下流之城：莎士比亞《量罪記》中的城市下流地圖誌 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學英國語文學系碩士班碩士論文. 指導教授：姜翠芬先生 Advisor: Tsui-fen Jiang. 下流之城：莎士比亞《量罪記》中的城市下流地圖誌 Vulgar City: Mapping Urban Vulgar Culture in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. 研究生：施舜翔撰 Name: Paris Shun-Hsiang Shih 中華民國 104 年 1 月 January 2015.

(2) Vulgar City: Mapping Urban Vulgar Culture in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. 政治大. A Master Thesis Presented to Department of English,. 立. ‧ 國. 學. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. y. ‧. National Chengchi University. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. by Paris Shun-Hsiang Shih January, 2015.

(3) Acknowledgements. I would like to dedicate this thesis to my parents, for their unconditional support for all my dreams, no matter how wild my dreams could be. One cannot find a better advisor than Prof. Jiang Tsui-fen. This thesis cannot be completed without her patience and her guidance. I am also lucky enough to have worked for her for four years as a research assistant, and have gone to international conferences with her. I have learned not only important research skills but also. 政治大. precious lessons in life from her. For me, she is more than a teacher. She is my. 立. friend and my mentor. She’s my “mother” in the academia.. ‧ 國. 學. Prof. Laurie Wolf led me to Shakespeare studies. It was she that introduced the Bard to me when I was at College of William and Mary in 2010. In her course. ‧. “Shakespeare’s Renaissance,” we explored the cultural, social, and political. y. Nat. sit. backgrounds in which the Bard’s plays were produced. We also re-examined the. n. al. er. io. gendered relationships in Shakespeare’s plays with feminist and queer theories. Prof.. i n U. v. Wolf’s innovative approaches to Shakespeare inspired me a lot and have been a major. Ch. engchi. shaping force to my current research.. Prof. Jonathan White introduced city studies to me and added another dimension to my thesis. In his course “Reading Cities,” we analyzed urban culture and literary representations of cities in works by Dante, Shakespeare, Blake, Lamb, Dickens, and even Calvino. In my final paper for this course, I analyzed the representation of London and its urban culture in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, which eventually became the starting point of this research project.. !. iii.

(4) Prof. Tom Sellari taught me how to re-examine literary criticism with critical awareness. In “Shakespeare and Shakespeare Criticism,” we learned how to offer our own critical assessment of theoretical approaches to Shakespeare, including feminism, Marxism, new historicism, psychoanalysis, and performance studies. It was through a close examination between the texts and the criticisms that we discovered a much more careful reading of Shakespeare’s plays. The re-assessment of new historicist and cultural materialist approaches in the thesis was much inspired by Prof. Sellari’s teaching. I have taken two of Prof. Beatrice Bi-qi Lei’s courses on Shakespeare,. 政治大. “Intercultural Shakespeare” and “Shakespeare and National Building.” I was also. 立. lucky enough to have her on the panel of my thesis proposal exam. Both her teaching. ‧ 國. 學. and her advice helped enrich this thesis. She is one of the most inspiring Shakespeareans one could ever learn with.. ‧. I also want to thank Prof. Wang Hui-hua for being a wonderful committee. y. Nat. sit. member and for her careful reading of my thesis. I was greatly encouraged when she. n. al. er. io. told me that she included part of my thesis to the reading list of her course “Early. i n U. v. Modern Literary and Cultural Studies.” I cannot thank her enough for her generosity.. Ch. engchi. Last but not least, I would like to thank the Department of English. I have spent almost one third of my life here. It became my second home. It shaped me into a completely different person and for that, I will be forever grateful.. !. iv.

(5) Table of Contents Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………iii Chinese Abstract…………………………………………………………………….vii English Abstract……………………………………………………………………..ix Chapter 1 Introduction……………………………………………………………….1 1.1 Critical Background……………………………………………….……2 1.2 Jacobean City Comedy………………………………………………….5 1.3 City Comedy and Popular Performative Politics………………………11. 政治大 Chapter 2 Urban Vulgar Culture and the Bawdy Politics…………………………...17 立 1.4 Chapter Organization…………………………………………………..14. 2.1 City of the Underworld………………………………………………...17. ‧ 國. 學. 2.2 The City as a Vile Body..………………………………………………24. ‧. 2.3 Houses of Prostitution in the Suburbs………………………………….28. sit. y. Nat. 2.4 A Bawdyhouse in the Prison…………………………………………...33. io. er. Chapter 3 Civic Pageantry and the Return of the Whoremaster…………………….43 3.1 Civic Pageantry and James I’s Management of Public Image…………43. al. n. v i n C hTrial and MeasureUfor Measure………………......49 3.2 Royal Entry, Public engchi 3.3 The Return of the Whoremaster………………………………………..52 Chapter 4 Mock King and the Politics of Clowning………………………………...59 4.1 The King’s Men or The Citizens’ Clowns……………………………..59 4.2 The Disguised Ruler Plays.………………..………………..………….65 4.3 The Mock King Tradition……………………………………………...69 4.4 The Politics of Clowning and Audience……………………………….73 Chapter 5 Conclusion………………………………………………………………..81 Works Cited………………………………………………………………………….87. !. v.

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(9) Abstract. This thesis sees Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure as a Jacobean city comedy that maps an urban vulgar culture. Critics in the past often focused on whether the play should be read as a flattery to the new king, James I, or as a political criticism of the ruler. The thesis goes beyond the simple dichotomy offered by criticism in the past. It reads Measure for Measure as a city comedy and analyzes Shakespeare’s dramatic representation of the urban vulgar culture, which connects the lowlife. 政治大. figures onstage with the audiences offstage, ultimately forming a popular performative politics.. 立. The first part of the thesis analyzes Measure for Measure and its representation. ‧ 國. 學. of an urban vulgar culture. Vienna in the play is represented as a “vile body,” which. ‧. both confirms and unsettles the early modern body politic, since the vile body stays. sit. y. Nat. “ill” till the very end of the play. The play invites the audience to experience how this. io. er. vulgar culture permeates every part of the city, including the houses of prostitution in the suburbs and a “bawdyhouse” in the prison. While the play seems to confirm Duke. al. n. v i n C h of the city, the U Vincentio’s control and regulation e n g c h i bawdy figures provide us with an alternative reading of the play, revealing the survival and even the rise of the urban vulgar culture The second part of the thesis relates Jacobean civic pageantry to the play’s. intriguing final scene, in which the Duke stages a royal entry that is not unlike James I’s civic pageantry. While civic pageantries had long been used by monarchs to demonstrate their power, James I’s resistance to participating in his own pageantry revealed his fear of public discourses and his careful management of reputation and honor. This careful management of public image is also represented in the play’s. !. ix.

