a weeke that was behind, yesterday” (5.2.321-24).

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Though being a whore is an unmentionable profession, Penelope Whorehound’s defense defamiliarizes the knowledge of a whore, and she even tries to convince them and justify her labor. The staging of the duke with his men and Penelope raises the conflicts between the upper class and a whore; the former hold onto the idea that whores are voiceless and disgraceful, but the latter reverses the idea and provides a justification of their occupation.

Conflicts do not only appear in the meeting of little characters and the upper class but also take place among little characters. The third whore, Catherina Bountinall, quarrels over the interests with her Bawd, Mistress Horseleech, which display the conflicts in between the lower social class. When she is asked to speak, she challenges

Mistress Horseleech. Catherina suspects of Horseleech’s confession “I am knowne for a motherly honest woman, and no bawd” (5.2.372-73). Catherina rebukes by stating how many times Horseleech is sent here in Bridewell and punished, “burnt at fourteene, seuen times whore, sixe times carted, nine times duck’d search’d by some hundred and fifty Constables, and yet you are honest?” (5.2.374-76). Apparently, we know

Horseleech is a liar, but what she tries to accomplish is to keep herself a position in this industry. In the event that she were sentenced to a heavier penalty, she might forfeit her way of survival.

The characters aforementioned are little, yet their voices are heard and their

55 attitudes are in no resemblance to those upper class and aristocrats, wherein they strike a contrast to each other and conflicts show up. Dekker and Middleton fully display the social diversity by depicting the interaction between the insignificant roles and the gentry. On the contrary, Shakespeare never puts a whore on stage. It was not common to present the lower-class character’s voices since it used to be thought inappropriate and unlikely to be staged. Interestingly, little characters become the leading roles and make themselves the spotlights. 1&2 Honest Whore provide a new aspect of social observation, offering a chance to uncover the life of the uncanny and even to feel empathy with the characters. What is more important is that socially inferior characters are invested with more moralizing speeches full of moral revelations, specifically located in the space of where they live and work. The common places of the citizens help Dekker’s and Middleton’s little characters surface the text, taking the advantages to state their moral altitude even though they are marginalized and stay in a common space in the society.

Geographical Specificity

In addition to the specific characters, the social space22 is undoubtedly a prominent dramaturgical feature in 1&2 Honest Whore wherein Dekker and Middleton daringly stage many “common spaces” of the people. By using “common spaces”

22 The concept of social space is first raised by French Philosopher, Henri Lefebvre. 56

Bethlem the spaces where citizens live and work, where citizens conflict with one another, and thus where form moral spaces.

As Henri Lefebvre defines space, he explains in The Space of Production, “social space is a social product” (166) and it points out that every space is a product of social production. Social production includes various social activities and dimensions, and the economic movement is a significant factor in the social production. I want to develop

Lefebvre’s observations on spaces and argue that social spaces in 1&2 Honest Whore are influenced by capitalism which started to emerge in the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, and the plays offer the best examples of the interrelationship of socially inferior characters and social spaces. According to the stage direction of the

1&2 Honest Whore and Lefebvre’s notions, social space can be generally categorized into two kinds: public and private. The former one is “the spaces of social relationships and actions” (153), and the latter “the spaces of contemplation, isolation, and retreat”

(153). “Public area” should be the space shared by anyone and “ought to be an opening outwards” (147), and by contrast, “private area” is supposed to be “enclosed, and have a finite, or finished, aspect” (147). 1 & 2 Honest Whore are two comedies with numerous scenes set in either in public spaces or private spaces, in which most conflicts of characters with different moral values take place. The interrelationship of characters and spaces projects the moral standards, satirizing the contemporary social disorder to

57 remind the audiences of the importance of being righteous.

Public Areas

Dekker and Middleton want to create a specific space, which is public space, so that they can employ its openness as their moral critique of the social inconsistency.

Public spaces of 1 Honest Whore, for example, include Candido’s shop and the streets, both of which are open to gallants, rogues, or whores, let alone the fully open street. In

1 Honest Whore, scenes of entrapment repeatedly appear. The linen draper Candido must deal with the provoking visits of different guests from different status. Each status represents its own view of moral values, and when people of different status visit

Candido’s shop, it suggests the unavoidable conflicts in that public area. Candido cannot prevent the vicious customers from coming and make any resistance to social pressure imposed by them who walk into this public area. Gallants take part in making a bet on Candido on winning “a hundred ducats by one jest” (4. 63). Castruccio, Fluello,

Pioratto enter the shop and wish to pay “a whole pennyworth” (5.70) lawn. Obviously, it is a plan to test Candido, and such a test is a challenge to Candido’s moral values; however, he accepts the bargain, “A pennyworth! Why you shall: I’ll serve you presently” (5.84-85). Later, they even demand to cut the lawn “just in the middle, or else not” (5.90). Once cut in the middle, the lawn would lose its value and be hard to sell.

Candido replies, “Just in the middle!－Ha－You shall too” (5.90). Under the pressure

58 from the customers, Candido has no other choice but to consent to the outrageous request. Fluello makes another example of social pressure that Candido is unable to resist. Fluello schemes to take golden and silver beakers away. Without surprise,

Candido can do nothing but permit Fluello’s unreasonable extortion. Such peer provocations reflect the oppression on the common citizens, and it is also a point at which social conflicts occur.

Dekker and Middleton introduce public space to accommodate external pressure of provocations and conflicts, yet at the same time, it is also the space where Candido exemplifies his moral virtue: patience. In part 1, Candido’s wife and her brother Fustigo meet up on the street in front of Candido’s shop. In the meeting, Viola not only indicates that “patience” is the weakness of her husband, criticizes, “he has not all things belonging to a man” (1.67-68),but also questions his manhood, “he who cannot be angry is no man” (1.74). As a woman, she is expected to be more patient than a man; however, she sees her husband is unshakable and so “free from anger” (1.85). Thus, she starts to be skeptical of her husband so that she manages to “make him horn-mad”

(1,103) by collaborating with her brother, Fustigo. Fustigo’s provocation means a different moral system in which he considers patience to be foolishness. Their plan of enraging Candido is strategic; first, they “make him a cuckold” (1.104-105) and then

“take up wares, and pay nothing” (1.141). The entire conversation takes place by the

59 gate of Candido’s shop, and they seem not to worry about being heard of their plans. In

City Comedy, a conflict is not necessarily serious and it can be staged in the form of a game in public areas since a game lessens the seriousness and covers up the unreasonable tricks. As a result, in such public area, they are not ashamed of making such a cony-catching game

The challenge received from the public spaces is gradually translated into a moral space of resistance. Candido, of course, knows the fact that he is being tricked by the false customers and his wife and brother-in-law, but public space as his shop is a shared space where Candido could only bear the pressure. Although provoked repetitively,

Candido is not irritated but patiently elaborates his thoughts:

Should you conceit me to be vexed or moved?

He has my ware, I have his money for’t,

And that’s no argument I am angry; no,

The best logician cannot prove me so. (5.120-124)

Then, he speaks of his idea of running a business:

We are set here to please all customers,

Their humours and their fancies, offend none;

We get by many, if we leese by one.

