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The Rake and the Fop in the English Comedy Between 1662 and 1728

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The Rake and the Fop in the English Comedy Between 1662 and 1728 Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2017 Troubled masculinity: the rake and the fop in the English comedy between 1662 and 1728 Stamp Bahadur, Lilly Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-161531 Dissertation Published Version Originally published at: Stamp Bahadur, Lilly. Troubled masculinity: the rake and the fop in the English comedy between 1662 and 1728. 2017, University of Zurich, Faculty of Arts. TROUBLED MASCULINITY: THE RAKE AND THE FOP IN THE ENGLISH COMEDY BETWEEN 1662 AND 1728 Thesis presented to the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of the University of Zurich for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Lilly Stamp Bahadur Accepted in the fall semester 2017 on the recommendation of the doctoral committee: Prof. Dr. Allen Reddick Prof. Dr. Fritz Gutbrodt Zurich, 2018 Contents 01: Introduction: Masculinity and comedy .................................................................................... 1 02: Turbulent times and theatre ................................................................................................. 12 Historical Context ....................................................................................................................... 14 Aristocracy as a class .................................................................................................................. 24 Comedies and their relevance to male identity ......................................................................... 31 03: The Rake as a Type ............................................................................................................... 37 Libertinism off stage ................................................................................................................... 46 The history of the rake on stage ................................................................................................ 56 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 70 04: The Fop as a Type ................................................................................................................. 72 Politeness, Refinement and Effeminacy .................................................................................... 79 The history of the fop on stage .................................................................................................. 92 Breeches parts and effeminacy ................................................................................................ 102 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 105 05: Relationships and Masculinity .............................................................................................. 107 Friendship ................................................................................................................................. 107 Virility and Sexual Power ......................................................................................................... 117 Sexual Warfare and Cuckolding ............................................................................................... 134 Ambiguous sexuality ................................................................................................................ 141 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 151 06: Violence and Masculinity ..................................................................................................... 153 Violent potential ....................................................................................................................... 153 Private violence ........................................................................................................................ 154 Single Combat on Stage ........................................................................................................... 158 Interpersonal violence and rioting ........................................................................................... 176 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 185 07: Conclusion: Taming the Beast............................................................................................... 188 Domesticity ............................................................................................................................... 188 Repentance, Reformation, Reclamation .................................................................................. 196 The Polite Gentleman ............................................................................................................... 208 Appendix: List of Plays Used .................................................................................................. 212 1660-1669 ................................................................................................................................. 212 1670-1679 ................................................................................................................................. 212 1680-1689 ................................................................................................................................. 212 1690-1699 ................................................................................................................................. 213 1700-1709 ................................................................................................................................. 213 1710-1719 ................................................................................................................................. 214 1720-1729 ................................................................................................................................. 214 Works Cited .............................................................................................................................. 215 Primary Literature, Plays .......................................................................................................... 215 Primary Literature, Other ......................................................................................................... 219 Secondary Literature ................................................................................................................ 223 01: Introduction 01: Introduction: Masculinity and comedy In the ideologically charged times between the Restoration and the Hanoverian succession, portraying male characters, particularly male characters belonging to the aristocracy, was a difficult task for playwrights and fraught with political implications. In the traditional English comedy, established in the Renaissance just a few generations earlier, the protagonists belong to this ruling class. Karen Harvey (2005) summarises the studies relating to gender conducted on the period between 1650 and 1850 as positing “this period as the century of change in the ways in which bodies were understood, sexuality constructed, and sexual activity carried out” (Harvey 2005 900). These changes were intertwined with political discourses, in which playwrights took an active part. While comedies have always been regarded as lesser than tragedies and attracted less interest, an analysis of comedies in this period can shed light on the processes that fundamentally changed the understanding of aristocratic masculinity which in turn sheds light on fundamental changes within the structure of society. Since the poststructuralist interest in power relations and the cultural turn in the field of history, scholars have discovered that the question of male power is not as simple as it once seemed. Ruth Karras argues in her monograph From Boys To Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe: “we cannot understand women’s lives without understanding men as men (as opposed to men as the normative humans, the traditional focus of historical study)” (Karras 2003 19). As Karras notes, “the normative humans” which were the focus of historical study do not directly correspond with real people, and dismissing a focus on men and masculinity because they have always been the focus of historical studies negates the experience of men as men and the long history of debates and negotiations about masculinity. Masculinity was in a crisis at virtually every point in history but particularly so after the Restoration (see e.g. Kimmel 1986; Allen 2002; King 2004). Modern gender historians tend to depict ideal masculinity as a series of “step‐changes”: the “godly man” of Stuart England, superseded by the “polite man” of the early 18th century, followed by the “sentimental man” of the Hanoverian period. This harbours the danger of “the history of masculinity fast developing a periodisation which will force studies of manliness to ape the increasingly outmoded characterisations of more traditional political and social history” (Gregory 1999 86). This periodisation also hides the cracks between competing concepts of masculinity and within them and the issues men had in finding their place in the internal hierarchy of masculinity as well as the issues they faced while shaping their gender
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