(10) final scene. However, even during the final scene, Lucio not only turns the Duke into a mockable figure but also ruins the Duke’s reputation and honor. His stage presence also evokes a suburban vulgar culture. Thus, the audience does not witness the return of a respectable ruler, but the rise of a lascivious whoremaster. The third part of the thesis puts the play into its cultural, social, and historical backgrounds. Measure for Measure belonged to the wave of disguised ruler plays after 1603. The wave of drama was produced during the critical moment when Elizabeth I died and James I came to the throne. It reflected a popular anxiety of the arrival of the new king. Measure for Measure is unique in its dramatization of. 政治大. suburban bawdy figure’s anxiety of their future state. In addition, the play was also. 立. closely connected to the “mock king tradition,” in which the dramatists staged a mock. ‧ 國. 學. king on the stage in order to show the proper way to rule. The thesis argues that Duke Vincentio, who resembled James I in many aspects, could possibly stand for a “mock. ‧. king.” What the play actually shows is the rise of the suburban vulgar culture. The. y. Nat. sit. clown Lucio invites the audience to laugh at the Duke and challenges his authority. n. al. er. io. established in earlier scenes. Lucio eventually stands for the general lowlife public on. i n U. v. the stage, forming a “bawdy” community with the audience through bawdy jokes and. Ch. engchi. unruly laughter. It is exactly this power of popular mirth that turns the play from an endorsement of the ruler’s authority to a celebration of the lowlife citizens.. Keywords: Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Jacobean city comedy, urban culture, vulgar culture, popular performative politics. !. x.

(11) Chapter 1 Introduction. This thesis sees Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure as a Jacobean city comedy that maps an urban vulgar culture. It also theorizes a popular performative politics, which corresponds to the urban vulgar culture represented on the stage, when the play was performed at Shakespeare’s public theatre. Measure for Measure has long been read as a “problem play” or a “dark comedy” due to its moral ambiguity, revelation of. 治政大 ending which contrasts the dark side of the politics, and the highly problematic 立. sharply with those of traditional Shakespearean comedies. Critics in the past often. ‧ 國. 學. focused on whether the play should be read as a flattery to the new king, James I, or. ‧. as a political criticism of the ruler. The thesis rejects oversimplified labels such as. sit. y. Nat. “problem play” and “dark comedy.” It also goes beyond the simple dichotomy. io. er. offered by criticism in the past. The thesis suggests that Measure for Measure be read as a Jacobean city comedy, with its ample allusions to an urban vulgar culture—. al. n. v i n C h hot-bath house,Uand the bawdyhouse in the including the houses of prostitution, engchi. prison—and bawdy figures in the city, including the bawd Mistress Overdone, the pimp Pompey, and the whoremaster Lucio. It first argues that the urban vulgar culture in the play constantly disturbs the control of Duke Vincentio and disrupts his supreme authority. Then, it suggests that the politics of the vulgar culture is closely connected to a popular performative politics. This popular performative politics links the bawdy figures to the audience, forming a communal sense of popular mirth. This popular mirth further challenges the presumed majesty of the Duke built up through textual lines.. . 1.

(12) 1.1 Critical Background Previous critical responses to Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure could be divided into two groups, as Jeffrey S. Doty observes: “Positivist topical readings see the play as a product of royal flattery, although others have argued that the play critiques James” (40). The first group of critics argues that the play should be seen as a flattery to the new king, James I and that Shakespeare actually sides with the authority. While Duke Vincentio obviously resembles James I, the critics claim that Shakespeare celebrates how the ruler restores their authority and re-imposes law and. 治政 order upon the city. Leonard Tennenhouse categorizes this大 kind of plays as “disguise 立 ruler plays” and argues that it could be seen as “the romance of a return to origins in. ‧ 國. 學. which the monarch is restored to a natural position of supremacy as a father over a. ‧. family” (“Representing Power” 154). In Tennenhouse’s reading, Measure for. sit. y. Nat. Measure is just another example of Shakespeare’s dramatization of “the need for a. io. er. patriarchal figure who can reform corrupt social practices, supervise the exchange of women and insure the proper distribution of power” (Power on Display 171).. al. n. v i n Tennenhouse’s arguments confirm C theh critical assumptionU e n g c h i that this play was written to flatter the new king. Tina Krontiris also argues that the play, though not a masque,. does “come close to the purpose, if not to the machinery, of the form that glorified the king’s person and his power” (306). Ivo Kamps takes a step further and claims that the play actually gave pleasure to both the king and the people. He borrows Marx’s theory on religion as people’s opium and argues that during such a period of political chaos and public anxiety, the audience would like to see the order being restored by a strong authority figure like Duke Vincentio on the stage. The Duke, therefore, stands for a Christ-figure who “reveal[s] himself at the end of the drama and mimic[s] the. . 2.

(13) Christian God on the Judgment Day” (263). Kamps’s statement accords with the reading of the play as a Christian allegory and even as a morality play, in which Angelo stands for the embodiment of Vice and the Duke represents the Christian God. The second group of the critics suggests that the play be read as a political critique of the new king’s reinforcement of power. This group of critics, of course, tend to be much more critical of the Duke’s actions in the play. Steven Mullaney argues that the play is “an encyclopedic exploration of the workings and limits of exemplary power, or, more accurately, a compressed history and genealogy of such power” (92). Zdravko Planinc finds that there are equally striking similarities. 治政 between Duke Vincentio and Machiavelli’s Borgia,大 both winning fear and love from 立. their subjects through turning their deputies into scapegoats and through “master[ing]. ‧ 國. 學. the appearances of being religious” (149). He concludes that this play is. ‧. Shakespeare’s critique of Machiavellian force and religious fraud. Duke Vincentio,. sit. y. Nat. resembling Machiavelli’s Borgia, constructs Angelo as Lucifer and himself as a. io. er. Christ-figure, so Angelo would be hated while he could be loved by people. There is, however, the third group of critics who refuses to take such a. al. n. v i n Cfocus dichotomous approach. They on the dramatic effect that the play might have hen gchi U. produced when it was performed, and how that specific effect might have unsettled the textual representation of the play. Doty uses the idea of early modern “popularity” to argue that James I’s authority is undermined by the public discourses at the Globe. In early modern England, the term “popularity” could mean both “winning popular favor and the act of making political arguments to people” (34; emphasis in the original). This twofold meaning of “popularity” contributed to, as Doty argues, the anxiety of James I, since winning people’s favor inevitably invited popular discourses on the prince and the government. He suggests that “by drawing. . 3.

(14) on recent news about James, and representing him in fragmented ways, Shakespeare instantiates the very kind of public political talk Duke Vincentio tries to eradicate. In its Globe performances, then, Measure for Measure retails the very thing it purports to discipline: news and analysis about politics” (35). William Dodd, on the other hand, reveals the importance of popular tradition in the theatre. He notes that Lucio is not successfully silenced at the end of the play and that the Duke is “clearly the loser in the struggle to engage the audience’s pleasure” (236). While engagement with the audience and the production of communal mirth were essential parts of the popular tradition in early modern theatre, Dodd concludes that the play “would be available to. 治政大by a ‘restoring’ social and political forces resistant to ideological absorption 立. monarchy, and that these would find an effective ally for resisting a monarchic. ‧ 國. 學. instrumentalising of drama in the conventions and processes of participation deriving. ‧. from the popular tradition in the theatre” (236).. sit. y. Nat. While previous critical discussions have been fruitful, certain aspects of the. io. er. production of Measure and Measure remain unexplored. This thesis attempts to complicate Doty’s and Dodd’s arguments by examining the urban culture and city. al. n. v i n C h connected. It reads underworld to which the play was closely e n g c h i U Measure for Measure as a Jacobean city comedy with its ample allusions to an urban vulgar culture and. bawdy figures, including the pimp, the bawd, the prostitutes, and the whoremaster. The vulgar culture and bawdy figures represented on the stage constantly disturb the authority of the Duke. Through staging the urban vulgar culture on the stage, the play connects the stage to the audience, providing the audience with moments of popular mirth. When lowlife characters and the audience form a community together, the communal sense of mirth, noises, and laughter further unsettle the presumed authority that the Duke has established in the previous scenes. These moments of popular mirth. . 4.

