Common-reading grumpage

So, it's time again for the annual round of freshman common-reading grumpage over at InsideHigherEd. Depending on which of the comments you read, the common-reading selections at the vast majority of universities are too new! too liberal! too nonfictional! too lightweight! too depressing!

John Warner's comments in the thread at IHE nail a lot of the difficulties, complications, and uneasy compromises of choosing a common-reading book. (Actually, John Warner pretty much nails everything all of the time, and can we please just make him Secretary of Education already?) Since I seem to have become, much to my own dismay, chair of the subcommittee that is in charge of selecting our university's common reading, I'd like to underline his point that the book has to be acceptable to faculty from across the disciplines. This, by the way, includes faculty who aren't necessarily on board with the whole liberal arts enterprise in the first place. I'm talking about faculty who want to jettison the whole program so they can spend the entire freshman experience course going over the requirements for their particular pre-professional discipline. And faculty who complain that the last few years' offerings have been insufficiently uplifting, and can't we just do an inspirational self-help book instead? And faculty who are Very Very Concerned that the book should not depict white people in our state in a bad light. (N.B., if you're going to have a common reading book about the civil rights era -- and there were several good reasons why our selection this year really needed to be about the civil rights era -- it is going to depict white people in our state in a bad light. If you don't want posterity to judge you harshly, don't behave badly.) And faculty who think it is really too much to expect students to read a whole entire book. (Call me old-fashioned, but I think somebody really needs to tell the students who are unwilling to read books that their choices are a) to become willing to read books; or b) to choose a life-path that doesn't involve college.)

Sigh. If they would just make me dictator of everything, I'd totally pick a classic. Like Lysistrata. Or The Importance of Being Earnest. Or maybe Candide. All of which have the advantage of being fun and short. But if I did that, certain people from the Pre-Professional Discipline That Shall Not Be Named would totally flip out.

Did I mention, we've been asked to start thinking about next year's reading selection more or less immediately after school reconvenes this year? I can hardly wait.

Summer (re)reading: A Yorkshire Tragedy

OK, so I think I'm going to teach this one in Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama next semester. I will admit that I decided to teach it because it's basically a one-act, and therefore easily Xeroxable and ideal for slotting into an already-overstuffed syllabus. But I'm seeing a lot of interesting potential in it.

The play is based on the real-life case of Walter Calverley, who was apparently always something of a gambler and a drunk, and who snapped one day, murdered two of his three young sons, and attempted to murder his wife and his other son. The playwrights don't use real names -- the surviving Calverleys were naturally averse to having the family tragedy put on the public stage, and they were a wealthy family with some political clout -- but it's pretty clearly the early modern equivalent of a ripped-from-the-headlines episode of Law and Order.

The only named characters are three servants who appear in the opening scene, gossip a bit about their masters, and are then never heard from again. Everyone else is nameless: Husband, Wife, Son, Maid, Knight. The servants' dialogue at the beginning is the only bit resembling comedy. It's a stark play, very stripped-down, and makes you realize how overstuffed most full-length plays are by comparison. (I suspect it may be unfinished -- there are references in the first scene to an old flame of the husband's, and maybe the playwright(s) intended to develop all these loose ends, only someone else wanted the play to be rushed onto the stage while it was still topical. At any rate, it's probably fortuitous that they didn't -- I doubt that a comic subplot and a hefty load of moralizing would improve it.)

The Husband is the only character with much in the way of complexity, and you can almost see the playwrights grappling with the same questions you read in newspaper columns today after some apparently inexplicable act of violence: What would make someone do this? Where do people like this come from? Are they like us, after all? The other characters use the words unnatural, barbarous, monstrous, but these don't quite seem like answers. In his more outrageously antisocial moments, the Husband accuses his virtuous wife of adultery and his children of being bastards; at other times, when he seems at once more honest with himself and perilously close to madness, he despairs of his own prodigality and inability to provide for his family: How well was I left, very well, very well! My lands showed like a full moon about me, but now the moon's i' th' last quarter, waning, waning. And I am mad to think that moon was mine: mine and my father's, and my forefathers', generations, generations. Down goes the house of us, down, down, it sinks. Now is the name a beggar, begs in me that name which hundreds of years has made this shire famous: in me, and my posterity runs out. And these reflections lead him to the fatal conclusion that his sons would be better off dead.

I'm curious to see how it teaches. We'll be coming to it after Faustus, and after the revenge tragedies -- I think they will have the whole tortured-antihero formula down. It also seems to raise odd, uncomfortably contemporary questions about crime, media, and notoriety, in ways that (say) The Duchess of Malfi does not, even if you know intellectually that Giovanna d'Aragona was just as much a real person as the Wife of the play. I'm both looking forward to it, and apprehensive about it. We will see.

Summer reading: Thomas of Reading, by Thomas Deloney

Actually, I have just read or re-read all of Deloney's prose fiction in the last week and a half, as that appears to be the sort of thing I do when I'm avoiding actual writing, but I shall restrain myself and tell you about only one of them. You want to hear about the one with the serial-killing innkeepers, right? I thought so.

Stuff That Happens: In the reign of Henry I, there are nine merry and industrious clothiers in England, all of whom become very rich. Much of the text consists of the loosely connected, jest-book-style adventures of the clothiers, their wives, and their servants, as well as other eccentric characters such as Old Bosom the landlord "who, being a foul sloven, went always with his nose in his bosom, and one hand in his pocket, the other on his staf, figuring forth a description of cold winter. For he always wore two coats, two caps, two or three pair of stockings, and a high pair of shoes, over the which he drew on a great pair of lined slippers; and yet he would oft complain of cold." (I am inclined to suspect Dickens of taking lessons from Deloney, although he presumably wouldn't share Deloney's view that sending six-year-olds to work in a cloth factory is absolutely fine and dandy and a great way for the poor to provide for their children.) The clothiers get along well with the king, who comes to see their industry as the backbone of the English nation; they feast him, he grants their petitions, and it's all very harmonious as long as you don't try to steal cloth in Halifax, in which case the king allows you to be executed without a trial.

