Man of Mode

The introduction to my version of The Man of Mode discusses the various characters who have been thought to represent real-life figures (Dorimant as the Earl of Rochester, etc.). It then suggests that the importance of this representation lies in “the way in which they emphasize the closeness of the play to the Restoration "beau monde." What exactly is the beau monde? And, was this type of character parallel typical in Restoration drama? Would the audience have understood the connections at the time?

In Act III scene ii, Harriet and Busy discuss female “powdering, painting, and patching,” sparked by Harriet’s refusal to let Busy fix her hair and Busy’s mention of a Lady Dapper who, by opposite, is obsessively particular about her looks. Busy admits that Dapper is “too pretending,” while Harriet compares a woman who pretends beauty to a man who pretends wit. Is there a female “fop” figure? And, if so, is Harriet touching on a typical aspect of that character?

Witty Title

To what extent are Mrs. Loveit and Harriet a new type of woman in The Man of Mode? Mrs. Loveit does not simply let go of Dorimant but seeks out Flutter’s assistance, even though she hates him. She leaves on her own, cursing the rest of the play. Harriet refuses Dorimant’s advances until the end of the play. Both women act without the consent of men and seem independent. As such, does this play herald a new beginning of “woman” in this time period?

Is Man of Mode typical of restoration drama? Is the superficial subjects, numerous characters of “ill-repute” and “whorish” nature standard? Just wondering…

Man of Mode II

In one scene, the titular hero, Sir Fopling, wishes Dorimant to study himself dancing in a reflection of a mirror: "Why hast not thou a glass hung up here? A room is the dullest thing without one [... and] correct the errors of his motions and his dress" (IV.ii). But Dorimant considers it a "shadow of himself." What might this illuminate the larger issue of international style and cosmopolitan foppery? Alongside my previous question, how might the quotations from English poems complicate this relationship?

Man of Mode I

In Etherege's play, characters quote and appropriate poems and songs for various purposes, but often as a way of providing a witty aphorism that carries some sort of "authority." The original context of Edmund Waller's nationalistic poem "On the War with Spain," for instance, is quite different than the intertextual work it's being put to at the start of the play. How does this use of intertextuality work alongside the themes of foppery, courtship, and internationality?

The Man of Mode

1. The Man of Mode exhibits more female suspicion of the “hero” than plays previously read in this class. We see this suspicion especially through the character of Bellinda. After witnessing Dorimant’s poor treatment of Mrs. Loveit, Bellinda begins to fear that he will one day treat her the same way. She decides to pursue him anyway, but before becoming deeply involved in an affair with him, she makes him promise not to see Mrs. Loveit except in public, and announces that she refuses to see him for another fortnight. Seeing Dorimant at Loveit’s house shortly thereafter, Bellinda learns the relatively easy way that he is a false lover. Bellinda has averted the catastrophe that befalls such women as Angellica of The Rover. How does this evident suspicion on the part of the female conquests affect our reading of this play (especially as opposed to our reading of plays such as The Rover or The Country Wife in which Willmore and Horner successfully charm and dupe their conquests without triggering the blatant suspicion, uneasiness and even loyalty tests that we see in The Man of Mode)? What is the effect of the difference in gender dynamics between plays? What should we make of the fact that even with this difference, Harriet still remains fairly unsuspicious and marries Dorimant much as Hellena marries Willmore?
2. Early in the play, love/marriage and religion are repeatedly and critically compared. Medley states: “I confess I am but of an untoward constitution, apt to have doubts and scruples; and in love they are no less distracting than in religion. Were I so near marriage, I should cry out by fits as I ride in my coach, ‘Cuckold, cuckold!’ with no less fury than the mad fanatic does ‘Glory!’ in Bethlem” (1.1). Love/marriage and religion are presented as equal sources of anxiety, insecurity, and even madness. What does this interrogation of two such “sacred” institutions say for assumptions about love/marriage and religion? What is Etherege doing by presenting this seemingly sacrilegious comparison? How does the placement of this comparison early in the play set the mood and response of the audience to the following love/marriage plots? Meanwhile, religion is hardly mentioned again in later acts. What is it doing here?

Class Business

Is there a considerable shift in the class relations/tensions between the plays we've read before and The Man of Mode? From what I can remember, comments surrounding class-specific behavior, appearance, and modes of expression were previously introduced by and aimed toward those of a similar class - generally upper - poking fun at one another for appearing of a lower class, reminding them of when they were so, or that they can easily become so. Even comments directed at a social inferior seemed to have less severity than they do in this play. What seems to me to mark the difference is, for the earlier plays, a fear or anxiety about one's own perhaps unstable class affinity. Whereas, for The Man of Mode, there appears to be a more stable and concrete class separation that tends to produce feelings of hatred or disgust of the inferior classes rather than feelings of fear or anxiety that one appears, was, or can become a member of such a class. Is this true?


Also, I have a number of historical questions: How common would it be to see masked women on the street? What was the developing social understanding of male/male homosexuality? Or, what was the developing social understanding of male/male friendships? Everyone seems to be off to do some kind of 'business' all the time... what sort of 'business'? There seems to be this developing mystery surrounding what men do when out on 'business'. Why?

An attempt to make connections

Similarly to "The Country Wife," there are several references to "breeding" in this play.  In particular, we see much concern for the breeding of women.  This seems to be tied up in the "wit" of women.  Do these lines, and more than once speeches, reflect a historical moment in which women were gaining more access to education?  Could these also be a direct commentary (positive or negative) on the presence of actresses?  Or even a growing number of (public) female playwrights?  How can we connect this back to the Jacobean conception of the definition of proper (male) breeding?

Also present in "The Country Wife" was the presence of "the cosmopolitan."  Although we saw this in Jacobean comedy as well, the figure and attitudes towards him differ here.  Can we trace a larger social role for this stereotypical character through the 17th century?  Is this just another character absorbed into the "fop" definition Adam discussed last class?

Man of Mode

The plot in "The Man of Mode" depends on deception and pretense, "affectation" and "veneer," with the occasional praise of a character such as Emilia for being genuine. Lying is such a matter of course in the play that Young Bellair and Harriet get along famously in their partnership to deceive both their parents. Is the play commenting on a lack of genuineness in how late 17th c. londoners interacted with an related to one another? What are other possibilities for the centrality of deception in the play?

Harriet and Mrs. Loveit seem to be the only two characters who see through Dorimant's charades. Harriet concedes that Dorimant is "agreeable and pleasant," though insists he is false: "he does so much affect being so, he displeases me" (124). Mrs. L. recognizes D.'s contrived jealousy, which he uses to have reason to distance himself from her: "he is not jealous, but I will make him so, and be revenged a way he little thinks on" (129). What enables these womens' insights to D's true nature, while others have the wool pulled over their eyes?

Given the play's ambiguous title, and the many parallels between the two characters throughout, how different are Fopling and Dorimant, really? What can readings of the distinctions illuminate?

Acts of physical, material, and verbal self creation -- represented as elaborate and necessary social deceptions -- abound in The Man of Mode. Is "honesty" even possible here, or is every representation/interaction simply part of an elaborate game of gaining cultural capital?

Dorimant {taking the peach} (I,i)

The Dramatis Personae distinguishes the players by class much the same way the play attempts to set the ‘grander’ people from those street vendors and servants ‘beneath’ them. This spread is also mirrored in the theater’s viewing audience, “You have an exact account, from the great lady ‘i th’ box down to the little orange-wench.” (III,ii) Yet, many characters without titles are also intentionally even without names. From the Orange-woman and shoemaker, to the “Hampshire” guy (called so just because he hasn’t, like the other staff, been shipped back from France) a kind of social consciousness is at work here. In light of this, it is less ironic that the first scene shows Dorimant, one of the “Gentlemen” relying on one of the nameless as a matchmaker and ‘fellow’-gossip (by the way, the orange-woman serves as effective at tattling as any of the ‘ladies’ in the play.) But why won’t these well brought up people just “pay her for the fruit,” (I,i) what would be to them a mere pittance, just some loose change in their pockets? It seems like they are stringing them along in order to extract more information rather than choice produce. Is it more annoying for the orange-woman to be constantly asking for money than for the upper class to be avoiding their part of the exchange?

Fanning the Flame

Many in The Man of Mode relish vexing the opposite sex, and no object appears to signal the flurry that ensues more so than the fan. Dorimant introduces how this gadget functions early on, “I have not had the pleasure of making a woman so much as break her fan, to be sullen, or forswear herself, these three days.” (I,i). Next, Medley announces how this masque (vizard) serves the victim, “She could not have picked out a devil upon earth so proper to torment her. H’as made her break a dozen or two of fans already, tear half a score points to pieces and destroy hoods and knots without number.” (II,i) But fans are also used as tools for etiquette class, as in the scene between Young Bellair and Harriet where its uses are unlimited, “At one motion play your fan, roll your eyes, and then settle a kind look upon me,” and Now spread your fan, look down upon it, and tell the sticks with a finger.” Further on, the acting lesson continues, but this time the stunts are more physically challenging, “Clap your fan, then both in your hands, snatch it to your mouth, smile, and with a lively motion fling your body a little forwards. So! Now spread it, fall back on the sudden, cover your face with it, and break out into a loud laughter.—Take up! Look grave and fall a-fanning to yourself. Admirably well acted!” (III,ii) How are woman associated or compared with the kind of instrument they use for deception?

It’s Not About You, Sir!

The Man of the Mode is meant not so much to satirize a type of character as to mirror the audience’s adjustment with the period by pointing out it “represents ye all.” In both the Prologue and the Epilogue, London’s manners and attitudes are being wrestled with, where on “the stage like you, will be more foppish grow.” This organic relationship of stage/audience/stage keeps renewing afresh, “’tis not so wise an age/But your own follies may supply the stage.” Scroope and Dryden are clear that neither make judgments upon the other because, like playwrights, “men grow dull when they begin to be particular.” (III,iii) Instead, this play reveals the time and place’s interest with itself, but not to the detriment of isolating the individual from the whole, “Yet every man is safe from what he feared,/For no one fool is hunted from the herd.”