(15) should not be understood as a direct criticism of the ruler, but more of a popular performative politics that provides a potentially subversive festive experience to the audience familiar with this urban culture. That is to say, the play neither flatters the king nor criticizes him. Rather, it aims at uniting the lowlife characters with the audience through constantly laughing at the king’s figure and disrupting his presumed majesty.. 1.2 Jacobean City Comedy Shakespeare’s city comedy is a topic that is under-researched. Brian Gibbons’s. 治政大 concerned with plays by Ben groundbreaking book Jacobean City Comedy is mostly 立 Jonson, Thomas Middleton, and John Marston. Gibbons was the first scholar to. ‧ 國. 學. define city comedy as a genre. Wendy Griswold, in her 1986 book Renaissance. ‧. Revivals, defines Jacobean city comedies on her own terms. The six basic criteria of. sit. y. Nat. city comedy that she gives are “London setting,” “trickery,” “money,” “social. io. er. mobility,” “cynicism,” and finally, “moral ambiguity.” The characteristics of Jacobean city comedy defined by Gibbons and several later scholars show that. al. n. v i n Measure for Measure shouldCbehread as a “Shakespearean e n g c h i U city comedy,” which. contains more allusions to specific urban locations, events, and behaviors than most critics would like to believe. Angela Stock and Anne-Julia Zwierlein have noticed that the topic is under-researched: “the connection between city comedy and Shakespearean comedy have received less attention than they deserve” (23). However, there are still studies that touch on Shakespeare’s city comedies. This thesis is not the first research to treat Measure for Measure as a Jacobean city comedy, nor does it initiate the studies on “Shakespeare’s city comedies.” In fact, while Gibbons focuses mainly on Jonson, Middleton and Marston, he also notes that. . 5.

(16) Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure shows “an otherwise unmistakable London” which must “be called ‘Vienna’ and the religious debate must be removed…to a faraway state that is emphatically Catholic” (135). Later, Stock and Zwierlein choose three comedies and define them as Shakespeare’s city comedies: “the genuinely urban milieu of the three plays that most immediately qualify as Shakespeare city comedy [are] The Comedy of Errors, The Merchant of Venice, and Measure for Measure” (17). Phil Withington, surprisingly, regards Merry Wives of Windsor as a city comedy. He argues that although the play is put in a rural setting, the play still presents a “city commonwealth” which turns it into a city comedy: “in this instance the ‘city’ in. 治政大 it is the English ‘city question is not Vienna, Venice, Rome or even London. Rather, 立 commonwealth’: precisely the kind of place in which Shakespeare himself was. ‧ 國. 學. educated and grew up, to which he subsequently returned in later life” (205).. ‧. Withington points out a new direction to current studies on city comedy: urban. sit. y. Nat. behaviors, urban language, and the symbolic meaning of a city were more important. io. er. than the geographical and physical space of a city. As John Michael Archer notes, “a play need not be set in a city or town to sustain such urban language” (24).. al. n. v i n Ch Shakespeare’s connection to city comedy came not only e n g c h i U from his own plays but. also from his relation to other contemporary playwrights. It is necessary to remember that Shakespeare and Jonson influenced each other during the period. As Ruth Morse observes, “both Shakespeare and Jonson exploited aspects of each other’s characteristic plotting and typing” (178). When Jonson produced successful city comedies such as Every Man in His Humour, Shakespeare might have been influenced by the way Jonson put sharp criticism, dark humor, and topical urban references in his play. Some other city comedies were even mistaken as Shakespeare’s. The London Prodigal, a city comedy produced and performed from. . 6.

(17) 1603 to 1605, was once mistaken as Shakespeare’s and was published in his Third Folio of 1664 and the Fourth Folio of 1685. Although the play’s authorship was confused, it revealed that Shakespeare’s concerns and writing style were overlapped with those of Jonson, Middleton, or Marston. Dieter Mehl even finds similarities between The London Prodigal and Measure for Measure, including questionable disguised father’s figures and their own moral ambiguity in both plays (167-69). Jacobean city comedies usually look at city life more bitterly than comedies in the previous period. While city comedies in the Elizabethan tradition only glorify the city of London as shown in the plays by Thomas Heywood and Samuel Rowley,. 治政 Jacobean city comedies tend to be darker and more大 cynical. Darryll Grantley 立. observes that “Heywood’s and (to a lesser extent) Rowley’s plays are the last in this. ‧ 國. 學. particularly Elizabethan trope of plays exalting the City and casting its citizens in a. ‧. heroic light” (94). Compared to Elizabethan city comedies, which often focus on the. sit. y. Nat. heroic and glorified side of the city, Jacobean city comedies capture the darker. io. er. corners of the city, including brothels, taverns, market places, and even prisons. While being darker, bitterer, and more cynical, Jacobean city comedies also shake off. al. n. v i n C h and offer a U the previous traditions of glorification e n g c h i critique of Jacobean politics.. Gibbons suggests that “the dramatists of city comedy articulated a radical critique of their age. They dramatized conflicting forces in the confused development from the England of Elizabeth towards the Civil War” (4). Even though one might question how “radical” these critiques could have been, Jacobean city comedies do contain sharper social observations than the ones in the previous period. Some may argue that Jacobean city comedies tend to become a kind of “urban morality play,” with lowlife characters representing different types of Vice figures. For example, Pompey in Measure for Measure stands for lust, while Lucio stands for. . 7.

(18) slander. Normally, these figures would eventually be suppressed in order to bring the order back. However, to claim that Jacobean city comedies are simply “urban morality plays” is to oversimplify the rather complicated genre. Gibbons notes that Jacobean city comedies combine traditions of medieval morality play, Roman intrigue comedy, and even Italian commedia dell’arte: …the satiric impulse in city comedy finds formal expression through a new combination of inherited traditions: that of the Morality—and in particular the recent dramatic kinds, the Estates Morality and the Tudor Interlude—and, on the other hand, a native tradition of popular comedy fused with classical. 治政大 dell’arte. (12) Roman intrigue comedy and with the living commedia 立. It is the combination of all of the above dramatic traditions that make Jacobean city. ‧ 國. 學. comedy complicated.. ‧. Jacobean city comedies thus embody contradiction. On the one hand, it has. sit. y. Nat. conventional vice figures from the traditions of medieval morality play. The ending. io. er. of the play, when the order finally comes back, also implies a moralistic message. On the other hand, it has the subversive spirit of Roman intrigue comedies and the festive. al. n. v i n C h Gibbons comments atmosphere of Italian commedia dell’arte. e n g c h i U on the contradiction:. “the Morality tradition and intrigue comedy involve basically contradictory attitudes to society: combining them in a typical city comedy generates a dialogue in which high-minded theory confronts low-life experience of the city” (5). Gibbons further points out how this kind of contradiction appears in works by the major playwrights— including Jonson, who prides himself on an elevated form of writing: “[Jonson’s] strong appetites, his creative yet potentially anarchic comic imagination, were in tension with his classicist’s discipline and shaping intelligence” (6).. . 8.

(19) What comes with the satiric spirit and the portrayal of a darker side of the city is Londoner’s self-consciousness. More and more playwrights in this period put allusions to certain urban locations, behaviors, events and character types on the stage. It shows that people living in London—including those who were born and grew up in London, those immigrating from the country, and those coming from foreign cities—were more and more aware of the urban environment around them. The citizens of London also showed “a new interest in describing their surroundings” and “unprecedented attempts to analyse their society” (Manley 75) as well as “increased levels of public consciousness, participation and power out-with the monarchical. 治政大 increased when more and court” (Withington 203). Londoners’ self-consciousness 立 more books on London—such as John Stow’s A Survey of London, published in. ‧ 國. 學. 1598—and foreign observations on the city were published. Of course, when most of. ‧. the populace could not read, they relied on dramatic representation of urban behaviors. sit. y. Nat. and character types to recognize themselves. As Gibbons comments:. io. er. We have seen how the plays are set more and more frequently in London itself: a crowded, confusing maze of streets, business houses and brothels,. al. n. v i n law courts, prisons C andhinns. These settings e n g c h i U are evidently meant to interest an audience for whom they are familiar in daily life. The distinctive emphasis on London may reflect the city’s growing self-consciousness. (118) Jacobean city comedies were produced out of the city’s “growing self-consciousness.” With many city allusions and topical references represented on the stage, the audience was able to identify themselves or other familiar people around them, which became their source of pleasure and mirth. City comedy’s topicality then became one of its biggest characteristics. Although some of the plays were taken from other Continental European tales—. . 9.

(20) including Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure—or were derived from earlier dramatic traditions, Jacobean city comedies could still be recognized as a unique genre because they often embody a great number of topical allusions. It was the comedy’s topicality that deeply connected it to its audience. The audience enjoyed the plays mostly because they could easily recognize familiar places and urban behaviors on the stage. Griswold comments on the topicality of Jacobean city comedies: Topicality was one of city comedy’s most prominent attractions. These plays amused their audiences by giving stylized expression to the urban sophistication, shared knowledge, and common sense of Londoners at a. 治政大everyone likes to have particular historical moment. To put it colloquially, 立 implicitly assuming that they had it. (35). 學. ‧ 國. the inside dope, and city comedy dramatists flattered their audiences by. ‧. Griswold points out the interesting relationship between the playwrights and the. sit. y. Nat. audience. The playwrights knew what kind of city allusions would please the. io. er. audience, and the audience would respond to the allusions as a way to demonstrate their understanding of urban topicality. Together they built up a “signifying process.”. al. n. v i n C hplaces that pleasedUthe audience. It was the Sometimes it was not the familiar engchi. fantastic, relatively unknown urban locations that fascinated the audience. As. Grantley notes, “places that are not within the lived experience of most audience members, such as law courts, prisons, brothels or dubious taverns, are introduced for their intrinsic fascination” (97). Here, we need to problematize the concept of “the audience” as well, since “the audience” in the Elizabethan and Jacobean London was composed of heterogeneous people of different social levels. Spectators from various social positions may find different locations fascinating. For young gentlemen and law students, locations such as brothels or taverns may be exciting. For the general. . 10.

(21) public who was familiar with the “low” places, places such as law courts—as appeared in The Merchant of Venice—may have been much more attractive than brothels and taverns. But all in all, when the audience went to the theatre, they saw urban locations represented on the stage. They could either be flattered by their own familiarity with certain urban locations or be fascinated with places that were relatively unknown to them. Jacobean city comedies provided them with both familiarity and fascination. While deploying topical allusions and jokes, the playwrights of course needed to make the allusions less obvious in order to evade censorship. Since all plays had to. 治政大 of Revels, “whose be delivered to the court to be examined by the Master(s) 立 1. censorship seldom admitted of any appeal” (Bentley 145), the playwrights needed to. ‧ 國. 學. balance between pleasing the audience and evading censorship. Griswold explains. ‧. the importance of managing the balance: “Londoners enjoyed being knowledgeable. sit. y. Nat. about persons as well as places, but here the dramatists needed to exercise discretion.. io. er. Direct or obvious allusions to influential people provoked censorship. Explicit references to political figures were especially dangerous” (35). However, numerous. al. n. v i n plays still keep their flavorsC andhappeals with “juicy” e n g c h i U allusions despite the censorship. Although there were still some cases in which the playwrights were punished for. using political allusions—for example, Middleton’s A Game at Chess, in which James I was portrayed as the “White King”—the playwrights still managed to please their audience without provoking censorship.. 1.3 City Comedy and Popular Performative Politics. . 1. The Elizabethan Master of Revels was Edmund Tilney. In the Jacobean era, there were two Masters, George Buc and John Astley (Bentley 147).. . 11.

(22) Pleasing the audience with topical allusions, Jacobean city comedies present us with a “popular performative politics.” Here, the concept “popular performative politics” can be approached in two ways. First, in terms of the plays themselves, many Jacobean city comedies depict a world in which lowlife characters, such as pimps and urban rascals, survive well. These characters may even have a better understanding of the changing urban world than other more “respectable” characters. Griswold suggests that “the genre celebrates the adventures of urban and urbane rascals operating in the wide-open economic milieu of Renaissance London” (14). She also “traces” the genealogy of the trickster character and discovers that it comes. 治政 from Roman comedy (the Parasite) and medieval morality 大 play (Vice character), 立. before finally becoming the trickster / rascal character in city comedy. This dramatic. ‧ 國. 學. figure is connected to the continued moral ambiguity in most of the Jacobean city. ‧. comedies. The rogues are often mildly punished or even go unpunished throughout. sit. y. Nat. the plays. Pompey, Barnardine and Lucio in Measure for Measure serve as good. io. er. examples. Pompey is taken to prison, but soon he feels “at home” because all his old customers are there. Later he becomes an apprentice to the hangman, carrying on his. al. n. v i n C h is supposed to beUexecuted by the Duke, but old business with a new title. Barnardine engchi again he escapes at the end of the play and remains absolutely free and unpunished. Lucio seems to be “punished” by the Duke for his slanders. But is marrying the prostitute a real punishment despite his complaints about it? The continuance of moral ambiguity is also related to the “cynical” nature of Jacobean city comedies. Griswold explains the cynicism of Jacobean city comedy: “city comedy offers a relentlessly cynical view of human motivations. Greed, vanity, and lust drive the characters to action. The dramatists satirize this behavior, but except for Jonson in his earlier plays, they don’t seem to expect anything better” (23). The first aspect of the. . 12.

(23) “popular performative politics” is connected to a morally ambiguous urban underworld staged at a public playhouse in which the lowlife characters evade punishment, survive well, and even prosper. The second aspect of the “popular performative politics” is concerned with how the morally ambiguous urban underworld was closely connected to its audience. As mentioned previously, the audience loved to recognize familiar urban locations and character types on the stage. The whole theatregoing experience was also a signifying process. The audience not only recognized the urban underworld where the rascals and the pimps prospered but also celebrated it. Going to a city comedy and. 治政大 could also become a festive identifying themselves with the lowlife characters onstage 立 experience in which people were temporarily liberated from order and discipline. As. ‧ 國. 學. Stock and Zwierlein notes:. ‧. As a novel and fashionable part of a highly theatrical culture, civic drama. sit. y. Nat. rose to popularity on the back of the religious rites and seasonal festivals that. io. er. had been suppressed by the protestant reformers as ungodly, immoral and disorderly, and its success depended to a considerable extent on fulfilling the. al. n. v i n C h a temporary community festive function of creating of playgoers. (16) engchi U. It is this temporary communal sense of freedom and mirth that connected the audience to the lowlife characters on the stage. They formed a temporal community at the public playhouse, enjoying moments of festive riots and popular mirth, freeing themselves from traditions and disciplines. To sum up, two aspects are involved in the “popular performative politics.” The first is the staging of an urban underworld in which the lowlife characters prosper. The second is the audience’s recognition and even celebration of that underworld, making theatergoing and watching a city comedy itself a liberating festive experience.. . 13.

(24) 1.4 Chapter Organization Besides the introduction serving as the first chapter, the thesis is further divided into three chapters. The second chapter, “Urban Vulgar Culture and the Bawdy Politics,” analyzes Measure for Measure and its representation of urban vulgar culture. At the beginning of the play, Vienna is represented as a “vile body,” which both confirms and unsettles the early modern body politic, since the vile body stays “ill” till the very end of the play. Vienna in the play is a representation of early modern London. The early modern suburban London, famous for its “criminal underworld,”. 治政大 by either the court was also a “vile body” that refused to be governed and disciplined 立 or the city fathers. The play not only stages the underworld of London before its. ‧ 國. 學. audience but also invites them to experience how this urban vulgar culture permeates. ‧. every part of the city, including the houses of prostitution in the suburbs and a. sit. y. Nat. “bawdyhouse” in the prison. While the play seems to confirm Duke Vincentio’s. io. er. control and regulation of the city, the bawdy figures provide us with an alternative reading of the play, revealing the survival and even the rise of the urban vulgar. al. n. v i n C hher business. Pompey, culture. Mistress Overdone continues e n g c h i U who appears to be. transformed into a hangman and thus be contained by the legal institution, actually turns the prison into a bawdyhouse with his vulgar language and his old customers as prisoners. Lucio’s constant slanders of the Duke turns the highly respectable and authoritative figure into a laughingstock. With these vivid characters and their bawdy language, urban vulgar culture thus becomes the alternative center of the play. The third chapter, “Civic Pageantry and the Return of the Whoremaster,” relates Jacobean civic pageantry to the play’s intriguing final scene, in which the Duke stages a royal entry. Civic pageantry was part of London citizens’ living experience. While. . 14.

(25) civic pageantries had long been used by monarchs to demonstrate their power, such as those by Elizabeth I, James I’s resistance to participating in his own pageantry revealed his fear of public discourses and his careful management of reputation and honor. This careful management of public image and royal reputation is also represented in the play’s final scene. However, even during the final scene, Lucio does not stop his slanders of both the Duke and his alter ego, the friar. He not only turns the Duke into a mockable figure but also ruins the Duke’s reputation and honor, which the latter tries carefully to protect throughout the whole play. Thus, in the final scene, the audience does not witness the return of a respectable ruler, but the rise of a lascivious whoremaster.. 立. 政治大. The fourth chapter, “Mock King and the Politics of Clowning,” puts the play into. ‧ 國. 學. its cultural, social, and historical backgrounds, theorizing a popular performative. ‧. politics that is deeply connected to the lowlife figures on the stage. Measure for. sit. y. Nat. Measure belonged to the wave of disguised ruler plays after 1603, the year when. io. er. Elizabeth I died and when James I became the king of England. This wave of drama was closely connected to the “mock king tradition,” in which the dramatists staged a. al. n. v i n C hto show the properUway to rule. The thesis argues that mock king on the stage in order engchi Duke Vincentio, who resembled James I in many aspects, could possibly stand for a “mock king,” too. This mock king tradition is best exemplified by the clown in Measure for Measure, Lucio, who invites the audience to laugh at the Duke and challenges his authority established in earlier scenes. The counter power of the clown and the laugh of the audience subvert a normative reading of the play. Lucio eventually stands for the general lowlife public on the stage, forming a community with the audience through bawdy jokes and unruly laughter. It is exactly this power. . 15.

(26) of popular mirth that turns the play from an endorsement of the ruler’s authority to a celebration of the lowlife citizens. The fifth chapter is the conclusion. The chapter reveals how this current thesis can serve as the starting point of a new studies—Shakespeare’s city comedy. The thesis is actually the beginning, not the end, of a continuing research project focusing on Shakespeare’s city comedies and the politics of urban cultures.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. . Ch. engchi. 16. i n U. v.

(27) Chapter 2 Urban Vulgar Culture and the Bawdy Politics. 2.1 City of the Underworld What Measure for Measure reflects is a city of the underworld. This urban underworld is filled with taverns, hot-houses, brothels, and of course, public playhouses. It is also where infamous urban characters, including rascals, pimps, bawds, prostitutes, and whoremasters, survive and even thrive. Interestingly, this city. 治政大 and his audience were of the underworld is not unlike the place where Shakespeare 立 living. Shakespeare staged this underworld through affluent urban references and. ‧ 國. 學. topical jokes. His audience recognized these topical references and the world that. ‧. they were living in. As Ivo Kamps and Karen Raber observe, “although Measure for. sit. y. Nat. Measure is set in Vienna, its original audiences would have recognized not a foreign. io. er. world of crime, prostitution, and punishment, but their own local surroundings” (251). Eventually, Shakespeare and his audience built up a signifying process together.. al. n. v i n C h of early modern There were multiple definitions e n g c h i U London. A distinction must be. made between London and the “city” of London. The city of London in the period originally signified a limited space within the old city walls governed by the city authorities. The boundary of the “city” and the jurisdiction of the city fathers. expanded through time, however. Janette Dillon explores the changing history of the City of London: The most restricted of these is the use of the term to refer to the area within the old city walls, which still had powerful symbolic force in the way the inhabitant or visitor experienced the space of London. Since the early. . 17.

(28) thirteenth century, however, the area governed by the city of London authorities had extended beyond the walls to what were known as the ‘bars’ (marked by posts or gates on the main roads). Other areas had been added since then: the city gained possession of the borough of Southwark, for example, in 1550, and further significant changes were part of the city’s new charter of 1608. (9) Dillon notes that the jurisdiction of city authorities had been expanding, from within the old city walls to the “bars,” from the “bars” to the borough of Southwark. However, the suburbs, in which all the infamous popular entertainments thrived, were. 治政大outside of the still beyond the city jurisdiction. The suburbs not only stood 立. jurisdiction but were also “fast expanding and encroaching on the fields and villages. ‧ 國. 學. that surrounded the city” (Dillon 9).. ‧. Beyond the jurisdiction of the City of London, city fathers still attempted to. sit. y. Nat. close down theatres, “pluck down” brothel houses, and impose legal regulations upon. io. er. the suburbs since they deemed the place not only sinful and morally degenerate but also dangerous and, even worse, riotous. As Sharpe points out, an “unlawful. al. n. v i n assembly of twelve or more personsC toh continue riotously U e n g c h i for more than an hour” (71). would be considered a riot, which was a felony during the period. In such a place like the city’s suburbs, an “unlawful assembly of twelve or more persons” could be easily found in a tavern, a brothel, or, a public playhouse. Moreover, people who crowded this space were usually those of the lower types. There were “excessive numbers of idle, indigent, dissolute and dangerous persons, and the pestering of many of them in small and strait room” (Larkin & Hughes 47). This was why city authorities attempted to close down public theatres and pluck down brothels for several times and deemed them as places of disorder, chaos, and potential riots. The closing down of. . 18.

(29) theatres and brothels should be understood as more than an attempt to stop the spread of plagues. It was a form of political control and “an attempt to regulate not the vice, nor…the spread of venereal disease, but the criminal underworld” (Dollimore, “Transgression and Surveillance” 76). Despite the city authorities’ attempt to regulate and control the suburban area, it continued to expand and flourish during both the Elizabethan and the Jacobean periods. By the end of the sixteenth century, London was already the center of numerous commercial transactions and foreign travellers, including the Dutch and French protestants who “found religious asylum in the city” (Engel 42). William E.. 治政大 Engel observes the urban growth of early modern London: 立. By the time Hamlet and Twelfth Night were in repertoire, London had. ‧ 國. 學. become one of the most populous urban centres in Europe… by the end of. ‧. Elizabeth’s reign there was extensive development outside the walls: greater. sit. y. Nat. London had about 50,000 people at the beginning of the sixteenth century. io. er. and 200,000 by the end. (41). The growth of population contributed to popular entertainments in the suburban area,. al. n. v i n a less regulated space for jobCseekers, players, and infamous characters. As Engel h e nlow gchi U further notes, the increase of people resulted in “a need for more taverns, shops, and. theatres, and led to expanded commercial networks of all kinds” (42). Andrew Gurr also points out that “[a]mphitheatres, baiting-houses, prize-fights and whorehouses were always within reach for the great majority of the working population as well as the wealthy” (12). These popular entertainments built up a city underworld for people of all classes, though mostly of the lower kinds. This was probably why John Stow revealed an ambivalent attitude towards London in his A Survey of London, published in 1598. Stow’s attitude was contradictory, embodying both a “conservative response. . 19.

(30) to the erosion of late medieval traditions of hospitality” and a “progressive celebration of new socio-economic mobility and metropolitan growth” of the city (Smith, Strier & Bevington 3). Increasing population and popular entertainments made the city’s suburban area a democratizing space in which lowlife characters, such as Falstaff in Henry IV, and Pompey, Mistress Overdone, and Lucio in Measure for Measure, would survive well. It was exactly the lively popular entertainments and the lowlife city characters that helped shape Shakespeare’s imaginative world. David L. Smith, Richard Strier, and David Bevington argue that Shakespeare “had an awareness of the ‘resilience’ of. 治政大 social conditions of London” (4). Stephen Longstaff also suggests that “the unique 立. London, a city always in flux and at the forefront of social change, greatly helped the. ‧ 國. 學. development of the unique theatrical conditions of Shakespeare’s day” (58). The. ‧. lowlife “city characters” represented in Shakespeare’s plays, such as Falstaff,. sit. y. Nat. Mistress Overdone, Lucio, and Pompey, actually reflected a broader picture of the. io. er. city underworld in the early modern London.. The “underworld” of London became a symbol of moral degeneration in several. al. n. v i n CWhetstone city writings. The writing of George vividly captured the h e n g(1544-1587) chi U “criminal” underworld of London, in which “[a]llies, gardens and other obscure. corners out of the common walks of the Magistrate” were filled with “masterless men, needy shifters, thieves, cutpurses, unthrifty servants, both serving men and prentices” (Izard 140). In Donald Lupton’s description of London in 1632, London, referred to as a “she,” stood for a center of decay, sins, and uncontrollable desire. She is grown so great that I am almost afraid to meddle with her. She’s certainly a great world, there are so many little worlds in her. She is the great beehive of Christendom, I am sure of England. She swarms four times a year,. . 20.

(31) with people of all ages, natures, sexes, callings; decay of trade, the pestilence, and a long vacation are three scarecrows to her… she seems to be a glutton, for she desires always to be full… she may be said to be always with child, for she grows greater every day than other. She is the countryman’s labyrinth; he can find many things in it, but many times loseth himself. (Lupton B-B2v) Lupton’s writing on London was anti-city. By portraying London as a growing glutton, he showed not only his condemnation of such a sinful place but also his fear of such a fast-expanding underworld. The suburban London was all that was associated with earthly sins, unfulfilled desires, and people of the lower kinds.. 治政大 between the country Lupton also attempted to build up a common dichotomy 立. (represented as the chaste and the innocent) and the city (represented as the sinful and. ‧ 國. 學. the sophisticated), warning the countrymen not to “lose themselves” in such a. ‧. “beehive” and a “labyrinth.”. sit. y. Nat. The suburban area of London was exactly like a beehive, which attracted. io. er. disreputable men and lowlife characters. As G. Blakemore Evans observes, the area “attracted, like bees to the honey-pot, large numbers of undesirables (rogues,. al. n. v i n C h ‘cony-catchers’—confidence vagabonds, prostitutes, pickpockets, men (and women) engchi U of all shades and varieties) who made their living by preying on an all-too-gullible. public” (204). It is worth noticing that in Evans’s description, the “undesirable men” and the public places are connected. A brothel, a bath-house (or a “hot house” in early modern terms), a tavern, or even a public playhouse would not have been regarded as a sinful place if they did not attract many masterless men and infamous characters. Gamini Salgado also reveals that “most theatre owners…were brothels owners too” (58). What made public playhouses and brothels deeply connected was that they did share the same clientele. Taverns, which Falstaff might have visited. . 21.

(32) frequently with Hal before the young prince becomes Henry V, were not any better. Concerning the criminal underworld of Elizabethan and Jacobean London, Evans finally concludes that, The underworld of Elizabethan-Jacobean England was dangerously well populated, both in the cities (particularly London) and in the countryside. The harsh economic conditions under which some 90 percent of the population subsisted were a natural breeding-ground for criminal elements, and, if we may accept the numerous contemporary accounts of their felonious activities, they were highly successful in pillaging the public. 治政大 such ‘rogues and despite the various acts passed by Parliament to control 立 vagabonds.’ (226). ‧ 國. 學. Clearly, despite the attempt to regulate and control the space, the suburban area and. ‧. the masterless men continued to survive and even flourish.. sit. y. Nat. It was this underworld that Shakespeare captured in Measure for Measure. In. io. er. fact, Shakespeare was not the first playwright to stage such an underworld. While both Giraldi Cinthio’s novella Hecatommithi (1565) and George Whetstone’s Promos. al. n. v i n Ch and Cassandra (1578) served as Shakespeare’s materials for Measure for e n gsource chi U. Measure, it was Whetstone who included an “additional social stratum” and added “an active and vibrant world of minor officials and common people” (Thomas 71) to Cinthio’s tale.2 Scholars have found that Promos and Cassandra might have been the main source for Shakespeare, for it contains “scenes of low life that correspond to similar scenes in Measure for Measure” (Tillyard, Shakespeare’s Problem Plays 130). However, what makes Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure different from Whetstone’s dramatization of the underworld was Shakespeare’s ambivalent and even . 2. . For a further discussion on Shakespeare’s use of his source materials, see Thomas pp. 67-80. 22.

(33) sympathetic attitude towards the low life. As Thomas suggests, in Measure for Measure, “we don’t see a poor populace ground down by corrupt officials, but rather an underworld of rampant sexuality and prostitution which appears impervious to the most biting laws” (72). Shakespeare also incorporated topical allusions and contemporary politics into his play in order to attract his audience, whose “pervasive fascination with all these types of criminals” and “hunger for inside information, for ‘true to life’ depictions, for juicy stories” (Kamps & Raber 257) would have drawn them to such a dramatic representation of the urban criminal underworld. It is this inclusion of topical news that further makes Measure for Measure distinct from its source materials.. 立. 政治大. The representation of the city’s underworld could also be seen as part of the. ‧ 國. 學. dramatic traditions of Jacobean city comedies. Evans notes that “[d]ramatists found. ‧. the underworld of town and country a useful source for characters and sometimes for. sit. y. Nat. plot situations…city comedy was a natural habitat for cheats and sharpers of all. io. er. shades” (228). A city comedy not only captured the world of the suburban area but also was staged within the space itself. It was a representation of the city’s. al. n. v i n C hunderworld itself.UIt was more than a reflection of underworld put in that particular engchi the underworld, since the representation and the world were so connected that one. could not tell which reflected which anymore. A city comedy could also be seen as a “shaping force” of the underworld since it was indeed part of the public entertainments in the suburban area, and it was part of the popular culture that was seen as dangerous, immoral, and even sinful. Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, in which the city’s underworld in 1604 was put on the stage, was one of the best examples.. . 23.

(34) 2.2 The City as a Vile Body Measure for Measure begins with a discussion between Duke Vincentio and Escalus, the ancient Lord. The Duke begins the play by saying that, in terms of “government the properties” (1.1.3),3 Escalus knows more about the city and its government than he does. “Government” is one of the first words that appears in Measure for Measure. It becomes the key concept in the understanding of the play. The Duke then tells Escalus that he relies on his knowledge of the city’s popular and social customs in order to govern it well, The nature of our people,. 治政大 Our city’s institutions, and the terms 立 For common justice, y’are as pregnant in. ‧ 國. 學. As art and practice hath enriched any. ‧. That we remember. (1.1.9-13). sit. y. Nat. The Duke sees the city as an organism, which consists of the citizens, the social and. io. er. political customs, and the terms of court. The organism, however, is presently in an ill condition due to “too much liberty” (1.2.118), as Claudio later admits.. al. n. v i n Vienna is thus represented as aC “vile As the play goes on, it is revealed h ebody.” ngchi U. that the city as an organism goes rotten because moral degeneracy filled every layer of the society. Shakespeare employs illness and disease in the play as a series of metaphors for social illnesses. Representatives of each type of social illness from different social classes could be easily found in this play. The brothel houses run by Mistress Overdone is the representative of the lower kind of social disease. Lucio, upon seeing Overdone coming, exclaims: “Behold, behold, where Madam Mitigation comes! I have purchases as many diseases under her roof” (1.2.41-43). The term . 3. J.W. Lever, ed. Measure for Measure (London: Methuen, 1966). All subsequent references are noted parenthetically in the text.. . 24.

(35) “disease” has a twofold meaning. First, it means, literally, the sexually transmitted diseases that the brothel helps to spread. Secondly, it implies that the brothel house is the center for urban rascals, thus the source of chaos and disorder. The sexually transmitted diseases make the citizens wither away. Overindulgence in sexuality makes the society as a whole corrupt. The brothel stands for the root of social illness, the place that makes the organism of the city rot away. This is why “the houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be plucked down” (1.2.95-96). Then comes Claudio, convicted of the sin of lust: “Our natures do pursue / Like rats that ravin down heir proper bane / A thirsty evil, and when we drink we die”. 治政大 inevitable; something that (1.2.120-22). He describes the secular desire as something 立 he, driven by his “thirsty evil,” cannot help chasing after even if he knows it could be. ‧ 國. 學. poisonous. Claudio gives us another example of social illness. For common people,. ‧. lechery, which leads to premarital sex, is unavoidable. Moreover, Claudio’s sexuality. io. er. Claudio’s confession was a reference to Rattus rattus:. sit. y. Nat. was connected to the plague prevailing in the period. According to Kamps and Raber,. While the Renaissance did not recognize the specific role of Rattus rattus in. al. n. v i n C h via its fleas, the place spreading plague bacilli e n g c h i U of vermin like rats in. promoting unhealthful conditions was well known […] Claudio’s idea that sex is poison reflects a general sense that in Vienna (or London) sex is a generally unhealthy activity for both the body and the soul. (268) Similar to the diseases at Mistress Overdone’s bawdyhouse, Claudio’s degeneracy is both physical and moral, which corrupts both the body and the soul. It threatens the order of the body politic. Finally, the most covert but most fatal illness is the authority’s “hidden sore.” Isabella, during her argument with Angelo, observes that “[b]ecause authority, though. . 25.

(36) it err like others / Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself / That skins the vice o’th’top” (2.2.135-37). She reveals that authorities also have to take the responsibility for current social illnesses because they make mistakes and fail to restrain their sexuality like common people, but due to their high positions, they tend to cover up their sin. The sin of the authority is even more fatal than that of the commoners because the hidden sores are left unhealed, so they rot sooner. The current issue, for the Duke, is how to cure the “vile body,” namely how to bring the corrupt city back to its order. As G. M. Kendall suggests, “Vienna’s Duke must contend with a whole city in which libidinous bodies undermine the laws and. 治政大 and Jacobean power of the head of the body politic” (36). During the Elizabethan 立 periods, the government of a state or a city was commonly understood as the. ‧ 國. 學. government of a body. The concept of the early modern body politic is clearly. ‧. illustrated by E. M. W. Tillyard in his classic work, The Elizabethan World Picture.. sit. y. Nat. Tillyard explains the correspondence between the heavenly world (macrocosm)—and. io. er. the man (microcosm). The Elizabethans and Jacobeans saw the world in terms of a series of hierarchal links, which was understood as the Great Chain of Being. The. al. n. v i n C h to the one in the U order in the heavenly world corresponds e n g c h i man, while both correspond to the political state, which is the “body politic.” As Tillyard notes, morality (and immorality) was also understood in these terms: “Morally the correspondence between macrocosm and microcosm, if taken seriously, must be impressive. If the heavens are fulfilling punctually their vast and complicated whellings, man must feel it shameful to allow the workings of his own little world to degenerate” (101). That is to say, the control of the human body is linked to the order of the heavenly world. Similarly, the government of the state is also understood as that of the body, as Tillyard continues to note: “the different functions in the state are made to correspond. . 26.

(37) to different functions of the body …the state is an organism like the human body, and each part of the body must help the others and be helped by them” (103-04). Shakespeare utilizes this thinking and employs illness and disease as a series of metaphors in this play. Thus, in Measure for Measure, the management of a corrupt state is compared to that of an ill body. This system of correspondence also reveals the Elizabethan and Jacobean beliefs in “order” and “proportion.” As Gavin Alexander observes, “the pattern of this particular inherited system helps us to understand the connectedness in this period of different kinds of order and proportion—so that a well-constructed rhyme scheme. 治政大 at the secrets of the universe” could tell us something about human nature and glance 立. (599). However, the concepts of “order” and “proportion” often lead some to assume. ‧ 國. 學. that the Elizabethans and Jacobeans readily submitted to discipline and regulation,. ‧. though it is true that “the conception of order is so taken for granted, so much part of. sit. y. Nat. the collective mind of people, that it is hardly mentioned except in explicitly didactic. io. er. passages” (Tillyard 17). Critics in the past thus tend to focus primarily on how the Duke cures social illnesses at different social levels, brings the state back to its order,. al. n. v i n C h normally as he wishes. and has the body politic function e n g c h i U This type of analysis also. perfectly fits in with the claim of some new historicists and cultural materialists that the early modern stage was the center of state power and dominant ideology. The city as a “vile body” in Measure for Measure, however, both confirms and unsettles the early modern concept of body politic. On the one hand, the play confirms the body politic by comparing the government of the state to the government of the body. On the other hand, it resists the dominant concept by maintaining the “ill condition” of the body. Vienna as a “body” remains “uncured” at the very end of the play. The social illnesses remain in the city despite the Duke’s attempt to cure them.. . 27.

(38) Mistress Overdone continues her business at a hot-house. Pompey finds himself at home with his old customers in the prison. In other words, the prison does not reform the pimp. Instead, the pimp turns the prison into a “bawdyhouse.” Lucio, the slanderous whoremaster, is not really “punished” by marrying the prostitute. The marriage symbolizes the continuance, instead of the containment, of the rascal’s sexual desire. The play starts with the city as a “vile body” and ends with its ill condition. Shakespeare subtly deploys disorder and disruption besides well-perceived order and pattern of the play. The play thus disturbs the early modern body politic by staging a “vile city” that remains ill through the very end of the story.. 立. 政治大. 2.3 Houses of Prostitution in the Suburbs. ‧ 國. 學. In Measure for Measure, the house of prostitution is the center of disorder and. ‧. chaos because people can “purchase as many diseases under [Mistress Overdone’s]. sit. y. Nat. roof” (1.2.42). To govern the city as a body, it is necessary to “pluck down” the. io. er. brothel houses. In fact, the “plucking down” of houses in the suburbs, a statement made by the pimp Pompey, was one of the topical allusions that Shakespeare. al. n. v i n Cmust employed in this play. The audience been very familiar with brothels in h ehave ngchi U the suburban area since they were located in the same area where the public. playhouses were. It was known that during the Jacobean period, “the prostitute and the brothel were established features of metropolitan life” (Sharpe 58). Brothels and prostitutes were not only an established feature of Londoners’ life but also a frequent motif on the stage. Along with a new wave of city comedies featuring houses of prostitution at the beginning of the seventeenth century,4 brothels actually became . 4. This wave of comedies include Westward Ho (1604), Northward Ho (1605), The Honest Whore, Part I (1604) and Part II (1605), The Dutch Courtesan (1604), and Michaelmas Term (1606). For a further discussion on the comedies about prostitutes and how they provided the audience with alternative modes of femininity, please see Howard, Theater of a City, pp. 114-61.. . 28.

(39) more than a random stage representation, but “a particular kind of social setting” (Howard, Theater of a City 115; original emphasis). The “plucking down” of brothels was, however, more than a general allusion to suburban lifestyle and behaviors, or another example of stage conventions. It referred to an actual governmental proclamation. As Dollimore observes, when Pompey “refers to a proclamation that ‘All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be plucked down’, there is a probable allusion to the proclamation of 16035 which provided for the demolition of property in the London suburbs in order to control the plague” (“Transgression and Surveillance” 77). Originally, controlling the plague was the. 治政大entertaining houses in the official reason to “pluck down” the brothels and other 立. suburbs. However, it soon became a form of spatial regulation and social control.. ‧ 國. 學. Dollimore notes that “as with the suppression of prostitution, plague control. ‧. legitimated other kinds of political control” (77). Lever also points out that though. sit. y. Nat. the official proclamation was generally understood as a governmental measure against. io. er. the spread of the plague in 1603, later it was enforced particularly “upon the numerous brothels and gaming houses which proliferated on the outskirts of the city”. al. n. v i n C h 2, the government’s (xxxiii). As early as Act 1 Scene e n g c h i U spatial regulation and political control of the suburbs become one of the main focuses of the play.. It is worth noticing, however, that the government’s measure becomes a topic discussed by the bawdy figures, including Lucio, Pompey, and Mistress Overdone. The discussion soon becomes complaints—complaints about how they are going to survive without their “low” business. While the measure is intended as a political control of the lowlife characters, they refuse to be disciplined and silenced. On the other hand, they make blatant complaints on the stage. Mistress Overdone shouts, 5. . The exact day of the proclamation was 16 September 1603 (Lever xxxii). 29.

(40) “Why, here’s a change indeed in the commonwealth! What shall become of me?” (1.2.96-97). While lowlife characters’ complaints occupy the scene, the supposed enforcer of the law, Duke Vincentio, is absent from the scene. The scene is defined by the presence of bawdy characters and the absence of the authority figure. It is a representation of the urban underworld, a world which belongs to all forms of lowlife living. What is more interesting is that the order is never truly carried out throughout the whole play. The play starts with the government’s spatial regulation and political control on the one hand, and ends with the bawdy figures’ continuance of business and survival on the other hand.. 治政大 The continuance of bawdy culture is the key to the understanding of the play. 立. Throughout the play, these lowlife figures change a place, switch a title, and continue. ‧ 國. 學. their old business. Right after Mistress Overdone’s complaints about living, Pompey. ‧. suggests that she need not be afraid because “good counsellors lack no clients: though. y. Nat. you change your place, you need not change your trade: I’ll be your tapster still”. er. io. sit. (1.2.98-100).6 Pompey suggests that Mistress Overdone can keep her bawdy business by opening a tavern, in which Pompey will keep his old job as a “tapster.” Later,. al. n. v i n C her Mistress Overdone actually continues When Pompey is captured, the h ebusiness. ngchi U. constable, Elbow, states that even though the brothels are plucked down in the. suburbs, the bawd now “professes a hot house” (2.1.64-65). A “hot house” was literally a bath-house. During the period, however, it was also commonly connected to a bawdyhouse and sometimes served as “blinds for houses of ill-fame” (Lever 30). That is to say, Mistress Overdone manages to continue her whoring trade in the name of a “hot-house.” . 6. Andrew Hadfield argues that the statement shows a connection between the court of James I and the profession of prostitution, “with the counsellors bringing in their wake a series of clients, suggesting that James runs his kingdom like a brothel” (192-93). For a further discussion, please see Hadfield pp. 191-93.. . 30.