There's also a subplot concerning Margaret, the earl of Shrewsbury's daughter, whose father has been driven into exile for supporting the king's rebellious brother, Duke Robert of Normandy. She hires herself out as a maidservant to Goodwife Gray of Gloucester, the wife of one of the clothiers. Duke Robert catches sight of her while she's haymaking, falls madly in love with her, and persuades her to elope with him.

And then, in the last twenty pages or so, things get Seriously Weird. Thomas Cole of Reading, one of the clothiers, makes the mistake of frequenting an inn run by murderers. They have a special death chamber built for the purpose, with a bed that flips down through a trapdoor and dumps its occupants into a boiling cauldron, and have done away with sixty of their guests already -- but they don't find it easy to do away with Thomas, whose death is repeatedly prevented by a series of Arden of Faversham-style mishaps. Death omens proliferate; Thomas has a vision of the host with his hands all bloody, and is prompted by Providence to write a will, in which he leaves two hundred pounds to his jolly and improvident colleague, Tom Dove. The host gets cold feet, but his wife prompts him, Lady-Macbeth-style, to go through with the murder. Exit Thomas. Luckily, his horse gets away and prompts Cole's servant to investigate and reveal the murder; the host and hostess of the inn are hanged.

Meanwhile, the king captures Duke Robert and blinds him. Margaret is heartbroken and joins a convent.

Tom Dove has gone broke and been deserted by his servants when Cole's widow arrives to pay his legacy; the other clothiers chip in, and he eventually prospers.

Thoughts: There is a LOT here about social contracts. King Henry, portrayed as an ideal ruler (apart from that little affair of blinding his brother!) argues that “The strength of a king is the love and friendship of his people, and he governs over his realm most surely that ruleth justice with mercy; for he ought to fear many whom many do fear. Therefore the governors of the commonwealth ought to observe two special precepts: the one is that they so maintain the profit of the commons that whatsoever in their calling they do, they refer it thereunto; the other, that they be always as well careful over the whole commonwealth as over any part thereof, lest while they uphold the one, the other be brought to utter decay." Henry is initially rather annoyed when a long line of wains bearing cloth delays his journey, but almost immediately comes to see the clothiers as his kingdom's greatest asset, as well as personal friends whose proximity he seeks: “Likewise, within the town [of Reading] he after built a fair and goodly castle, in the which he often kept his court, saying to the clothiers that, seeing he found them such faithful subjects, he would be their neighbor and dwell among them."

In the last five chapters, those social contracts start to break down; fault lines appear between master and servant, guest and host, brother and brother, and are only partly repaired. This is particularly evident in Tom Dove's story, as he appeals to his servants: “It is not unknown, though you do not consider it, that I took some of you up from the highway; other some from your needy parents; and brought the rest up from mere beggary to a house of bounty, where from paltry boys I brought you up to man’s estate and have, to my great cost, taught you a trade, whereby you may live like men. And in requital of all my courtesy, cost, and good will, will you now on a sudden forsake me?” The servants reject this in favor of a more pragmatic world-view that emphasizes the economic basis of the relationship: “Because you took us up poor, doth it therefore follow that we must be your slaves? ... If you taught us our trade, and brought us up from boys to men, you had our service for it, whereby you made no small benefit if you had as well used it as we got it. But if you be poor, you may thank yourself, being a just scourge for your prodigality; and it is my opinion plain that to stay with you is the best way to make us like you, neither able to help ourselves nor our friends. Therefore, in brief, come pay me my wages, for I will not stay.” They return to Dove when his wealth is restored, but the cracks in the relationship remain: "And albeit he seemed to forgive their trespasses done against him, yet he would often say he would never trust them for a straw." (Deloney represents Dove's actions as exemplary and the servants as "wicked"; personally, I'm inclined to think the servants have an excellent point.)

Summer reading: A Shoemaker, A Gentleman, by William Rowley

Yes, there is another early modern quasi-history play about shoemakers. Why did nobody tell me this when I was writing my dissertation? Oh well. At least I've read it now.

Stuff That Happens: The plot takes place in early fourth-century Britain, under the rule of the Roman co-emperors Dioclesian and Maximinus. The Romans have defeated the British king, Allured; they take his wife prisoner. His two sons, Elred and Offa, disguise themselves as humbly born boys named Crispianus and Crispin and become apprentices to a shoemaker. The household also includes the shoemaker’s wife, Cicely, and two journeymen, Ralph and Barnaby. Meanwhile, Sir Hugh and Amphiabel flee to Wales and take refuge with the Christian princess Winifred. Hugh falls in love with Winifred, but she’s made a vow of chastity. An angel appears, confirms that Winifred is holy, and persuades Amphiabel to confront the Roman persecutors. He successfully converts a knight named Alban, but Maximinus orders them all tortured and executed.

Meanwhile, Offa has fallen in love with Maximinus’s daughter Leodice and marries her secretly. Elred is drafted into the Roman army, and the shoemaker hires Hugh to replace him. Elred wins fame and honor by rescuing Dioclesian on the battlefield.

Winifred is captured and doomed to die; most of the shoemakers go to see the execution. Offa, left alone with Cicely, admits that Leodice is pregnant with his child. Barnaby rushes in and announces that Hugh has publically proclaimed himself to be a Christian and has been taken by the Roman officers. The shoemakers bear Hugh company at his martyrdom; after he dies, Barnaby declares that their tools will be known henceforth as “Saint Hugh’s Bones.”

Offa spirits Leodice out of the palace; she gives birth to his son at the shoemaker’s house. Elred returns and reveals himself to be Allured’s son; Maximinus agrees to free Elred's mother from prison and offers him Leodice’s hand in marriage, should she ever be found. On cue, Leodice turns up with the baby and announces that she is already married to Elred’s brother. Dioclesian and Maximinus restore Elred and Offa to their kingdoms, proclaim freedom of worship in Britain, and agree to let Offa build a church to St. Alban, the first English martyr.

