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The Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher Drawn - Often, but Not Exclusively, by Feminists - Between Sexual Themes and Power and Authority

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The Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher Drawn - Often, but Not Exclusively, by Feminists - Between Sexual Themes and Power and Authority The Plays ofBeaumont and Fletcher To my dear Father The Plays of Beau111ont and Fletcher Sexual Themes and Dramatic Representation Sandra Clark Bz'rkbeck College ~ ~~o~~~~n~s~~up LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 1994 by Harvester Wheatsheaf Published 2013 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1994 Sandra Clark All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or uti­ lised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notices Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new re­ search and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary. Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or ex­ periments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility. To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contribu­ tors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein. ISBN 13: 978-0-7450-1569-9 (pbk) British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Typeset in 10/12pt Ehrhardt by The Midlands Book Typesetting Company Contents Preface vii Notes on editions ix Introduction The Beaumont and Fletcher Partnership: Reputation and Collaboration 1 Chapter 1 The Price of Virtue: Chastity Plays 24 Chapter 2 Gender 53 Chapter 3 Misogyny and Manhood 78 Chapter 4 Sex and Tyranny 101 Chapter 5 Courtship and Marriage in the Comedies 128 Conclusion 153 Notes 160 Bibliography 184 Index 195 This page intentionally left blank Preface This book has evolved over a period of several years during which I have been on the lookout for signs that there were other people in the world who shared my interest in Beaumont and Fletcher. Increasingly, I have seen such signs, though I am still surprised that there are not more of them. As I suggest in the book, there are several current theoretical trends, which, if nothing else, ought to prompt people working on the literature and culture of early modern England to look at Beaumont and Fletcher's plays anew; I hope, of course, that there is something else, even if, at the moment, there are plenty of people more interested in theory than in plays. I want first to thank David Atkinson, who has been involved with this book at several stages and in many ways; I am also grateful to Graham Handley and Jan Cole for various forms of help and kindness. Probably no one could have entirely eliminated the traumas involved in coping with material prepared on several different word-processing systems, although I had supposed that this might be one of the roles of Central Computing Services in University institutions; but in this respect David Clark did much more than anybody else. This page intentionally left blank Note on editions I have where possible quoted the Beaumont and Fletcher plays from the Cambridge edition, The Dramatic Works in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon, General Editor, Fredson Bowers, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1966-). There are to date 8 volumes. For plays not available in this edition I have used The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, eds. Arnold Glover and A.R.Waller, 10 vols, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1905-12). Abbreviations ES E.K.Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, 4 vols (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1923) JCS G.E.Bentley, The Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 5 vol. (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1956) JEGP Journal of English and Germanic Philology PMLA Proceedings of the Modern Languages Association RORD Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama SEL Studies in English Literature SQ Shakespeare Quarterly ss Shakespeare Survey Shares Cyrus Hoy, 'The Shares of Fletcher and his Collaborators in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon', Studies in Bibliography, 8-9; 11-14, (1956-61) Works The Dramatic Works in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon, General Editor, Fredson Bowers, 8 vols (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1966-) Vol. 1 The Knight of the Burning Pestle, ed. Cyrus Hoy The Woman Hater, ed. George Walton Williams The Coxcomb, ed. Irby B. Cauthen, Jnr The Captain, ed. L. A. Beaurline Vol. 2 Cupid's Revenge, ed. Fredson Bowers x Abbreviations The Scornful Lady, ed. Cyrus Hoy Vol. 3 Luve's Cure, ed. George Walton Williams The Noble Gentleman, ed. L. A. Beaurline The Tragedy of Thierry and Theodore!, ed. Robert K. Turner,Jnr The Faithful Shepherdess, ed. Cyrus Hoy Vol. 4 The Woman's