“A PLAGUE ‘O BOTH YOUR HOUSES”: SHAKESPEARE AND EARLY MODERN PLAGUE WRITING A dissertation presented by Nichole DeWall to The English Department In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the field of English Northeastern University Boston, Massachusetts April, 2008 1 Abstract This dissertation investigates what Shakespeare’s drama seems to do with the anxieties and fantasies attendant upon the early modern plague experience. At times, it seems, the plague exerts its presence in its absence; at others, the plague seems to saturate every aspect of the plays’ fictive worlds. Moreover, my inquiry seeks to understand what kind of cultural and psychical work Shakespeare’s plays performed, both for himself and for his audience members. What was it about the plague experience that compelled Shakespeare to return to it in his works, despite how devastating it was to his creative and financial prospects to remind people of the disease? And what compelled his audience members to venture into the playhouses, despite the fact that these sites were thought to be uniquely capable of spreading the disease? I am particularly interested in how the plays provide for Shakespeare and his audiences a language to know the unknowable, or communicate the unspeakable. I read the plays in concert with the hundreds of plague sermons, poems, and medical tracts that glutted the early modern print marketplace during and between outbreaks. Special attention is given to Romeo and Juliet and Coriolanus. 2 To Brian “constant in spirit” 3 Acknowledgements First, I wish to thank Professor Kathy Howlett, who for the last seven years has served as a mentor and inspiration, and whose encouragement and feedback has been vital to every stage of the dissertation writing process. My two other committee members have also guided me in my writing and throughout my tenure in graduate school: I thank Professor Francis Blessington for always reminding me to ask the big questions; I thank Professor Marina Leslie for that first archival assignment, and for never allowing her students to make reductive statements about the early modern period. I am deeply grateful for the Northeastern University Dissertation Writing Fellowship that I received during my last semester of writing: it was critical to this project’s completion. I wish to thank Professors Margaret Healy and Rebecca Totaro for organizing the Shakespeare Association of America Seminar, “A Plague On Both Your Houses,” in the spring of 2008. This seminar served as both a deadline and a wonderfully productive place to investigate the plague with like-minded scholars. My friends in the graduate program at Northeastern have provided commiseration, laughter, and insight throughout my tenure here. I especially wish to acknowledge Amy Carleton, Cory Grewell, Amy Kaufman, Jennifer Martin, Kurt Moellering, Alex Moffett. Two early teachers, Mrs. Honey Lou Bonar and Mrs. Betty Kort, nurtured my love for literature and writing. I hope I can someday be as inspirational to my own students. Finally, my family members have all supported me in different ways throughout this process, and I extend my love and thanks to each: to Erica, for groundedness; to Nathan, for inspiration; to Mom, for joy; to Dad, for wisdom. I also thank Linda Pezza for her encouragement. My husband, Brian Pezza, has been a foundation—an “ever-fixèd mark”— throughout my Ph.D. I dedicate this dissertation to him. 4 Table of Contents Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 4 TableofContents 5 ListofFigures 6 Preface 7 Chapter 1: “Where the infectious pestilence did reign”: Romeo and Juliet as Shakespeare’s Plague Play 11 Chapter 2: The Smell of Dover: Stink, the In(Spire)d Poet, andtheRhetoricofFilth 72 Chapter 3: “How soon confusion”: The Plague, Degree, and the Body Politic in Coriolanus 116 Chapter 4: “Poison hath residence and medicine power”: 144 Early Modern Theater as pharmakon Appendix “A Remedy for Love”, Philip Sidney 176 Figures 180 Works Cited 189 5 List of Figures Figure 1: Title page, The Prophecies and Predictions for London’s Deliverance Figure 2: A Looking-glasse for City and Countrey Figure 3: Title page, God’s Judgment fhown unto Mankind Figure 4: Dance of Death episodes from A Booke of Christian Prayers Figure 5: Dance of Death episodes from A Booke of Christian Prayers Figure 6: Title page, London’s Lord Have Mercy Upon Us Figure 7: Title page, The Four Great Years of the Plague Figure 8: Title page, The vocacyon of John Bale to the bishoprick of Offorie Figure 9: Title page, The Stage-players complaint 6 Preface When William Shakespeare arrived in London in the late 1580’s, the plague had been endemic to England for nearly 250 years, since the Black Death of Petrarch and Chaucer had wiped out two-thirds of Europe’s population. During outbreaks in London, signs of the plague were everywhere: bills of mortality plastered on every