Thoughts: First of all, I really, really need to re-read The Gentle Craft so that I can work out what Rowley is adding, changing, and emphasizing. As in Deloney and Dekker, much is made of the "gentility" of shoemakers; the printer dedicates the play "to the honest and high-spirited gentlemen of the never-decaying art called 'The Gentle Craft'." Elred initially greets the shoemakers as “gentlemen,” which prompts the Shoemaker to reply, “We are good fellows, no gentlemen. Yet, if gentleness make gentility, we are gentlemen” (I. ii. 54-55).

This speech glances at one of Rowley's persistent themes: how does one address and interact with people when the line between aristocrat and craftsman is blurred? The Shoemaker scolds Barnaby for addressing Hugh, a stranger who appears to be a gentleman, as "thou," and then finds himself in a very confusing position when he takes on Hugh as an apprentice: “Thou, gentleman, as thou art a soldier, and a good fellow when thou’rt a shoemaker, I bid thee welcome to Faversham” (III. ii. 207-09). When Offa reveals his identity, the Shoemaker exclaims, “How! my Right Worshipful ‘Prentice” (IV. ii. 151) and removes his cap, despite Offa’s urging, “Nay, gentle master, / I am your ‘prentice still, pray not stand bare” (161-62). It’s all treated comically, of course, but there are some serious questions lurking underneath; in a society where the most basic of social interactions are scripted by rank, what do you do when rank is both invisible and malleable? And what is this gentility stuff, anyway? Can one be both shoemaker and gentleman, both prentice and prince? Rowley does rather more with these questions than Dekker does, in part because the Roman setting allows for greater social mobility; Dioclesian and Maximinus are the sons of a scrivener and a smith. In this setting, it makes sense for Leodice to reason, “Whence springs that fount / That runs all royalty? ‘Tis the sea itself: / The lesser rivulets and running brooks / Are those of common sense, yet all do mix / And run in one another. What are titles? / Honours bestow'd ad regis placitum. / Should my father make that shoemaker a lord / Then were he noble” (II. i. 51-58).

Rowley does, however, restore the original social order at the end of the play, and I think he's making a distinction between aristocratic and common values throughout (though that distinction may be blurred in the case of Elred / Crispianus and Offa / Crispin). Cicely, on beholding the Queen being led to prison, comments: “The world treads not upright; methinks it had need of a good workman to mend it” (I. ii. 149-50). It’s not clear, however, how much workmen can do to mend it; the heroes and martyrs of this play are noblemen and women, while the commoners are chiefly concerned with laying low, adapting, and surviving. The Shoemaker's rejoinder encapsulates this difference: “Peace, Cicely ... let us keep good consciences within doors howe’er the wind blows abroad. ‘Tis honester deceit to seem bad and be good, than to seem pure and be a knave” (151-56). Similarly, Barnaby and Ralph keep Hugh company at his death, prompting him to describe them as “a trade / Of fellowship’s best mixture, nobly made” (IV. iii. 151-52), but they do not step forward and sacrifice themselves. Indeed, Barnaby tries to persuade him to disavow his faith: “Nay, fellow Hugh, or noble Sir Hugh, remember ‘tis not every man’s case to die a Christian. Prithee, leave it, then, and save thy life. The Roman gods are as good gods as e’er trod on a shoe of leather, and therefore, sweet Hugh, we may get their custom, and bring ‘em to our shop, and so we shall be shoemakers to the gods” (51-56). (All of this said, I wonder whether the conventionally heroic choice is necessarily the more admirable one, in Rowley’s world. Offa and Elred, like their subjects, are pragmatists and survivors, and they arguably accomplish more good than Winifred, Hugh, and company.)

Summer reading: The Captives, or the Lost Recovered, by Thomas Heywood

This is a lot like Plautus's Rudens, only with random lecherous dead friars thrown in. Fun!

Stuff that Happens: So there's this merchant, Mr. Raphael, who's in love with a girl named Palestra. His friend Treadway tries to dissuade him from marrying her, seeing as how she was brought up in a French whorehouse, but Raphael is having none of it. He arranges to buy Palestra from her pimp, a nasty type named Mildew, but he makes the mistake of giving Mildew the money before he gets the girl. Mildew, of course, arranges to run away with the girl and the money, figuring that "Whores and bawdes / May lyve in every corner of the woorld ... Faith, these are wares in all parts vendible."

Meanwhile, the abbot of a nearby community of friars tries to make peace between Friar John and Friar Richard, who, however, keep making faces at each other every time the abbot turns his back. We learn that Friar John is planning to seduce the wife of the convent's founder, one Lady de Averne.

A storm blows up, and Mildew is shipwrecked. Palestra and her friend Scribonia are washed ashore and take shelter at the friary, after singing a duet (triet?) with Friar John about the sad plight of charity in this degenerate world; because, after all, the natural response to being shipwrecked and soaking wet is to burst into song. Palestra is unhappy because the casket containing the tokens by which she may know her true parentage has been washed ashore. Meanwhile, an English merchant named Ashburne turns up in town, and mentions casually that he had a daughter who was stolen when she was a child. You think...?

Friar John writes a love letter to Lady de Averne. She shows it to her husband, who flips out and orders her to write back to him arranging an assignation. Somewhat alarmed by her husband's manner, Lady de Averne tries to explain to him that Murder Is Bad. He ignores this.

Mildew catches up with the girls, and there is another duet. "'Helpe, helpe, oh ayde a wretched madye, / or els we are undoon then.' / 'And have I caught, and have I caught you? / In vayne it is to roonne then' &c." Ashburne and his servants rescue the girls; Ashburne proposes to bring them home to his wife, who is (understandably) annoyed when her husband turns up with two sweet young things from the brothel.

