In terms of the play’s commentary on gender, how should readers understand the character of Epicene? As a “woman,” Epicene’s character is used in several ways to expose faults in men; Morose’s absurdity is revealed through his attraction to and belief in Epicene’s silence, while La Foole and Daw open themselves to ridicule by claiming to know her/him sexually. Does the power of a (temporarily) female character to expose foolish men offset the misogynistic attitude of the play? Or does the fact that Epicene proves to be male make this impossible?
In his prologue to The Alchemist, Jonson distinguishes between his “understanding” viewers/readers and those who are but “pretenders.” Epicene is certainly concerned with this distinction as well; characters who feign knowledge (John Daw, for one) are punished by ridicule and audience members with little understanding of Latin (thank goodness for Norton footnotes) would have had more trouble catching some of the play’s jokes. I’m curious as to how familiar audience members would have been with the term “epicene”; did Jonson expect some of his more “understanding” viewers to guess Epicene’s true identity all along? How would this change one’s experience of watching the play?
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Just a quick note on your first question. It gets me thinking of Stanley Fish's book, Surprised by Sin. Among other things, Fish says that much of Milton's success in Paradise Lost comes from the poem's implicating the reader in the plot. It's not just Adam and Eve who are guilty, but all mankind, especially the reader.
In the case of Epicene, if we are to be the Renaissance playgoer, we think that Epicene is a woman until the very end. So I think the play acts in the same way; we the viewers are implicated on both ends. Epicene does expose the men as foolish, and we agree with and participate in that view. Yet, when we also see that Epicene is a man, we might then think that only a man could expose another man's follies, thus de-emphasizing the women's power to reveal this. I don't know, I may be sort of off. It's been a while since my Reader theory days.
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