The Man of Mode

In Act 1.1 (pg96) the Shoemaker states, "...there's never a man i' the town lives more like a gentleman with his wife than I do. I never mind her motions; she never inquires into mine..." Strangely, once again, this seems to be the best method for a successful marriage for the time. I just wonder, do people feel that, since Young Bellair seemed naive, will the shoemakers marriage be more successful. By disobeying his father, it seems he would be in a better situation than the Shoemaker, but true love never succeeds in these plays.

Each of these characters seems to have ties to the country, or have strong knowledge of it. When the dances are played, the constantly refer to the music as the "country fiddle". I assume this was popular for the time, but is it popular for a group of people who lie on the fringe of the city? Was it more popular in the country? For people who seem to detest the country, it seems strange to me that the popular music seems to come from there.

Topicality and Ill-fashioned fellows

In a footnote in my edition of The Man of Mode, David Wormersley refers to the "extreme topicality" of the play. While we have seen many contemporaneous allusions in plays throughout the semester - particularly as they relate to fashionable places in the city of London - references to pastimes, people, places and fashions of the moment do indeed seem extreme in Etherege's play. What makes this play more of a particular cultural moment than other plays we have read this semester, perhaps even more so than The Country Wife? How is it related to its own time? What kind of cultural capital is important in The Man of Mode in comparison with other plays?

What is the purpose of the intrusion of "four ill-fashioned fellows" smelling of tobacco and coffee houses in III.iii? Are they merely meant to highlight the gentility of the play's main characters, particularly Sir Fopling who appears in the scene, or are they acting as a kind of parody of the men about town?

The Men of Mode

This play contains a vast quantity of verbal ticks (Flutter's lisp, the Orange-Woman's "gad", the Shoemaker's " 'zbud"). Why so many linquistic quirks and why from these characters?

What does "of mode" mean? Is Old Bellair's use of it in Act V Scene 2 complentary of derogitory?

Women and Letters

In my presentation on The Man of Mode, I focus on masculinity and the construction of the gentleman. There is also a related topic: femininity and the construction of the gentlewoman. How do the female characters use rhetoric and action to construct themselves as gentility? Do women also rely on wit, charm, and power? How do Harriet, Emilia, Loveit, and Bellinda reflect and refract the feminine?

Dorimant sends a number of letters throughout the play. For example, he sends Mrs. Loveit a letter, all the while setting her up for a fight and end to their relationship. Dorimant also receives a letter from Molly, who appears to be a prostitute. What are the roles of these letters in the larger scope of the play? Why does Etherege include such letters? What rhetorical and theatrical purposes do they serve?

Out with the old...

Members of the older generation in Etherege's play occasionally reference the "old" way of doing things, as opposed to the "new" -- in fashion, courting, dancing, etc. Given that The Man of Mode was staged in 1676, is it feasible to read these references as capturing a lingering nostalgia for pre-war styles, or are they merely generational markers? Considering the ongoing popularity of adaptations and "improvements" of pre-war plays, was there a palpable sense of historical divide in the theatre of the 1670s?

Sin as a means of social mobility

In I.i, Dorimant's shoemaker makes some pointed remarks about the apparent socio-economic stratification of sin: when Medley charges the shoemaker with having "brought the envy of the world upon you by living above yourself. Whoring and swearing are vices too genteel for a shoemaker", the laborer replies with "'Zbud, I think you men of quality will grow as unreasonable as the women: you would engross the sins o' the nation. Poor folks can no sooner be wicked but th'are railed at by their betters."

Is this perception of specific vices as belonging to specific classes a Restoration representation of "blue collar" and "white collar" immorality? (A fruitful comparison might be made to De Flores in "The Changeling".)

Commerce and Acting in A Man of Mode

“Admirably well acted!”
In 3.2, Harriet and Young Bellair “instruct” each other’s “look and gestures” in order to pretend to be lovers. Bellair claims it was “admirably well acted!” (116). In 3.3, Harriet teases Dorimant, and “Acts him,” asking “is this not like you?” (126). It seems all the more self-referential to have the characters engage in this sort of play. How is this sort of “acting” different from what we’ve seen before? Is it more like "mimicking," which is a phrase that pops up occasionally in the play? What does it suggest about the society of A Man of Mode, and about those watching the play?

Selling Oranges, Selling Information
Within the first scene, we are thrust into a sort of “commerce of gossip” with the character of the (rather sassy) orange-woman. When Dorimant refuses her fruit, she provokes him with hints about Harriet’s arrival in town, and he in turn refuses to pay her until she divulges more information. In a play full of the romps and romances of the idle rich, I am intrigued by the role of this lower-class woman, as well as the various footmen, servants, etc. in the play. Is the gossip in this play truly like an economy on its own? What do we make of the orange-woman’s character and her place in this universe?

Rhetorically Drunk

Early in IV.i, Dorimant, as Mr. Courtage, mockingly laments the loss of "forms and ceremonies, the only things that uphold quality and greatness" (133). Is he just leading Lady Woodvill on? Or could the play be theorizing the truth of a larger social issue?

After being chastised by Dorimant, the Shoemaker says something interesting; "You would engross the sins o' the nation" (I.i. p.96). Is he pointing out something like a trend of appropriation by dispossession? Or are the Shoemaker's lines indicative of a call for the end of an aristocratic moral hypocrisy?

Reputation; Fops a la Francaise

How does Dorimant’s attitude toward reputation and public display contrast with Horner’s from The Country Wife? How do their respective attitudes toward reputation intersect with their temperaments toward women?

With all the pressure put on fops in this play (the staging of, debates over, commentaries on, etc.), how much are fops stand-ins for cultural dismissals of French style and fashion? Are fops just another body through which anti-French humor (an English theatrical staple) is transmitted?

Modes of malice and self-analysis

Malice as entertainment
"Malice," "Malicious" and other forms of the word are used frequently in "Man of Mode," sometimes in ways that suggest the fun of being malicious. Is this an amoral world that delights in malice, and if so, is it in any way "redeemed" by the end of the play? (I'm thinking of Dorimant's surprising kindness to the women he's thrown over.)

Self-Analysis
The characters take self-conscious pains to scrutinize their own and everyone else's behavior, going so far as to describe and enact gestural minutia. Does this tendency to "tell, not show" or to "narrate the action" seem like an effective use of a medium (the theater) that exists as a world of show? What does it show us beyond the "manners" being satirized?

Deep Play

On two different occasions, Dorimant refers to "deep play." He says that "deep play is now in private houses." By counterbalancing this "deep play" with "play in public spaces," is Etherege creating a metaphor for public and private theaters? What is the importance of the distinction between private and public "play" in this work?

Etherege's Senex

In the first act, Medley likens Bellair's disobedience to his father as "but despising a coach, humbling yourself to a pair of galoshes," etc--i.e. it is a petty, almost quotidian social task. Both Old Bellair and Lady Woodvill complain about "youth these days" several times in the play, hinting at the young/old divide commonplace to comedy. The senex is certainly not completely diminished here, but what is the role of this "stock" character?

Poor Mrs. Pinchwife

Through Horner’s exposure of the true nature of “virtuous” women, the play criticizes hypocrisy—affecting virtue to uphold one’s reputation appears to be a greater sin than the act that threatens to sully that reputation in the first place. Why, then, is Mrs. Pinchwife ultimately punished for her attempts at honesty? Horner, for all his railing against affectation, forces her to “tell more lies” in the last scene and swear virtue to her husband. Doesn’t this simply reinforce the imprisonment Pinchwife imposes on his wife for which he is ridiculed throughout the play?

Would it have been possible for Mr. and Mrs. Pinchwife to get divorced? In V.iv, Mrs. Pinchwife notes that “every day, at London here, women leave their first husbands, and go and live with other men as their wives” (210-11). At the end of the scene, she laments, “I must be a country wife still too, I find, for I can’t, like a city one, be rid of my musty husband and do what I list” (389-91). Is this simply a sign of Mrs. Pinchwife’s “country” ignorance? Even Mr. Pinchwife states that he must be a husband “against [his] will, to a country wife”—what is keeping them together?

Jokes--I like jokes...

I have always had the following problem when I read drama: I don’t really get the jokes that make a play funny (or when I do, the joke is long dead). It was only, in fact, after I read the comments on our blog and some background that I put the play into a less serious context. Yet, after the background reading, I wonder to what extent are all the dirty jokes (a lot of which I just glazed over) satire as well? I can’t get over the comparison of mistresses with books (I.i.), Horner getting himself set up with all the ladies and all the double meanings that go along with it, Horner comparing impotence with cowardice, and that Horner gets away with it all at the end, no change, no seeming remorse (is that a joke?)! To what extent are we to take the casual banter as humor when it could also be read in a more sinister and darker manner?

On the other hand, Pinchwife seems to be a bumbling idiot and that seems to be where satire fits in. Margery makes a fool of decorum, cits, and rules of sophistication. Is the plot with Pinchwife meant to counteract Horner’s situation? Or are the two supposed to play and affect the other (in a way that I’m missing)?

The Country Wife

I'm wondering what to make of the play's portrayal of women. Lady Fidget and her "virtuous gang" seem to enjoy a rather masculine sexual freedom, yet they don't appear as troubled as the male characters of the play when they discover they are sharing Horner's favors. It doesn't seem that we should take an overly harsh or negative view of their behavior, but rather Sir Jasper's for being so credulous. In what ways might this relate to the significance of Lady Fidget having the last words of the play? She notes that "whilst to them you of achievements boast,/They share the booty, and laugh at your cost." Does this suggest the relationship between men who have shared the same sexual conquest is an issue of competition and power as contrasted with the "virtuous gang who are content to share?.