......

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A penn’orth serves him, and ‘monst trades ‘tis found,

Deny a penn’orth, it may cross a pound. (5.129-134)

Though he cannot make any resistance to the gallants’ provocation, he cleverly replies courteously. He implies these customers are no better than the devil as he ends the speech, “O, he that means to thrive with patient eye/ Must please the devil if he come to buy” (135-36). The conflicts between the customers and Candido are presented as a game, which keeps aggravating him; however, Candido receives the provocation and translate it into a word game that he plays very well.

There are cases happening in public areas where Candido is continually being provoked, and he keeps his temper well, showing his patience. However, his irreconcilable patience (a traditional virtue) is thought of as extreme madness, whereby

Candido is sent to the Bethlem in the end. In Scene 12 of part 1, the cross-dressing of

Candido’s journeyman George also confounds Candido’s conviction of moral virtues.

Besides, Crambo and Poh are assigned by Fustigo to stir up trouble in his shop, but they are disarmed by the prentices. Viola then comes back with an officer, accusing her husband of being mad:

CANDIDO. Why do I enter bonds thus? Ha?

OFFICER. Because you’re mad, out fear upon your wife.

WIFE. O, I went in danger of my life every minute.

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CANDIDO. What? Am I mad, say you, and I not know it?

OFFICER. That proves you mad, because you know it not. (12.165-169)

Candido fails to uphold his moral value, and the more he explains, the more insane he becomes, as his wife says, “he talks against himself” (12.157). The shop, as a public space, becomes a place full of tricks and traps framed by gallants, rogues, and even his wife. The most patient man is presented as the extreme example of the madman in

London. Consequently, Candido comments－“the world’s upside down” (12.69) naturally becomes a cultural critique, concluding “Ha, ha, a mad world, a mad world”

(12.146).

In the public space where good citizens (Candido) and bad citizens (gallants) meet, social conflicts break out in this morally irreconcilable space. As a result, Candido’s pressure in the public space is translated into a moral solution: patience. Every character is supposed to behave himself, and there are a great number of publications of instruction for people to behave and to speak, “giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience” (2 Peter 1:5-6), whereas the characters in the play forget the importance of the virtue. They display their ugliness and mind of immorality in the public areas. However, their misconducts mean to set off the moral altitude and the great virtue patience of

Candido and to raise questions to the audience whether the moral values are declining or

62 not.

Private Areas

On the contrary, private areas are more personal and privy, such as the room of

Hippolito, the amoral space of a brothel, and the private chamber of a whore. To access such private areas requires an exclusive privilege. For example, Bellafront has to crossdresses herself as Matteo’s man so that she can enter Hippolito’s house. When

Hippolito walks in his room and laments for the death of Infelice with his hand holding a skulk, he is interrupted by the cross-dressed Bellafront. Hippolito then asks his servant,

“guard the chamber; let no more come on” (10.146). Hippolito rages because the private area, as his room, is intervened. His long monologue is forced to be suspended because of a non-privileged intruder, who violates the seclusion of private area. The brothel in 1

Honest Whore is another example of private area. Since a man should be fully paid-up so that he can enter the brothel, such paying indicates an exclusive permission into a private area and forms a space exclusively for men to satisfy their sexual desire.

However, private spaces are usually where illicit conducts take place, which produces social pressure to Bellafront. The performance of Bellafront is a great demonstration how social pressure is imposed on private spaces. Bellafront bears tremendous social pressure throughout 1&2 Honest Whore. There are several situations to explains how Bellafront gets confronted with social pressure. First, in 1 Honest

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Whore scene 6, Bellafront acts nervously when hearing knocks on the door since she does not want to provide any sexual service.

One knocks

BELLAFRONT. God’s my pittikins, sone fool or other knocks.

ROGER. Shall I open to the fool, mistress?

BELLAFRONT. And all these baubles lying thus? Away with it quickly.

[They gather up the paints etc.] Ay, ay, knock and be damned,

whosoever you be.－So, give the fresh salmon line now, let him

come ashore; he shall serve for my breakfast, though he go against

my stomach. (61-67)

In a brothel, a whore has no right to refuse who to trade with, and the chamber becomes an amoral private space because a whoremonger satisfies his sexual desire here, which turns out to be pressure for a whore. Being a whore, Bellafront has been forced to take the pressure unconditionally. Thus, when the door is knocked, it triggers her nerves to be prepared for the upcoming trade.

Her way of speaking in the scene is always full of filthiness and boorish words. For example, “Is the pox in your hams?” (6.19), “Pox on you” (6.51), and “what, you pied curtal, what’s that you are neighing?” (6.82-83) At the first glance, Bellafront may be looked upon as an ill-mannered woman with a mouth full of disrespect, but as a matter

64 of fact, the language she speaks is influenced and produced by the pressure of sexual exploitation since it is a room for sex trade. In addition, how much pressure Bellafront bears is subject to who the visitors are. Later in the same room, she changes her tone and become quiet compared with the previous shrewish scene. The encountering with

Hippolito makes the turning point of her life. She falls in love with him, but due to the great difference of social status and of occupation, he rejects her seriously by denouncing her:

O, you cannot feign with me! Why, I know, Lady,

This is a common fashion of you all,

To hook in a kind gentleman, and then

Abuse his coin, conveying it to your lover;

And in the end you show him a French trick,

And so you leave him, that a coach may run

Between his legs for breadth. (6.355-61)

Hippolito disdains a prostitute even though he might have visited some. He despises a whore who does nothing contributive but only decays the society by turning herself a bawd corrupt. For him, “a toad is happier than a whore” (6.412). Hurt by Hippolito,

Bellafront starts to feel ashamed of her not being honest. The pressure given by

Hippolito and other whoremongers in such private space prompts Bellafront to reform

65 herself because she comes to realize only by reforming her honesty can she completely gets rid of the pressure and embrace a new life. She is determined and says, “I’ll prove an honest whore, In being true to one, and to no more” (6.361-62).

1 Honest Whore illustrates how pressure in private space turns out to be a moral standard, whereas 2 Honest Whore presents how moral standard of Bellafront is challenged and how she upholds it in private space. Dekker changes the private area from the brothel to domestic scene because Matteo and Bellafront enter marriage under the order of the duke since he was the one who had her maidenhead. Although the marriage is not a happy one, Bellafornt still holds on to her duty as a loyal wife under the pressure given by her husband. In the private space which is Matteo’s house,

Bellafront repetitively deals with Matteo’s bad temper but she complains nothing about her husband. Instead, she tries to calm him down and convince him to reform from his sin as she reforms from hers, “Matheo, prithee, make thy prison the glass, And in it view the wrinkles, and the scars, By which thou wert disfigured; viewing them, mend them”(2.1.15-17). However, Matteo remains recalcitrant and keeps gambling without being remorseful. He comes back home and screws money out of Bellafront:

MATHEO. I plaid with mine owne Dice, yet lost. Ha you any money?

