Tuesday, September 18, 2007

A Chaste Maid in Cheapside

In “A Chaste Maid in Cheapside,” Thomas Middleton fills his play with sexual humor, puns, references to sexually transmitted diseases, and the insatiable sexual appetites of some of his characters. Sexuality seems a cause for laughter, but also a source of anxiety over disease and the body. How does Middleton break the binaries of health/sickness and sex/purity? Why and how does he mix different conceptions of sexuality, virility, sterility/impotence, and sickness?

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