Lord Averne and his servant lie in wait for Friar John and strangle him. As soon as he's dead, Lord Averne has a sudden realization that Murder Is Indeed Bad, and it also leaves you with inconvenient corpses on your hands. He decides to return the body to the friary, hoping to frame one of the friars for the murder; the servant places it on the privy. Friar Richard wakes up to use the privy, decides that Friar John is hogging it just to annoy him, and throws a stone at him. Being dead, he falls over. Friar Richard thinks he's killed him, panics, and drags the corpse back over the wall, hoping to frame Lord Averne for the murder.

A fisherman hauls the casket to shore in his net, and Palestra is discovered to be Ashburne's long-lost daughter Mirable. Yay! Much rejoicing! Ashburne's brother Thomas turns up in town; we learn that he is searching for his brother, and he also has a long-lost daughter who was stolen at the same time as Mirable. You think...?

Lord Averne is rather perturbed when Friar John's corpse turns up on his property again. In a last-ditch effort to get rid of the body, he and his servant dress it up in rusty armor and turn it loose on his old stallion, hoping it will be mistaken for a knight-errant. Meanwhile, Friar Richard has ridden out to the miller's on a mare. The stallion pursues the mare; Richard thinks John's angry ghost is pursuing him, so he falls off his horse and confesses to the murder.

Ashburne pays off Mildew, who reveals that Scribonia is actually Thomas Ashburne's daughter Winefryde. Raphael marries Mirable, Treadway marries Winefryde, and everything ends happily, even for Friar Richard, since Averne has a sudden twinge of conscience and confesses to the murder. Lady Averne, it turns out, has anticipated this and persuaded the king to pardon her husband.

Thoughts: No very deep ones, unfortunately, save that this play clearly owes a lot to Pericles as well as to Plautus, especially in Raphael's initial description of Palestra (the brothel, we are told, "coold not stand / But that her vertue guards it and protects it / From blastinges and heaven's thunder." It is not explained how Raphael became so familiar with this den of iniquity in the first place.)

The fishermen are drawn with a fair bit of attention and sympathy: "The trobled sea is yet scarce navigable / Synce the last tempest; yet wee that only lyv / By our owne sweett and laboure, nor cann eate / Before wee fetch our foode out of the sea, / Must venter thoughe with danger, or bee suer / With empty stomakes go unsupt to bed." (To the extend that there's any realism whatsoever in this play, it's here; Gripus the fisherman strikes me as sort of a nautical counterpart to Tawnycoat in 2 If You Know Not Me.)

I think a stage version of this would be a hoot, especially the scenes with the friars.

Summer reading: George a Green, the Pinner of Wakefield

This play makes me happy. First of all, it is short. Secondly, it has Robin Hood, a 103-year-old guy kicking some ass, and a shoemaker saying "None shall pass!"

Stuff that happens: The Earl of Kendall and his troops come to Bradford, leading a rebellion against King Edward, ostensibly "to relieve the poore." Actually, they intend to make an alliance with the Scots and "make havoucke of those countrey Swaynes: / For so will the rest tremble and be afraid." Kendall sends Sir Nicholas Mannering to Wakefield to demand food. The Justice and townsmen of Wakefield refuse. George a Green tears up Kendall's commission and forces Mannnering to eat the seals. Old Musgrove argues with his son Cuddy about whether Musgrove is too old to do battle with the Scots (he is 103). Grime tries to marry his daughter Bettris to one of the rebels, Lord Bonfild, but she protests that she loves only George a Green, though he is poor. The King of Scots falls in love with a married woman, Jane a Barley; she turns him down, and then Old Musgrove comes along and takes him prisoner. Kendall and his men put their horses to pasture in George's wheatfield. George has words with Kendall and eventually strikes him when Kendall says he will be King Edward's beter within a month. Kendall tries to arrest him, and George defends himself: "Why my Lord, measure me but by your selfe: / Had you a man had serv'd you long, / And heard your foe misuse you behinde your backe, / And would not draw his sword in your defence / You would cashere him. / Much more, King Edward is my king: / And before Ile heare him so wrong'd / Ile die within this place."

Impressed with this, Kendall pardons George and offers to make him a captain. George asks if Kendall has any hope of winning, and Kendall tells him there has been a prophecy that says he and King James will defeat King Edward. George says he'll join Kendall if the local prophet, an old man who dwells in a cave, can also promise victory. George dresses his young servant Willy as a girl and sends him with a message for Bettris. Bettris's father falls in love with Willy and welcomes him into the house. George, meanwhile, disguises himself as the old prophet in the forest and prophesizes that Kendall and his men will be defeated by George a Green. He fights them, slays one of them, and takes Kendall and Lord Bonfild prisoner. He turns them over to the Justice and meets Bettris, who has sneaked out of her house.

King Edward shows up, pardons the rebels at George's request, and reconciles with King James. Maid Marian, who is jealous of Bettris, makes Robin Hood promise to beat him, so they go to Wakefield with Scarlet and Much the Miller's Son. Jenkin the Clown comes to Wakefield with a staff on his shoulders, and a shoemaker informs him that "here is a custome held, / That none shall passe with his staffe on his shoulders, / But he must have a bout with me." Jenkin doesn't feel like fighting, so they all go off to the alehouse instead. George defeats Scarlet and Much, fights Robin Hood, and finally makes a truce when he finds out who his opponent is. ("Robin Hood? next to king Edward / Art thou leefe to me.") King Edward and King James go to Wakefield in disguise and confront the shoemaker, who makes them trail their staves behind them. George calls them base-minded peasants and fights all the shoemakers in town. They recognize him after he beats them down and invite him to join them for a pot of ale. The Earl of Warwick brings out the king's garments, and everyone falls to their knees. "Come, masters, all fellowes," says the king. "Nay, Robin, you are the best man at the boord to day. / Rise up George." The king asks George if he can do anything for him, and George says he wants to marry Grime's daughter Bettris. Grime agrees, as long as he can marry the disguised Willy. Willy reveals that he is a boy, but Grime says he is content for George to have his daughter and his lands. King Edward offers to make George a knight, but George replies, "Then let me live and die a yeoman still: / So was my father, so must live his sonne. / For tis more credite to men of base degree, / To do great deeds, than men of dignitie."

