On A Chaste Maid in Cheapside: Maudlin, like a number of other older female characters in Middleton's plays, is portrayed at the beginning of the play as a threat to the 'virtue' of younger female characters. Whether we are discussing Livia in Women Beware Women or Gratiana in The Revengers Tragedy, we can see a thread of older women who lead to the corruption of their female family members. But in the case of Maudlin, she actually helps to reclaim the virtue of younger female characters. How does this complicate Middleton's understanding of gender? Does he see women of compromized virtue as threats the fabric of social order (as in Women Beware Women) or as capable of reclaiming their virtue?
On The Honest Whore, Part the First: We talked about the elements of Carnival in The Alchemist and I'm interested in how those ideas relate to the swapping of clothes between the Candido and his Apprentice. Is this a Carnival moment? What about the Madhouse? Is the very fact that Candido is unable to control his wife set up a natural inversion of the traditional social structure?
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