Eng. 533: Studies in the English Renaissance

Theatre and Social Conflict in Early Modern England

533 Requirements| 533 Syllabus


Course Description

Prologue

Playes are writ in this ayme, and caryed with this methode, to teach the subjects obedience to their King, to shew the people the untimely ends of such as have moved tumults, commotions, and insurrections, to present them with the flourishing estate of such as live in obedience, exhorting them to allegeance, dehorting them from all trayterous and fellonious strategems.

Thomas Heywood, An Apologie for Actors (1612), Bk. 3, F3v

Yet the third reason, wherein playes are charged, not for making young men come foorth in hoores attire, like the lewd woman in the Proverbs; but for teaching them to counterfeit her actions, her wanton kisse, her impudent face, her wicked speeches and entisements. . . . These are wemens maners . . . whereby what a flame of lust may bee kindled in the hearts of men, as redie for the most part to conceve this fire, as flaxe is the other. . . . [C]an wise men be perswaded that there is not wantonnesse in players partes, when experience sheweth . . . that men are made adulterers and enemies of all chastitie by comming to such playes? that senses are mooved, affections are delited, heartes though strong and constannt are vanquished by such players? that an effeminate stage-player, while he faineth love, imprinteth wounds of love?

Dr. John Rainolds, Th'Overthrow of Stage-Playes (1599), 17-18

Act I (Enter the Players)

Whether extolling the theatre as an "ornament to the City of London" (Heywood) or damning it as "Venus Pallace and Sathans Synagogue" (Rainolds), commentators in early modern England all recognized the power and ideological function of the stage. But they disagreed sharply about the exact nature of its moral and political significance. To some, the stage participated in the state's production of loyal subjects; to others, it spawned renegades who undermined the sex/gender system, and therefore threatened the state. The early modern theatre was, and still is, an object of cultural contestation. Today, traditional scholars argue that the most "enduring" pieces of early modern drama "transcend" the "merely political" social, economic and sexual concerns of their own time. This depoliticized brand of humanism, it seems to me, would have surprised Renaissance humanists like Heywood and Rainolds, who clearly saw the political ramifications of stage plays. Conversely, the new historicists and cultural materialists--who draw upon Marxist, foucauldian, feminist, and poststructurlist theory--insist that the stage, like any cultural institution, is deeply implicated in the power relations of its day; they view the theatre as enmeshed in the social, economic, and sexual conflicts of its precise historical moment. But they disagree on the question of whose interests were served, and what power relations advanced, by Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre.

Act II (The Complication)

Following the lead of Stephen Greenblatt, earlier new historicists saw the early modern stage as reinforcing the power of the state by promoting an aristocratic ideology. Any apparent subversion of the dominant ideology on the stage, they argued, was actually produced by the ruling ideology and then recuperated or contained and limited in such a way as to reinforce the dominant power groups of Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Later new historicists and cultural materialists, however, disagree with Greenblatt. They argue, rather, that the role of the stage in the social formation is much more complex and contradictory than the dualistic terms of a subversion/recuperation interpretive paradigm allow. They see the stage as essentially neither subversive nor recuperative but rather capable of serving a number of opposing class and gender interests. They emphasize not only the theatre's reinforcement of economic, sexual, and political power structures but also its role in social change and the contestation of dominant ideologies. And they insist that the ideological effects of the stage can be quite contradictory as it participates in social change and conflict even without overtly subverting the hierarchies of gender, class, race, and nation that supported the early modern state in England.

Act III (The Resolution)

This course is as concerned with cultural study as it is with literary analysis. Our purpose this semester is to study the always complex, often contradictory, role the stage played in the profound social changes that reshaped early modern England from a feudal to a protocapitalist state. Social mobility and the decline of the aristocracy as a wealthy class of "new men" emerged; massive unemployment and inflation as the peasant class increasingly rebelled; gender disorder and the challenging of conventional sexuality as cross-dressed women appeared in London streets; the defeat of Spain and the emergence of British colonialism as England attempted to extend its ever "troubled" imperialist project from Ireland to the (so-called) New World, where it met the same fierce resistance it encountered in Ireland: all these conflict-ridden changes threatened the established hierarchies and power relations of early modern England. In this course, we will examine how representative works of the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage participated in ideological struggles resulting in unprecedented changes that eventually created the modern world. Of each work we examine, we will be asking a number of questions: to what degree did it represent and reinforce dominant ideologies; or to what degree did it challenge them, giving voice to emerging ideologies that represented the interests of marginal groups; or to what degree did it merely problematize dominant ideas without directly subverting them; or to what degree was it caught in ideological contradictions as it attempted to negotiate among the competing voices from the center to the margins of its society; or--most interestingly--to what degree did it do several of these things simultaneously.