BELLAFRONT. Las, I ha none.

MATHEO. Must haue money, must haue some, must haue a Cloake, and

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Rapier, and things: Will you goe set your limetwigs, and get

me some birds, some money? (3.2.24-29)

The domestic scene of Matheo and Bellafront is no less than a tragedy full of pressure,

Bellafront is still submissive to him. Matheo’s hideousness is completely revealed. He would rather rid of his wife’s gown and pawn for money, “Oh, it’s Summer, it’s

Summer: your onely fashion for woman now, is to be light, to be light” (3.2.44-45).

Matheo is so insane that he never feels ashamed. However, Bellafront does her best to serve as a wife. Her loyalty to her husband is incomparable to any other wives in

Dekker and Middleton’s production. She carefully carries out God’s order, sermons’ words, and her husband’s unreasonable demand as the Ephesian teaches:

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.

For the husband is head of the wife, just as Christ is the head of the church,

His body, of which He is the Savior.

Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their

husbands in everything. (Ephesian 5:22–24)

Bellafront changes into a good woman, and it is the result of her determination to reform from a whore. Matteo’s bad temper is a pressure for Bellafront; nonetheless, facing the pressure, Bellafront still keeps a strong hold onto her loyalty. The pressure in her house comes not only from her husband but also from an outsider, Hippolito. In 2

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Honest Whore, Hippolito desires for Bellafront and tries to stir her:

HIPPOLITO. You haue forgot me.

BELLAFRONT. No, my lord.

HIPPOLITO. Your turner,

That made you smooth to run an euen byas,

You know I loued you when your very soule

Was full of discord: art not a good wench still?

BELLAFRONT. Vmph, when I had lost my way to Heauen, you shewed it:

I was new borne that day. (1.1.134-41)

After that, Hippolito visits her house in Act 2 scene 1, handing in a purse of money and letters through the hand of Friscobaldo. However, Bellafront firmly rejects the purse and the letters after the conversation with Orlando:

ORLANDO. . . . he thinks you want money, and therefore bestowes his

almes brauely, like a Lord.

BELLAFRONT. He thinks a siluer net can catch the poore,

Here’s a baite to choake a Nun, and turn her whore.

Facing the pressure given by Hippolito, Bellafront stays still with her moral standard declining the gold from him. Moreover, she had promised to “be true to one, and to no more”. Regardless of the interventions from Hippolito, she still clings to her loyalty. In

68 the private space, without the husband around, Bellafront disputes back for her moral standard of being honest and loyal. She thus declines:

To proue a woman should not be a whore,

When she was made, she had one men, and no more,

Yet she was tied to lawes then, (euen than)

’Tis said, she was not made for men, but man. (4.1.301-04)

Private space, where Bellafront stays in 1&2 Honest Whore, should be enclosed and exclusive of external disturbance, but it turns out to be space of Bellafront’s morality.,

Bellafront keeps suffering from the pressure imposed by the outsiders in her own space, and eventually she turns the pressure into her moral standard and is determined to reform after being spurred by whroemongers and Hippolito.

1&2 Honest Whore depicts how pressure is moralized and how moral standard is upheld in private space. After reforming, Bellafront’s moral standard is challenged by her unruly husband and the wooing of Hippolito. Bellafront clings to her faith to her husband domestically and guards her honesty when Hippolito convinces her to turn a whore again. Bellafront successfully keeps her moral standard: to stay reformed and be faithful to her husband. Dekker and Middleton place such a character as Bellafront to ask the audiences whether one man can stand still when he is provoked by pressure and temptation in a private space. If a woman as whore can reform to hold her perseverance,

69 why cannot a man achieve the same? As the title goes, Bellafront is indeed an Honest

Whore, though not physically, but spiritually.

Confined Space: Bethlem and Bridewell

Bethlem and Bridewell are institutions where social pressure gathers. Citizens who cannot get along with pressure are sent here. The finales of the two Honest Whore plays are respectively set such confined space, which serves to heal madness and correct misbehaviors. Those who are troubled with psychological problems caused by social pressure would be sent to the Bethlem with the hope of being cured. Similarly, those who misbehave because of the compelling of social pressure would be arrested here on the purpose of being corrected.

People in Bethlem are disabled in dealing with social pressure. In the previous discussion, Candido successfully turns the social pressure in public spaces into patience;

Bellafront transforms the pressure in private space into her reform and faith. However, people in Bethlem are unable to cope with pressure as well as Candido and Bellafront do. Thus, the pressure drives them mad.

In 1 Honest Whore, the first madman is gone mad and the reason may be attributed to the loss of his two sons. He wished them to be a scholar and a promoter; however, his efforts were in vain. One of them “made himself a fool” (15.216), and the other becomes one the “kites” (15.231), scraping for “carrion” (15.231). The anticipation of

70 the father for the two sons fell from his dream he built so high, leading him to be a madman. The second madman goes insane because of his wife’s death. The death of his wife is only one of the reasons for his madness. There are two possible reasons to explain his madness. First, according to his speech, his wife had several extramarital relationships with different men, such as a shoemaker (5.2.276), a tailor (5.2.277), a doctor (5.2.279), and a schoolmaster (5.2.284). The second madman was made a cuckold by his wife. He could not stand such a shame which his wife and other men brought to him. The other possible reason is the death of his wife as the Father Anselmo recounts:

Fell from the happy quietness of mind

About a maiden that he loved, and died.

He followed her to church, being full of tears,

And as her body went into the ground

He fell stark … (264-68)

Although his wife had been through different men’s beds, and he became outrageous, he still loves her so deep that he could not bear the pain of loss after she died. He finally went mad. There is the third madman whose description is less than those of the former two, but there are clues to be found. From 1 Honest Whore (5.2.291-310), the third madman keeps disputing with the second madman over porridge. The second madman

71 asks for the food and liquor from him, but the third man refuses it, which ignites the quarrel between them. The third madman is protective and least willing to give his food to the second. We could suppose he goes mad for he might be looted of his property or wealth; thus, he could not withstand the pressure of losing his property and turned mad.

The presentation of the three madmen reveals some truth for the audience and the readers. To begin with, the reasons for their madness project the contemporary social life. Fools were all around the city and rapacious gangsters were rioting in the streets, which increase the social pressure. Men and women could not sustain their marriage and cuckold were common. The pressure from marriage and love affairs also brings pressure to people. Robberies keep taking places in the town, which imposes the pressure of safety on citizens. The three madmen’s madness surely mirrors some truth of that time.

Moreover, the presentations of them are informing people of the fact that people are not born to be mad but they turn out to be afterward since they might suffer great pressure and undergo certain unrecoverable pains in life. Every citizen is supposed to be sympathetic and be merciful to them. The staging of the Bethlem also gives chances for the voice of the underprivileged voices to be heard, and chances for the audience to understand and learn to be compassionate.

Bridewell, the house of correction, also plays an important role parallel to Bethlem.