Thoughts: This one dates from 1599, which makes it almost exactly contemporary with The Shoemaker's Holiday, Henry V, and Heywood's Edward IV plays, and I'm seeing a lot of common threads -- though George a Green is more of a feel-good play than any of the above, even TSH. The disguised-king scenes here are mostly warm and fuzzy -- in contrast to the far more problematic sequences in Heywood and Shakespeare. George's refusal of a knighthood reminds me of Matthew Shore's in 1 Edward IV, but without the baggage of future betrayal that makes the scene so painful in Heywood. This is a tale of loyalty rewarded, and all of the royal and noble characters are essentially decent (including Kendall, or George's request that Kendall judge him by his own measure wouldn't work). Kendall's claim that he "rise[s] not against king Edward / But for the poore that is opprest by wrong" is manifestly hypocritical (in fact, he's the one doing the oppressing), which makes for a nice tidy homily against rebellion -- but at the same time, we've got a pinner striking an earl and calling the king a coward, and getting away with it. The underlying debate, I think, is "do we judge a man by his birth or by his deeds" -- and interestingly, George makes the argument at the end that birth does matter, at least to a degree.

Summer reading: The Garland of Good Will and Strange Histories, by Thomas Deloney

These are some pretty strange histories, all right. I mean, how often do you get to read a collection of ballads that includes "The murthering of King Edward the second, being killed with a hot burning spit," the travails of the Duchess of Suffolk as she flees from the evil Catholics, and a prose dialogue between ladies disguised as shepherds because they're hiding from Wat Tyler? "Eclectic" doesn't begin to cover it, really. Deloney seems to have a particular interest in the reigns of Henry II and Edward II, but otherwise, anything goes.

This is a version of history where women matter. Out of 38 ballads in the two collections, women are the speakers, heroines, or major supporting figures in at least 21. A striking number of them are the objects of a king's illicit desire. Most of the time, there's a definite division between Good and Bad women. Victims command sympathy, and those with historical and political agency are stigmatized; Deloney is much harder on Mistress Shore, who confesses, "Like a Queene I raigned / And many poore mens suits / By me was obtained*" than he is on Rosamund, who just hangs out in her labyrinth until she's poisoned. Nevertheless, there are some interesting exceptions: Deloney's longest ballad is on the subject of Judith and Holofernes. Queen Eleanor in Strange Histories," though Deloney blames her for fomenting wars and poisoning Rosamund, redeems herself by ruling wisely and well while her son is in Jerusalem: "And while she had this charge in hand, / her care was great in government. / And many a prisoner then in holde, / she set at large from yrons colde." (Although this section is in third person, Eleanor herself is the speaker for much of this ballad -- Deloney seems to reserve this voice for the repentant sinner most of the time. Mistress Shore and Gurney and Matrevers are also first-person narrators.)

Deloney experiments with a couple of different characterizations of Queen Isabella. A ballad in The Garland of Good Will emphasizes the "griefes and injuries" of "our noble Queene" (she is definitely an active heroine here, but she's forgiven for it because she weeps very prettily). On the other hand, the "dissembling Queene" of Strange Histories is cruel and vengeful, qualities that are tied to her femininity: "such is a womans deadly hate: / When fickle fancie follows change, / and lustfull thoughts delight to range."

All in all, an interesting read -- I'm not quite sure what I want to do with this stuff, but I'm glad to have read it.

Summer reading: The Complete Poetry of Robert Herrick

So, a while back I saw a CFP for a conference about [major theme of my dissertation] in the works of Robert Herrick. OK, I thought. I like Herrick. I've never written anything about Herrick, but I'm sure I could. Maybe I'll just get the complete works out of the library and see what grabs me.

1,402 poems later, I have reached two conclusions: 1) Herrick wrote a heck of a lot more poems about farting and body odor than I'd ever realized (neither of these is the subject of my dissertation); 2) I don't, actually, know what I would say if I were going to write an essay about Herrick. With a few obvious exceptions such as "Corinna" and "The Hock-Cart," which I expect everyone will write about, he just doesn't seem to lend himself to analysis -- at least, not for me. But he is a delight.

So, a random selection of lesser-known Herrick, without commentary.

Upon Pink an ill-fac'd Painter. Epigram.

To paint the Fiend, Pink would the Devill see;
And so he may, if he'll be rul'd by me:
Let but Pink's face i'th'Looking-glasse be showne,
And Pink may paint the Devill's by his owne.

The parting verse, the feast there ended

Loth to depart, but yet at last, each one
Back must now go to's habitation:
Not knowing thus much, when we once do sever,
Whether or no, that we shall meet here ever.
And for my self, since time a thousand cares
And griefs hath fil'de upon my silver hairs;
'Tis to be doubted whether I next yeer,
Or no, shall give ye a re-meeting here.
If die I must, then my last vow shall be,
You'l with a tear or two, remember me,
Your sometime Poet; but if fates do give
Me longer date, and more fresh springs to live:
Oft as your field, shall her old age renew,
Herrick shall make the meddow-verse for you.

Poets

Wantons we are; and though our words be such,
Our Lives do differ from our Lines by much.

Ceremony Upon Candlemas Eve

Down with the Rosemary, and so
Down with the Baies, & misletoe:
Down with the Holly, Ivie, all,
Wherewith ye drest the Christmas Hall:
That so the superstitious find
Not one least Branch there left behind:
For look how many leaves there be
Neglected there (maids trust to me)
So many Goblins you shall see.

The Bell-man

Along the dark, and silent night,
With my Lantern, and my Light,
And the tinkling of my Bell,
Thus I walk, and this I tell:
Death and dreadfullnesse call on,
To the gen'rall Session;
To whose dismal Barre, we there
All accompts must come to cleeere:
Scores of sins w'ave made her many,
Wip't out few, (God knowes) if any.
Rise ye Debters then, and fall
To make paiement, while I call.
Ponder this, when I am gone;
By the clock 'tis almost One.

