Does anyone else think this would be a nice way to keep current in the field, pursue interests, and share?

If you’re interested in something like this, please let me know — I’m looking to start this ASAP, and ensure that it runs regularly

“I am bound to speak”: Friendship and Voice in Othello 

Speech was an important and innate function of gender, friendship, and marriage for Elizabethans, so it is no surprise that we find in Shakespeare’s work at least one play nearly entirely concerned with these connections. In particular, the regulation of women’s speech as well as its’ capacity to manipulate the quality of friendship and marriage, seems to have fascinated Shakespeare. Othello is a play about war, marriage, and friendship set amidst the stringent hierarchies of the militant city of Venice. Of the human bonds that do form, it is no accident of Shakespeare’s that friendship becomes the strongest while marriage – the holiest and arguably most important bond in Elizabethan culture – disintegrates quite easily; it is even less of an accident, then, that these relationships should prosper or fail along the lines of language itself. While much criticism has focused on the fast bond between Othello and Cassio (at least initially) or the marital friendship between Othello and Desdemona, I would argue that the strongest bond of the play turns out to be that between Emilia and Desdemona. Although their bond is similarly dependent upon speech, I argue that the strength of it is born of necessity: Desdemona and Emilia must form a deep friendship sealed by tightly knit plain and intimate speech to shield them from, or help them to rise above, the abuses marriage yields for them. In addition, Desdemona in particular must cling to Emilia as the only hope of being heard, or of having her story told after she is gone. 

In “Women and Men in Othello: ‘What should such a fool/Do with so good a woman?’” Carol Thomas Neely describes the opposition between male and female friendship in the play, highlighting the fact that while friendship between men, in addition to marital friendship, declines rapidly throughout the play, friendship between women prevails. Writing about a scene between Emilia and Desdemona, Neely explains that “the scene, sandwiched between two exchanges of Iago and Roderigo, sharply contrasts the genuine intimacy of the women with the hypocritical friendship of the men. Emilia’s concern for Desdemona is real and her advice is well meant, whereas Iago’s concern for Roderigo is feigned, his advice deadly…” (4.3.145). It becomes evident that when examining the friendship between women in contrast to friendship between men, language becomes the determining factor in the intimacy and genuineness of the relationships at stake. 

The verbal exchanges between Emilia and Desdemona are seamless, uncritical, and without contrivance or hesitation, unlike the speech between male friends that Eamon Grennan argues is “deaf and blind and furiously or high-mindedly rhetorical” (277). The seamlessness between thought and speech as well as within speech is indicative of an urgent intimacy between Emilia and Desdemona. The moment Othello and Lodovico leave the women, Emilia’s speech reflects the matter we know occupies Desdemona’s thoughts: “How goes it now? He looks gentler than he did” (4.3.11). In addition, Desdemona’s fragment of a full line of iambic pentameter – “…And bid me dismiss you” (4.3.14) – is made whole by Emilia’s “Dismiss me?” (4.3.15); the completion of the line is symptomatic not only of the women’s intimacy, but of the urgency that requires almost claustrophobic speech patterns in order to create shelter in the little verbal space left to the women at this point. Emilia is incredulous and, I would argue, frightened at the prospect that Othello has commanded a separation between the two. However, in spite of this, the spatial adjacency of their speech perseveres even when the two disagree. Again, Shakespeare uses fragments of the women’s speech to complete a line; when Desdemona expresses the knowledge of her coming death by requesting she be shrouded “…In one of these same sheets,” (4.3.25) the line is completed by Emilia’s opposing but concerned and supportive “Come, come! You talk” (4.3.25). The women have been able to create a system of speech – almost a type of telepathy in which they know one another’s thoughts and finish each other’s sentences – that meets the urgency, speed, and connection required to form a shelter from the dangerous breakdown of speech, rationality, and communication occurring in the male world. Without this type of speech, there is no barrier between the women’s spatial and verbal space and that chaotic, violent space belonging to the men. 

            The fact of Desdemona’s and Emilia’s ability to instantly comprehend one another’s speech and thought is seamless in itself:  Desdemona incorporates multiple thoughts and subjects into a single speech-act, and Emilia is able to comprehend and accommodate this type of speech with all the honesty, wit, compassion and comprehension as she has always displayed toward her friend. This, I would argue, is because the speech between the two is completely un-rhetorical, honest, and indicative of the fact that practical and emotional matters have become intertwined and vital to Desdemona’s case. Desdemona combines the spiritual affirmation of her love for Othello with the practical demands of preparing her bed. In “The Women’s Voices in Othello: Speech, Song, Silence,” Eamon Grennan explains the multiplicity that creates the seamless, enclosed friendship between the women: 

What most moves us, it seems to me, is the rise and fall of voices engaged in intimate conversation; the brief, beautiful pause in the center of the action the song makes; the reassuring world of ordinary objects alluded to; the mounting intensity of Emilia’s radical defense of wives; the dying fall of Desdemona’s concluding prayer. Understood, heard in this way, the scene composes both a ‘theatrical’ and a ‘dramatic’ (see note 7) interlude suggesting peace and freedom, within the clamorous procession of violent acts and urgent voices (277). 