In 2 Honest Whore, there are a bawd and three whores being interrogated by the Duke

72 of Milan. The staging of the four women showcases that they are bearing a great deal of social pressure. First, under the pressure of survival, they have no choice but to work as whores. Since they are at the much lower social status, their burden comes from a higher class and the uneven treatment of the society, but it does not mean they are voiceless. Moreover, similar to Bellafront, who speaking vulgarly under pressure, they do not only speak out, but also speak sharply. For example, Dorothea Target criticizes the gallants, “In troth, Gentlemen, you weare the cloathes of Gentlemen, but you carry not the minds of Gentlemen, to abuse a Gentlewoman of my fashion” (5.2.279-81). Her tongue is sour enough to prick Carlolo’s pride and enrages him. Another harlot,

Penelope Whorehound, also pranks on men’s sexual incompetence, “if you be

Gentlemen, if you be men, or euer came of a woman, pitty my case, stand to me, stick to me, good sir, you are an old man” (5.2.316-18). In spite of being the socially disadvantaged minority, these women are so daring to speak and to poke those men on the purpose of releasing the social pressure on them. Even when they are confronted with the duke, they do not mind the class difference so much. As Catherina Bountinall sneers, “if the Deuill were here, I care not: set forward, yee Rogues, and giue attendance according to your places, let Bawds and Whores be sad, for Ile sing and the Deuill were a dying” (5.2.431-32). The harlot taunts the duke audaciously in front of his comrades.

The presentation of the harlots can be interpreted in several ways. First, though they are

73 the social minority and have endured high pressure forced by other class and men, they still work hard to survive regardless of how many times they are being found faults and put to Bridewell. They represent the voices of lower social status and speak not only for them but also for all the audiences. Second, they stand for women voices. Their occupation is socially minor, and so is their gender. These harlots talk bravely to the men, fighting against the men’s power, in order to inform that women have the ability to think and they are not supposed to be forgotten. In Bridewell, we come to realize how social pressure influences the lower social status citizens.

For Dekker and Middleton, the placement of Bridewell is to offer a notion that those who are caught here are suffering from a great amount of social pressure, such as the pressure of survival, the pressure of different social class, and the pressure of different genders. Due to these pressure, citizens start to misbehave and need to be corrected. Dekker and Middleton also imply that life is rough in the society of the

Jacobean era.

Conclusion

To take a broad view of this chapter, little characters and geographical specificity indeed demonstrate a solid and realistic picture of the contemporary society. Little characters are not little anymore in 1&2 Honest Whore. They are amplified to pose an evident moral contrast to the aristocrats and the upper-class. Geographical specificity helps us

74 learn how public, private, and confined spaces are affected by social pressure. Candido keeps his patience in public spaces, and Bellafront reforms and stays faithful even in private spaces. Under social pressure, they remain unmoved and honest as the title goes.

For those who are unable to handle the pressure, they are respectively sent to Bethlem and Bridewell. Dekker and Middleton manage to unveil the inability to tackle social pressure and to uncover how social pressure influences people at the lower social rank.

By presenting Candido’s miserable suffering of provocation, Bellafront’s being repeatedly questioned, and the socially inferior poor roles, Dekker and Middleton wish to promote the moral values of patience, honesty, sympathy, and respect to achieve

“social harmony” (Jackson 408). Such harmony can be achieved not only by every class and every space with decent morality. Different gender roles are also crucial in keeping the society harmonious. Women particularly are worth our attention since they have been degraded and objectified by men. Women in Dekker’s and Middleton’s city comedies are fairly uncommon; however, these women are the embodiment of hope by

Dekker and Middleton to reach the social harmony.

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Chapter IV

Uncommon Women in Gendered Space: Daughter, Mother, Wife, and Whore

Women are not only the embodiment of hope of Dekker and Middleton to achieve social harmony, but also the important roles to mirror the social instability in early seventeenth-century England. From this period of time, women started to gain their

“free will” and “autonomy” and these two characteristics became a threat to the old virtues of “obedience” and “subordination.” Late sixteen-and seventeen-century

England was dominated by the Church and by men whose power and belief prompted men to take the lead either at home or in the court, wherein patriarchal society was established for centuries. However, Dekker’s and Middleton’s women in their plays fracture the rigid social system. For example, in “A Mad World, My Masters,” the courtesan Frank Gullman is completely an independent woman who does not count on any man and she even knows how to take advantages of men to benefit herself. The whore Bellafront in 1 Honest Whore is morally and strategically assertive of what she wants so that she dares give up her old occupation to convert herself only for her love.

These two examples showcase that women are awakened to be autonomic and to act with her own will instead of being a subjugated object. Against the traditional virtues of women, what female characters represent is not only the resistance to male authority but also the discrepancy of the contemporary society. Dekker and Middleton employ these

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“new women” as symbols to satirize how the society was losing control and how impotent the men were.

Men and women should know their places according to the instruction of biblical texts, conduct books, and homilies, on which the male dominance in the patriarchal society was based. Due to those texts and books, the instruction of women’s subordination was heavily inscribed in every man’s heart and became an imperative notion over centuries. For example, the narration of Genesis (2:21-24) provides men with the source of women’s subordination. The notion that woman is a part of man was taught to men through these passages. Women thus could not have the same social status as men did, and it was not acceptable and possible to subvert such teaching. The places where women should stay are also specified in these unquestioned texts. Women were strictly regulated by Church or by conduct books, wherein the status and the place of women had long been degraded and even neglected, not to speak of the space where women made themselves heard. In order to regulate women, they were categorized into four kinds, including, maid, wife, widow, and punk (MM), according to their marital status; in other words, a woman’s status is determined by the dependence on man.

Moreover, man has the exact authority over woman. A woman could not speak unless permitted. 1 Timothy says “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

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For Adam was first formed, then Eve” (1 Timothy 2:11-15). These texts not only reinforced the male authority, but also hardened the woman’s inferiority and submission to man. However, male authority in Dekker’s and Middleton’s plays is reduced by the presentation of women in spaces.

Though regulated, women in Dekker’s and Middleton’s plays subvert the social norms of space and feminize it. Spaces can be categorized into public and private spaces as chapter III discusses; however, the spaces can also be conditioned by gender. Women used to be ordained by the patriarchal authority which is reflected not only in citizens’ interrelationships but also in citizens’ working and living spaces. Most of the time, as plays show, spaces are occupied and centered solely on men, including the household spaces, public spaces, or a brothel. These places are where male authority is constructed and supported, which constitutes masculine spaces. Women can only be subjected to men and be silent. Many conduct and domestic handbooks regulate the places where a woman should stay and work. For a maid, it is suggested that she should stay home under her father’s supervision for the purpose of protecting her chastity. Household manuals keep reminding the notion, “female chastity was a fragile state that was best maintained by confinement” (Flather 22). When a maid becomes a wife, she is still restricted in certain and limited domestic places. A Bride-Bvsh by William Whateley

(1583-1639) claims what the proper location of a husband and a wife should be, “he

78 without door, she within; he abroad, she at home” (Whately 84). A wife should be absolutely subject and obedient to her husband and “focusing her attention solely upon the ordering of the house” (Flather 21). Both maid and wife must act in accordance with the moralists’ preaching and regulations. Nonetheless, for those women not restricted in masculine space, men consider them to be whores and to be a cause for social corruption. These women are thought to be uncontrollable since they do not subject to any man and she makes good use of her body to make a living. As Robert Cleaver (d.

