Why You Might Want to Read Philip Massinger's The City Madam

The rich merchant Sir John Frugal is having a hard time of it of late. His wife Lady Frugal spends money recklessly on clothes and food, labors under the delusion that she still looks young, and regularly consults an astrologer about their daughters' future husbands; all in all, she is a typically over ambitious, social-climbing citizen wife. His daughters Anne and Mary are perhaps worse: mimicking the poor example set by their mother, they drive away two worthwhile suitors (Sir Maurice Lacie and Master Plenty) with insufferable, and unwarranted, demands. Anne begins her marriage negotiations with this item: "I require first / (And that since 'tis in fashion with kind husbands, / In civil manners you must grant) my will / In all things whatsoever, and that will / To be obey'd, not argu'd" (2.2.102-6). Not to be outdone, her sister Mary requires that her future husband "shall receive from me, / What I think fit. I'le have the State convey'd / Into my hands; and he put to his pension, / Which the wise virago's of our climate practise. / I will receive your rents" (2.2.163-67). Rather than marry these women with plans for imperiously ruling over their husbands, the two young men decide to flee. If this weren't enough, a decayed merchant (Fortune), a decayed gentlemen (Hoyst), and Penury (whose "wife and family / Must starve for want of bread" [1.3.17-18]) come to see Sir John in order to plead for more time to repay the money they owe him. Taking up their cause, Sir John's spendthrift brother Luke pleads for the merchant to show the debtors mercy and give them the additional time they've requested. But Luke presents other problems too. Not content simply to be a drain on Sir John's resources, he has been encouraging Sir John's apprentices Tradewell and Goldwire to steal from their master. It turns out however that they have long been doing this, with Goldwire using his ill-gotten gains to support the prostitute Shavem. So what should Sir John do? This is where the play takes some unexpected and interesting turns. First, Sir John sends Lord Lacie (the father of one of the suitors of Sir John's daughters) to inform the Frugal family that he "is retir'd into a Monastery, / Where he resolves to end his daies" (3.2.52-54). Lord Lacie tells them that he saw Sir John "take poste for Dover, and the wind / Sitting so fair, by this hee's safe at Calice, / And ere long will be at Louvain" (3.2.55-57) Lest you're not up to date on the locations of your early modern Catholic monasteries, there was a Catholic university in Louvain, Belgium, which, according to the editors of Massinger's Plays and Poems, was "a haven for English Catholics" (Edwards and Gibson 1976, 5:236). What's more, "In 1625 a Jesuit novitiate was established in a monastery at Watten (near St. Omers) on the main rout from Calais to Louvain." There aren't many city comedies with English merchants who flee to Catholic monasteries. While Sir John's escape is a pretty interesting plot twist, things take an even more unexpected turn thereafter. Lord Lacie tells the Frugal family that his son (Sir Lacie) and Master Plenty have also run off to the continent, and that Luke has been made master of the Frugal family, albeit on one condition. Luke must Receive these Indians, lately sent him from Virginia, into your house; and labour At any rate with the best of your endeavours, Assisted by the aids of our Divines, To make 'm Christians. (3.3.73-77) That's right, Indians. Three of them. From Virginia. Who claim to be kings in their native land, and who say they worship Satan. Satanic Virginian Indians! I dare say this is the only play that includes Satan-worshiping Indians from Virginia. I won't spoil the ending for you (it's a city comedy, so you can probably guess what happens), but I thought I'd give those of you who have never read Massinger's The City Madam a reason to try it. [Notes: The City Madam was licensed for the King's Men by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, on May 25, 1632. It was first published in 1658 by Andrew Pennycuicke, who reissued the play the following year with a new date on the title page. According to these title pages, the play "was acted at the private House in Black Friers with great applause."]