Also, Horner notes "A foolish rival and a jealous husband assist their rival's designs." Does this hint at a judgment about who is the greater fool in the play - one who knows he is being cuckholded or one who doesn't? The play shows that neither blind trust nor extreme scrutiny are effective methods of assuring a wife's fidelity. Does it suggest there are any effective methods or are women presumed to always cheat regardless of their husbands' behavior?

Publicity and Secrecy

Just as we are about to get the expected unravelling or public-exposition scene at the end of The Country Wife we get just the opposite; a heap of lies and whispers that protects or creates a system of mutual deceit, secret privilege, and hidden knowledge that is to the advantage of so many characters within the play. The original privacy of certain information has, by end of the play, reached a level of publicity that supports and extends rather than disassembles and limits the advantage it gives to all those who are aware of it and keep it hidden. Also, this web of secrets and lies is not spun by a single great trickster but by the cunning and opportunism of many who seek to gain or be protected by its being spun. What does this mutuality mean for the success of Horner's plot? In other words, does he succeed or fail, or is it no longer a question of success or failure since his original secret has been co-opted by others for their own benefit? Also, what are the larger implications of this more balanced mixture of publicity and privacy toward an understanding of wit as an art-form, moral standard, and/or cultural intelligence? Particularly when set against the more usual calculated leaking of private knowledge into the public as seen in Epicene and throughout most of The Country Wife?

Definitions of Feminity

In II.i. when Pinchwife enters the play and is responding to the inquisition of Horner and company concerning his wife, we are given an intriguingly "new" (based on our readings so far this semester) slant on how best to value women.  First, Pinchwife insists that his country wife is better than any city wife because, "At least we are a little surer of the breed there, know what her keeping has been, whether foiled or unsound" (p. 13).  Harcourt responds by suggesting that Pinchwife bring her to the city "to be taught breeding."  Can we apply this argument to all of the women in the play?  Are they continually being defined first, by where they were born (and subsequently on the kind of "breeding" they were subject to) and, secondly, by the implied and somewhat more predictable category of how they will breed, that is, how they will choose to have children?

Shortly after the lines mentioned above, Horner and Pinchwife discuss female wit.  Horner asserts that, "wit is more necessary than beauty."  Pinchwife responds, "What is wit in a wife good for, but to make a man cuckold?"  Do these views express a larger social shift in the perception of women?  Can women really be considered when discussing "wits"?  How can this problematize or expand our earlier discussions of what and who a wit can be?  Furthermore, what does this definition of wit and woman (and the possibility of one being both) do for the construct of marriage?

Beasts and Baggage

1. At the beginning of this play, Horner makes several sneering references to affectation. When Lady Fidget remarks, “affectation makes not a woman more odious” to men “than virtue” Horner answers: “Because your virtue is your greatest affectation, madam” (1.1.7). Horner also exclaims “A pox on ‘em, and all that force nature, and would be still what she forbids ‘em! Affectation is her greatest monster” (1.1.10). Horner practices the ultimate affection, however, and is also passing himself off as a sort of nature’s “monster.” The women refer to him as “beast” when they speak of his supposedly castrated state. How does affectation continue to play out as a theme in The Country Wife? Does Horner as an embodiment of affectation act as an agent for revealing the affectation of others? If so, how?

2. Throughout the play, Pinchwife constantly refers to his wife as “baggage”: “Come, how was’t, baggage?” (4.2.49). She, on the other hand, constantly refers to him as “bud.” What effect does the use and repetition of these “pet names” have? How do they characterize Mr. and Mrs. Pinchwife, their motives, and their tactics for dealing with one another?

Country Wife

During the scene 4, when all of the ladies and a few of the men end up in Horner's house, does Old Lady Squeamish know what is truly going on? It seems she goes back and forth--and then like most of the men do, says "Poor Mr. Horner...". During this part, I wasn't sure if she was quite familiar with the unspoken code of the Ladies of London.

Also, is Horner wealthy? He seemed to have money and could afford oranges (which I assume were fairly expensive), but I didn't understand how he would come about this money. And, while he was a man of some prestige--what right would he have to claim the company of Pinchwife's "brother in-law"? Wouldn't Pinchwife have the right to the final say in that, or is he overruled because he is from the country?

Finally, how is the dictated letter that Mrs. Pinchwife wrote completely let go? By the end, everyone forgot about it--Poor Mr. Horner.

The Country Wife II

Pinchwife, in an attempt to control his wife, forces her to write an abusive letter to Horner: "Write as I bid you, or I will write 'whore' with this penknife." We've seen characters try to manipulate letters, and the exchange of them, but this attempt is especially fierce and contemptuous. If his attempt clearly is a metaphor of his desire to control and shape her inner life, what does her manipulation of the documents illuminate about subjectivity, interiority, and gender on the Restoration stage?

On multiple occasions Pinchwife states (largely in reference to his attempts to enforce his wife's fidelity) that he "knows" or "understands" the Town. What does this mean? Considering the way he essentially creates every situation in which his wife nearly or actually escapes his control, would it be more appropriate to say that he "creates" the Town? (Is it "the Town" that corrupts, or Pinchwife's paranoia and representation of it?)

Does Alithea's concept of "honor" differ from that of the other women in the play? While Lady Fidget and company seem to value sign over substance insofar as "reputation" and "honor" are concerned, Alithea turns down Harcourt's sexual advances even though she could likely emerge from the liaison right under the nose of her unwitting husband-to-be -- and with society's perception of her honor intact. She also seems unusually earnest when she declares Sparkish a man "whom my justice will not suffer me to deceive or injure." Does Alithea ultimately hold herself to a standard of "honor" which values some internal code of ethics rather than others' perceptions of her sexual purity? How does this compare to other discussions of "honor" we've seen?

The Country Wife I

In Wycherley's play, "the country" is imported into "the town." The paranoiac Pinchwife believes that the former possesses an innocent naivette, and submissiveness, that the ladies of the town lack. But we soon discover that his "country wife" has all the same desires, and foibles, as the town-ladies. Ironically, however, she does romanticize the affair with Horner, wishing to marry him, which fuels the crisis in the final act. How does this ironic inversion of Pinchwife's expectations speak to the discussions of "the town" and "the country"? How does her infidelity speak to Pinchwife's overbearing paranoia?

Suspect sexuality?

Is it strange that Horner kisses Mrs. Pinchwife several times while she is dressed as a boy (II.ii)? While he obviously understands that she is in disguise, I wonder what the reaction to seeing two "men" kiss would have been. He also unashamedly praises this "pretty" and "handsome" youth. I can't help but be reminded of Clarimont's ingle in Epicoene in this scene.

Flirting in the country

In her covert letter to Horner, Mrs. Pinchwife reveals how she might go about flirting with Horner were they in the country. She says, "I'm sure if you and I were in the country at cards together, - so - I cou'd not help treading on your Toe under the Table - so - or rubbing knees with you and staring in your face, 'till you saw me - very well - and then looking down and blushing for an hour together" (IV.iii.199-204). Such liasons seem innocent in comparison to the overt flirtations we witness in London from Horner and Harcourt. But Mrs. Pinchwife insinuates something that the rest of the play seems to ignore - that infidelity and sexual liasons can indeed happen just as well in the country as they can in the city. Perhaps, then, the country bumpkin Mrs. Pinchwife and the country setting itself are not so innocent as her husband presumes. I guess my question is how dichotomous is the country/city split really in terms of sexual corruption? It seems to me that Pinchwife is being rather reductive in his claim that only the city can corrupt his wife in this way.

The Country Wife

The Country Wife includes a number of intriguing observations about the theatre itself. In particular it introduces the idea of the theatre as a place to be viewed (Act II Scene i). The audience isn't just viewing the action of the play, but is paying particular attention to the other members of the audience. Is this a concept that first appears during the Restoration or is it part of the Jacobean and Caroline stages? This viewing is portrayed by Wycherly as a necessarily sexualized interaction. Viewing and being viewed appear to be at the heart of the Wycherly's portrayal of adultery. Is this sort of argumentation Restoration specific, or is this understanding of 'view' part of anti-theatrical descriptions of theatre before the English Civil War?

The characters in The Country Wife and Wycherly (particularly in his stage directions) are particularly interested in physical location. Covent Garden, Russell Street, Cheapside, The New Exchange, Hampshire, Chateline's, and many other locations are being constantly referenced throughout the play. Is speaking the symbolic language of these places a form of cultural competence? Is Mrs. Pinchwife's lack of familiarity with London geography meant to portray her as 'ignorant' of culture? How does that relate to her husbands disconnect from the events of the city (as he returns from the country) that are highlighted in Harcourt's line, "He's come newly to town, it seems, and has not heard how things are with him [Horner]" (II.i)?