Prize, ed. Fredson Bowers Bonduca, ed. Cyrus Hoy The Tragedy of Valentinian, ed. Robert K. Turner, Jnr Monsieur Thomas, ed. Hans Walter Gabler Vol. 5 The Loyal Subjea, ed. Fredson Bowers The Humorous Lieutenant, ed. Cyrus Hoy Women Pleased, ed. Hans Walter Gabler Vol. 6 Wit Without Money, ed. Hans Walter Gabler The Wild-Goose Chase, ed. Fredson Bowers A Wifo for a Month, ed. Robert Kean Turner Rule a Wifo and Have a Wifo, ed. George Walton Williams Vol. 7 Wit at Several Weapons, ed. Robert Kean Turner The Night Walker, ed. Cyrus Hoy The Two Noble Kinsmen, ed. Fredson Bowers Introduction The Beaumont and Fletcher Partnership: Reputation and Collaboration (i) The aim of this introductory chapter is to provide various kinds of contexts which will illuminate the dramatic handling of subject matter central both to human experience and to Beaumont and Fletcher's dramaturgy: sexuality. My starting point is the acknowledgment that the representation of sexuality in those plays has been considerably responsible not only for their huge popularity for much of the seventeenth century but also for their subsequent striking fall from critical favour. The first part of this assertion may seem more obviously true than the second; but I would argue that those theatrical strategies which the dramatists deployed in constructing and developing sexual situations form the basis of their dramaturgy more generally, and that it is the nature of this dramaturgy and its aesthetic which, by contrast with those of Shakespeare, has led to the critical marginalisation of a huge and influential corpus of plays, at least since the time of Coleridge. The focus of the remainder of this book is quite narrow, but in this chapter it is broadened in order to provide the subject with more shape and definition. I want first in fairly general terms to survey the fortunes of Beaumont and Fletcher's critical reputation, and in doing so to consider the politics of this reputation at its various stages. By politics, I mean the interest-serving practices and ideologies according to which the value and significance of the plays was defined at any particular time. It is necessary to explore not only how reputations change, but why; and the factors relevant to answering the second part of this question might also shed light more broadly, for example on the interrelations of drama and society in the seventeenth century, and on what is now often known as the Shakespeare 'myth'. Behind this examination of the history of Beaumont and Fletcher's reputation lies the implication that its current condition is worth more scrutiny; and a justification for this may be found by looking again at Beaumont and Fletcher's handling of sexuality in the light of certain current critical attitudes and preoccupations, in particular the reaction against liberal humanist readings of Renaissance texts and the connections 1 2 The plays of Beaumont and Fletcher drawn - often, but not exclusively, by feminists - between sexual themes and power and authority. An examination of the gradual disappearance from critical scrutiny (and historical prominence) of the Beaumont and Fletcher plays after the end of the seventeenth century highlights the ways in which the liberal humanist construction of Shakespearean dramaturgy, particularly by Coleridge and his successors, has been inimical to Beaumont and Fletcher's reputation. By contrast, a consideration of the reputations of both the plays and the collaborative partnership in the seventeenth century will show how these reputations were created and the part played in this creation by their association with royalist politics; it will also suggest that this part, though significant, need not be seen as foreclosing on the plays' own potential for offering a wider range of political meanings. (ii) The Beaumont and Fletcher canon is currently defined as consisting of about fifty-three plays,' primarily those published in the Second Folio of 1679 but also including Henry VIII, Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt, and A Very Woman;Z and perhaps another half dozen, now lost, could have been attributed to one or both of these playwrights. 3 Yet nowadays students of Renaissance drama, familiar with the work of Marston, Middleton, Webster, and so forth, are unlikely to have read even four of them. The extraordinary invisibility of so vast a corpus is of course a reflection of its critical neglect, which is to an extent a twentieth-century phenomenon.4 For although Beaumont and Fletcher's reputation had begun to decline before the end of the seventeenth century, texts continued to be available; in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries each there were three collected editions, but since the Glover and Waller edition of 1905-12 there have been no complete works until the as yet unfinished Cambridge edition, which began to appear in 1966.
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