1613) proclaims, “it was the whore, whose ‘whole property’ is to bee abroad in the streets to meet with companions and to entice men to follie by her looks and behavior”

(Cleaver 150). In men’s eye, whores are sexually fluid and mobile in men’s world, causing men’s fear of female uncontrollability. Compared with those obedient and indoor women, whores are thought to detract men and undermine the center of the patriarchal system running for centuries. Under the male authority, women in masculine spaces were restricted, deprived of self-will, and thought to be as “weaker vessel” (A

Godly Form of Household Government). Nonetheless, in Dekker and Middleton’s plays, women, either each kind of four, challenge male authority as trying to femininize masculine spaces, and to demonstrate women’s free will and autonomy in such area.

The following women to be discussed are featured with contrast characteristics to those with traditional values, reversing the traditional geographical specificity and

79 expectations on women. Through altering gendered spaces, women display their own individuality, but meanwhile, it mirrors the fact that the patriarchal society is running loose.

Mother and Daughter --- Maudline and Moll

At a young age, women are taught to be submissive to men. At home, a maid should listen to her father; in a marriage, she should abide by her husband. Such subordination is a “universal principle” (6) and is “something imbibed from infancy”

(6), Bernard Capp states in When Gossips Meet. In other words, female subordination is to be passed down from generation to generation and it is “the mother” who delivers the universal law to the daughter with the view to sustaining patriarchal society. The responsibility of a mother is to mainly “manage the household, look after the children, and oversees her maids” (9). All her life is to “revolve around the home” (9), which constitutes the importance of a mother’s role. Mother is a key to preserving the traditional value of women. However, the mother of Moll, Maudline in The Chaste

Maid in Cheapside, is by no means a typical traditional woman. In 1.1, Maudline reveals her frivolous attitude when she teaches Moll the importance of marriage, “Have you played over all your old lessons o’ the virginals?” (1.1.1-2) The mother is instructing her daughter to make good use of her virginity by playing it, which implies the mother neglects the conventional value of chastity. She continues “when I was of

80 your youth, I was lightsome, and quick, two years before I was married” (1.1.9-11).

Maudline is sexually easy with men according to Gary Taylor’s explanation of

“lightsome” and “quick”. Through the presentation of the mother, the value of women has been shaken and she becomes an improper role model to her daughter, and consequently, Moll is not a woman of traditional code.

The traditional value of a woman is best demonstrated in the event of marrying. A daughter is supposed to submit herself to her father and mother to fulfill the arrangement of the marriage. “The goal of every family was to marry off its daughters promptly and confidently” (King 27). However, when faced with the arranged marriage,

Moll challenges the father’s authority by deciding to elope with Touchwood Junior twice. When she escapes from her home to the church to secretly marry Touchwood

Junior for the first time, she worryingly says to the parson, “You must dispatch with all the speed you can, For I shall be missed straight; I made hard shift For this small time I have” (3.1.11-13). Though she is anxious, the determination to join hands with

Touchwood Junior is solidly unshakable. Later, she even speaks, “Though violence keep, thou canst lose me never, I am ever thine although we part for ever” (3.1.47-48).

Woman and daughter as she is, she bluntly makes the speech to strongly express her reluctance to part with her beloved.

Scenes of Moll’s marriage (1.1) and her elopement (3.1. and 4.3.) suggests the how

81 father/male authority dominates family and the space around it. The playwright shows how the contemporary father/male manages a family by staging a mother/male and a daughter in a masculine space. Even though the duty of instructing the daughter lies on the mother, what drives the duty is the patriarchal system which forces women to stay in a limited space: the husband’s house. As previously discussed, mother, as a woman, takes care of the household matters, including the care of children. Father/male imposes his dominance on mother/female, and the mother transfers the dominance to the daughter. A daughter, as the passive terminal receiver of male authority, bears the pressure of the family in terms of economy, social reputation, and status. Moll’s reluctance to fulfill her father’s arrangement to marry Sir Walter Whorehound can be clearly recognized when Moll sees Whorehound’s visit, she screams, “O, death!”

(1.1.119). However, the father has the utmost authority to determine the man whom his daughter marries. The function of a marriage is to sustain the biological continuity and to sustain or promote the status of the paternal family. As a result, upon knowing her daughter elopes with the Touchwood Junior, Yellowhammer angrily scolds, “Impudent strumpet” (4.4.31). Under the pressure from father/ male authority, a daughter becomes a political agent to uphold a familial reputation. Whether a daughter is willing to marry the designated man or not, a daughter’s subjectivity is always sacrificed.

Meanwhile, these scenes also showcase how women adapt themselves to the male

82 world and then how they break it, turning masculine space into feminine space. The mother Maudline takes the lead showing her knowledge to play and utilize her virginity around men. She is aware of woman’s exclusive “weakness” but she makes the weakness her strength in order to survive in such male dominance. The daughter Moll even breaks the game rules of man. Home and family are centred with the father; however, she presents her capability of choosing her ideal husband, which is rarely expected of women. Words and disciplines of strict tradition at home fail to prevent her from eloping. Her resolution is the demonstration of women’s awakening to be a complete subject other rather than a subordinate object. Both Maudline and Moll are the presentations of female self-consciousness, symbolizing a social tendency that patriarchy is being cracked down and becomes unstable.

Husband and Wife --- Candido and Viola

A wife is indispensable in forming a family. A husband plays on the stage of family, but the role of wife is more important off the stage. Without a wife, a man would never be a husband. As important as a wife, she is obliged to obey those male’s rules and live under the unbreakable patriarchy. Margaret L. King introduces the awkwardness of a wife in a family, “On the one hand, she was expected to be a companion to her husband, but on the other, she was his subordinate and object of restrictive regulations imposed by him and other male authorities” (35).

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In 1 Honest Whore, Dekker and Middleton challenge the rigid patriarchal system by presenting a distinct image of husband and wife: a patient man Candido and a shrewish wife Viola. From the perspective of traditional expectation, under no circumstance can

Viola be a good wife. She keeps provoking and trying to enrage Candido, which can be considered the reversal of ideal woman and wife, who refuses to yield her matrimonial subjection to her husband.

Viola turns the shop/house of Candido from masculine space to feminine space gradually through some stages, wherein features the characteristics that Viola is not a traditional wife. First, she denies her husband. A wife should have complete subordination to the husband; however, she does not owe Candido with obedience. In

Scene 2, “I want nothing that a wife can wish from a husband. But here’s the spite: he has not all things belonging to a man” (66-68). The denial of Candido is surely a shame for a man, who is supposed to exercise his male rage in the house, but the masculinity of the house is becoming void since he remains patient and soft; meanwhile, his patience prompts Viola to be aggressive. Her femininity starts to interfere the house of man; thus, she would attempt to enrage her husband. Her blunt denial on Candido, “he who cannot be angry is no man” (2.74) represents her uncommon woman characteristics. The reset of the gender role in the house makes Candido ridicule, “ha, a mad world, a mad world”

(12.147).