Carnivalesque 28: EEBO Edition

Welcome to Carnivalesque 28, a very special EEBO edition! You searched on: Subject: language and rhetoric Your search produced 3 hits in 3 records Title: Final Round Author: Gwynn Dujardin Imprint: Jardinière Date: 10 June 2007 Notes: The National Spelling Bee prompts an examination of early modern humanist efforts at spelling reform, which (while doomed to failure) had the paradoxical effect of encouraging standardization of spelling (in its non-rationalist form) and, ultimately, orthographic spectacles like the Spelling Bee. Bonus points for discussing canting dictionaries. Title: progymnasmata: proverb Author: dhawhee Imprint: b l o g o s Date: 24 May 2007 Notes: While revising the progymnasmata section of her rhetoric textbook, dhawhee reveals that she finds Milton "wickedly funny" before going on to "amplify," in true humanist pedagogical style, the proverb “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.” Title: Van Helmont's Hebrew Tongues Author: Imprint: The Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society Date: 11 May 2007 Notes: Francis Mercury van Helmont's theory of Hebrew: because it is the Adamic language, it perfectly represents the nature of things and, in fact, when you pronounce Hebrew sounds, your tongue, mouth, and uvula take the shape of Hebrew letters. With a wonderful illustration of "one of the most wonderfully misguided linguistic theories of the 17th century." (As a nice extra, Google places an ad for "Learn Hebrew: Weekend and Two-Week Intensive Language Immersion Programs" directly beneath the post. I doubt they use van Helmont's system, though.) You searched on: Subject: women's history Your search produced 3 hits in 3 records Title: Margery Kempe - a true, strong character Author: Natalie Bennett Imprint: Philobiblon Date: 16 June 2007 Notes: Natalie Bennett reads The Book of Margery Kempe and wonders "how many other such formidable middle-aged women pilgrims were trudging around Europe whose stories haven’t been preserved." Title: Happy Mother's Day, EEBO! Author: Hieronimo Imprint: Blogging the Renaissance Date: 13 May 2007 Notes: Here at BtR, we celebrate Mother's Day with an EEBO title keyword search ... and discover Mother Cunny and the Pimpmaster-General. Title: On Women and Men in Jacobean England Author: Simplicius Imprint: Blogging the Renaissance Date: 7 May 2007 Notes: Simplicius finds an early modern philogynist minister who asks: "Where is there deceit, where robbery, where oppression? where, but among men?" You searched on: Subject: history of science Your search produced 3 hits in 3 records Title: Mechanical Soul Author: Anna Winterbottom Imprint: The Royal Society: Exploring our Archives Date: 23 May 2007 Notes: June 28, 1682: Robert Hooke forced to defend himself against accusations from fellow Royal Society members that his "Discourse had tended to proue the soule mechanicall." Title: Clock of the Long Yesterday Author: D Imprint: Curious Expeditions Date: 9 May 2007 Notes: This travel blog stops at the Clock Museum of Vienna to view the astrological clock of the Augustinian friar David a Sancto Cajetano ("built in 1679, and calibrated up to the year 9999") which leads to Ozymandian meditations on the Clock of the Long Now, the latest in horological hubris. Title: Tycho Brahe, Bibliodyssey, and other Astrological Landmarks Author: Heather McDougal Imprint: Cabinet of Wonders Date: 7 May 2007 Notes: Tycho's plans for his huge observatory on Hven causes Heather McDougal to reminisce about her visit to the Jantar Mantar Observatory, "built in 1734 by Sawai Jai Singh, the first Maharaja of Jaipur," with sundials so large you can stand inside them and "begin to get an inkling of the enormity of the heavens." You searched on: Subject: civil war Your search produced 2 hits in 2 records Title: Civil War Death Match: Manchester vs Cromwell Author: Gavin Robinson Imprint: Investigations of a Dog Date: 5 June 2007 Notes: An assessment of Cromwell and the earl of Manchester as military strategists leads to the larger theoretical issues involved in thinking of military history as a process of "judging generals and their decisions." Title: A House Divided: The Tory in the Family Author: Tim Abbot Imprint: Walking the Berkshires Date: 24 May 2007 Notes: The American Revolutionary War as a civil war and an intra-familial war, as the author discovers a long-lost Tory ancestor. Along the way, we learn of a Loyalist recruiting broadside claiming that, after the war, each soldier would receive "50 Acres of Land, where every gallant Hero may retire, and enjoy his Bottle and Lass." In that order, presumably. You searched on: Subject: religious controversy Your search produced 2 hits in 2 records Title: Reliquaries: Saints Preserve(d for) Us! Author: Heather McDougal Imprint: Cabinet of Wonders Date: 16 May 2007 Notes: A beautiful collection of reliquaries (images, that is), including Galileo's middle finger, detached from his body in 1737 and now on display in the Science History Museum in Florence. Title: Ox-goring and the necessity of extempore prayer Author: Susan A. Imprint: Conventicle Date: 5 May 2007 Notes: The difficulty of finding the appropriate scripture of thanksgiving for recovering from a horn to the gut. You searched on: Subject: death Your search produced 3 hits in 3 records Title: A tanner will last you nine year ... Author: Roy Booth Imprint: Early Modern Whale Date: 14 June 2007 Notes: Roy Booth introduces us to a miraculously preserved corpse ... Title: Buried alive in early modern England Author: Roy Booth Imprint: Early Modern Whale Date: 7 June 2007 Notes: ... and to a few rather less miraculous interments. Title: This Won't Hurt a Bit: A Painlessly Short (and Incomplete) Evolution of Execution Author: Alex Imprint: Neatorama Date: 29 May 2007 Notes: Elephants (crushing by), bulls (brazen), and donkeys (Spanish), oh my! Also, guillotines and crucifixions and various other methods. Early modern England's preferred style (hanging) is absent, however, perhaps because it's too boring. You searched on: Subject: William Hogarth Your search produced 2 hits in 2 records Title: The Foundling Museum Author: Claire Dudman Imprint: Keeper of the Snails Date: 17 May 2007 Notes: Hogarth's role in establishing England's first home for foundling children, built by one of Hogarth's portrait subjects, Captain Thomas Coram, in the early 1740s. Title: Hogarth at the Tate Author: Imprint: ringisei Date: 16 May 2007 Notes: The Tate exhibit prompted several excellent blog posts, including this one that singles out Hogarth's portrait of Coram for praise. You searched on: Subject: early modern funny things Your search produced 5 hits in 5 records Title: The Lost PowerPoint Slides (Waterloo Edition) Author: Mark Rayner Imprint: the skwib Date: 18 June 2007 Notes: The generals rally their troops with the most "effective" and "impactful" technological tool of good management. Perhaps pushing the upper boundary of the early modern, but funny, so it counts. Title: What is this "Renaissance" of which you speak? Author: Flavia Imprint: Ferule & Fescue Date: 17 June 2007 Notes: Flavia has an infuriating conversation about periodization ... and gets hit on afterwards. Title: Shakespearrrr! Author: Fretful Porpentine Imprint: Quills Date: 27 May 2007 Notes: And you thought Shakespeare was really the earl of Oxford. In fact, as this post makes convincingly clear, he was a pirate. Title: Courtly love: a definition Author: Steve Muhlberger Imprint: Muhlberger's Early History Date: 23 May 2007 Notes: The best definition ever. Title: 101 Uses for a (Live?) Puppy Author: Crispinella Imprint: Blotted Lines Date: 22 May 2007 Notes: #1 use: dinner. (Note: no puppies are actually harmed in this post. And the puppies in question are merely typographic.) You searched on: Subject: unclassifiable but brilliantly weird Your search produced 1 hit in 1 record Title: Arent van Bolten Author: mr. h Imprint: Giornale Nuovo Date: 17 May 2007 Notes: An incredible series of images of the bizarre, fantastic beast drawings (and bronze sculptures) of van Bolten (c.1574-c.1633). An early modern outsider artist. Thanks to everyone who submitted links! Apologies for any fantastic posts that I happened to miss. EEBO is now offline for maintenance.