Unlike Grennan, however, I do not read Emilia and Desdemona’s speech as escaping “urgent voices,” but rather creating the freedom Grennan suggests specifically through an urgency of speech constitutive of a tightly knit enclosure for the women that allows escape – if only temporarily – the masculine violence surrounding them. Eamon Grennan discusses the connection between the practical and the emotional that creates an urgent enclosure against the storm brewing in Cyrpus, writing that “the words seem to offer a glimpse into the deep interior of Desdemona’s mind, where life and fidelity have become one, bound up in symbolic wedding/winding sheets” (278). In the following exchange, Emilia responds to the practical matter embedded in the emotional matter, and yet we know her volatile nature has been calmed by Desdemona’s emotional assertion. 

            EMILIA 

 Ay – would you had never seen him! 

            DESDEMONA 

So would not I. My love doth so approve him 

That even his stubbornness, his checks, his frowns – 

Prithee unpin me – have grace and favor. 

            EMILIA 

                        I have laid those sheets you bade me on the bed. 

Emilia certainly protests Desdemona’s unconditional acceptance of Othello’s behavior and the unconditional love she bears him. However, her simple response to Desdemona’s earlier request to attend to her bed linens, triggered by a similar practical entreaty for Emilia to attend to the linens she is wearing, attests to the seamless transition between one another’s thoughts and words. 

The male friendships, by contrast, have been unable to create an atmosphere in which they can freely speak in the safety of the rhetorical net the women have been able to create. Male speech in the play becomes fragmented because it is hypercritical, “furiously rhetorical,” and obsessive; as a result, the language ceases to form a safe rhetorical enclosure as the women’s speech does, and fails to create an enclosed space within which male friendship can develop and progress. It becomes clear in one of the earlier conversations between Iago and Othello that there is a disconnection between words and thoughts in this friendship, whereas Emilia and Desdemona are able to easily grasp the meaning of one another’s speech and unspoken thoughts. It is only fitting that Iago consciously distance the meaning of his speech and particularly his thoughts from Othello, for this is not a true friendship, and any plans Iago has laid for Othello’s destruction would be undone by the type of speech Emilia and Desdemona enjoy. When Iago brings up the subject of Cassio’s involvement in Othello and Desdemona’s courtship, Othello is unable to perceive Iago’s thought except through labored speech that is an attempt to cut through Iago’s rhetorical devices. Othello is forced to ask “Why of thy thought Iago?” (3.3.98) and “Indeed? Ay, indeed! Discern’st thou aught in that? Is he not honest?” (3.3.102-103) in order to pierce only the surface of Iago’s speech – and is never able to pierce the core of it. Indeed, Othello, aware of the way in which Iago simply echoes Othello’s speech, laments that “By heaven, thou echo’st me/ As if there were some monster in thy thought/ Too hideous to be shown” (3.3.106-109). John N. Wall argues that “The result of Iago’s “abuse” of Othello’s ear is that the Moor puts himself in the ancient’s power and begins to describe the world in the vocabulary of sexual perversion that Iago has used since the beginning of the play.” While I would argue that it is Iago that adopts a rhetoric he knows is part of Othello’s language already (I prithee speak to me as to thy thinkings/ As thou doest ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts/ The worst of words. [3.3131-33]), Wall contrasts the men’s relationship as a series of empty echoes with the women’s friendship  as closely and deeply interactive. 

While the tightly knit enclosure created by the women’s close speech allows freedom and forthrightness in manner and content, male friendship does not allow Othello to discuss unable to discuss his own sexuality with Iago or Cassio. Othello can focus only on what he believes to be the unruly sexuality of his wife, Iago’s Emilia, or Cassio’s Bianca as representative of women in general. While Carol Thomas Neely suggests that Othello avoids sexual consummation of his marriage to Desdemona so that he may idealize her, I would further this argument by proposing that Othello also avoids consummation in order to postpone the rites which will make adultery and sexual deviousness possible: perhaps he reasons that if there is no sexual union between the two, then there is no sexual relationship to be betrayed. After voicing a general reluctance to consummate the marriage when he speaks before the Senate, Othello’s relationships with other men become so contrived, calculated, false, and disconnected that he cannot discuss his own sexuality. While he dwells with Iago on the female capability for wanton sexuality, neither addresses his own capacity for this. The closest the audience gets to a discussion of Othello’s own sexuality is his description of the handkerchief to Desdemona: 

That handkerchief 

Did an Egyptian to my mother give. 