Women in Public

With a title like The Country Wife, one would expect much ado made about coming to town. Yet, the way the male characters carry on with worry about women entering a kind of ‘danger zone,’ I wonder how this place can cause such anxiety: “she and I’ll be rid of the town, and my dreadful apprehensions.” (III,ii) It seems that the connection between economic and sexual freedom is one cause: a husband “had better employ her (a wife) than let her employ herself.” (I,i) Advertising is another concern since it captures a woman’s attention and helps her navigate around town,

Said I, “I know where the best new sign is.” “Where?” says one of the ladies. “In Covent Garden,” I replied.” “Lord,” says another, “I’m sure there was ne’er a fine new sign there yesterday.” (I,i)

To further illustrate the contentious nature of the city, conflicting economic places are used to injure men and women’s relationships, “To beat his wife, he’s as jealous of her as a Cheapside husband of a Covent Garden wife.” (I,i) Immediately after this scene, Alithea lists the names of parks and shopping malls to educate Mrs. Pinchwife about where to go, which only aggravates her “passion for the town.” (V,ii) “Why sister, Mulberry Garden and St. James’s Park; and for close walks, the New Exchange.” (II,i) The act of stating specific places gets Pinchwife in such a tizzy as to anxiously call London “a frontier town.” (IV, ii) His only way out is to physically prevent his wife from going anywhere or seeing anyone, “but our wives, like their writings, never safe but in our closets under lock and key.” (V,ii) Yet, this kind of containment only ends up keeping the country wife ignorant of her surroundings and perhaps in more danger than if he had given her a street map, “I don’t know the way home, so I don’t.” (V,iv)

The Audience in the Play

Is this the first time that the theater audience features so prominently within the play itself? The Country Wife shows how the audience is of increasing interest to itself as well as to the playwrights whose work is currently being produced. Wycherley illustrates how the viewing public and those who might come to the theater for purposes other than seeing the play, might influence a particular performance. Here, the theater public is being displayed when Horner asks Dorilant and Harcourt if his appearance was appropriate to the venue, “With a most theatrical impudence; nay, more than the orange-wenches show there, or a drunken vizard-mask, or a great bellied actress; nay, or the most impudence of creatures, an ill poet; or what is yet more impudent, a secondhand critic.” (I,i) A greater indictment is of those in the audience who insist on hearing themselves speak rather than listening to those on stage, “And the reason why we are so often louder than the players is because we think we speak more wit, and so become the poet’s rivals in his audience. For to tell you the truth, we hate the silly rogues; nay, so much that we find fault even with their bawdy upon the stage, whilst we talk nothing else in the pit as loud.”’ (III,ii) I wonder if the behavior of the audience in the play is changing the behavior of those watching the production.

Current Debates and the Town vs. Country

In the writings from the chapter on “The Collier Controversy,” each author makes an argument for the position of drama in society. Collier attempts to show “misbehavior of the stage with respect to morality and religion” while Dennis maintains that “the chief end and design of man is to make himself happy,” which drama supports (493, 506). Although the essays were written in the late seventeenth century, their arguments still seem quite current in relation to debates about the media today. How different are our current comedies and tragedies from those of the late sixteen hundreds? How would a current debate about vice on the stage/media versus the pleasure of the stage/media be similar to the one we have read?

In William Wycherley’s The Country Wife, the characters often mention and/or go to fashionable locales, such as the theater and The New Exchange. This contrasts with the knowledge and experience of Mrs. Pinchwife, who is a naïve country woman with little experience in urban affairs. Mr. Pinchwife wants to prevent his wife from taking on any sophistication or habits of city life: he says, “Ay, my dear, you must love me only, and not be like the naughty town-women, who only hate their husbands and love every man else, love plays, visits, fine coaches, fine clothes, fiddles, balls, treats, and so lead a wicked town-life” (2.1.17). We later find that the town does corrupt Mrs. Pinchwife, in her love for Mr. Horner. But is this a simple case of country purity contrasted with town deviance? Why does Wycherley contrast the cultures of the two places? Which place, town or country, does he seem to support through his characters and their actions? Or, is he critiquing both cultures?

Class Warfare?

Is it possible to read the sexual triumph of Horner, who gets away with his ruse in the end, as actually a social triumph in a class war between the (newly re-established) aristocrat and the (Cromwellian, over-reaching) citizen? From Blunt in The Rover to Pinchwife in The Country Wife, these comedies of wit seem to rely on the gulling of characters who think of themselves as socially superior to their acquaintances, but who end up the butt of their own overly proud coventousness. Indeed, it seems as if wit itself -- represented usually by sexual prowess and conquest -- has migrated from being a city commodity before 1642 to being very much a court commodity in the Restoration. Is this emblematic of an implicit class conflict in post-1660 London?

Collier and the Anti-Theatrical Tradition

We've been looking now at how English theatrical traditions, conventions, and texts made the transition between the first and second halves of the century. I'm curious about the concurrent trend of anti-theatricalism in London, how it minded the gap, and what adaptations it underwent in the process.

Collier's inflammatory rhetoric seems to borrow a great deal from pre-war critics of the theatre (Puritan and otherwise); both use appeals to the authority of classical writers, both concede the argument that theatre could serve to properly edify the populace rather than corrupt it, both bring up the lewdness of the stage, and both decry in particular the effects of the theatre on the women of the city. But it seems that Collier -- and his opponents -- seem far less interested in the potential theological challenges that the theatre presents and instead take a heightened interest in its sexual license, especially the appearance of women in the audience and on the stage. Is this a reflection of the plays or the times or both? Is it possible to link Collier's perspective on the theatre to those of his early 1600s precursors?

The Country Wife

In IV.iii, Horner says of Mrs. Pinchwife's letter "'tis the first love letter that ever was without flames, darts, destinies, lying and dissemling in't." What is it about Horner and Mrs. Pinchwife's peculiar situation that enables such honesty, or what Horner perceives as honesty?

Throughout the play, city life in London is associated with passion, lust and love, posing great danger to a jealous husband. The country, on the other hand, represents safety from adultery. Have city and country spaces had the same symbolism in other plays we've read this semester?

Forcing Female Authorship, Forbidding Female Reading

After Sparkish makes his case against authors in III.ii, he damns "silly authors...all books and booksellers...and all readers, courteous or uncourteous." Later in the scene, he states that "virtue makes a woman as troublesome as a little reading or learning." The male fear of female reading comes up again when Pinchwife forbids his wife from purchasing play books at the New Exchange. There is a similar male anxiety over female writing in the play, yet instead of Pinchwife forbidding Mrs. Pinchwife from this act, he encourages it. After realizing that a letter from his wife could be a powerful tool against Horner's advances, Pinchwife coerces her to write, supplying words and sentiments in order to fulfill his plan. Of course, the real power ultimately lies in Mrs. Pinchwife's ability to write her own letter to Horner. What does the play's treatment of authors, books, and readers say about conceptions of female authorship? How is authorship, especially the ability to construct narratives about self (Horner's tale), an important tool in the social world of Restoration London?

A "Bellyful of Sights"

While at the New Exchange in III.ii, Mrs. Pinchwife exclaims that she "han't half [her] bellyful of sights yet" when her husband suggests they leave. This phrase neatly combines references to the "sights" of early London tourism and also Mrs. Pinchwife's viewings of London men (bellyful hints at pregnancy, therefore it also hints at adultery and Mrs. Pinchwife's attraction towards the London gallants). To Mrs. Pinchwife, London "sights" can be places (the New Exchange), signs (the horned-animal signs for taverns), books (the playbooks at the New Exchange), plays, people (actors, gallants), and behavior (that of the ladies). Many of these "sights" become more than simple gazing-objects for the naive "country wench," for they end up drawing her into London's social world, much to her husband's dismay. What is the connection between "sights" and "sight" in the play? Why is "sight-seeing" linked to adultery, female agency, and the fear of cuckoldry?

Playgoing and Fidelity in The Country Wife

Playing and Playgoing in The Country Wife

I was struck by how many references to playgoing there were in The Country Wife. Sparkish mentions seeing a new play and sitting in what he calls “the wit’s row” (1.1, p. 12). In 3.2, he explains this as the place where the “wits” sit and “are so often louder than the players because we think we speak more wit, and so become the poet’s rivals” (p. 33). Pinchwife takes his new bride to the theater, but sits in the “eighteen-penny place” rather than the choice seats so as to hide her beauty from his friends (2.1, p. 14). While there, Mrs. Pinchwife is obviously enamored of the actors, who are “the goodliest, properest men” (2.1, p. 16), causing a lengthy conversation about the dangers of the playhouses (she may lust after the players, and she may be lusted after by men in the audience). Mrs. Squeamish mentions men who keep “little playhouse creatures” (2.1, p. 23). Pinchwife says a mask is “as ridiculous a disguise as a stage-beard” (3.1, p. 31), and Mrs. Pinchwife tries to buy two plays (3.2, p. 35).

Although metatheatrical elements abound in 17^th century drama, we haven’t seen such direct interaction with the processes of playgoing in anything we’ve read so far. In a play so concerned with seeing and being seen, how might we understand the social aspects of the playhouse in the Restoration? Is Wycherley making jokes at the expense of his audience by having Sparkish in particular believe himself a wit that might talk back to the actors? Pinchwife sees the theater as decidedly corrupting for a number of reasons, yet risks exposing his wife to the eyes of libertine men to see a play. How do these references function in the play? Is it just another fashionable thing to do (like going to restaurants, walking around parks, etc.), or might it be a self-referential joke?

Fidelity Testing and the Dangers of Display

The triangle of Sparkish, Alithea, and Harcourt was interesting to me because it reminded me of the fidelity tests we have seen in the past. I am particularly thinking of Shirley’s Hyde Park, where Trier insists Lord Bonville spend time with his fiancé Julietta to test her love, only to loose her to his rival. The main difference in The Country Wife is that Sparkish is so concerned with showing off his fiancé that has no idea he is testing Ailthea’s fidelity, and Ailthea continually insists that Harcourt is seducing her and is loyal to a fault. Indeed, Ailthea is the only woman who does not lie and plot in the entire play.

Why this inversion? At the simplest level it is quite amusing, as it sets up Sparkish against Pinchwife, and aligns him with Sir Jasper Fidget. Sparkish explains it thus: “That [Harcourt] makes love to you is a sign you are handsome; and that I am not jealous is a sign you are virtuous” (3.2, p. 36). Things become even more complicated with the letter business to Horner, causing Ailthea to see Sparkish as a jealous man (all through the machinations of the maid Lucy). Is this a warning for men to keep their wives under a watchful eye, and be aware of the dangers of displaying a wife? A suggestion that women assert themselves in their choice of husband? What do we make of the maid Lucy’s role in all this?

