Abstract Within the last decade, there has been a renewed level of interest in civil war general, writer and theatre proprietor, Sir William Davenant (1606-1668). The field of sensory studies has also flourished in recent years and, over the past two to three decades especially, research into royalism and royalist literature has produced numerous extensive studies. However, scholarship dealing with royalism only provides vague allusions to the place of the senses and sensuality within royalism and royalist literature. Davenant’s work is striking in that it engages both overtly and more subtly with the relationship between the senses, sensuality, royalist identities, and the values accommodated by royalist ideologies. This thesis offers a thorough re-evaluation of Davenant’s writing in relation to the senses, contributing towards a better understanding of the way in which royalists conceptualise their own sensory experiences, and those of others. In turn, this is vital in understanding royalism as a whole and the way in which such concepts contribute towards its varied nature and accommodating ideologies. It also enables a deeper appreciation of the impact of Davenant’s own forms of royalism upon his literary output. My approach builds upon the critical field of sensory studies by considering the way in which royalist identities may influence writers’ approaches to the sensory experience during the seventeenth century. THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD – SCHOOL OF ENGLISH Sir William Davenant, the Senses, and Royalism in the Seventeenth Century A dissertation presented by Kate Louise Gath In fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the subject of English Literature. March 2018 Contents Acknowledgements Sir William Davenant, the Senses, and Royalism in the Seventeenth Century: An Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1 Intro.1 ............................................................................................................................... 1 Intro.2: The Senses in the Seventeenth Century .............................................................. 8 Intro.3: Sensory Studies ................................................................................................. 16 Intro.4: Royalism ............................................................................................................ 22 Intro.5: Davenant’s Work ............................................................................................... 29 Chapter 1: Seeing and Being Seen in Davenant’s Early Work .......................................... 32 1.1: Seeing in the Seventeenth Century ......................................................................... 32 1.2: The Eye, Religion, and Theatre............................................................................... 41 1.3: Plays Written Before 1630 ...................................................................................... 49 1.4: Plays 1637-1642 ...................................................................................................... 63 Chapter 2: ‘Little pastime upon Earth without Bodies’: Platonic Love and the Sensory Experience in the Masque .................................................................................................. 68 2.1: The Masque and the Body....................................................................................... 68 2.2: Love at the Caroline Court ...................................................................................... 73 2.3: Stuart Masque Culture ............................................................................................ 76 2.4: Davenant’s Masquing Career .................................................................................. 91 Chapter 3: Moderating Pleasure in the 1650s .................................................................. 107 3.1: Pleasure and the Senses ......................................................................................... 107 3.2: Gondibert and Staging Didactic Performance in the Interregnum........................ 115 3.3: Opera ..................................................................................................................... 133 Chapter 4: Sensuality, Virtue, and the Restoration Actress ............................................. 138 4.1: Theatre at the Restoration ..................................................................................... 138 4.2: The Actress in the 1660s ....................................................................................... 142 4.3: Shakespeare Adaptations ...................................................................................... 153 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 166 Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 168 Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank my supervisors, Marcus Nevitt and Cathy Shrank for their expert guidance and support on this project. Cathy supervised my undergraduate dissertation, and Marcus has taught me in some capacity almost throughout the entirety of my time at the University of Sheffield, from being a new undergraduate to the final months of this PhD. When I started my studies as a postgraduate researcher in 2014, he warned me that there would be ‘dark nights of the soul’. Alongside happy and productive periods, there have been difficult days, weeks and even months on this project, but his patience and encouragement has made all the difference. I would also like to thank The School of English and the University of Sheffield more widely, as well as every PGR and academic who has offered feedback and pearls of wisdom at conferences, talks and other events. The city of Sheffield is a wonderful place, and being able to live in a lovely home, surrounded by green space, friendly people, and beautiful views has made all the difference to my quality of life. My excellent landlord, Roger Greatrick, has had a huge part to play in this. My local gym and its fantastic fitness class instructors, Lynn Sykes and Alison Haslam, have kept me going throughout the PhD. With every bench press, bicep curl and Step routine not only have I become fitter, happier and stronger, but have grown in confidence in all areas of my life. I would also like to thank Sara Brindley, Joanna Cholewa, Laura Jacobs, Molly Preger, Elin Reeves, and Kerry Sayer for their loyal friendship, shared laughter, and support. I am indebted to Sheila Walters, for her kindness and good company, and James Gath, for being not just a thoughtful sibling but also a friend. My late mother, Barbara Gath, was a very hardworking, determined, and perceptive individual who encouraged me to embrace everything education and learning has to offer, and to forge a career and aim high. I was sixteen when she died, and she never got to see the woman I have become, and will never be able to read this thesis, but I hope she would have been pleased that I followed her advice to pursue an area of study I really enjoyed. I cannot emphasise enough my thanks to my partner, Pete Walters, who brings me so much happiness, serenity and contentment, for his unwavering emotional and practical support. Finally, I would like to thank my father, Jerry Gath, who has been a very special parent from the moment he drove home with a tiny baby in a bundle of blanket. Without this, and his financial support, this project would not have been possible. 1 Sir William Davenant, the Senses, and Royalism in the Seventeenth Century: An Introduction Intro.1 During the 1650s, Wiltshire-born royalist poet Lady Hester Pulter wrote of the disfigured writer, civil war general, and future theatre proprietor, Sir William Davenant (1606- 1668), that, without his nose, he was ‘like Cheapside without a Cross’.1 This simile can be found in her satirical but sympathetic poem, ‘To Sir Wm D: Upon the Unspeakable Loss of the Most Conspicuous and Chief Ornament of his Frontispiece’, which discusses what Davenant’s nose, partly lost to syphilis over twenty years earlier, had come to signify. Pulter’s reference to Cheapside’s missing cross refers to a particularly famous episode in parliament’s history of iconoclasm, and compares Davenant to a missing landmark which nevertheless endures in the collective memories of royalists; he becomes a ‘shared reference point’.2 Davenant’s ruined nose was an integral part of the identity ascribed to him by his peers and it operated as an unavoidable marker of his promiscuous lifestyle.3 This type of lifestyle was one associated with a stereotypical, ‘cavalier’ royalist, and the identities of royalists such as these continue to preoccupy modern scholarship. Such royalists have been, and still are, heavily associated with ‘triviality and sensuality’, which is ‘admired’ or ‘censured’ by scholars depending upon their own moral or political viewpoints.4 However, scholarship dealing with royalism only ever provides 1 Philip Bordinat and Sophia B. Blaydes, Sir William Davenant (Boston: Twayne, 1981); Mary Edmond, Rare Sir William Davenant: Poet Laureate, Playwright, Civil War General, Restoration Theatre Manager (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987); Mark Robson, Pulter [née Ley], Lady Hester, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [online, accessed 23 February 2018]; Hester Pulter,