She was a charmer, and could almost read 

The thoughts of people. She told her, while she kept it, 

‘Twould make her amiable and subdue my father 

Entirely to her love; but if she lost it 

Or made a gift of it, my father’s eye 

Should hold her loathed, and his spirits should hunt 

After new fancies. She, dying, gave it me, 

And bid me, when my fate would have me wived, 

To give it her. (3.4.55-65; emphasis mine) 

Othello can only hope Desdemona understands the inference of his story – that the handkerchief is both a symbol of female sexuality as well as male, since his mother foresaw Desdemona’s need of it to “subdue” Othello’s “eye” – and never directly speaks of — 

By contrast, Emilia and Desdemona are able to frankly discuss their sexuality and its relation to that of their husbands, even if they do not agree in these. Eamon Grennan addresses the importance of the women speaking about adultery with regard to their own sexualities, writing “…that they speak at all about this subject, that it can be a subject of frank and friendly intercourse between them, seems as much the point of the exchange as is the fact-content of what they say” (281). I would further argue that their tightly knit language thus far has made it possible for these women to speak about adultery, as well as to be heard by an uncritical and accepting listener. Although Desdemona is adamant in her conviction that adultery is not an option for her, she never criticizes Emilia for her willingness to “make her husband a cuckold to make him a monarch” (4.3.76). Desdemona simply gently asserts her confidence in Emilia’s morality despite Emilia’s sharp tongue: “In troth, I think thou wouldst not” (4.3.70). Emilia harangues upon the moral faults of husbands, presumably some of which their own husbands are guilty of: 

            But I do think it is their husbands’ faults 

            If wives do fall. Say that they slack their duties 

            And pour out treasures into foreign laps; 

            Or else break out in peevish jealousies, 

            Throwing restraint upon us; or say they strike us, 

            Or scant our former having in despite – 

            Why, we have falls, and though we have some grace, 

            Yet have we some revenge (4.3.86-93; emphasis added). 

Although this is in complete opposition to Desdemona’s idealized view of Othello who she insists rational, steadfast and without jealousy, Desdemona draws instruction and inspiration from this: “God me such uses send, not to pick bad, but by bad mend!” (4.3.104-105). Desdemona does not assess the moral accuracy of Emilia’s statements about Othello’s, Iago’s, and her own and Emilia’s sexual and moral behavior. Emilia’s thoughts are accepted without reserve or judgment, and even admired for their validity; even if Desdemona does not agree that her husband harbors “peevish jealousies” or that she should “have some revenge,” Desdemona validates Emilia’s speech by conceding at least that these are things that could happen, things which she prays she has the grace to avoid. 

            Emilia points directly to the fact that her friendship with Desdemona consists in a common speech as a protection from the physically and psychically violent world of the men. In crying “O lady, speak again! Sweet Desdemona! O sweet mistress, speak!” (5.2.121-122) Emilia in vain attempts to recall Desdemona from Othello’s violence through the very speech which initiated and sustained both their friendship and their lives. When Desdemona asserts a “guiltless death” and one committed by both “Nobody” and herself, Emilia at once recognizes Desdemona’s rhetoric and the truth its subtext communicates. Emilia responds to Othello’s professed innocence with a sharp “She said so. I must needs report the truth,” (5.2.139) communicating a disbelief in Othello’s statement that provokes his confession. What Desdemona will not communicate directly (but only within the common speech she and Desdemona share), Emilia is able to use to provoke a direct confession: “She’s like a liar gone to burning hell! ‘Twas I that killed her”(5.2.130-131). Though the common language that constitutes their relationship failed to save Desdemona’s life, their friendship continues beyond death when Emilia uses that common language to make Othello speak the truth as frankly as she and Desdemona spoke it to each other. 

            Furthermore, Emilia continues to employ the urgent, bold, frank language that constituted her friendship with Desdemona to make the truth speak, as it were. The most poignant use of this type of language occurs in 5.2, with Emilia drawing on the exact words of a speech-act the two shared intimately. Emilia speaks to Desdemona even in death, asking questions and making promises as if Desdemona participates in the dialogue 

            What did thy song bode, lady? 

            Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan, 

            And die in music. [Sings.] “Willow, willow, willow.” 

            Moor, she was chaste. She loved thee, cruel Moor: 

            So come my soul to bliss as I speak true. 

            So speaking as I think, alas, I die. (5.2.247-252) 

In effect, Emilia completes the song Desdemona begins but does not complete (“Nay, that’s not next. Hark! Who is’t that knocks?” (4.3.52). More importantly, however, the audience is aware of Desdemona’s description of the song in 4.3. as one which 

            …expressed her fortune 

            And she died singing it. That song tonight 

            Will not go from my mind; I have much to do 

            But to go hand my head all at one side 

            And sing it like poor Barbary. (4.3.29-33) 

In drawing on a speech-act the language of which, I would argue, forms the center of the women’s relationship, Emilia communicates to the world those thoughts she is certain were on Desdemona’s mind at her death. By contrast, Iago does not speak Othello’s thoughts when he is incapable of doing so. Othello is silent for nearly forty lines with no one to speak for him but Iago who does not speak Othello’s thoughts, but proclaims that he only “…told him what I thought, and told no more/ Than what he found himself was apt and true” (5.2.177-178). In essence, then, while Iago knows Othello’s thoughts, their friendship fails at the level of language precisely because Iago does not speak them; while Iago is certainly able to use monstrous language in kind with Othello’s speech to ensnare him in a trap, he refuses to use the language common between them to make his thoughts known. 