Tall order, that, for a semester's work. Because our undertaking is so ambitious, we will collaborate in the production of the knowledge necessary to study the stage in this way. The reading will be heavy, but the writing activities and group projects are designed with a two-fold, practical intention: to help you collaborate with each other in synthesizing and presenting to the group the masses of social history and cultural information we will all need in this course; to steer you toward an idea you can pursue in a scholarly essay on one of the plays we will study this semester.


Required Primary Texts

Arden of Faversham. Ed. Martin White. New York: Norton, 1995.

Cary, Elizabeth. The Tragedie of Miriam Faire Queene of Jewry. Berkeley: U of California P, 1994.

Ford, John. 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. New York: Norton, 1993.

Jonson, Ben. Bartholomew Fair. New York: Norton, 1994.

---. Epicoene. New York: Norton, 1990.

Marlowe, Christopher. Edward II. New York: Norton, 1994.

Middleton, Thomas. Women Beware Women. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1983.

Middleton, Thomas and Thomas Dekker. The Roaring Girl. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1987.

Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. New York: Oxford, 1995. Or any edition.

---. A Midsummer Night's Dream. New York: Oxford, 1995. Or any edition.

---. Othello. New York: Routledge, 1994. Or any edition.

---. The Tempest. New York: Routledge, 1994. Or any edition.

Webster, John. The Duchess of Malfi. New York: Norton, 1994.

Required Secondary Texts

Baker, Moira. Readings for Eng. 533. On Reserve in Library.

Howard, Jean. The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England. New York: Routledge, 1994.

Lisa Jardine. Still Harping on Daughters. Second Edition. New York: Columbia UP, 1989.

Kastan, David Scott and Peter Stallybrass, eds. Staging the Renaissance. New York: Routledge, 1991.

Newman, Karen. Fashioning Femininity and English Renaissance Drama. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1991.

Zimmerman, Susan, ed. Erotic Politics: Desire on the Renaissance Stage. New York: Routledge, 1992.

Required Social History Texts

Amussen, Susan. An Ordered Society. New York: Columbia UP, 1988.

Stone, Lawrence. The Crisis of the Aristocracy. New York: Oxford UP, 1967.

Stone, Lawrence. The Family, Sex and Marriage in England. New York: Harper, 1977.

(You need buy only the one you use for your group project, if you wish)


Course Expectations

    1. Regular Attendance and Consistent, Thoughtful Participation in Class. This is a vital factor in the success of this course. The approach we are using opens up myriad perspectives on the role of the stage and of individual plays in the social changes that characterized early modern England. For each play we will study, there are a number of ways to read its ideological function and significance. We need to hear from each other. We need to respect and enjoy our differences of opinion and ideology. We need to agree and disagree with each other in the spirit of scholarly inquiry and intellectual "good fun."
    2. Careful Critical Reading (Sometimes Re-Reading) of Texts Prior to Class Discussion. This is also essential if we are to succeed as a community of scholars. I want to focus each class on your questions and insights. Much of the cultural materialist and new historicist scholarship we will be reading is quite demanding. Some of the plays (I'm thinking of The Roaring Girl and Epicoene) pose reading problems. Please read actively and keep track of your questions and insights about each text. You will almost certainly have to take notes as you read the plays just to keep track of the characters and actions. And you'll need to keep track of the complex arguments and unfamiliar but important information in the scholarly works we read.
    3. To facilitate our conversations about the scholarship, social history, and plays we will be reading, Please write down one substantive question and one insight about each reading each week. Bring your informal jottings of questions and insights to each class. This, in itself, is something you can do to contribute to our work as a group. Though this is not a formal, graded assignment, it is a reading/learning strategy that will help you in your work with each text and will help us in our grappling with the material in class.

    4. Cooperation in Your Share of the Work on Group Projects. Much of the success of this course rests upon the quality of the group projects, for they provide a vehicle for our collaboration in learning about the culture, social history, and ideological conflicts that shaped Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. No one of us could possibly master all this material in one semester. Together we can help each other develop the knowledge-base requisite to the study of early modern culture. I'm counting on each of you to do your best work for the benefit of the group. Please don't let yourself, and the rest of us, down by giving less than your most scholarly effort on your group projects.
    5. Academic Honesty. All faculty are requested to distribute the following statement of the University Honor Code:

"By accepting admission to Radford University, each student makes a commitment to understand, support, and abide by the University Honor Code without compromise or exception. violations of academic integrity will not be tolerated. This class will be conducted in strict observance of the Honor Code. Please refer to your Student Handbook for details."

Plagiarism--including the use of work submitted to another course without the consent of both instructors, the use of work by another person, or the use of someone else's words, ideas, or arrangement of argument without giving proper reference to the author--is a serious violation of the Honor Code. Please see the section on plagiarism in your Student Handbook. Be especially careful, as you complete your scholarly essay, that you do not use the ideas of others without giving them credit even if you do not use direct quotations. You must give credit to a writer when you paraphrase his or her ideas. This applies to sources you find on the World-Wide Web and any electronic sources in the library.

Home Page | 533 Requirements| 533 Syllabus | Course Descriptions and Syllabi