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The second stage of showing her uncommonness can be perceived by collaborating with other men to provoke Candido. Traditionally, man would show his male rage when being provoked, but Candido never reveals any sense of it. Instead, Viola is the one who is a woman and replaces male rage with female one. At this stage, she appropriates the male power, including her brother, George and apprentices in the shop, and an officer, to amplify her power in the house. She begins with her brother Fustigo to set Candido up in a scheme. A wife’s brother is the man who the wife can put trust in, which explains

Viola’s motivation to cooperate with Fustigo. They are to “make him a cuckold”

(2.104-5) by the way that Fustigo plays the “cousin” and kisses Viola in Candido’s presence. At the same time, he is to “snatch rings, jewels, or anything” (2.125). Later,

Viola asks Fustigo to “take up wares, but pay nothing; rifle my bosom, my pocket, my purse, the boxes, for money to dice withal” (2.141-43). Though the scheme with Fustigo fails to anger Candido, Viola turns to the man in the shop, the journeyman George. By using George, she continues the scheme to irritate Candido.

This time, the third stage, Viola lowers her position to ask for help from the journeyman and makes the appeal to him. The sentence “Prithee, George” is spoken twice in scene 8 line 266 and 278, Moreover, imperative sentences are repetitively and intensively raised to George by Viola, “Uphold one jest for me” (8.268), “wilt thou do’t?” (8.270, and 277), and “put on thy master’s best apparel, gown, Chain, cap, ruff,

85 everything, be like himself” (8.273-74). These repeated imperative words suggest the fact that Viola knows her female inferiority in vexing her husband and thus hopes to use

George’s masculine power to move Candido. By using another man’s power, she attempts to arouse her husband’s anger, which implies her strong desire to replace the masculinity of the house with her rage.

Viola’s plans to make her husband mad fail twice, but in turn, these failures turn herself impatient and raging. She brings an officer home and takes the incredibly patient husband to the Bedlam. Unlike the men in the house, the officer has more power to deal with Candido. Viola cannot be more aware of the capacity of an officer, and therefore she takes advantage of the officer to achieve her goal. The shop of Candido finally turns to be a feminized space after Candido and his apprentices leave.

Viola is an uncommon wife contrary to those ideal ones as many homilies and sermons regulate. She reverses the discipline to be subordinate to men; in contrast, she dominates men. Similar to the mother and daughter who are self-conscious and make their weakness a strength, Viola supplements her female power by making a rather good use of male power and further to change the male space (Candido’s shop) into feminine space.

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Two Prostitutes --- The Honest Whore Bellafront and The Courtesan Frank

Gullman

Prostitution is a crucial element in Dekker’s and Middleton’s plays, drawing as much attention as other female characters in terms of feminizing masculine space.

Women works in such industry are given different and ill-reputed titles, such as punk, strumpet, whore, or courtesan. Religiously, women of this kind are degraded and condemnable. The First Book of Homilies23depicts prostitution as “the great dishonour of God, the exceeding infamy of the name of the Christ, the notable decay of true religion, and the utter destruction of public health” (118). Socially, a prostitute is excluded from the social category of women, wherein their social position is “defined by sexual and economic relations to men” (King 29). Thus, women of this kind arouse male’s concern for they challenge the traditional ideal characteristics of women to be

“weak, submissive, charitable, virtuous, and modest” (Lawrence Stone 138). Even though prostitution is thought to be low and unpresentable, it is a considerable counterpart of male authority because it reverses the prescribed roles of woman in masculine spaces. For example, the Courtesan Frank Gullman in A Mad World, My

Masters and the whore Bellafront in 1&2 Honest Whore are the two typical women who transgress the boundary of two genders, and further feminize the masculine space.

23 The reference belongs to The Two Books of Homilies Appointed to be Read in Churches. 87

In 1&2 Honest Whore, Dekker and Middleton stage an uncommon woman, the honest whore Bellafront, in male leading spaces to characterize female subjectivity.

Men construct their authority in many spaces, including certain private spaces as brothel or whore’s chamber, where men spend time and money. Nonetheless, as a whore,

Bellafront should have been subjugated to men’s dominance, but surprisingly she turns to another side and claims her subjectivity in the space of male authority.

In 1 Honest Whore, Bellafront is a typical whore surrounded and visited by various men. Her chamber is masculinized by these male visitors for they constantly interfere in the space of a woman. In the scene where gallants knock on her door, she reveals her reluctance to answer the door. However, she has no choice but to allow these men to enter for she needs their favor. She says, “he shall serve my breakfast, though he go against my stomach” (6.66-67). She yields to male authority since she knows only by these men’s “grace” can she survive. At the moment when she lets these gallants in, her room turns to be a male space, meaning Bellafront gives up her own right over her space. Moreover, her chamber becomes completely masculinized when Hippolito comes in because he poses a significant influence on her and leads her to another stage of life: to reform. At the first sight, she falls in love with Hippolito and confesses her admiration, “I would have been as true unto his pleasures, Yea, and ad loyal to his afternoons, As ever a poor gentlewoman could be” (6.326-28), but her confession is

88 denied by Hippolito’s male rage and she is questioned how possible a whore can love a man. He lays his blame on her,

This is the common fashion of you all,

To hook in a kind gentleman, and then

Abuse his coin, conveying it to your lover;

And in the end you show him a French trick,

and so you leave him, that a coach may run

Between his legs for breadth. (6.355-61)

Later, the male rage of her chamber comes to the extreme. Hippolito speaks out of the major male’s ideology and criticizes her being a whore. The male authority is amplified by scolding the whore as, for example, “You have no soul” (6.373) and “That if all your committers stood in rank, They’d make a lance, in which your shame dwell” (6.380-81).

These humiliations come from male’s insecurity over women’s sexual mobility and thus men condemn woman being a whore. Bellafront’s self-esteem completely collapses in her own room; meanwhile, it means her chamber is fully occupied by Hippolito’s male authority. However, it is also the moment that she becomes awakened to gain her subjectivity and female consciousness, driving her decision to reform. Such resolution stands out for her to fight, guarding her female authority in her space. Although she does not realize her strength until the later scenes in part 1, in part 2 her determination

89 of female authority turns to be solid and unshakeable when she is confronted with her profligate husband Matheo and disturbing Hippolito.