            In the end, both the friendship between Emilia and Desdemona and that between Othello and Iago fails, regardless of whether the bonds are true of illusorily perceived. The difference, however, lies at the level of language; more importantly, the moral success of these relationships lies in the ability of the characters to employ it toward creating enclosed safe verbal spaces and toward speaking the truth of one another’s thoughts even in death. While Othello and Iago share a common type of speech, it is only Iago’s illusory adaptation of his speech to Othello’s for sinister purposes rather than the common type of speech that occurs between friends who recognize one another’s thoughts. Although Emilia fails in protecting Desdemona – and of course by providing Iago with the handkerchief that settles Othello’s resolve to murder her – she recognizes Desdemona’s thoughts even when she does not speak them. In short, Desdemona and Emilia’s friendship is a true one because Emilia is able to tell Desdemona’s story with Desdemona’s words. 

Works Cited 

Curtis, Jared. “”As Liberall as the North”: Emilia’s Unruliness — A Study in Context.” Shakespeare Quarterly 17.2 (1966): 168-71. 

Grennan, Eamon. “The Women’s Voices in “Othello”: Speech, Song, Silence.” Shakespeare Quarterly 38.3 (1987): 275-92. 

Ozark Holmer, Joan. “Desdemona, Woman Warrior: “O, these men, these men!”" Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England 17 (2005): 132-64. 

Shakespeare, William. Othello. Ed. Russ McDonald. Pelican Shakespeare Series. New York: Penguin Books, 2001. 

Thomas Neely, Carol. “Women and Men in Othello: “what should such a fool / Do with so good a woman?”" Shakespeare Studies 10 (1977): 133-58.

A quote from my statement of purposes gives you an idea of how my thesis is, at the moment, slightly more than a general interest and less than a detailed, feasible thesis:

My dissertation plan is to examine how performances of privacy and its opposite function within and inform these topics (economy, the state, and the family) as areas of transformation and transition. In particular, my proposal is to interrogate how privacy and domesticity functioned as a facet of performing constructed gender, and the ways in which women’s performance of privacy or its opposite informed constructions of domesticity, class, and state.

I’m not sure, yet, since I need to do more research, whether or how much of a role gender is going to play – although my feeling, as a feminist, women’s studies instructor, and early modernist, is that gender has a role in everything (but especially privacy and its’ opposite).

Again, though, this post is really aimed at outlining the basics. So I got very basic: dictionary basic. But of course, I went classy with it…classy like the Oxford English Dictionary.

The best approach for formulating a thesis centered on the interaction of privacy and domesticity with economic, state, and familial structures seemed to be to pin down exactly what I meant by privacy and domesticity (I may continue with this in another post and set out what I mean by privacy’s opposite). Here are the time-specific definitions I found relevant to my research, at least for the moment:

Privacy

1. The state or condition of being alone, undisturbed, or free from public attention; as a matter of choice or right; seclusion; freedom from interference or intrusion.
2. The state of being privy to some act.
3. Absence or avoidance of publicity or display; secrecy, concealment, discretion; protection from public knowledge or availability.

Private

1. Not open to the public; restricted to one particular person or group of people.
2. Concerning, involving, or affecting a particular person or group of people apart from the general community; individual or personal, rather than communal or shared.
3. Of or relating to a person as an individual or in a non-official capacity; not connected with one’s work or official position.
4. Not officially recognized or authorized.
5. Belonging to or forming the exclusive property of an individual, company, etc.
6. Of a person: retiring, reclusive; living a quiet or secluded life; reserved, unsociable.
7. People who hold no public office, as a class.

Domestic

1. Having a character or position of the inmate of a house; to be of the household of.
2. Of or belonging to the home, house, or household; pertaining to one’s place of residence or family affairs.
3. Of or pertaining to one’s own country or nation.
4. A household servant or attendant.

The emphasis added above was mine, of course; bolded portions or words are those aspects I found particularly suited to application for analysis. And there we have it, really: the above are the instances of privacy, private, and domestic I’ll be looking for in my research from this point on. Any critiques of the above in terms of whether this constellation of definitions is too broad/narrow/general or otherwise, AND/OR other suggestions/comments are welcome. I’m hoping this will generate discussion that will function as food for thought as I continue my research. Thanks for reading!

Since I’m trying to make myself more marketable for the academic market – and even more than that, pursuing a subject I’m interested in for long-term research – I’d like to use this forum to ask for some advice from those willing to give it. I’m in the process of ‘working up’ a course paper I wrote several months back in my M.A. program, hoping to submit it for publishing: I’m hoping I can gain some perspective and advice here on where I can go for further research.

My thesis for the paper is that King Lear can be read as being informed by a series of interrelated socio-economic changes occurring at the time in early modern England. I am attempting to situate the play within the context of the movement from a communal, subsistence based economy toward a privatized proto-capitalistic, profit based economy that, I would argue at least, occurred simultaneously with and in direct relation to the debate between primogeniture and gavelkind (divisible inheritance rather than a scheme in which the oldest male heir inherits property undivided). In addition, I’m also incorporating two other ideas: (1) the idea that the shift in England’s economy was in large part due to a shift in the nature and goals of the ‘old’ aristocracy that Henry eradicated to solidify his power and claim to the throne in contrast to that of the ‘new aristocracy’ that remained in power through to Elizabeth’s reign (2) that the debate over inheritance schemes was much more widespread than contemporary historians and critics let on for the most part.