Soldiering Women and the Limits of Wit

In the first scene, Pinchwife says, "Good wives and private soldiers should be ignorant" (I.i. p.13). A few lines later, Horner echoes this comparison of women to soldiers. I was intrigued by this comparison, but a little disappointed that it does not occur again explicitly in the play. Does the two characters' likening of women to (potentially) aggressive male figures point to a link between their own aggressive natures and the sexual violence alluded to in the play? In context, Horner and Pinchwife use this comparison derisively, but I get the feeling that they are hinting at some deeper truth. If women really are like soldiers of fortune, isn't this a potent critique of marriage, since oaths mean little and money (or gifts) means everything? Why isn't this comparison drawn out beyond the first act?

Like Tim, I was surprised at how many times Pinchwife says that he knows the city, "But I think I know the town" (III.ii. p.31), yet he does not make use of his knowledge for his own gain. Spurred on by his recounting of what city life is like, Mrs. Pinchwife develops a yearning for plays and other things that living in the city entails. If Pinchwife does know the city, he is a different type of wit than those of Jonson's Epicoene. Is he just less successful at navigating the social landscape? Or are there important changes in the social life of London that demand more than just wit? This play seems to imply that things like cuckoldry are inevitable; if it is not by one person, a man will be cuckolded by another. Wit enables a character like Horner to manipulate the senes, yet he still must sacrifice some power, both to the men and the women. I wonder does Pinchwife really know the town? Does anyone?

Aging Wits & Sexual Politics in The Country Wife

Pinchwife is a character in flux; a reformed wit/libertine/rover type who now staves off the advances of his former friends toward his wife. He is not credulous like Sparkish, but has a deep knowledge of the city, its habits, and vices. Why is he so inept and unable to convert this knowledge into power? Is it common in Restoration comedy to stage a figure like Pinchwife, too old to revel anymore and trying to settle down, shifting roles from libertine wit to witless cuckold?

How much sexual power do women attain in The Country Wife? I would argue that it’s a significant amount. Though Horner willingly undergoes social humiliation to cover up his sexual conquest, scenes like 4.3 and 5.4 depict Horner’s subjugation to female sexual power. (What I want to emphasize is that the would-be sexual “hero,” like Behn’s Willmore, is as much a subject to sexual power as he is a commander of it). With her husband in the next room, Lady Fidget goes in to Horner for a “pretty piece of china,” and Mrs. Squeamish demands, “I’ll have some china too.” The ensuing dialogue complicates the typical trope of female acquisitiveness for commodities; Horner is made a willing sex item that women seize. In the final scene, Horner becomes exactly the kind of plaything for the women that he vowed he would only pretend to be. Moreover, female sexual honor is preserved/excused at play’s end, not just Horner’s. Is Wicherley taking a ploy originally devised for a privileged male and making it do more work for the female characters?

The Result of Beauty

Feminine beauty has been discussed in a few of the other plays read earlier this semester and has even been "blamed" for the questionable actions of men.  The attempted rape of Florinda by Willmore in III.v. of The Rover is by far the most disturbing we've read.  Willmore instructs Florinda that, "a judge, were he young and vigorous and saw those eyes of thine, would know 'twas they gave the first blow, the first provocation" (III.v.).  Is Behn pointing to a social context in which women who "cry rape" are blamed for their own victimization?  If so, what is the specific context to which she's referring?  Is it England/English gentlemen and their actions?  Or is it the space of the Carnival in Naples?  What is the significance of Willmore's constant assumption that all women are whores regardless of whether they hang pictures outside their abodes?  Why is his promiscuity violent in nature?

Naples's Language of Commerce

The Rover's culture of commerce is organized within two categories: transactions of material and bodily goods.  The buying and selling of both is determined by male desire.  This results in trade that is either consensual, as in the case of Angellica's prostitution, or forced, unwanted marriage and the attempted rapes of Florinda.  The language of commerce is the primary cause of the victimization of women and it enables a pervasive marketplace atmosphere sustained by male dominance and desire.  Can we suggest that this language is subversive?  Does it in a way normalize commerce as a mode for human interactions, in particular, relationships between men and women?  And why does this result in the victimization of women as material goods?

1.) How can we make sense of the inconsistencies within The Rover? For example, what should we do with the eloquent female critique of society juxtaposed against the blanket forgiveness of the disturbing degree of sexual violence acted out by the men of the play?

2.) In Act two, Blunt draws a sharp distinction between himself and his companions: "No, gentleman, you are wits: I am a dull country rogue, I" (67-68). The fool/"country rogue" commonly acts as the object of scorn, the foil who shows off the far more socially savvy "wits" to their best advantage; however, while Blunt is certainly the butt of the Cavaliers' jokes (especially after his humiliation by Lucetta), in Act five he is also the instigator of the one action in which almost every male character agrees to take part: the (aborted) gang rape of Florinda. What does it mean that they are so willing to follow Blunt's lead in his misogynist's quest? What happens to our reading of this play in general when the fool leads the pack?

Men-acing (?)

I'm wondering about a couple of things. The first is the frequent threat of rape in the play. Willmore, Blunt, Frederick and Pedro all come varyingly close to raping Florinda and I wonder what we are to make of this in a play deemed a comedy. Is it enough that these rapes are only just threatened and so pose no real danger to a "happy ending?" Does the play imply some sort of universal menace in men that Hellena and Valeria marry would-be rapists (ah well, boys will be boys!?). Are there ways in which the play complicates such a blunt statement about expected male behavior?

In a similar vein, what is the significance of Florinda's father's choice for her marriage (Don Vincento) never actually appearing in the play? I read this as another kind of pervasive threat for women - the subjection to their fathers' wishes, the looming of an almost ghostly threat of male domination made more difficult to resist or defy by the lack of corporeal existence in the play. But am I making too much of this? I wonder what others are thinking...

Power and Sexuality in The Rover

In The Rover, Aphra Behn details the exploits of Willmore as he chases after all sorts of women. He does not discriminate in his tastes – for example, he seduces both a courtesan and a gentlewoman headed for the nunnery. Do Willmore’s actions imply that all women are the same, despite their status in life? Most of the women that Willmore encounters fall for his charms, thus uniting them in this way. Or, is status reinforced by the fact that Willmore chooses the gentlewoman Hellena over Angellica?

Building on Sarah's question: in The Rover there are a few scenes where Florinda is threatened with rape. The first scene occurs when Willmore finds her in the garden, while the second occurs when she seeks to hide in the house where Blunt is staying. Why does Behn decide to threaten Florinda these two times? Is he implying that she should be punished for some reason – for her insistence on wedding Belvile, for example? Or is Behn describing what he perceives as a problem in society? Is he creating a more sympathetic character for Florinda? Overall, what prompts him to include these two scenes?

Angelica's transformation?

"...Nothing but gold shal please my heart" to only wanting the love of a drunken baffoon. Through the play, Angellica moves from focusing primarily on using her good looks for money to tossing her looks aside and using intimidation to achieve love. Or was she just altering the means of using her looks to achieve what she wants. I have a hard time believing that Angelica made a change of character through the play. Though losing power in the middle, she regains power over men in the end. What does the woman having a physical power over man say in the end?

The Rover II

In Act Two, Scene One of Behn's play, Don Pedro sings a pastoral-esque song to the desired Angellica: "And with the kind force he taught the virgin how/ To yield what all his sighs could never do." Subsequently, Pedro and the scoundrel Antonio quarrel and schedule a fight. The song seems to invoke Cavalier poetry (Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" comes to mind) and its values. What does this song, in this context, transform or comment on the ethos of the Restoration era and its literature?

The Fashionable Blunt

It seems throughout the play that Blunt is focused primarily on fashion--using clothing to cover up his self presumed shortcomings. Granted, even Florinda tries to put him at ease about his poor looks in a less than contradictory fashion when she disagrees with his lines about his looks. I first find it ironic that in the final lines, he has completely transformed his focus on his poor clothing. (at least he won't be dancing naked at the wedding though, right?) But, does Blunt have a deficiency more than poor looks and luck? What does Adsheartlikins mean---is it speach disorder too, or some other more serious disorder that he had? And either way, I don't recall another character mocking him for these outbursts, which seem more noticable than his looks.

Prostitution in The Rover

As a “famous courtesan,” Angellica Bianca is both a commodity and an idol in The Rover. The portrayal of Angellica as a figure of worship departs from that of whores in other plays we’ve read—Behn seems to deliberately juxtapose the sacred and profane here. The Rover presents prostitution as one of three options society allows women (the others being marriage and the convent), but Angelica’s character also provides an avenue for critique of religious practice—specifically Catholicism. Angellica compares her “fall,” or loss of power to love, to a “long worshipped idol / Discovering all the cheat” and speaks of the “incense and rich sacrifice / Which blind devotion offered at [her] altars” (V.i.278-281). With this image of Angellica as idol, we can rethink her displayed photos in terms of statues or even relics. Is The Rover’s religious critique strong enough to validate a comparison of the Church and prostitution? If so, does this affect our reading of the significance of clothing/costume in the play?

Taking prostitution in another direction, what are we to make of Lucetta? In contrast to Angellica, who submits to love and emotion, is Lucetta a “successful” whore who keeps her control and has the last laugh over Blunt? Does the fact that this deed provokes such intense anger and misogyny in Blunt—which almost leads to a rape of Florinda—instead suggest her failure (when considering the position of women in general)? Why do we see so little of Lucetta's character in the play?

The Rover I

In Aphra Behn's play, the men, vested with a responsibility to their female relations, are seen to be callous, self-serving, and easily duped. If the play demonstrates the moral fragility of the patriarchy at work, how might we see the ending in terms of performance expectation (the play) as well as its larger implications (the society), and its Royalist author?