post; mountebanks peddling their plague potions in the streets. Street fires burned continuously in an attempt to purge the air of miasmas, the stinky pockets of “bad ayre” thought to transmit the disease; bunches of rosemary hung above doorways to sweeten the air that entered citizens’ houses. Those who could afford to flee escaped to the cleaner air of the country. A door marked with a large red cross signaled an infected family quarantined inside; watchmen were posted outside to ensure no one entered or escaped. The plague cart, its bell ringing incessantly, lumbered by as it’s heap of dead bodies grew higher and higher. Since crowds spread infection, family members were not allowed to gather for funeral rituals: those attempting to follow the plague cart were arrested. When the plague wasn’t actively raging—major outbreaks occurred in 1593 and from 1603-1611—the fear of its return terrorized the minds of early modern subjects. Hundreds of plague sermons, poems, and medical tracts glutted the early modern print marketplace. This dissertation investigates what Shakespeare’s drama seems to do with the anxieties and fantasies attendant upon the early modern plague experience: how the plague exerts a presence in its absence at times, or how, at others, the plague saturates every aspect of the plays’ fictive worlds. Moreover, my inquiry seeks to understand what kind of cultural and psychical work Shakespeare’s plays performed, both for himself and for his audience members. What was it about the plague experience that compelled Shakespeare to return to it in his works, despite 7 how devastating it was to his creative and financial prospects to remind people of the disease? And what compelled his audience members to venture into the playhouses, despite the fact that these sites were thought to be uniquely capable of spreading the plague? How did the plays provide for Shakespeare and his audiences a language to know the unknowable, or communicate the unspeakable? How do we begin to think about literature in a way that recognizes the demands of trauma, yet still preserves, to some extent, the artist’s ability to make actively make aesthetic choices? These questions emerged as the ones most at stake as I moved within this project. In an attempt to understand the scope and nature of this particular traumatic event—the early modern bubonic plague—I worked with a sample of over 300 archival plague texts. I defined “plague text” as any work during plague time that seemed to respond in direct ways to the epidemic: bills of mortality, verse poems, woodcuts, pamphlets, sermons, city ordinances, and medical regimens. The first plague regimen published in London, the anonymous Here begynneth a treatyse agaynst pestele[n]ce [and] of ye infirmits (1509) seemed a logical starting point; Epiloimia epe, a verse poem written by barrister and minor poet William Austin during London’s Great Plague in 1666 served as my terminus a quem. Some of these plague texts, like Thomas Dekker’s 1603 plague pamphlets, had received some scholarly attention; most, however, had never been included in scholarly inquiries. I did not work with these plague texts in an effort to get at the “real” story of the plague: that doesn’t exist. I don’t pretend that there are any plague texts that are unmediated by their authors’ particular anxieties and interests, or that, if there were, I could disentangle myself from my own historical moment for long enough to 8 receive them. The nature of this particular trauma, moveover, brings into relief how unrecoverable history always is: we are missing the voices, after all, of those who actually felt the ravages of the plague within their own bodies (Simon Forman is among the few who survived the plague and wrote about it). Even with these limitations, however, I was able to come to some understanding, I believe, of the way the plague affected the lives of early modern subjects in very practical, real ways; I also became familiar with the most common fears and anxieties that were attendant upon the experience. I proceeded from the notion, then, that Shakespeare’s plays would not be removed from but, rather, bear the marks of these anxieties. In my basic conviction that literary works rehearse and work out fantasies and anxieties in symbolic or displaced ways, I identify with psychoanalytic criticism. More specifically, I have found a more recent application of psychoanalytic theory, trauma theory, useful throughout this dissertation in its emphasis on the ways certain exceptional events—wars, epidemics, genocides—create a kind of knowledge so unknowable that it cannot be retrieved without displacement or distortion (Hartman 537). The nature of a traumatic event, after all, is that it cannot be experienced: theorists often describe the traumatic event “falling into the psyche” without the subject actually perceiving or experiencing it (Hartman 537).