My overall goal, then, is to argue that King Lear is a warning against the dangers of a complete turn toward proto-capitalism, a profit-based economy, and primogeniture. Things start to go awry when Lear diminishes steadily the amount of inheritors among which he will divide his land in response to the profit-driven actions of those inheritors: Cordelia does not love him enough, and he reads this as a concern over land and inheritance only; Regan and Goneril remove themselves by their attempts at making profit from their land and their aging father. In general, I’m looking for any advice or thoughts you can give me on such an argument, especially in terms of primary and secondary resources. If you need more detail on this, please email me at laurelai@live.com and I’d be happy to provide you with some or all of the paper, depending on how interested you are and how much detail you need.

There will be a real post soon, I promise!

Here goes:

In the chapter of her book entitled “Ugly,” Emily Cockayne takes a paragraph to address what were known as “beauty spots” or “black spots” in early modern England and the period following it. Although she cites texts written well after the Elizabethan and Jacobean reigns that are my historical focus, the phenomenon began during these time periods. Cockayne explains that “small facial blemishes such as spots and scars could be covered with black patches” (24). Thinking about the phenomenon from a modern aesthetic, I began to wonder not only what caused this fashion in black patches, but also what kind of “work” these patches did in terms of the social fabric of early modern England.

My initial thoughts are that these spots had much to do with early modern attitudes toward artificiality and uniformity – both within and outside of the context of beauty and aesthetics. What struck me most about the use of black patches is the preference for visually obvious artificially fashioned black patches (which would contrast with the preferred overall ‘fair’ complexion most women strove to achieve) over more natural-looking remedies that could cover or camouflage blemishes in such a way that did not contrast so sharply with the overall skin tone of the user. It occurred to me that this contrast and artificiality was precisely the point of these patches: after all, beauty (especially among the wealthy) in Elizabethan England was all about artificiality and the over-the-top factor (white skin, bright red lips, deep pink cheeks, excessively arched eyebrows). I’m not quite sure yet whether I would say these were a mark of social status/wealth, but I would say they are a mark of deliberate ostentation, an ornament meant to draw attention its wearer.

In addition to its artificiality, I think these black spots had much to do with uniformity.  In a lecture called “Shakespearean Beauty Marks,” Stephen Greenblatt argues that Shakespeare violates “the featurelessness that is his period’s cultural ideal,” valuing instead distinct facial marks that “act out individuation.” I think, instead, that these black spots do the work of “making uniform” for Elizabethan culture. Although the black spots might be seen as distinct facial marks, I would argue that these black patches were not only a way of ostentatiously ornamenting the face, but also of “making uniform” the blemishes and marks that the black spots covered, perhaps as part of a “making uniform” that was occurring on a larger scale in the social fabric of Elizabethan through Reformation England.

What do you think?

Thoughts, criticisms, and suggestions encouraged – and of course, Happy Renaissancing!

Given my research interests in privacy, ‘the action of ‘Tis Pity for me hinged at least partly on the character’s adherence to or rejection of privacy. Jennifer makes a wonderful argument which I’d like to build upon here that Ford’s incest trope is intentionally outrageous:  Giovanni’s arguments in justification of the incest, and the complete lack of inhibition with which incest is accepted and played out, create a situation in which the audience simply cannot take the trope seriously and so other aspects of the play – like sophistry – are indirectly highlighted.  If we look at the incest trope in terms of privacy, it becomes clear that Jennifer’s idea of indirect highlighting works with privacy in ‘Tis Pity on several levels.

The introduction of the incestuous relationship between Giovanni and Annabella is itself predicated on the performance of privacy tropes. In 1.1 we have Giovanni’s specious attempt at justifying the morality of his sexual rights to Annabella:

                Shall, then, for that I am her brother born,

                My joys be ever banished from her bed?

                No, father; in your eyes I see the change

                Of pity and compassion…

Taking Giovanni’s argument literally here, the denial of access to a woman’s bed constitutes the incest taboo itself; in other words, women’s maintenance of privacy with regard to her bed and her body upholds the incest taboo, while failure to perform this expectation undoes the incest taboo and thus begins to affect the stability of England’s socio-economic structure. Later, the Friar will tell Giovanni to “lock thee fast/Alone within thy chamber” as a means to prevent him access to Annabella’s chamber in the event she should not perform her own privacy. This might be as far a stretch as the relationship between Giovanni and Annabella, but again, as Jennifer says, the pure ridiculousness of the relationship forces readers and audiences to ignore it in favor of other themes or commentary.