The Garden of Pleasure?

I'm interested in the space of the garden in this play, perhaps because it seems more sinister for the women than even the open streets because of the attempted rape on Florinda that transpires there. Given the protective nature of enclosed spaces (especially convents and father's houses we have seen throughout the semester), what is different about this semi-enclosed garden that sits both outside the house but away from public streets? Does the fact that the rape is unsuccessful help us to understand the garden's function?

The Rover

How do the various depictions of men's and women's relationship negotiations in "The Rover" comment on gender relations in Restoration England? How are these depictions of male/female relations similar to or different than those in plays we read earlier in the semester? Is there any apparent evolution?

Helena and Willmore's exchange at the end of act 5 scene 1 articulates how men's and women's interests can be at odds when it comes to marriage. W: "Marriage is as certain a bane to love as lending money is to friendship." H: "What shall I get? A cradle full of noise and mischief, with a pack full of repentance at my back?" Why does Willmore than concede so easily: "one kiss, and I am thine." Does this complicate Behn's culminating/parting shots on the institution of marriage?

"Since I am not fit to belov'd"

Lamenting over Willmore's rejection of her love, Angellica swears revenge. But she first gives a speech demeaning her own worth as a marriageable - or even loveable - because of her occupation as a prostitute. She says, "I had forgot my Name, my Infamy,/And the Reproach that Honour lays on those/That dare pretend a sober passion here. / Nice Reputation, tho it leave behind / More Virtues than inhabit where that dwells, / Yet that once gone, those virtues shine no more" (IV.ii). In a play very much concerned with reputation, of men as well as women, how do we read Angellica's motivations for revenge? Is it really just about unrequited love, or is it possible that the gender double-standard might be at issue here as well?

Ex-Pats and Manners: The Rover and The Sun Also Rises?

So, after I either found or imagined a few similarities between this play and The Sun Also Rises I couldn't help but look for more, whether this search was warranted or not I don't know. Some examples: obviously the ex-patriotism in both plays; also, Blunt's introduction to Willmore where Blunt is described as "one of us," a phrase often used by Lady Brett in S.A.R. when one character is introduced to another in the ex-pat scene; Blunt's similarity to Robert Cohen as both foolish, ignorant of the social code, and actually not 'one of us'; the pre-Lenten carnival of The Rover and the Festival de San Fermin in S.A.R.; the androgyny of Lady Brett and the transvestism of Hellena; and finally, the phallic dismemberment metaphors of the various sword comparisons and losses in The Rover with the actual phallic dismemberment of Jake in S.A.R... Pomplona, wars or conflicts of the past that help inform us of someones present character, the list goes on. Anyway, does all of this amount to nothing? Could we read S.A.R. as somehow informed by The Rover... maybe indirectly? Also, would it make sense to read The Rover as a play of manners particularly concerned with the social codes of ex-patriotism surrounding the exile of royalists?

The Picture as "shadow of fair substance." (II.i)

Continuing the discussion of disguise (Sarah, Philip and Greg), what is revealed in the conflict between the physical disguised face and representations of identity in The Rover? The comparison between these types are evident: Belvile states what characters can get away with, providing they keep the ruse going long enough, “Because whatever extravagances we commit in these faces, our own may not be obliged to answer ‘ em.” (II,i) Yet, when Angellica realizes she has revealed too much of herself, a greater loss of face occurs: her emotional innocence is finally broken, “But I have given him my eternal rest,/My whole repose, my future joys, my heart!/My virgin heart, Moretta! Oh, ‘tis gone!” (IV.i)

Just as characters in this play wear elaborate masks to give the illusion of another persona, so too does Angellica play the part of actor. According to Roach, “actors and actresses in Restoration England made themselves objects of public fantasy.” (the performance, p.19) The poster Angellica uses to advertise her exotic services is like a masque she wears to conceal her human face. And, like the actors working a character into a role, this picture serves “a process of substitution,” (p.35) In Act V.i, Angellica pulls off her vizard, attesting to a final veil-lifting and points to herself as a distant memory, as if even the picture itself has faded, “Behold this face so lost to they remembrance.” {During the trail scene In The White Devil, Monticelso uses this symbolic reference to render an evil illusion, “If the devil/Did ever take good shape, behold his picture.” (3.2.118-119) And, shortly after, he alludes to Vittoria’s reputation as contained within her portrait, “I yet but draw the curtain, now to your picture,/You came from thence a most notorious strumpet,/And so you have continued.” (245-246)}

Since this is the time when women were performing on the stage, this picture also seems to preview the stagebill or marquee when actresses in The Rover would go on to become celebrities in their own right. It is almost as if the “stylized” qualities which Roach describes as dominant in Restoration theater are being held up for debate within the expected qualities of this Venetian courtesan. What is Behn saying about how Angellica’s role is being performed? What is the relationship between the original and facsimile? Surely Angellica has made some tactical errors by exposing her heart and more than any other character, suffers most because she conceals the least. “Would ‘twere lawful to pull off..false faces;” (V.i) it would certainly level the playing field.

"A rover of fortune" (V.i)

What opinion does Behn have about these exiles “selling all in Essex” (II.i) and living permanently in this bewitching land? In “this island of rogues” there appears to be “a warning to all young travelers:” (IV.iv) beware of too much investment here; do not mix too freely in “the common shore, “III.iii) “in a nation without mercy.” (IV.i)

What is a Rover?

So what does it mean to be a 'Rover'? TheOED defines 'Rover' as both a "wanderer" and as "a male flirt" as well as a target selected at random in a form of recreational archery. The gloss in the Norton defines 'Rovers' as "Royalist gallants in exile during the inter-regnum." How does Behn's use of this word, alter our understanding of Willmore? Is the title of 'Rover' a complement or does it carry a pejorative note?

Why is Hellena trying to become a nun at the beginning of this play? Is Behn critique the reasons that women became nuns, or is this a more general critique of Catholicism? How does this relate to the fact that a large amount of this play takes place during Carnival? Are we meant to see a conflict between these two religious practices?

"Ha! Belvile! I beg your pardon sir": Ineffectual Disguise in The Rover

As Sarah pointed out in her post, many characters in The Rover are disguised at some point in the play. Two of these disguises, Hellena as the boy and Belvile as Antonio, don't really work out too well. Willmore's exuberance causes Belvile to drop his vizard so that Antonio recognizes him. This failed disguise is due primarily to the incompetence of Willmore. Yet when Willmore sees through Hellena's disguise, the situation is more interesting. By "gazing" on Hellena, Willmore is actually able to see through her disguise. This is such a surprising moment considering all of the disguises in previous plays that last until a staged revelation scene at the end of the action. Is Behn commenting on the fact that the Restoration stage uses female actors, especially the fact that since female characters are actually women, they can no longer disguise themselves very well as men? What is the role of failed disguise in the play, especially when thinking about the larger theme of disguise?

Blunt's descent into "the common shore"

The side plot involving Blunt's cozening at the hands of a prostitute and con men shares several characteristics with earlier tales in Medieval and Early Modern literature. In Boccaccio's Decameron, Andreuccio (Day 2, Story 5) suffers a similar fate: just as it appears that he will sleep with a Neopolitan prostitute, he steps on a faulty plank and falls (I might add that he too is naked) into a sewer. The descending bed can be found in both Amadis of Gaul and The Faerie Queene. Does the intertextuality of this side plot comment on the fact that Blunt falls for an "old trick"? In other words, does Behn consciously use old stories to create this "old trick"? What does this say about Blunt's character, especially in comparison to the more heroic and witty rovers and gallants in the play?

Disguise and Design in The Rover

Joseph Roach, in his book Cities of the Dead (which is not what we read but is still fascinating), spends a chapter on the masquerading involved in Mardi Gras. He writes that carnival and the law, though seemingly at odds with one another, share formalistic qualities, specifically strict rules and procedures and the maintenance and transmission of cultural standards (p. 251). Does this idea have resonance in the masquerading that takes place in "The Rover"? [I'm thinking here about the fact that Don Pedro calls masquerading a "lewd custom to debauch our youth!" (3.5) but Blunt undercuts the virtue of the law by noting that "whoring's established here by virtue of the Inquisition!" (2.1).] Are law and license in unwitting cahoots in the world of "The Rover"?

The word "design" appears several times in this play, often in ways that I'm not used to; for example, the cast list tells us that Hellena is "a gay young woman designed for a nun." The play itself is highly designed, with minute stage directions (Willmore gazes on the picture - 2.1; Turns from her in rage, She turns with pride; he holds her - 2.2) as well as complex plotting and meet-ups. Does this attention to design suggest anything about change in the theater and the place of playwrights? Is this an historical moment in which playwrights cease to be part of the company and therefore need to exert control via the script? Does it make the plays more "literary"? And on the other side, given how Hellena defeats her nunly "design"-edness and Willmore is always undoing Belvile's well-laid plans, does the play suggest that real control through design is simple not possible, that the world (of the theater) is a place of chaos / madness / debauchery?!

The Picture, Virtue, and Possession

I'm intrigued by the scene where Willmore first encounters the picture that is put up of Angellica. What he says, in making a comparison of beauty as commodity, is not altogether surprising, but still worth looking at; "A plague of this poverty, of which I ne'er complain but when it hinders my approach to beauty which virtue ne'er could purchase" (II.i. p.186). What can we make of this line, especially considering the scene where Florinda is able to preserve her virtue by giving an expensive ring? When Willmore finds out how much Hellena is worth, he is more resolute than ever to be with his "gipsy." Can virtue purchase anything anyway? This play doesn't seem to hold out much hope for virtuous triumph over money.