According to one of my instructors in undergrad, who was a fountain of seventeenth-century gossip, Herrick kept a pet pig that drank beer. This has nothing to do with anything, but it makes me happy.

Summer reading: The Fair Maid of the West, Parts One and Two, by Thomas Heywood

I totally want to see a modern revival of this play. It has cross-dressing, tavern brawls, pirates, bandits, a kick-ass heroine, a bed trick, castration jokes, and somebody saying "Off with his head!" twice in three pages. How can you go wrong?

Stuff that happens in Part One: Mr. Spencer, a gentleman, is in love with Bess Bridges, a tavern wench and a tanner's daughter. His friend Goodlack tries to talk him out of marrying her. Spencer gets into a tavern fight with a guy who casts aspersions on Bess's virtue and kills him. He flees the country, leaving Bess a lot of money, his picture, and a tavern in Cornwall. Bess becomes proprietor of the tavern, which comes with a comic apprentice named Clem, and starts making money hand-over-fist. A gallant named Roughman starts harrassing Bess, and she decides to teach him a lesson by dressing up as a man and threatening him with a sword. After a bit of humiliation, he becomes a reformed character and her friend. Meanwhile, Spencer is wounded in another fight. Believing himself to be dying, he sends Goodlack to inform Bess of his fate and execute his will, which leaves her five hundred pounds a year unless she's been unfaithful, in which case Goodlack gets the lot. Goodlack, sorely tempted, calls her a whore, and she tells him to wash his mouth out. Goodlack tries to take away the picture of Spencer; Bess kisses it and takes her leave of it at great length, and Goodlack is so moved he relents. Bess commandeers a ship to bring Spencer's body home and sails for the Azores with Roughman, Goodlack, and Clem. Spencer is in fact alive and has been captured by Spaniards; Bess and co. win a sea-fight against the Spaniards and release the prisoners. Spencer doesn't recognize Bess because she's still dressed as a man, and Bess thinks Spencer is a ghost. The ship puts ashore in Barbary, and Bess is summoned before Mullisheg, King of Fez, who has never seen an Englishwoman before and wants her to become his mistress. Spencer comes to court as a petitioner, and Bess recognizes him at last. She asks Mullisheg to "do him some grace for my sake," and he offers to make Spencer his chief eunuch. Bess protests. Clem, who apparently doesn't know what a eunuch is, volunteers instead. Poor kid. The lovers are reunited, and Mullisheg gives them his blessing and arranges for their marriage.

Part Two: Before the marriage can be consummated, Mullisheg decides that he still has the hots for Beth, and his wife Tota falls in love with Spencer. Goodlack and Roughman are enlisted as panders, but they secretly arrange to have Mullisheg and Tota sleep with each other instead. Spencer flees the court, and Bess plans to flee separately with Goodlack and Roughman. Spencer kills some watchmen and is arrested by a Moor named Joffer. He persuades Joffer to allow him to visit Bess on the ship so she'll know he's alive, and pledges to return. Mullisheg finds out, and is about to execute Joffer when Spencer returns, true to his word. Mullisheg is quite happy to execute Spencer instead, but then Bess, Goodlack, and Roughman return to plead for his life and confess all. Mullisheg has a change of heart and sets them all free. They sail away, but they're attacked by pirates and separated from one another in the ensuing fight. Spencer and Goodlack end up in Ferrara and Mantua, respectively, and make peace among the warring dukes of those cities. Bess, Roughman, and Clem are attacked by bandits. Roughman is beaten off and Clem flees; the bandits are about to rape Bess when the Duke of Florence rescues her. Turns out his intentions aren't so honorable either. A merchant who knows Bess from Barbary fills the Duke in on her story, and the Duke tries to make her his mistress. Clem, meanwhile, gets a job at a tavern, where he recognizes Spencer and Goodlack. They think Bess has been raped or murdered. Bess, passing by with the Duke, throws a jewel to Spencer. Spencer comes to court, and the Duke tries to make him his go-between and makes him swear not to speak any word of affection toward Bess. Bess thinks he's been unfaithful and swears to be revenged: "Tis my way; / I've power and I'll do it." She plays the role of Florence's mistress, frames Spencer for stealing the jewel, and persuades the Duke to deliver him into her power. After making him sweat a bit, she frees him and claims him as a husband. Joffer, meanwhile, has been brought to the Florentine court as a prisoner, but Spencer recognizes him as a friend and secures his release, after which he converts to Christianity.

Thoughts: A ton of interesting stuff going on here, much of it having to do with honor -- Spencer and Joffer offering up their lives in pledge of their honor; Goodlack and Roughman struggling between the false honor of esteem and worldly goods and the true honor of acting rightly (Roughman argues, back in his swaggering days, that "a disgrace not seen is held no shame," but, of course, it is shame); Clem offering up his testicles in exchange for honor at court and living to regret the bargain. (I have to admit I thought "WTF, Heywood didn't just go there!" when I got to that bit, but it seems to fit, thematically.)

Toward the end of Part One, in the scenes at the court of Fez, Heywood seems to be recycling some bits from the Edward IV plays; Bess, like Jane Shore, is approached by a number of petitioners who want her to use her influence with the king to do good, and eventually recognizes her former beloved among them. This time the story has a happy ending (due more to Bess's virtue than the king's -- as in Edward IV, the royal characters are capricious, willful, and mostly self-serving, though both Mullisheg and Florence have redeeming moments).

Spencer has a speech about the fickle and fragmentary nature of the world: "... in the same instant that one forfeits all his estate, another enters upon a rich possession. As one goes to the church to be married, another is hurried to the gallows to be hang'd, the last having no feeling of the first man's joy nor the first of the last man's misery. At the same time that one lies tortured upon the rack, another lies tumbling with his mistress in down and feathers. This when I truly consider, I cannot think why any fortune should make a man ecstasied." The editor of the Regents editions reads this as a set piece thrown in because Good Guys Are Stoics In Adversity; I think it's rather more, and in fact it seems like a nice commentary both on the play's gloriously episodic structure, and one of the thematic undercurrents. Spenser is wrong: the lives and fates of all of the characters are in fact intertwined, even if they don't see it at the time. Only by pulling together can they survive.

