Querulous Curs: Early Modern Malcontentedness A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2018 Annie Dickinson School of Arts, Languages and Cultures Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... 4 Declaration ................................................................................................................................... 5 Copyright Statement ................................................................................................................... 5 Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... 6 Note on Citations ........................................................................................................................ 7 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 8 Political Faction to Theatre: The Meanings and Development of Malcontentedness ............................................................................................................................................. 11 Malcontentedness in Context: Thwarted Aspiration and Social Disorder ............... 18 Stock Figure versus Discourse ........................................................................................ 23 Malcontented Truth-Telling ............................................................................................ 29 ‘Discord to malcontents is very manna’ ........................................................................ 36 Chapter One: Excess and Disorder in John Marston’s Malcontented Verse Satire ...................................................................................................................................................... 42 1590s Satire and Satirical Tradition ................................................................................ 44 The Malcontent Satirised: Bruto the Traveller ............................................................. 49 Marston’s Malcontented Style ......................................................................................... 54 Social Criticism in the Satires and the 1599 Bishops’ Ban .......................................... 61 Truth-Telling, Excess, and Disorder .............................................................................. 65 ‘Pissing against the world’: Structural Disorder ............................................................ 73 Chapter Two: Theatrical Truth-Telling in The Malcontent and The Revenger’s Tragedy ..................................................................................................................................... 78 John Marston, The Malcontent ............................................................................................... 79 Malevole, Discord, and ‘Halterworthy’ Speech ............................................................ 82 The Malevole-Altofronto Relationship .......................................................................... 87 Altofronto and ‘Fictional Veiling’................................................................................... 90 The Performance of Truth .............................................................................................. 95 Thomas Middleton, The Revenger’s Tragedy .......................................................................... 99 ‘Villains all three’: Malcontentedness in The Revenger’s Tragedy .................................. 101 Disguise and Identity ...................................................................................................... 106 Metatheatricality and Malcontented Truth-Telling .................................................... 108 Chapter Three: Uncertainty in Hamlet and The Duchess of Malfi ....................... 112 Renaissance Uncertainty ................................................................................................ 114 2 William Shakespeare, Hamlet ............................................................................................. 118 ‘You would pluck out the heart of my mystery’: Hamlet’s Trap ............................. 120 ‘Crafty madness’: Hamlet’s Overdetermination ......................................................... 123 John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi .................................................................................... 127 Opacity in The Duchess of Malfi ....................................................................................... 128 Diagnosing Bosola .......................................................................................................... 130 ‘I know not how—’: The Rejection of Certainty ....................................................... 138 Chapter Four: Malcontentedness and Gender ............................................................. 145 ‘You are still abusing women!’: Malcontented Misogyny .......................................... 149 The Gendering of Corruption ...................................................................................... 154 Masculine Anxiety ........................................................................................................... 160 ‘Are not you a female content?’ .................................................................................... 165 ‘She scandals our proceedings’: Vittoria and Malcontentedness .............................. 171 ‘The office becomes a woman best’: Paulina’s Malcontented Truth-Telling ......... 178 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 190 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 194 Word count: 78,618 3 Abstract This thesis analyses and revises the concept of malcontentedness in late sixteenth and early seventeenth century literature, to argue that rather than simply designating a stock dramatic figure as held by previous scholarship, ‘malcontent’ is a broad, discursive category that has destabilizing effects in early modern literature and culture. I demonstrate that malcontentedness involves a specific harsh, satirical, and self- consciously performative linguistic style or mode, and analyse the appearance of this mode in drama and verse satire. I show that malcontentedness emerges in texts in stylistic, tonal, and structural ways, as well as through character. This approach allows me to explore the production of the malcontent as a subject position that makes possible the articulation of discontent with social conditions, and also to analyse the ways in which those previously excluded by the stock figure approach – namely, women – are able to appropriate elements of the malcontent discourse in order to critique the patriarchal systems in which they are held. I consider the ways in which a range of early modern literary texts express and explore malcontentedness; those studied in most detail include John Marston’s The Malcontent, and collections of verse satires, Thomas Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and The Winter’s Tale, and John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil. Closely analysing these texts from the perspective of malcontentedness reveals that their writers used the malcontent discourse to engage in the interrogation of apparently fixed categories. Malcontentedness, I argue, destabilises categories of class, nation, and gender. It is produced by cultural anxieties about these areas as subject to change, yet also constitutes a position from which that which is apparently fixed can be critiqued and disrupted. More widely, this thesis demonstrates that malcontentedness interrogates concepts of truth and meaning; I situate malcontented speech alongside other modes of plain, bold truth-telling, and argue that it rethinks those traditions. By combining truth-speaking with self-conscious theatricality, malcontentedness destabilises any sense of the truth as stable or certain. Overall, this thesis argues that early modern malcontentedness functioned as an interrogative force that was used by writers to question and destabilise various aspects of early modern culture. It constitutes a much more important and wide-ranging mode for the articulation of discontent and uncertainty than has previously been acknowledged. 4 Declaration No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. Copyright Statement i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements which the University has from time to time. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs,