Theatre as tournament: Making earnest of game

Show dichotomy between real and not real, serious and not serious, leisure and occupation in both theatre and tournament.


Of course, the crucial difference between theatre and tournament as regards actual wars, themes of national import, is that those on the tournament field will usually or potentially be players in the field of war; but the majority of those in the theatre have little chance of even influencing the political aspects of the conflict, and are unlikely to be physically present in war themselves, let alone in a position of command.  However, the theatre can sway and express public opinion (for a given value of ‘public’), and by this time that must be allowed rather more weight than it ever had in the High or Late Middle Ages.  While the middle and lower classes gathered in the theatre may not have any prospect of affecting the war directly, yet they are present, as they would not have been (or not have been acknowledged to be) four hundred years before; and their opinions are allowed or sought about the action and words on the stage.  They may even mount the stage themselves.


Politics as intersection of game and war? Serious effects of tournament – for Erec and Yvain of not participating, of injury or death in mock-combat.  Cf. the trouble Kynaston and Dryden got into, both the subject of physical assaults as a result of powerful people taking offence to their activities onstage; or the effects of Buckingham’s satire on Dryden’s reputation. Dryden becomes Bayes – unable to reappropriate his colours/arms?


Blurring of actual identity through the ‘play’ publically observed – eg, tournament knight with his lady’s colours, identified only by his own colours or the colours of his team; potential for disguise,  or usurpation of another’s identity (to whatever end).  Actor assuming character, playing recognisably in the manner of some public figure, wearing clothes donated by / borrowed from lord/lady, etc.  Even cross-dressing: effeminate fops, breeches-clad actresses, boys/men in women’s roles, etc.


The Restoration also seems to foster a deliberate cultivation of the mystique of the actor, until Colley Cibber could not only acknowledge but reasonably expect the fascination of the audience with who an actor is “when in no body’s Shape but his own”,

and whether he, who by his Profession had so long been ridiculing his Benefactors, might not, when the Coat of his Profession was off, deserve to be laugh’d at himself; or from his being so often seen in, the most flagrant, and immoral Characters; whether he might not see as great a Rogue, when he look’d into the Glass himself, as when he held it to others. (Cibber 3-4) 

There is an irony here – intentional or unintentional, though Cibber seems unable to ever quite refrain from (defensive?) irony. The introduction to his autobiography is far too self-conscious in its construction of the ‘real’ Cibber to be anything but another performance.  Which begs the question – does any real interior self remain to the actor after years on the stage? Is he or she only to be found in the mirror? If the knight is so easily effaced – if Lancelot kills his beloved Gareth, unmakes the knight he made, because he does not recognise him out of armour - is he, in fact, anything but his colours?






Cited:
Cibber, Colley. An Apology for the life of Mr Colley Cibber, Comedian, and Late Patentee of the Theatre-Royal.  With an Historical View of the Stage during his Own Time. Written by Himself. 2nd ed. London: John Watts, 1740.

Thoughts on Aphra Behn's "The Rover"

1. What does ‘libertine’ mean to Aphra Behn?
2. She has three female roles strong enough to be played by Barry, Betterton and Gwyn, and each given full scope to develop her part. Have we seen all three in one play before? What does this say about her writing?
3. Masks abound, in self-consciously ridiculous numbers. Is there a deliberate blend of stage and life?

1.

◦ Hellena is the obvious candidate for female libertine, though Angellica initially looks to fit the role better. Possibly they provide competing models? Hellena proposes to manage it enough to keep it on an acceptable  social level through discreet handling, while Angellica perhaps comes to regret her public sign, despite the wealth that results. Hellena more successfully reclaims her own role in society and the household, liberating herself not only from the conventional jealous Spanish brother and potential convent but from conventional thought and philosophy.

◦ How shall we compare Hellena to her classical namesake? Hellena takes action rather than being acted upon, as Helen is. In addition, Hellena is full of personality and repeatedly insists on defining it herself, where Helen is and always has been the empty object of men's projections.

◦ Angellica shows an admirable and comparable ability to parry wits with Willmore and articulate the opposite side of a conventional point of raillery, but seems to find herself, apparently incongruously, defending the normative married life (eg, II.ii.108-15).

◦ Florinda is more conventional in both her social aims and her inability to defend herself when put into a traditional position of female helplessness (hence her honour is more often in danger of compromise than that of the two women who care less for theirs), but does take more proactive roles than usual in pursuing her aims. For example, assuming a disguise to investigate the fidelity of one’s potential spouse is more usually a male gambit on the stage (eg, Così fan tutte).

◦ If we take Hellena to be Behn’s preferred model of the female libertine (as she seems to be), we must assume that libertinism is not just about sex, or her role could have ended in Act I Scene ii. It must, then, pertain in a particular attitude, or a freedom from any particular attitude, and/or the ability to successfully shade it into a socially acceptable lifestyle in which availability is under the woman’s control and a matter of suggestion rather than publication.

2.

◦ In Act I, Hellena deliberately and consciously toys with the conventional female roles of nun, gypsy, witch (ii.189), scold (potentially, in the first stages of her conversation with Willmore), courtly beloved (ii.213-16) and libertine – the latter primarily by denial, including the double effect of the mask. Although all of these are conventional and to some extent restrictive, Hellena’s rapid evocation of so many possibilities and her insistence on her own agency to choose or change her choice (eg, ii.204-05) simultaneously scupper the notion of a single interchangeable creature called “woman” (as Blunt would believe) and emphasise Hellena’s agency in determining her own career.

◦ Willmore draws a distinction between the mind and the beauty (body?) of a woman, admiring Angellica for one while he can “contemn” her for the other (II.ii.73-4). This immediately invites comparison with the  asked woman whose conversation he was so enamoured of in the previous act, whose beauty was the subject of verbal sallies that appeared to attract him as much as Angellica’s beauty. Does the distinction between two different models of female presentation suggest two different kinds of self-modelling? Which seems to work better?

◦ Modern romantic sensibility would suggest that Willmore would quickly tire of Angellica and return to Hellena because he loves her for her mind, but Angellica’s mind is as interesting as Hellena’s and Hellena’s face, it appears, as good as Angellica’s. Nor does Hellena offer a safely normative haven from the relationship
with a whore, given her later offer. However, the repeated concealment of the face and insistence on recognition of the mind throughout the play rather suggest it would be a disservice to Behn to attempt to read the mind/body distinction solely in one aspect of one relationship in the work, or indeed to read it only in the
context of relationships and not individuals.

3.

◦ Hellena is not above playing with the double meaning of the mask (prostitute/modest woman, allure/repel, subject/object), teasing with the allure of chastity to create the potential of seduction, consciously evoking the literal and euphemistic nunnery in calling Willmore “Father Captain” (II.243-47).

◦ Can we draw any useful contrasts between Hellena’s mask (tempting by concealing, implying chastity and riches) and Angellica’s picture (tempting by publicising, stating availability at the cost of riches)? Both increase desirability through constructing exclusivity, but from opposite sides. Angellica is a public woman, easy if you can just get the money, and Hellena costs nothing – but a few words in front of a priest. Both the mask and the picture are erected between the woman and the world at her will and in full consciousness of the  implications, and removed when the woman changes her mind.

◦ Florinda does not use her mask so consciously as Hellena and Angelica, or so effectively. She and Belvile, in fact, repeatedly fail to recognise each other’s substitution for Antonio in an honour-laden duel, and the scene that ensues, not to mention Pedro’s near rape of his own sister, question sharply the ethics of disguise. Florinda belongs to another world, the world of other Restoration Spanish plays in which the woman is a thing to be guarded and argued over. The world of masks and wits to which Hellena is aptly suited repeatedly lands her sister in danger.

◦ What does Moretta mean to call Willmore “the only Enemy to our Trade” (II.ii.181)? On the surface, courtesans, certainly; but her position alone on stage in direct conversation with the audience, the presence of so many well-known actresses in this play (all well-known and well-discussed outside the theatre as well, and
carrying the weight of audience recognition onstage with them), the play with faces and seemings and masks in Willmore and Angellica’s preceding conversation and, not least, the popular equation of theatre women with mask-wearing public women of another kind all help to break down the walls between Moretta speaking for whores and Behn/Leigh speaking for actresses. If we allow this, how do we read it? Is Willmore opposed to publication (in whatever sense of the word)? Or pretence? While possibly attracted by it (though that may be a little too Jungian)? His preference of Hellena (able to discreetly manage infidelities) over Angellica (publically unfaithful) suggests something of the former. Is this sort of attitude in men commonly encountered by women in Behn’s circles, either in the context of sexual encounters or the publication of her words in an overwhelmingly male sphere?

◦ Cf. Belvile calling Willmore “a Prince aboard his little wooden World” - well, yes, it could be an allusion to the wanderings of Charles II as Womersley would have it, but there’s a much more immediate little wooden world in which an extravagant character like Willmore shows himself a Prince. And the echo of the obvious quote from As You Like It inverts the image to suggest that perhaps this extravagance, untrustworthy and impractical and shallow as it may be, is perhaps all that is necessary to make someone appear a charismatic leader in the real world too. On the other hand, perhaps this reflects backwards on Charles, the Royal Rover. Willmore's flexibility with regards to his sex life and to the situation in which he finds himself both have strong echoes in Charles, suggesting an uncontrlled, opportunity-driven monarch, at his strongest when responding to the gusts of fortune rather than attempting to orchestrate his own fate.

Papist, Protestant or Puritan?

Imported from Mony wylsum way.