Summer Reading: The Tamer Tamed; or, The Woman's Prize, by John Fletcher

This one was ... interesting. For one thing, most of the jokes are so dirty they make Shakespeare's "What, with my tongue in your tail?" sound like "Why did the chicken cross the road?" by comparison.

Stuff That Happens: Petruccio, from The Taming of the Shrew, is a widower who decides to marry a sweet young thing named Maria. Everybody, including Petruccio's closest friends, feels very sorry for Maria. Maria has a younger sister named Livia, who loves Roland, but is being pressured to marry an old guy named Moroso. Maria announces that she intends to refuse to have sex with Petruccio until she has reduced him to a suitable state of meekness. Maria and Livia's kinswoman, Bianca (possibly the same Bianca from the original Shrew, possibly not) cheers her on; Livia is skeptical. The women barricade the men out of the bedroom and empty chamber pots on them. This is a major blow to Petruccio's ego ("Am I Petruccio, feared and spoken of, / And on my wedding night I am thus jaded?"

Livia, at Moroso's order, shooes Roland away, then joins forces with Maria and Bianca and plots to escape Moroso. Roland rails about how evil women are. A bunch of country wenches march forth to Maria's defense. Maria and Livia offer Petruccio and Moroso conditions ("liberty and clothes, / When and in what way she will; / Continual moneys, / Company and all the house at her dispose," etc.); Petruccio decides to play along and humor them. Roland rails some more against women and love; Tranio bets him twenty pounds to two hundred that he'll take Livia back if she gives him the chance, and then bets Livia forty angels that he can get Roland back for her. Maria demands extravagant clothing and household improvements; Petruccio remonstrates with her. When this doesn't work, he pretends to have the plague. All flee, taking the household goods with them. Maria returns and plays the perfect wife, protesting that Petruccio has been unkind in sending her away and sending the household goods after her. Livia pretends to be sick and sends for Moroso and Roland.

Petruccio tells his servants that they are all leaving the country to get away from Maria. Maria dresses as a prostitute and refuses to talk. Petruccio rails at her, trying to provoke her to speak, and when that doesn't work, announces he's going abroad and she can have half her marriage portion as long as he doesn't have to see her again. Maria professes herself delighted that he's going abroad to learn wisdom, urges him to travel in as penurious a style as possible, and compares herself to Penelope -- "For in your absence, it must be my honour ... / To have temptations (and no little ones) / Daily and hourly offered me (and strongly)." Petrucchio hasn't quite bargained for this, and confides to Sophocles that he intends to test Maria another way. Livia, meanwhile, tricks her father and Moroso into signing a contract for her marriage with Roland. Sophocles announces to the servants that Petruccio is dead from grief because of Maria's misbehavior. Petruccio stages a funeral and sits up in his coffin just as Maria concludes her "Good riddance" speech. There is a sudden reconciliation. (Maria: "I have done my worst, and had my end. Forgive me. / From this hour make what you please. I have tamed ye / And now am made your servant.") Livia announces her marriage to Roland. There is an epilogue, assigned by editors to Maria: "The tamer's tamed -- but so, as nor the men / Can find one just cause to complain of, when / They fitly do consider, in their lives / They should not reign as tyrants o'er their wives; / Nor can the women from this precedent / Insult or triumph, it being aptly meant / To teach both sexes due equality / And, as they stand bound, to love mutually..."

Thoughts: The editors, Gary Taylor and Celia Daileader, seem to be reading this as a proto-feminist play. I'm not sure this quite works, in spite of the epilogue -- there are as many things pulling against it as for it. Structurally, the final scene promises an end to comedic reversals and a return to the status quo, and Maria vows that "all my life ... I dedicate in service to your [Petruccio's] pleasure." Petruccio's own comment on the situation at the end of the play is "I have my colt again, and now she carries." Also, Maria's basic strategy is to mimic the stereotypical actions of a Very Bad Wife -- it seems as easy to read the play as a confirmation of the accuracy of such stereotypes as a reversal of them, especially since Maria isn't given a great deal of motivation for her behavior in the first place. (As in many of Beaumont and / or Fletcher's plays, a lot of Stuff Happens, but it's not always clear why it happens -- with the exception of the brilliant Knight of the Burning Pestle, where it's crystal clear that Stuff Happens because the audience demands it. I suspect this is true of Tamer as well -- the real trick is pulling off a play that pleases audience members of both sexes, and Fletcher, I think, is going for that delicate balance. I can imagine a lot of debate over who "won.")

Anyway, a fun romp, with a lot of sly wit in the reversals of Petruchio's strategies in the original Shrew. A great deal more verbal humor in this one, and less slapstick. Many hints that Petruccio's married life with his first wife has been very far from peaceful. (Somewhat to my surprise, this play seems to support the reading that Katharina's final speech in Shrew is ironic -- this Kate evidently gave as good as she got up to her dying day. I had a professor in undergrad who was absolutely convinced that the word "labour" in the final act of Shrew was the key to the whole thing, and nobody could have played the "[Thy husband] ... for thy maintenance commits his body / To painful labour" line entirely straight. Curiously, there's a bit of an echo in Tamer; Roland promises "There shall not want my labour, sir" when Livia's father tells him he wants grandchildren. Not sure what to make of this.)

Summer reading: The Downfall and The Death of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon, by Anthony Munday

First in a series of posts about Stuff I'm Reading. This is mostly for me, so I have a place to store my notes that won't be lost if my laptop crashes, but feel free to read along if you have any interest in oddball plays about Robin Hood and King John.

These are very weird plays, even by Ren drama standards, which is saying a lot (it always blows my mind that we've gotten so used to Hamlet that we think it's in any way normal), and unfortunately, they aren't very good plays either. (Even the editor, John Carney Meagher, can't resist being snarky at Munday's expense in his intro and notes. This was probably the most enjoyable aspect of reading the plays, and I want to have a drink with Meagher. But anyway.)