I was puzzled a bit by a particular set of lines that actually hinged on the word private:

                Giovanni: Sister, I would be private with you

                Annabella: Withdraw, Putana

Putana: I will. If this were any other company for her, I should think my absence an office of some credit; but I will leave them together. (1.3)

It may be that some small part of me wants to read this line too naively for Ford, but I’m not sure whether to think Putana thinks that Annabella’s maintenance of privacy – or the lack thereof – can halt or further her relationship with suitors. To put it crudely, if Annabella decides not to uphold the barriers that create her privacy, sexual relations can ensue and will be as Putana says a ‘credit’ to Annabella’s  chances of securing a husband. As I say, a naïve part of me doesn’t want to believe that Ford is being this crude and obvious, but it seems so. Comments would be more than welcome here: what do you all think?

Hippolita and Vasques perform interesting examples of the way that privacy works within the Soranzo revenge plot. Whereas Annabella’s ability or failure to maintain the barrier that creates privacy influenced the viability and validity of the incest trope, Hippolita is able to challenge the structure of Soranzo’s privacy early on in ‘Tis Pity. Soranzo’s privacy functions to allow him to pursue his feelings for Annabella without Hippolita’s knowledge, so when she permeates this barrier in 2.2 (“What rude intrusion interrupts my peace?/Can I be no where private?”) it is to expose and deny Soranzo’s less than honest pursuit of Annabella. Later, when Hippolita conspires with Vasques, upholding the boundaries of privacy to include Vasques  enables Hippolita – or so she thinks, at least – to successfully perform her revenge plan. She promises Vasques that “wert thou mine, and woulds’t be private to me and my designs, I here protest, myself, and all what I can else call mine, should be at thy dispose.”

I think there is definitely much more to say about privacy in this play, and this is admittedly a very superficial look at privacy in ‘Tis Pity that could be, in the long run, developed into a much more nuanced reading. I think for now, though, I’d like to stop here and see what you think: comments, suggestions, and disagreements are most eagerly awaited and welcome!

Til then, Happy Renaissancing!

It seems that at least within the context of what I have read (I should post a running list of this at some point) poor John Taylor hasn’t been given much attention. My certified John Taylor credentials, however, allow me to assert that he received quite a bit of attention during his trips ferrying passengers across the Thames. Caricatures aside, though, I’d like to take an honest and soberly analytical crack at a piece or two of Taylor’s. Despite being author of the famous line “A woman, a dog, a walnut tree, / The more you beat them the better they be,” John Taylor’s work makes a meaty plate for any early modernist.

First on the list would be biographical factoids. Of course I admit these can sometimes become predictable and (gasp!) sometimes seem trivial, but for Taylor they bear specific importance to his work. We often tend to think of Shakespeare as having been relatively limited in his education and humble in his upbringing and class (at least until the Globe and other theaters began to bring him significant income), but John Taylor trumps him by far in being able to feed a formidable wit on very little, so to speak. John Taylor literally was “The Water Poet” per the title he claimed in his published work. Having failed to complete grammar school because of difficulties with Latin, he became apprenticed to a waterman in London during his adolescence. Oddly enough, his position as a waterman put him in the perfect position to realize his literary ambitions: watermen predominantly worked ferrying customers to and from the theaters in Southwark, so Taylor’s trade would have put him into contact with playwrights, actors, and all manner of others associated with the theatre business. In fact, he seems to have had a bro-mance of sorts with the Ben Johnson himself.

Taylor was well aware of the inconsistency between his social status and his literary ambitions, using this disconnect as an advertising trick calling attention to the wonder of a mere waterman with wit and talent enough to write. In fact, though, his social status would have given him the perfect background to write social satire and bawdy verse. In addition, it’s my theory that he was able to draw material and insight from multiple social positions: his father was a surgeon, which I imagine may have given his family some level of status, depending on where he practiced. I would be greatly appreciative of anyone who might know about more about the medical field – particularly salary and social status – at this time. That said, I’d like to explore and expose some of what he wrote.

Taylor wrote in a variety of genres and modes, ranging from religious tracts to social commentary and satire. It is generally accepted that his talent fell more on the side of satire and social commentary, but those critics that examine these parts of his body of work seem to do so mostly to examine social history. I’d like to try to strike a balance here between looking at Taylor’s work through a framework of social history, and viewing it in terms of what it does as a piece of literature. Taylor is responsible for writing pamphlets such as A cluster of coxcombs, A late weary merry voyage and journey, and Mercurius Nonsencicus – I’d like to post more on these eventually. For now, though, I found A Bawd : A vertuous Bawd, a modest Bawd: As Shee Deserves, reproove, or else applaud sufficiently interesting and celebratory of the London underworld for discussion here. I’ve posted the full text here in the event that this post sparks a further interest in the text – which I earnestly hope it does!

On an obvious level, and in concert with the majority of critics who have written about Taylor, his work is ripe for social historians and cultural studies critics. In an introductory paragraph to the pamphlet, Taylor outlines the upbringing of a bawd in terms reminiscent of early modern notions of good breeding and the preparation necessary for court life.