This quote started me musing:

"The word Puritan is an essential engine [of the attempt to push English religion towards conformation with Rome] ... For this word in the mouth of a drunkard doth mean a sober man, in the mouth of an Arminian, an Orthodox man, in the mouth of a papist, a Protestant. And so it is spoke to shame a man out of all religion, if a man be ashamed to be saved."
Francis Rous, in an address to the Short Parliament of 1640.[1]

We all know words like this, of course - words whose precise meaning is inexact, but whose employment would make anyone scurry to be on the opposite side. Vague enough to mean whatever you want it to mean, you just know that you don't want to identify yourself as one. Very useful in times of national stress, these words are often used to create a sense of 'other' to define a more cohesive 'us' - or, of course, to isolate rivals in the school playground. The word 'Puritan' was (almost) always applied to someone else, some other group - either to define a general, non-specific group against whom we can identify us, or to villify a specific person or challenge that needed to be discredited or attacked.

But wasn't this exactly what 'papist' was used for in the century leading up to the civil war? How do you discard an entire belief system at once? You don't, of course - you cling to some parts of it and gradually work out which bits you want to maintain, as a community - but you don't work as a community, you work as a set of individuals, pulled back and forth by individual preferences and the cacophany of different voices and conflicting systems flying about the place from different parts of Europe. And the printing press, of course, increased exponentially the number of voices that could be heard. So if a country is coming gradually to define our kind of Protestantism, it has to do so while taking all these voices into account, choosing which to listen to. And there is virulent argument, of course, and a word like 'papist' can be applied to whatever you choose to associate with the wrong-headed old way of doing things - vestments, ceremony, ideas about methods of salvation, or, if you're so inclined, anything that does not conform with the most strict ideas of predestination. Your path is defined by away - true godliness is to move away from papism, rather than any clear towards.

But you can only go in one direction for so long. No one wants to live absolutely without ceremony or tradition (certainly not Charles I), and eventually you do need some kind of power hierarchy in the church. And you will never persuade an entire population to live permanently in a state of personal ethical purity, rather than just going along to the ceremony once a week and living fairly normally the rest of the time. So you set up a limit in that direction too - the Puritan, an idea to be regarded with almost as much revulsion as the papist. Perhaps more - after all, at least initially, it's closer to home, and you run more risk of attracting the same accusation yourself, until you work out just what it is and move away from that label too.

And now your identity rests somewhere in between, defining yourself as definitely-not-Puritan and definitely-not-papist as the need arises, and applying the closest word to anything inappropriate that comes along which you ferociously do not want to be us.


[1] Esther S. Cope and Willson H. Coates (eds), Proceedings of the Short Parliament of 1640, Camden 4th series 19 (London 1977), 147. Cited in Michael Braddick, God's fury, England's fire: A new history of the civil wars (London: Penguin, 2008), 49.

To venture forward a few hundred years...

Imported from Mony wylsum way.

I was just reading Susan Higganbotham's latest entry and realised something I've never noticed before.

Lord Darnley, who married Mary Queen of Scots... was the son of the Earl of Lennox.

Now, this may not sound terribly momentous, but think about it for a moment. This means that Darnley would have been Lennox, if he had outlived his father (which he didn't). This means that, if the queen were to take the name and title of her husband on marriage (which she didn't, as she slightly outranked him) she would have been (if we blur the distinctions between surname and title for a moment).... Mary Lennox.

Did Frances Hodgson Burnett know about this? Closer examination can prove beyond doubt that this apparent coincidence was intentional, and that The Secret Garden, far from being an innocent children's story, is in fact a subversive political paper!

To start with, Colin is Mary's cousin, and there are hints in the book that he may have a romantic interest in her. Burnett played this down, but the film perceptively picked up on this and played it out more strongly. This may seem insignificant, until we remember that Darnley was Mary Stuart's first cousin! Though Darnley and Mary shared a surname, Colin and Mary Lennox are the offspring of two sisters, clearly in order for Burnett to change Colin's surname - to Craven. Remember, Darnley is often portrayed as a bully and coward, and he was apparently killed fleeing the scene of the first attempt on his life. Colin's fits of temper and childish violence take on added resonance in the light of Darnley's violent temper, particularly the murder of his wife's lover, Rizzio. Is the memory of sudden death that hovers over Misselthwaite Manor - particularly the Secret Garden itself - a foreboding of the violence that an older Colin is to visit on his rival for Mary's affections, the outsider Dickon?

Let us consider the figure of Dickon. Clearly an analogue for the Earl of Bothwell, his presence in the story offers Mary an attractive escape from the life in the highly ordered manor, from the prospect of commanding the miniature kingdom that Mary Stuart handled so badly. The character most closely associated with the Secret Garden himself, he draws both Colin and Mary into his insidious schemes and seduces them into believing the Garden a "safe" environment for indulging in innocent childhood play. His closeness to nature recalls Bothwell's renowned weakness for indulging his primal urges (see Wikipedia, I'm sure it has much to say on the subject), and Mary's fascination in exploring this world with him bodes ill for her ability to retain her independence for long. Published eight years after the death of Queen Victoria, The Secret Garden conceals dark and disturbing messages about feminine monarchy and its limitations, from the pen of a woman who appears to have believed that death and the changes that accompanied it were long overdue.

Hm. I just realised that Bothwell's surname is... Hepburn.

No. Too easy.