Bellafront’s female authority becomes effectual as the space changes from her chamber in part 1 to Matheo’s house in part 2. The core problem in part 2 does not center on Bellafront, but on Matheo and Hippolito. First, Matheo keeps his licentious attitude in his house, leading the domestic space to be a void. Second, Hippolito turns out to be molester who intrudes Matheo’s house. Faced with the two roaring boys,

Bellafront plays the role of female guardian to secure the space. In 1.1 of part 2,

Bellafront speaks with a great hope and determination to convince her husband,

“Matheo, prithee make thy prison thy glass, And in it view the wrinkles, and scares, By which thou wert disfigured, viewing them, mend them” (16-18). Her wish to convince her husband is as strong as her determination to reform in part 1. However, her husband stays recalcitrant and turns a deaf ear to her. She fails to persuade her husband to get rid of the old habit, but her female authority gradually starts to emerge in such domestic space. Later in 3.2 in part 2, she speaks grievously to Matheo when he coerces her to give him money:

Why doe I grieue? A thousand sorrowes strike

At one poore heart, and yet it liues. Matheo,

Thou art a Gamster, prethee throw at all,

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Set all vpon onve vast, we kneele and pray,

And struggle for life, yet must be cast away. (63-71)

Her female authority again appears to move her husband, trying to wake him up from his obduracy of impractical matters. The domestic space should have been a masculine space ordained by Matheo; however, Matheo’s masculinity fails to function properly, wherein Bellafront has to implement her feminine power into the house to brace and prevent the space from being voidance.

Bellafront’s female authority activates the space to be feminine. Bellafront feminizes the domestic space to first uphold the house and employs the feminized space to safeguard her female authority against Hippolito’s foul intention. At the beginning of

Part 2 Honest Whore, Hippolito deliberately asks Bellafront, “You know I loued you when your very soule Was full discord: art not a good wench still?” (1.1.138-39). The gentleman becomes so different from who he is in part 1, and visits Bellafront’s house, trying to persuade Bellafront to regain her old occupation. Unlike her chamber becomes entirely masculinized by Hippolito, this time she is determined to fortify her space.

Upon Hippolito’s visit, the house becomes a battlefield where Bellafront fights against

Hippolito. The first battle takes place when Hippolito manages to convince Bellafront to return to her old trade so that he can enclose her in his own bed (4.1.290). However,

Bellafront questions and declines, “so should a husband be dishonoured? (4.1.290). She

91 counters the attack in the position as a wife. If she yields to Hippolito’s request to return to the old job, she will disgrace not only herself but also her husband. The next battle comes in the following argument over women’s status and why a woman becomes a whore. Bellafront’s response points out the exact reason all attributed to men:

Men hunt, to get flesh, but care not for’t

So spread they Nets of gold, and tune their Calls,

To enchaunt silly women to take falls”

Swearing they are Angels, (which that they may win)

They’ll hire the Deuill to come with the false dce in. (4.1.312-16)

She defends that but for men’s unsatisfactory need of women, there would not be whores. Due to the religious, economic, and other factors, women are being degraded for a long time. Women are reduced to the object to satisfy men’s desire, but men are not aware of what they have caused, and meanwhile criticize how base these women are.

Bellafront in this part clearly suggests the status of women is so unequal to that of men with her female verbal power, which is a courageous act to demonstrate a woman’s subjectivity over her surroundings.

Bellafront is an uncommon woman who knows what a woman can do. Although woman’s subjectivity is little seen, she still achieves something unprecedented that few women can do. Furthermore, in part 2, she presents woman’s subjectivity by her voice

92 in her house with her unruly husband and with the licentious Hippolito. Although she seems to be a traditional virtuous wife, however, she employs her female power to feminize the house to persuade her husband and uses the feminized space as a fort to defend Hippolito. There are various sides of whore that Dekker and Middleton present to show woman’s subjectivity. In addition to Bellafront, the Courtesan Frank Gullman in Mad World, My Masters presented another side of uncommon women with more aggressiveness.

The courtesan Frank Gullman shows the most female uncommonness in space among the four plays discussed in the thesis. As a matter of fact, compared with the other women who feminize masculine space to demonstrate their individuality, Frank

Gullman herself shows strong female capability in any space. Her wit is her female rage which makes her outstanding among these women and in the patriarchal society. She knows not only how to make women’s weakness a strength, but also is fully aware of the nature of men. Her wit in familiarity with men’s desire helps her female power to be exerted in masculine space and construct her exclusive female space.

Frank Gullman’s uncommonness is presented through being a manipulator when encountered with various men in different masculine spaces. In 1.1, Mater Penitent

Brothel is worried about the chance of meeting his desire: the wife of Master Shortrod

Harebrain. In such a place and out of her familiarity with men’s nature, Frank Gullman

93 notices Brothel’s worry and speaks to him with much confidence:

Sigh not, Master Penitent. Trust the managing

of the business with me: ’tis for my credit now to see’t

well finished. If I do you no good, sir, you shall give me

money, sir” (134-37)

We can perceive her words of confidence turns the space into feminine space because

Penitent Brothel needs her help. On the surface, she helps Brothel to achieve his wish.

However, in fact, Brothel falls into her manipulation for she appropriates him to deal with other men in the later scenes.

Her female rage functions when she visits the house of Master Harebrain. The house is a sheer masculine space full of male rage: Harebrain’s jealous. Faced with this,

Frank Gullman does not retreat in this masculine space but takes another measure to permeate her female power into the house by directing Mistress Harebrain to defend her husband in their house. In Harebrain’s house, how Harebrain calls Gullman unconsciously reveals his inner abhorrence to her, or to be more specific, male’s abhorrence to women of her kind, such as, “sweet virgin” (1.2.39), “pure virgin”

(1.2.64), and “wholesome sister” (1.2.74). Moreover, he asks Gullman to read his wife

Resolution, “the horrible punishments for itching wantonness, the pains allotted for adultery”. All these titles and demands are actually humiliation of a prostitute as

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Gullman says aside,” The gentleman would persuade me in time to disgrace myself and speak ill of mine own function” (1.3.61-63). By staging the uncommonness of a courtesan, Middleton manages to satirize the paradoxical mind of the contemporary male. They are morally aware that prostitution is to be condemned, but meanwhile, prostitution is indispensable in their lives since they satisfy their personal needs. As

Harebrain does, he loathes Gullman, but he requests her assistance at the same time.

The paradox implies that men in the early seventeenth century are lost in their moral standard and losing control of themselves, not to speak of the restriction on women.

In Harebrain’ house, faced with this, Frank Gullman does not retreat in this masculine space but takes another measure to permeate her female power into the house by directing Mistress Harebrain to defend her husband in their house. Harebrain’s male jealousy does not knock down Gullman’s female power in his house. She turns to teach his wife the ways of survival in such male domination:

Seem in his sight to endure the sight of no man;

Put by all kisses till you kiss in common.

Neglect all entertain; if he bring in

Strangers, keep you your chamber, be not seen.

If he chance steal upon you, let him find

Some books lie open ’against an unchaste mind

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And coted Scripture, though for your own pleasure

You read some stirring pamphlet, and convey it

under your skirt, the fittest place to lay it. (1.2.89-97)

Her instruction to Harebrain’s wife is proved to be effectual in 3.1 when Master

Possibility and Master Inesse visit Harebrain’s house, from which we can see Frank

Gullman outwits these men even she does not physically stay at the house. Whether she is in the house or not does not hinder her female power to exert because she is sure of the fact that once men are satisfied, women can taste sweet from them. For Harebrain’s wife, after she diminishes her husband’s jealousy, she has the chance to meet up with

Master Penitent Brothel; for Gullman, she receives rewards from Harebrain when she makes him contented. “[taking ruby] You’re to blame, i’faith, sir. I shall ne’er deserve it.”