Happy Magna Carta Day

I'm guessing that Simplicius will append a calculation explaining how, because of calendrical reform, the eccentricity of the moon's orbit around the earth, and continental drift, we should actually have celebrated this three weeks ago Monday, but -- just wanted to send a little shout out to Magna Carta day. Everybody habeas your corpuses while you still can.

Wikified BtR

I've just discovered that BtR is cited as a reference for the post on waterboarding in Wikipedia. How cool is that? (Seriously, though: how cool is that? Maybe not at all...)

Carnivalesque 28 CFP

BtR will be hosting Carnivalesque XXVIIJ on June 20. So this is the CFP (call for posts): please email me any and all great posts on early modern history, literature, and culture that you've seen out there on the intertubes in May or June. Feel more than free to nominate your own posts, your friends' posts, your pseudonym's posts ... You can also submit via the web form. Submit... You will submit... You feel yourself desiring to submit... You are submitting... Submit! (bumped to the top)

Book Inscriptions website

The Book Inscriptions Project is a pretty amazing site; it collects digital images of book inscriptions as found art. Like this one: Or this one: Or, most simply, this one: Trolling through this strangely moving website reminded me of Simplicius' wonderful discussion of reading the marginalia in the copy of Keats's Collected Poems that he inherited from one of his favorite college professors, who was retiring and giving away his old books. The professor had written in the margins of the book while a grad student or a junior professor, and Simplicius writes: "I love this fleeting glimpse of my professor as a young man, someone I obviously could never know, but, here, in this one book, can imagine as he was in the 1940s." One of my personal BtR favorites, which I thought I'd refer you to, since we're in the middle of a summer slowdown. They accept reader submissions at the Book Inscriptions Website. A whole new reason for leafing through used book stores.

More university drama

Continuing my sudden and unexplained interest in university drama (see our currently woefully monologic reading "group" about FS Boas in the sidebar), I'm looking at the Malone Society Collections XIV, an edition of seven Jacobean academic plays contained in two Folger manuscripts, edited by Suzanne Gossett and Tom Berger. There's a manuscript version of Ruff, Band, and Cuff, which appeared in print in 1615 as Band, Cuff, and Ruff; a play called Heteroclitanomalonomia (yep, that's right) about grammatical parts fighting each other, similar to Bellum Grammaticale; a play involving the elements of a Christmas dinner; and a debate between Gown, Hood, and Cap. But my favorite has to be Preist the Barbar, Sweetball his Man, which the editors tells us, straight-faced and deadpan, "is a comic sketch about shaving in college ..." (138). Man, I love plays about shaving; it's right up there with tragedy as my favorite genres. Apparently, the Preist is "one Henry Preist, a successful barber and scholar's servant in Cambridge in the early decades of the seventeenth century" (139). Have you ever considered writing a literary tribute to your barber or hairdresser? Why were university students so obsessed with animating objects and abstractions? In the shaving play, the sweetball in question is "a ball of scented or aromatic substance" (OED) used in the barber's trade. It seems like everywhere you look in university drama, there are bands, gowns, nouns, verbs, ears, tongues, caps, boots, spurs, not to mention legions of food: wine, beer, ale, tobacco, pepper, salt, vinegar, mustard. All of this makes one thing abundantly clear: university plays are way, way more bugged out than professional drama.

College writing

Kevin Drum has a post today on the perennial complaint about the decline in student writing. He wonders if the complaint has any validity: Is this true? Or just a case of old-fartism? I realize this isn't exactly a scientific survey or anything, but I'm curious to know what teachers at various levels think of this. I know plenty of them read the blog, so comment away. Is writing really a lost art? I agree with commenter #2, one "ACS": Selection bias. University professors always use themselves as the archetypal "college student" to whom other college students are compared. This fails to take into account the fact that college students who go on to become college professors are, by definition, exceptional. Thus: college professors perpetually complaining about the incompetence of their students. Anyway, since we apparently have nothing new to say here these days, I thought I'd remind you (or direct newer readers) to one of our threads on this topic, which begins here (especially in the comment section), and then becomes kind of glorious when it prompts Truewit to post a bit of his first undergraduate Shakespeare essay. Simplicius followed suit, and so did I. I won't mention what the papers were about, because last time we posted it we got a million hits from college students searching for papers to plagiarize on those topics. But I just reread Truewit's post and laughed out loud, so apologies to those who've already heard this one, but I had to recycle it. It's not impossible that college-level writing has gotten worse, of course, I just don't see any evidence of it. One commenter responds to ACS with: That can't be right. Professors use their past students as a comparison when they claim that kids can't write, nowadays. There may still be selection bias, but not of the type you are proposing. Maybe it's a combination of nostalgic rose-tinted glasses (for viewing former students) and the selection bias ACS reports, together with the selection bias that the memorable students are the good ones. But actually, I think most professors are in fact using themselves and their college friends as the comparison, not former students. Who can really remember students' papers from 10 years ago? Maybe the few great students you can recall, but I can barely remember my students from last semester, let alone last decade. But you can remember your own--or at least, as we show in our posts, you are more likely to believe you can remember your own.