Rumor, Gender, and Authority in English Renaissance Drama
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University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Doctoral Dissertations Student Scholarship Spring 2006 Rumor, gender, and authority in English Renaissance drama Keith M. Botelho University of New Hampshire, Durham Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation Recommended Citation Botelho, Keith M., "Rumor, gender, and authority in English Renaissance drama" (2006). Doctoral Dissertations. 313. https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/313 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. RUMOR, GENDER, AND AUTHORITY IN ENGLISH RENAISSANCE DRAMA BY KEITH M. BOTELHO B.A. Saint Anselm College, 1996 M.A., University of New Hampshire, 2001 DISSERTATION Submitted to the University of New Hampshire in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature May, 2006 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3217421 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. ® UMI UMI Microform 3217421 Copyright 2006 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This dissertation has been examined and approved. Dissertation Director, Douglas M. Lanier Associate Professor of English r \ /■> John M. Archer, Professor of English New York University Elizabeth H. Hageman, Professor of English or of English Jan V. Golinski, Professor of History 0(s> Date Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to acknowledge the Graduate School at the University of New Hampshire, whose funding helped to support the research and writing of this dissertation. A Summer Teaching Assistant Fellowship in 2005 allowed me to travel to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., to pursue necessary research for my final two chapters, while the 2005-2006 Graduate School Dissertation Fellowship gave me the opportunity to complete the dissertation. My dissertation director, Doug Lanier, has been an incredible mentor and teacher. I have benefited from his good humor, his sound advice, and his rigorous questioning of my arguments and ideas. I thank him for his ongoing advocacy of me and my work—his example has shown me what it means to be a passionate teacher and committed scholar. The roots of this dissertation began with a 2001 conversation with John Archer, and his direction helped me to frame the central questions of my emerging ideas. An independent study he directed gave me the opportunity to develop an earlier version of my Jonson chapter. I thank him for his willingness to remain on my committee after taking a position at New York University. Betty Hageman's insistence on argumentative clarity is evident in each chapter of this dissertation. I thank her for sharing with me her encyclopedic knowledge of the Renaissance, as well as her continued encouragement of my research. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. iv Jane Bellamy's support and her keen insights and questions early in the project were invaluable. I also thank her for the opportunity to work as her editorial assistant on her volume on Spenser and Milton, which taught me great lessons about the academic writing process. Jan Golinski has been a wonderful asset to my committee, providing a historian's eye that helped me rethink some of my historical generalizations. I appreciate his encouragement of my work that grew out of our independent study on science and magic in the seventeenth century. I thank Sue Schibanoff for coming on board with such exuberance for my dissertation defense. Her example as both scholar and academic professional has not only benefited me, but myriad doctoral students in the department. Rachel Trubowitz has been a positive and encouraging voice throughout my doctoral program. And I want to thank Gary Bouchard at Saint Anselm College for his good advice and humor and for sparking my interest in the Renaissance as an undergraduate. I have benefited from Drew Lopenzina's unfailing friendship and support. As we went through the doctoral program together, we challenged each other and pushed one another toward the finish line. Thanks as well to the members of the monthly dissertation workshops for their feedback on my work. Thanks to the loving support of my family and friends. I appreciate everyone coming along for this ride as I pursued my doctoral degree. Finally, I want to thank my wife Denise and my children, Ethan and Julia, whose love, patience, and laughter sustained me throughout. I dedicate this dissertation to you. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...................................................................................iii ABSTRACT..........................................................................................................vii CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION: BUZZ, BUZZ: A RENAISSANCE CULTURE OF RUMOR......................................................................................................... 1 A. Elizabeth I: Glorianna. Bess. Fama?................................................. 26 1. TABLE TALK: MARLOWE AND HIS MOUTHY MEN........................... 55 A. Loose Scholarly Tongues and the Humanist Tradition................59 B. "For so the rumor runs": Marlowe's Men and the Truth............. 68 2. BRUITS AND BRITONS: RUMOR, COUNSEL, AND THE EARLY MODERN PLAY OF HISTORY.....................................................104 A. Listening to Fearless Speech: Counsel and Rumor inGorboduc .........................................................................................I l l B. "Open your ears" to "The harsh and hoist'rous tongue of war": Shakespeare's Second Tetralogy..................................... 118 3. AURAL INSURGENTS: SHAKESPEARE'S DISSIDENT WOMEN ........ 160 A. "Full of tongues, of eyes and ears":Titus Andronicus................... 163 B. Saying and Hearing "Nothing": Refusals to Speak and Listen inLear, Shrew, andMeasure .............................................................. 171 C. "Is whispering nothing?": Inaccessible Female Spaces in Othello andThe Winter's Tale........................... 183 D. Female Discerning Listening, Male Transgressive Speech: The Case of All's Well That End's Well .............................................. 191 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. v i 4. "NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH": BEN JONSON'S COMEDY OF RUMORS......................................................................................................208 A. Charting Jonsonian Noise:Epicoene andBartholomew Fair.............. 215 B. Truth, Rumor, and the Breakdown of Gendered Spaces: The Staple of News, The New Inn, andThe Magnetic Lady .................. 228 EPILOGUE............................................................................................................... 267 BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................................................................... 273 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT RUMOR, GENDER, AND AUTHORITY IN ENGLISH RENAISSANCE DRAMA by Keith M. Botelho University of New Hampshire, May, 2006 The dramatic works of Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson register a certain type of male character who is capable of discerning listening, an action that becomes an agent of specific masculine authority and identity. However, rumor's inherent ambiguity and indeterminacy poses the greatest threat to discerning listening. The paradox that emerges is that while the drama posits men as superior authors of information, it is men—and not women—who are responsible for the circulation of unauthorized information and rumor on the stage. Early modem literary and cultural discourses repeatedly pointed to the dangers of loose tongues and transgressive speech, and such idle chatter was consistently gendered female. Male characters continually attempt to disown their own loose speech by placing women and their gossip as the true threat to informational authority. As early modem drama exposes transgressive male talk and a male anxiety of informational access, men must seek to maintain their informational authority from male unauthorized speech. This