In the continuation of this scene, Willmore takes a smaller picture down (presumably a copy of the larger one), which causes much consternation from Angellica and provokes Antonio to fight with him. Interestingly, Willmore claims that the picture gives him, in a way, possession (p. 190), even though he does not have enough money to pay for Angellica's favors. This is the first time I've ever encountered what looks like modern day advertising in early modern drama. Though what Willmore means when he says possession is simply that the small picture is now his, it is interesting to think about this situation and the play in general as indicative of the power of visual representation and its ability to be the vehicle for ownership or exchange. What does Antonio relinquish if he allows Willmore to keep the smaller picture? Is there a sense that with his possession of the picture, Willmore has special access to Angellica? She says she was moved by his words (II.ii. p.193), but her initial request to see him is premised on chastising him for taking the picture down.

Disguise and Deflowering in The Rover

Disguise & Clothing

Taking place in Italy during Carnival, the common comedic trope of lovers in disguise is quite prominent in The Rover. Still, I was surprised by how often people seem to be in disguise, and the number of different disguises people take on. The women in particular enter “in habits different from what they have been seen in” a number of times. Hellena, for example, is seen as a gypsy, a male page, and in some other sort of carnival costume through the course of the play. Florinda’s gypsy costume is the key to her testing the fidelity of Belvile, and the only way se can move about the city unnoticed. When Lucetta tricks Blunt, she lures him into a dark room and steals his clothing, and he spends a great deal of time in his “shirt and drawers” (4.5, p. 228), and later looking “ridiculously” in a “Spanish habit” (5.1, p. 245).

In relation to our other plays, The Rover seems to call for much more elaborate costuming. I suppose this has something to do with changing theatrical styles, but I wonder how such issues take part in the greater themes of the play. If the characters are always changing clothes, is not the audience put in a similar position as the other characters, trying to figure out who’s who? What about Hellena’s page boy costume, in which she is actually a woman pretending to be a boy (and not a boy pretending to be a woman pretending to be a boy)? How does that change the dynamic of gender transgression as it has been seen previously in plays like Philaster or Cymbeline?

The play contains a lot of sight/seeing metaphors as well [i.e. Hellena says Willmore’s “horrible loving eyes” (1.2, p.179) will cause her to fall in love with him, Angelica’s portraits, Willmore: “I will gaze, to let you see my strength” “Holds her, looks on her, and pauses and sighs”]. What can we make of all this?

Love, Violence, and Rape in The Rover

The Rover exhibits a treatment of sexuality that is forever teetering on the edge of extreme violence. By the end of the play, I was more than a little disturbed by the views towards sex of some characters. Florinda is nearly raped twice in the play, and not by people who are “villains” as we have come to define other rapists in 17^th century drama (like DeFlores or Cloten, for example, who are bad guys from the start). Willmore and Blunt are funny characters, at worst slightly debauched, and yet each of their scenes with Florinda offers a surprising rationale for rape. Even before the actual scenes, there’s a hint of this in the song that’s sung below Angelica’s window:

…guilty smiles and blushes dressed [Caelia’s] face.

At this the bashful youth all transport grew,

And with kind force he taught the virgin how

To yield what all his sighs could never do. (2.1, p 188)

This seems to suggest the issues of lustfulness that Willmore uses to excuse his actions. Feminine beauty “transports” the male, and he must use “force” to teach her how to “yield.” In 3.5, Willmore enters drunk and assaults Florinda. When she resists, he attempts to reasons with her that sleeping with him is “no sin” because “’twas neither designed nor premeditated.” When she threatens to cry “murder, rape, or anything,” Willmore reminds her that her that she left her gate open, therefore she is as much to blame. In Blunt’s attempted rape in 4.5, he is so disgusted with women after Lucetta tricked him that he desires to be “revenged on one whore for the sins of another” and to “make up his loss here on [Florinda’s] body.” Both men, when confronted with their near-crime, say that they thought they were accosting a common harlot.

My question is: what are we to make of sexuality in the play? With the near rapes, the duels, Angelica’s bit with the gun, Blunt’s cozening, and so on, it addresses some serious issues about sex and violence. Is this common for restoration comedy? It seems both a farce and an invective—all without that moralizing, nicely wrapped up ending in which everyone gets their comeuppance. Do we see the “rapists” as punished in any way in the end, or is it treated as more of a simple mistake of a man “transported” by a woman’s wiles?

Lending Money, Lending Interpretation in The Rover

’Adsheartlikins!

“Marriage is as certain a bane to love,” Willmore remarks in 5.1, “as lending money is to friendship” (p. 243). Can we read the economic ties between the banished cavaliers, and their suggestions about how their finances do and do not work, against their attitudes toward sex, camaraderie, and honor? At first they express concern about a prostitute duping Blunt because he holds “our whole estate at present” (2.1, p. 185). Admitting he doesn’t have the thousand pounds to purchase Angellica, Willmore considers going in on a joint venture with friends and merchants (2.2, p. 193). Belvile vows he will not lend Blunt any money to help the Essex country boy regain his standing (4.3, p. 227). What kinds of resources and resourcefulness win out in the play, and which are punished?

How is meaning, especially a sense of essence, communicated in The Rover? How can any sign or event be read as verifiably true? Blunt vows against Florinda in 4.5, “I will…then hang thee out at my window by the heels, with a paper of scurvy verses fastened to thy breast in praise of damnable women” (p. 229). Throughout the play, we observe characters going through the process of reading other characters (such as the masqueraders in 1.2) or expounding upon other signifiers, both linguistic (so many vows!) and material (the portrait of Angellica). Perhaps the most crucial interpretive moment, for the sake of the plot, is the reading Florinda in 4.5 to determine whether she is maid or harlot. She produces a valuable ring, which buys her enough time to save her virginity. Characters express much anxiety about what can be truly expressed or faithfully believed. Angellica, for one, simply gives up. What can be properly understood and verified in the kinds of relationships expressed in the play? Are inconstancy and indeterminacy the only values?

Pure Prostitutes and Banished Cavaliers

1. Angellica Bianca is, as her character listing tells us, “a famous courtesan” (170). Her name, however, means “white angel,” denoting purity, and she is often referred to as a kind of virgin, and as a woman of honor. Antonio serenades her with a pastoral about a shepherd who teaches “the virgin how / To yield what all his sighs could never do” aligning Angellica with the virgin who must be taught to yield (2.1). Later, towards the end of the play, Angellica tells Willmore that “when love held the mirror, the undeceiving glass / Reflected all the weakness of my soul, and made me know / My richest treasure being lost, my honor, / All the remaining spoil could not be worth / The conqueror’s care or value” (5.1). Thus Angellica’s “honor” is not synonymous with virginity as is usually the case. Her honor seems rather to have been lost by her free giving of love to an undeserving character. What should we as readers make of this treatment of Angellica’s character?
2. This play has two interesting titles for consideration. First, why is the play named The Rover? Clearly Belville is the heroic character of the play, while Willmore is constantly bungling into trouble, chasing women, getting drunk, and causing hardship for Belville. He certainly is not the most likeable character. What is Behn trying to point out by naming the play after him? Next, how does the second title, The Banished Cavaliers, affect our reading of the play? How does the idea of these men living out of their country and out of their element play into the action? What does the juxtaposition of the English, Spaniards, and Italians accomplish?

Final Paper

Hi All,

Wondering if anyone is interested in discussing our final papers together during the usual class time this Wednesday? We could brainstorm and give feedback on our topics.

Thanks, Victoria

"Perswade her out, for the good of the commonwealth!"

Convent of Pleasure certainly takes on matters of domestic importance (especially marriage) as its focus. The play's several diatribes about the downside of marriage for women and the upside of female friendship make this a play about personal, domestic relationships. But I wonder if there aren't larger issues wrapped up in this domestic debate. In II.1, Facil is desperate for Lady Happy to come back into the public sphere so he can woo her and he says, "Perswade her out, for the good of the commonwealth!" While an obvious comic overstatement, I wonder what implications a community like the Convent of Pleasure in the play would be for seventeenth century English society at large. What is really at stake for the commonwealth while debates that seem to touch only the private sphere rage on?

The Convent of Pleasure

I thought this play was very different from the first--simply by the loss of power by women at the end. It is amusing that even though the women have power, the men use the same tactics to overcome them by using the same simple tactics.

What I didn't understand was the way the play was written. Is there a stylistic significance for the different parts of the play--switching from short, choppy dialogue to long rhymed monologues and then to short, biting couplets? It seemed that depending on where the play was, the style changed.

Bell in Campo

For the Bell in Campo, I didn't understand the use of the cemetery scene--the depictions of the pillars and statues of the Gods. Was this showing part of the transformation of the Effeminate Sex, or the lack of being able to transform?

Bell in Campo

I’m interested in Bell in Campo’s presentation of Madam Jantil. Her virtue and selflessness are obvious, but one can see her (negatively) as a slave to traditional wifely devotion. Still, she is held in closest comparison to Madam Passionate throughout the play and, despite the fact that Jantil eventually dies, her fate is arguably preferable; Jantil’s willing submission to death in anticipation of meeting her husband in heaven compares favorably to Passionate’s fate of misery and a marriage that “is like to prove [her] grave” (IV.17). Can Jantil’s character, though, be praised in a play that celebrates the ability of women to excel independently? How should the reader react to Jantil’s virtue?

