A Chaste Maid in Cheapside
After realizing that he has married a prostitute in V.iv, Tim tries to make sense of his embarrassing situation with one of his rather silly exercises in logic. Since Tim’s logic doesn’t really change his feelings about the situation, Maudlin and the Welsh Gentlewoman suggest that marriage has transformed the whore to a “chaste maid.” However, abandoning both logic and marriage, Tim decides that he will accept his new wife due to her wit, a resolution that suddenly renders Tim unusually witty and jovial (allusion to the “meretrix/merry tricks” pun and the dirty joke). There are several other relationships and plot threads that address themes of wit and marriage. What is the connection between the two themes and why is it important in this play?
1 Honest Whore
“Madness” carries several valences in the play: anger, insanity, and fashionable London behaviors. The actions of gallants and the transformations that occur in London are seen as a sort of fashionable madness. Viola desperately wants Candido to become “mad” at someone for wronging him. Finally, there are actual madmen—and an insane asylum—in the play. What are the implications of the play’s multi-valent “madness”? Why is it telling that the play concludes in a madhouse?
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A Chaste Maid
--Doesn't Tim try to make jokes earlier in the play? If so, would that have any bearing on your provisional conclusions?
1 Honest Whore
--I think this would be a very rich topic for an article. Foucalt, of course, "Madness and Civilization" (rereleased unabridged, and on sale at Amherst Books) which creates a "anthropological" line between lepers and madness. And, in early 17th century Londo, the leprosriums and the theaters were nearby in London's Liberties. I also know that Bedlam, at some point, allowed audiences in to view the inmates for entertainment, for a door charge. Obviously, there's a natural connection between madness and theater here for the early modern viewer, but I'm not sure what it is. Did any of this help?
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