Nor is the skill and knowledge of a substantiall or absolute Bawd easily gotten or learned; no my Masters, there is more in the matter then so; Frist, shee is a young prettie Girle, and passeth time away in the instructions, rudiments, and documents of a Whore, till she hath attained (with many hazards) to the yeares of 30 or 35. in all which space she hath not spent her time idlely, but hath beene a creature of much use, having for the com|mon cause, adventur’d the blemmish of her Repu|tation, the rigour of the Lawes, as whippings, Penance, Imprisonments, Fines, Fees to Justices Clarkes, Beadles, and such inferiour Reliques of Authoritie. Besides, her valorous combates and conflicts with Diseases, (wherein shee often ap|proves her selfe one of the profitablest members in a Common-wealth to Physicians and Chyrurgi|ans:) having (I say) passed all these degrees with much perill and jeopardie of her body,* then looke higher and thinke but on the shipwracke of her soule, (an adventure of a greater price then shee is aware of;) then towards the declining of her life, and that her beautie fades, What a deale of charge is shee at with sophisticated Art, White and Red, to emplayster decayed Nature? Her humilitie being such, that when her owne head is bald, shee will weare the cast haire of any hee for shee sinner, that made a voyage in a string from Tyburne, to either Heaven or Hell. And lastly, when as Art can no longer hide the sorrowed or wrinkled deformities of her over-worne Age; then (like a true wel-willer to the old trade shee hath ever followed,) Whoring having left her very unkindly before shee was vvilling to leave it: shee, (as her proper right for her long service) takes upon her the office and authority of a Bawd, and as shee was brought up her selfe, so with mo|therly Care her Imployment is to bring up o|thers, wherein her paines is not small, in hyring Countrey wenches, that come up weekely with Carryers, and putting them in Fashion, selling one Maydenhead three or foure hundred times, and sometimes with great labour and difficulty shee’s forced to perswade mens wiues and daugh|ters; all which considered, a Bawd doth not get her living with so great ease as the world sup|poseth; nor is her adventure, paines, charge and perill to be inconsiderately slighted.

In a quite broad and general way, it would seem Taylor could easily apply much of this description to a courtier holding a public office. The bawd passes her time in instruction during her youth, then moves on to serving the “common cause” in the face of the whims of “Authoritie,” which I would argue we can take as vaguely standing in for the monarch. After having suffered such grueling educatory exercises and complete disdain, the bawd seems to be unable to even seem useful and thus channels her energies toward profiting from the abilities (relatively speaking) of country wenches, wives, and daughters, taking up the supervisory “office and authority of a Bawd.” Interestingly, but not wholly relevant, is the reference to Tyburn in the above paragraph. I’ll have more on it in another post (I’ve committed to quite a bit of future posts over the past two weeks!), but the simple definition is that Tyburn was a town outside of London one could think of as the hanging hubbub of London proper. More than anything, though, it was a place where people went to watch executions.

Even more interesting, however, is what Taylor does with gender. Taylor styles the figure of the bawd as a kind of maternalized virago on the financial front. The virgin mother/whore dichotomy is blasted to pieces here. In the above paragraph, her progression from whoring to “motherly care,” is not prohibited by the virgin/whore dichotomy. Her illicit loss of maidenhead doesn’t prevent her from assuming a maternal role, but seems rather the natural precursor to it: the character of the bawd even suffers “paines” to fashion country wenches, wives and daughters into whores.

*ADDENDUM*

That said, I think that while Taylor breaks down the dichotomy, in this case his work is suspect to such an extent that it actually bolsters the early modern sense of motherhood as you describe it. The didactic sarcasm inherent in Taylor’s praise of the hard-working bawd, rather than breaking down the mother/whore dichotomy in a positive way, promotes the idea that for the period we’re exploring, motherhood is a shifting category: it cannot necessarily be severed from the ‘whore’ part of the equation. One can’t assume mothers CAN be valued for their purity — if there is no clear divide between virginity and whoredom as a spectrum of states of femininity, this means motherhood can be tied up with either, or both. Again, it’s that idea of women as ‘leaky vessels’ : in this case, I think what Taylor is doing here is making the case that the maternal is a muddled affair…that purity or corruption can just ‘leak’ into the bubble of time women experience as maternity. In other words, Taylor uses his sarcasm to show that a woman’s adherence even to the benevolent image of a mother (as he describes in the person of the bawd) does not preclude their being a whore; even a whore can perform the mother, essentially. I may even go so far as to say that for Taylor, the bawd’s social status is what actually motivates her maternity here, so that here even the intentions of motherhood become highly suspect. **end addendum**

On a social level, though, my conviction is that Taylor’s purpose, like mine, was to make the invisible…well, visible. Taylor valorizes the Jack-of-all-Trades, workaday masses we know so little about today, with specializations heaped upon the list of ideological structures we navigate daily. Among the skill sets that the bawd possesses are that of the scholar, arithmetician, astrologist, logician, musician, poet, painter, grocer, and the goldsmith. I don’t think Taylor is championing the individuals specializing in these areas, but of those who dabble in all of them. A champion for the self-made woman, then!

For next time, perhaps something in line with the upcoming holiday would be pertinent. Any other suggestions are always welcome. Till then, thanks for reading, and happy Renaissancing!

In the chapter titled The Theatrical Scene, Wells contextualizes Shakespeare and his contemporaries in terms of the theatrical scene.