Female Ambiguity in Cavendish

1. In “The First Part of Bell in Campo,” two women refuse to go to war with their husbands after they are invited. Madam Whiffell’s speech makes it clear that not all women are interested in accompanying the men to war: “Alas husband I am so tender, that I am apt to catch cold if the least puff of wind do but blow upon me; wherefore to ly in the open Fields will kill me the first Night, if not, the very journey will shatter my small bones to peeces” (2.5). In the end of “The Second Part of Bell in Campo,” these women who refused to join Lady Victoria are punished by a new social system in which the members of the “feminine” army outrank civilian women. How should we interpret this outcome? As for the women who refuse to go, is Cavendish blaming these women for wishing to maintain their subordinate position, or is she blaming a society that has relegated women to a position in which they unquestioningly identify with this subordination? Is the success of the “feminine” army a true victory for women, or has the army really won rights simply by mimicking men? Do women such as Madam Whiffell deserve to be punished, or has the “feminine” army simply found someone to play the subordinate role to them, just as they have played the subordinate role to men?
2. In “The Convent of Pleasure: A Comedy,” Lady Happy believes that “Men are the only troublers of Women” (1.2). She is then troubled and made extremely unhappy by her love for the princess, a supposed woman. When the princess turns out to be a man in disguise, Lady Happy’s troubles are solved because now she can marry her love. On the other hand, it remains that these troubles and unhappiness originated with a man. What are we supposed to do with this contradiction? Are men held up as the consistent source of unhappiness, or is Cavendish suggesting that perhaps men can make women happy after all (as suggested by the princess after viewing the play within the play)?

The Function of Praise

At the beginning of Convent of Pleasure, Lady Happy opines, "I believe, the gods are better pleased with Praises then Fasting" because fasting makes people too dull of mind and spirit to praise the gods with enthusiasm (I.ii.).  As others have noted already, a few lines later we learn that Happy wants to "incloister" herself so as to enjoy more thoroughly and selectively her pleasures.  This reflects her earlier comment that, "neither do Men any thing for the gods but their own sake" (I.ii.).  In comparison, Lady Victoria in Bell in Campo commands her army to prayer every morning because, "that Ceremony strikes a reverence and respect into every breast, raising up a devotion in every heart, and devotion makes obedience, and obedience keeps order" (III. 11).  This presents the act of prayer as the first step into being manipulated by the "ceremony" of religion and, therefore, being trained by this praising to value obedience -- a very clever assertion by this would-be Generalless.  How do these two versions of the meaning and uses of worship complicate earlier readings of religion in plays of this time?  Also, can we see them functioning with or against each other in these two plays?  Can we consider the questions surrounding the sea-gods with this in mind?  

The Convent of Pleasure

The Cavendish plays challenge characteristics thought inherent to the female gender; the Amazonian army in Bell in Campo proves capable of traditionally “masculine” feats while Lady Happy in The Convent of Pleasure rejects the “feminine” role as wife and mother in favor of a life free from men. Cavendish’s treatment of gender in The Convent of Pleasure, however, is complex. Traditional gender stereotypes are apparently reinstated in Lady Happy’s ultimate submission to married life, as well as in the impossibility of homosexual attraction (the Princess is, of course, male). In a play that appears so progressive in terms of questioning what is “natural” in female conduct through the very premise of the “convent of pleasure,” how should we react to Lady Happy’s lamentation that “Nature is Nature, and still will be / The same she was from all Eternity” (IV.1) or to Madam Mediator’s note that the “princess” and Lady Happy kissed with more passion than could exist between two women when the truth of the situation seems to affirm this observation (V.2)? Perhaps the ending is not happy at all, but the marriage rather expresses the reality of the world in which Cavendish lived and wrote (in terms of traditional views of gender, marriage, etc.). As others have noted, Lady Happy is almost silenced in the final scenes of the play—we never even hear her reaction to the discovery that the princess is actually a prince. How, then, does Cavendish’s ending leave the question gender and nature?

Good "Leaders" (and Followers?)

In the past few weeks, we have discussed the qualifications for what it takes to be a good king.  In "King and No King" and "Philaster," we made a further connections between the political duties of kings and their domestic roles as husbands.  Can we now attempt to apply a similar kind of "rubric" system to Cavendish's Lady Victoria?  This may require redefining our original category to a more general designation of "leader."  If we can make the first leap, can we make the second and think of how Lady Victoria is fulfilling or dishonoring the role of wife?  Also, can we extend our consideration to the followers and what it takes to be "good" at this as well?  I think our conversations about obedient and deviant servants would be useful and provide another layer when mapping out the political and domestic relationships unfolding in these plays.

“for ‘tis against Nature to part with what we love best.”

What are we to make of Cavendish’s stance on the condition of nature between the sexes? In the beginning, Bell in Campo makes the case for women’s larger role in the world order by illustrating that an oppositional view between men and women limit the female role in the world. Lady Victoria makes the comparison explicit, “and the reason of these erroneous opinions of the Masculine Sex to the Effeminate, is, that our Bodyes seem weak, being delicate and beautifull, and our minds seem fearfull, being compassionate and gentle natured, but if we were both weak and fearfull, as they imagine us to be, yet custome which is a second Nature will encourage the one and strengthen the other….” (I.9) Yet, in the play’s conclusion, Lady V’s triumphant success is marked by a strangely universal proclamation that returns women to a domestic setting, albeit one that gives them ruling status. “First, That all women shall he after in this Kingdome be Mistriss in their own Houses and Families. (V.20) Cavendish seems to suggest that nature also serves the very important purpose of securing women’s commanding presence at home. Perhaps the following sums up this paradox, “for nature allows them a part as well as you, for there is nothing in the World we can absolutely possess to ourselves.” (III.25)

What we find virtuous in Bell in Camp—the co-joining of women and men in positions of power and esteem—we query in Convent of Pleasure. In the later, through the construct of a completely female engagement, Canvendish seems to endorse the position that women reside in isolation from men and enjoy their absence with a new kind of pleasure. Indeed, the joys of homoerotic beauty, passion and love paint a sublime, natural world until the arrival of a royal visitor, “with all the delights and pleasures that are allowable and lawful; My Cloister shall not be a Cloister of restraint, but a place for freedom, not to vex the Senses but to please them.”(I.II) It is interesting that the dubiously depicted par amour contains a feminine exterior along with a forceful composure, “These my Imbraces of Female Kind, May be as fervent as a Masculine Mind.” (IV.I) Until, this foreign Prince(ss) invades the female fortress, Cavendish seems to support the idea of lesbian love, but perhaps only to a point. When Lady Happy asks why shouldn’t she have the Princess as a lover, she answers herself with a nod to traditional partnership roles, “ No no, Nature is Nature, and still we be/the same she was from all Eternity.” (IV.I) Was this a rhetorical devise used to assume a collective societal objection to such modes of behavior? Continuing the conversation, L. Happy goes on to reject the classical (established) order in favor of a love which overcomes all obstacles, “No, Servant! Your Presence is more acceptable to me that the Presence of our Goddess Nature, for which she, I fear will punish me for loving you more then I aught to love you.” (IV.I) What are we to think of this in light of the fact the object of her affection is really a man rather than a woman?

Location, Location, Location

(To continue the discussion of how location matters in these plays,) There appears to be different geographical gendered places in Bell in Camp. Whereas the scenes comparing Madams Jantil’s and Passionate’s reactions to their husbands deaths take place in the city, the war episodes are either in the Garrison Town or Open Fields. In the beginning of the play, Lady Victoria suggests that the city will tempt her so as to be vulnerable to amorous and persistent suitors. During the battle, the Garrison Town is marked as a female (weak) place while the plains seem to make the fighters more masculine (capable), “that Towns breed or beget a tenderness of Bodies, and laziness of limbs, luxurious Appetites, and soften the natural dispositions, which renderness, luxury, effeminacy, and laziness, corrupts and spoils martial discipline, whereas open Fields, and casting up trenches makes Souldiers more hardy, laborious and careful, as being more watchfull.” (II.11) Back in the city, Cavendish wants us to see how Jantil and Passionate loose themselves in a kind of vulgar excess, the first by constructing an elaborate cemetery where Jantil buries herself and the later by a vain offering from a vampiric suitor who has a slight resemblance to her deceased husband. Is the city a kind of devise that helps enable self-destructive behavior in women?

It is interesting that place assumes another shift in Convent of Pleasure. I wonder how the space within the space (play within the play) further locates the idea of male and female into still another kind of reality. The first time we see the Prince(ss) dressed as a man is immediately prior to the Shepherd’s scene. It is in this pastoral that the first kiss takes pace. The stage direction reads, “This Scene is changed into a Green, or Plain, where Sheep are feeding, and May-Pole in the middle.” (IV.1) Clearly, this sexually charged image previews the undressing of the Prince and prepares the reader for the union of man and wife. But, how does this particular pastoral further Canvendish’s view of women?

1.) Does Bell in Campo really celebrate female independence? Lady Victoria and her army of women warriors explicitly reject a male-dominated gender hierarchy, but it seems that they then go on to assert control by simply reproducing and laying claim to traditionally masculine gender attributes. Are these "Amazons," then, celebrating a uniquely female collective, or are they implicitly asserting the value for either biological sex of being gendered male by attempting to "out-man" the men? Do their actions and other characters' reactions to them ultimately destabilize or validate a male-dominated order?

2.) What is going on with the smaller costumed dramas within The Convent of Pleasure? How does their seeming reassertion of heterosexual patterns of desire affect the larger narrative of the play?

Bequeathing woman's freedom

In Bell in Campo, Cavendish presents us with a possible utopia in which women are empowered in a martial environment. Lady Jantil lies decidedly outside this utopia in her static role as devoted widow. However, she places a clause in her will that states that she will leave her maid Nell Careless 1,000 "to live a single life" (Part 2 IV.19), a fate the maid enthusiastically accepts. Given that the female soldiers are folded back into their domestic roles at the end of the play, can we read Nell Careless as the truly free woman in this play? If so, what does that say about Cavendish's vision of the real possibilities of female freedom?

Convent of Pleasure

The revelation that the Princess is actually a prince, and Lady Happy's union with him, returns the play's world to a state of normalcy. The homoerotic tensions are resolved (at least somewhat) by having the supposedly gay lovers turn out to be heterosexual lovers after all. What does such an ending mean for the bulk of the play, which was spent meditating on the problems with male-female relationships and marriage?