Plot summary for The Downfall: Robert, earl of Huntington, is betrayed by his steward Warman to his evil uncle the Prior of York. Robert is in love with a girl named Marian, whose name mysteriously changes to Matilda fairly early on, then back to Marian, then back to Matilda, since Munday is conflating a couple of different traditions. Prince John, who is usurping the kingdom while his brother is off on crusade, also lusts after Marian / Matilda, and his mother, Queen Eleanor, lusts after Robert. The upshot of all this is that Warman becomes Sheriff of Nottingham and Robert becomes an outlaw, and starts calling himself Robin Hood. Marian / Matilda plans to run off with him; the queen pretends to help her, and suggests that they change clothes. Secretly, the queen plans that Robin will take her for Marian / Matilda and run away with her instead. (N.B. Historically, Eleanor of Aquitaine would have been getting on for seventy, but we're pretending that the only way to tell the difference between a young woman and an old woman is by the clothes.) Robin and Marian / Matilda foil this plot and hang out in the greenwood, where they are joined by Much the miller's son, Little John, Scarlet and Scathlocke, a girl named Jinny, and, eventually, Friar Tuck (who starts off as a bad guy, and is, bizarrely, played by John Skelton. Well, not literally played by John Skelton, since he was long dead by 1597, but played by an actor playing John Skelton playing Friar Tuck. As a consequence, Friar Tuck keeps falling out of character and breaking into skeltonics because he just can't help himself -- "Master, in briefe, there is a theefe, that seekes your griefe, God send reliefe, to you in neede: for a foule deede, if not with speede, you take good heede, there is decreede") Friar Tuck goes into the greenwood to betray Robin Hood and becomes a good guy; Warman loses his job as sheriff and goes into the greenwood to hang himself and becomes a good guy. Prince John hears that his brother is soon to return and that he killed a lion in Austria by plunging his hand down its throat and pulling its heart out, and wisely concludes that if Richard is that much of a badass he needs to stop usurping the throne, like, right now. John flees into the greenwood and becomes a good guy, but unfortunately it doesn't take. Richard returns to England and restores Robin to his lands.

Plot summary for The Death: Richard and John and the former outlaws go hunting. The evil Prior and Sir Doncaster plot to kill Robin; they try to tempt Warman to play along, but he refuses to play along, so they stab him and make it look like a suicide. The Prior gives Robin a drink that turns out to be poison; he dies after 300+ lines of making peace among former enemies, disposing of his property, etc. In an extended dumbshow, King Richard dies, Prince John becomes king and dispatches his nephew Arthur, and woos Marian / Matilda, who is having none of it. Matilda's father, Fitzwater, calls upon his relatives, who all seem to be named Bruse, to defend her. (Meagher devotes an extended, and hilarious, footnote to working out whether there are actually two or three Bruses in this scene.) Civil war ensues. The king takes Lady Bruse and her young son captive and starves them to death. Hughbert, in the meantime, has smuggled Matilda away to Dunmow Abbey, where a monk and the abbess try to persuade her to sleep with the king. When she refuses, the king's assassin, Brand, steps forward and tells her he's come to poison her. (This is perhaps not the most effective way to go about it if you actually want to poison somebody, but Matilda wants to die anyway, so she drinks the poison willingly.) Brand climbs a tree to hang himself, but falls to his death before he can complete the deed. In a gloriously disgusting scene, Young Bruse displays the bodies of his mother and young brother for all to see, explaining that Lady Bruse's teeth and chin are bloody from chewing her own flesh out, her hands are bloody from offering it to her child to eat, but the child's teeth are not bloody "Which is an argument the boy would not / Once stir his lips, to touch that bloudy foode ... But as it seem'd (for see, his prettie / Palme is bloody too) he cast it on the ground." Matilda's body is brought out on a bier, and King John views it and repents of his crimes. There is some talk about whether the lords should follow King Lewis of France, who is about to invade, since John hasn't worked out so well, but the Queen points out that Lewis might turn out to be even worse, so Bruse and the others make their peace with John. There is a brief epilogue: "Thus is Matildaes story showne in act / And rough heawen out by an uncunning hand: / Being of the most materiall points compackt / That with the certainst state of truth doe stand." (Meagher's note on the final line: "!")

My thoughts: Probably the most interesting parts are the metatheatrical bits -- the induction with Skelton, and a later scene where Skelton and Sir John Eltam talk about how the play defeats the audience's expectations for a story about Robin Hood ("Me thinks I see no jeasts of Robin Hoode / No merry Morices of Friar Tuck, / No pleasant skippings up and downe the wodde / No hunting songs, no coursing of the Bucke.") Skelton argues that "merry jeasts ... have bene showne before" and the time is ripe for a more tragic take on the same material. The other conspicuously absent feature, at least to my mind, is actual outlawry -- there's none of this robbing-from-the-rich business here. (I suspect this may be part of why I'm frustrated with these plays -- it feels like there are lots of places where Munday could be grappling head-on with all kinds of interesting questions about law and justice and disobedience, but he always seems to skirt them -- as at the end of the second play, when the upshot is "Well, we don't know King Lewis, and he might be worse, and besides, he's French.")

Lots of stuff about temptation in the second play, with Warman and later Matilda -- the scenes parallel each other, and there are some definite morality-play echoes in both. Matilda does seem to be wavering a little at one point; as Meagher notes, she speaks of her potential loss of chastity in the future rather than the conditional. Matilda's scene with Brand is easily one of the better bits; she pulls it off with dignity and a touch of humor. ("Farewell goodfellowe, now thy medicine works / And with the labour, I am forc't to rest") Webster seems to have been echoing this scene, at least subconsciously, in The Duchess of Malfi. ("Thou art the last poore alms-man I shall see. / Come, come, dispatch: what weapon death weare, / When he assailes mee? Is it knife or sworde? / A strangling cord, or sodaine flaming fire?")