(1.2.152).

Excellent at inventing strategy, Gullman cooperates with Penitent Brothel to stage a false play that she feigns to be a patient, and Brothel to be a physician so that they can invite Harebrain and his wife to her house without being suspected. Gullman takes the advantage of women’s inherent weakness as a great facility in cheating men. As she confesses to Brothel, “We can be sick when have a mind to’t, catch an ague with the wind of our fans, … ’Tis the easiest art and cunning for our sect to counterfeit sick, … since we were made for a weak imperfect creature” (2.5.32-39).

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The false play takes place in Gullman’s chamber, where is completely a feminine space and under no circumstance can male power invade and masculinize such area. Her chamber is a key space where she plays and manipulates those male visitors. Sir

Bounteous as the first comer visits the space, wishing to do a trade with Gullman only to find she is sick. She feebly activates women’s weakness to him, saying, “Huh, weak, knight, huh” (3.2.37). Her sickness disappoints and frightens Sir Bounteous, which prevents him from releasing his male power to masculinize the space. He sighs, “I was lusty when I came in, but I am down now” (3.2.27-28). Although the trade is not achieved, she still profits herself with Penitent’s cooperation. In order to make her recover sooner, Penitent suggests “no poorer ingredients than the liquor of coral, clear amber or succinum, unicorn’s horn six grains, magisterium perlarum one scruple－”

(3.2.60-61). Sir Bounteous generously provides money to the fake physician and

Gullman. Gullman not only upholds her feminine space but also earn herself without any cost. Later, she welcomes another visitors Master Possibility and Master Inessess.

She employs the same strategy on them. However, the two gentlemen still insist on trading with her. To concrete her feminine space, she takes actions to exaggerate her sickness as the stage directions indicate, “She feigns farting and excreting” (3.2). Faced with such nauseating situation, the two gentlemen have no choice but to leave her chamber. Gullman safeguards her feminine space again by her wit and makes the most

97 use of women’s weakness. Penitent applauds, “The wit of man wanes and decreases soon, But women’s wit is ever at full moon” (3.2-175-76). The ultimate purpose of the false play is to serve the feminine space as a cover of the love affair of Penitent and

Harebrain’s wife. Her chamber becomes not merely gendered, but also amoral. She leads Penitent and Mistress Harebrain to exit; meanwhile, in order to settle Harebrain’s jealous and suspicion, she feigns to address to her, making Harebrain thinks she is talking to his wife:

… Love him, honour

him, stick by him. He lets you want nothing that’s fit

for a woman, and to be sure on’t, he will see himself

that you want it not. (3.2.201-04)

Gullman is witty by saying these words because the “him” can be interpreted either

Harebrain or Penitent. She also deliberately arouses Harebrain’s attention and empathy by saying, “Ay there, o there, there lies my pain, good gentlewoman. Sore? O ay, I can scarce endure your hand upon’t” (3.2.224-25). He then responses, “Poor soul, how shes’s tormented” (3.2.226). Gullman always takes the upper hand and exactly knows how to handle such a situation and act as a manipulator who utilizes her feminine space as an amoral place to coordinate everyone’s desires.

Compared with Bellafront, who needs to exclaim her female subjectivity by

98 feminizing masculine space, the courtesan Frank Gullman directly demonstrates her power wherever she goes. Her uncommonness lies in two prospects. First, her female power is mobile without any limitation. Second, she outwits men and manipulates them to acquire what she needs. She is the representative of the source of male’s anxiety since her mobility and wit over men mean men are losing control over them, and it attributes a factor to weaken the male dominance over women.

By staging these uncommon women who subvert the masculine spaces, Dekker and Middleton try to challenge the patriarchal system and reveal the instability of the

English society in the early seventeenth century. Traditionally, women are expected to be subordinate and obedient to men, but what makes these women uncommon is their self-awareness of female subjectivity and individuality. Furthermore, these women have the ability to feminize the solid masculine spaces by different approaches. Moll rushes out of her father’s (male) authority at home to elope. Viola provokes her husband’s male rage in his shop. Bellafront fills the void of the house with her unshakable female power to persuade her husband and to guard the foreign male invasion of Hippolito. The courtesan Frank Gullman uses her incomparable wit to manipulate men in any spaces and to turn her room to be an amoral area. From the examples of these women, we can conclude that women, either inside the patriarchal sphere (Moll and Viola) or outside the rein of male institution (Bellafront and Frank Gullman), are all liberated from men.

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None of ant masculine space is able to accommodate female power; moreover, even these masculine spaces are feminized. Women become more powerful in space, and men are losing their control over them. By presenting disorderly gendered space and gender role, Dekker and Middleton try to satirize the society and to raise up the warning to the audiences of returning to the normal and harmonious society.

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Conclusion

With Dekker’s and Middleton’s city comedies, we can understand the social instability and the spatialities in early Jacobean England. The change of the monarchs and the booming economy cause a considerable impact on many aspects of the society.

The social structure falls loose because of the decline of moral values in every class of citizens. For example, the upper-class gentry act with inappropriate manners and behave badly, whereas the middle-class citizens’ selfishness and jealousy are insatiable. Both classes simply forget the moral lessons taught in the biblical texts and the conduct books.

City comedy is a miniature of an unstable society, in which the vignettes of conflicts are the embodiment of an unsettling London. To present the social conflicts of the contemporary London, Dekker and Middleton empower socially inferior characters to air their voices as a moral critique on those aristocrats. Moreover, in Dekker’s and

Middleton’s plays, the presence of civic life on the Renaissance stage is also accompanied by the stage representations of geographical specificities. The loci of their daily lives – the public, private, and confined spaces – vividly stage the characters’ social aspirations and moral pressures, which in the end contribute to the disruption of moral values. Women, too, are also entitled to have their say through the manipulation of the gendered space where the masculine spaces are feminized. The empowerment of

101 women – as seen in the cases of Viola, Bellafront, and the courtesan Frank Gullman – entitles them not only to gain individuality and self-awareness but also to subvert patriarchal authority. The representations of women in Dekker’s and Middleton’s plays are the best evidence of the fluidity of class and gender relationships of Jacobean

London.

In my thesis, I have mapped out the ways in which Dekker’s and Middleton’s city comedies present the social instability and unsettling anxiety of Jacobean London.

Moreover, I have also applied Henri Lefebvre’s perspective of The Production of Space to interpret afresh Dekker‘s and Middleton’s plays that showcase the spatial relationships of all characters who are morally problematic. Although Dekker and

Middleton are known for their satirical wits and no citizens can be spared by

Middleton’s cynicism, both playwrights remain hopeful for the city and their optimism is often conveyed with good cheers and good wills.

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