There was one year, 1608, in which playgoers could have walked over the frozen river, perhaps hoping to see early performances of Coriolanus or, indeed, a revival of Hamlet. Francisco’s words in that play’s opening scene, ‘ ‘Tis bitter cold,/ And I am sick at heart,’ would have struck a special chord if the players were bold enough to brave the elements. But more probably they gave into the weather and joined the crowds skating, drinking and eating from kitchens on the ice. (Wells 7-8)

The Renaissance nerd in me got together with the Harry Potter fan in me, and decided this was definitely worth exploring.  Evidently, from sometime around the late 1500’s through 1815, the Thames froze several dozen times: enough to allow a series of chronicled frost fairs, the first – and most relevant to the purposes of this blog – of which was recorded in 1608.

News from Frost-Fair upon the river of Thames, a broadside ballad (anonymous) held in the Harvard library, bears the following subtitle: Being a Description of the Booths, Tents, Accomodations, Frollicks, Sports and Humours of those Innumerable Crowd’s of Resorters. If the subtitle alone isn’t specific enough in providing a clear picture of the frost fair, the author goes on to describe a city of tents erected out on the frozen Thames. Vendors sold hot food and liquors while fair-goers spent their time guarding against thieves and cutpurses (I’ll write more about this in a later post), bird hunting, or playing nine-pins (the early modern equivalent of bowling). John Taylor’s 1621 poem “The Colde Terme: Or the Frozen Age: Or the Metamorphosis of the River of Thames” details the merrymaking and feasting of the 1608 frost fair, citing the sale of spiced cakes, roasted pigs, beer, ale, tobaco, nuts and figs as well as games of dice, cards and pigeonhole (a kind of early modern skee-ball).

 The anonymous pamphlet, The Great Frost. Cold doings in London, except it be at the Lotterie. With Newes out of the Country. A Familiar talke between a Country-man and a Citizen touching this terrible Frost and the great Lotterie, and the effects of them, provides the most fascinating and thorough account of the fair.  I’ve trascribed some of the text from a facsimile of the printed material, also provided by Harvard library:

Both men, women, and children walked over, and up and down in such companies, that I verily believe, and I dare almost swear it, that one half (if not three parts) of the people in the City, have been seen going on the Thames. The river shows not now (neither shows it yet) like a river, but like a field where archers shoot at pricks, while others play at football. It is a place of mastery, where some waddle, and some run, and he that does best is apt to take a fall. It is an alley to walk upon without dread, albeit under it be most assured danger. The gentlewoman that trembles to pass over a bridge in the field, doth here walk boldly: the citizen’s wife that looks pale when she sits in a boat for fear of drowning, thinks that here she treads as safe now as in her parlour. Of all ages, of all sexes, of all professions this is the common path: it is the roadway between London and Westminster, and between Southwark and London…

Thirst you for Beer, Ale, wine, or victuals? There you may buy it, because you may tell an other day how you dined upon the Thames. Are you cold with going over? You shall ere you come to the midst of the river, spy some ready with pans of coal to warm your fingers. If you want fruit after you have dined, there stands Coffermongers to serve you at your call. And thus do people leave their houses and the streets, turning the goodliest river in the whole kingdom, into the broadest street to walk in. (7-8)

To my disappointment, the 1608 fair wasn’t quite as picturesque as Hogsmeade, though. The frozen Thames caused as much economic disruption as it did economic success. For watermen and merchants whose livelihood depended on a very liquid Thames, service and trade were put on hold. On the other hand, the frost fairs spurred economic prosperity by drawing large crowds to the stalls merchants had set up on the river, in place of the landed stalls left deserted because of the river.

Title page of "The Great Frost" pamphlet

More importantly, frost fairs did an interesting thing: they turned socio-economic hierarchy topsy-turvy, if only for a time. Social hierarchy was a mainstay in the structure of Elizabethan society, and a disruption of this structure would have been highly threatening and unsettling for Londoners. Tight niches allowed Londoners to be both mastered by superiors and master over others in a meticulous and quite rigid structure that did not encourage social mobility. The frost fair, on the other hand, created a space that created a cross-section of Londoners in terms of class. In addition to the socio-economic atmosphere, the frost fair also created a geographical cross section: the frozen Thames would have connected London proper, associated with uprightness, the law, and the Queen with shady Southwark, known for bear-baiting, play-going, brothels, gambling and thieving.

All in all, the frost fair was quite an affair. Aside from the novelty of merry-making upon the ice, it was also a space where social, economic, and geographical boundaries were questioned and ideology challenged. The frost fair became, according to the anonymous author of The Great Frost, a spatial construction accessible to multiple social classes. More so, the frost fair became a place where mingling whores and gentlewomen, earls and cutpurses, players and court clerics became acceptable. What would have been quite threatening for Londoners, then, was the thought that such mingling could fail to be contained by the frost fair, and extrend to everyday life. But for the fair, hierarchy was turned on her head, propriety’s running mouth stopped up, and merry-making had for all, at least for a price.

Not quite Hogsmeade, then, but a definite occasion to let loose.

I’ll have a forthcoming post on something of interest soon, but until then thanks for stopping by and happy Renaissancing!