UNIVERSITATEA OVIDIUS DIN CONSTANȚA

ȘCOALA DOCTORALĂ DE ȘTIINȚE UMANISTE

DOMENIUL FILOLOGIE

AVIZAT: Prof. univ. dr. habil. Monica Matei-Chesnoiu

DATA:

TEZĂ DE DOCTORAT

CONDUCĂTOR DE DOCTORAT
Prof. univ. dr. habil. Monica Matei-Chesnoiu

STUDENT-DOCTORAND
Donici (Bogdan) Maria-Georgiana

CONSTANȚA 2022

1
 UNIVERSITATEA OVIDIUS DIN CONSTANȚA
ȘCOALA DOCTORALĂ DE ȘTIINȚE UMANISTE
DOMENIUL FILOLOGIE

TEZĂ DE DOCTORAT

THE PLACING OF FAMILIES ON THE EARLY MODERN ENGLISH STAGE

CONDUCĂTOR DE DOCTORAT
Prof. univ. dr. habil. Monica Matei-Chesnoiu

STUDENT-DOCTORAND
Donici (Bogdan) Maria-Georgiana

CONSTANȚA 2022

2
 CONTENTS

Introduction: Early Modern Families, Placing, and Theories of Spatiality 4

1. Critical Theories of Space and Place 10
2. Place, Audience and Identity in Early Modern English Theatre 16
3. Early Modern Families in Social Context 20
4. Overview of Dissertation 26

1. The Placing of Parents on Stage 34

1.1. Fathers and Sons: The Roaring Girl 35
1.2. Mothers and Daughters: A Chaste Maid in Cheapside 55
1.3. Other Parents: Family and Race in Titus Andronicus 71
2. The Placing of Families on Shakespeare’s Stage in the Romances 89
2.1. Dysfunctional Families in Pericles, Prince of Tyre 95
2.2. Emotionally Confused Families in The Winter’s Tale 117
2.3. Distraught Families in The Tempest 130
3. The Placing of Shakespeare’s Servants as Family 145

3.1. Inconstant Launcelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice 148

3.2. Clowns Servants and Actors in Twelfth Night 161
3.3. Page Moth in Love’s Labour’s Lost 183

Conclusions 200
Works Cited 205

3
 INTRODUCTION: EARLY MODERN FAMILIES, PLACING, AND THEORIES OF
SPATIALITY

Family settings are important features in the worlds of the plays by Shakespeare and his
contemporaries; they not only function as physical locations, but are instruments through
which the playwrights communicate the political and social orders of the plays. Reading the
plays in light of these social, political and cultural frameworks uncovers the dramatic
technique used by the playwrights, showing how they used challenging accounts about other
cultures and families to situate the action of their plays. This dissertation draws on
interdisciplinary methodology derived from new historicism, gender studies, audience-
response theory, as well as geocriticism and spatial literary studies to discuss notions of space
and place in representations of families in drama, or the placing of families on the early
modern stage. Starting from the distinct geocritical concepts of space and place, I devise an
action-based dramatic strategy of placing, which means understanding and reacting to the
social issues of family, marriage, parenthood, children and servants in the sociality of the
stage space during dramatic action. Even if our knowledge of early modern culture has been
reinforced over time, scholars maintain conflictual notions of the family’s situation in the
sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. Certain sociologists discuss familial connections in
rigorously patriarchal1 terms, positioning men as the exclusive or principal household leaders,
while others recognise the discrepancies and historical oversimplifications that help
undermine patriarchy. Lawrence Stone defines patriarchy as “the despotic authority of
husband and father” (109), which controlled early modern households and families. The
social situation in early modern England, on the other hand, was complex, but it definitely
involved male supremacy.
Early modern England was a multifaceted society in which hierarchy, social roles, and
gender counted. These aspects had a serious impact on the lives of both men and women. The
biblical advice was that women should keep to the house and men should see to the outside
world, raising their children with the fear and love of God, according to feminist critic
Patricia Crawford (18), in Blood, Bodies and Family in Early Modern England (2004). In the
past, man was seen as the head of woman, leader of the family because, according to the
Bible, woman was the second one created by God and, thus, should be submitted to man; she

1
In Family Life in the Age of Shakespeare, Bruce W. Young advises that one should avoid the term
“patriarchal” because “the term patriarchal connotes male domination and even brutality, associations that
seriously distort and oversimplify the picture of family life in the period” (27). I totally agree with this critical
statement, but I will still use this term with this caveat in mind.

4
was also the weaker vessel, by giving in to temptation. Man was perceived as having enough
economic independence to provide for a family, having a good behaviour and an appropriate
temperament in society. He was at the top of the hierarchy and, as a husband, he assumed a
patriarchal role as governor of the family and household. Some men chose to be soldiers or
representatives of justice, thus focusing on having a career that would grant them a good
social position and being adequately seen in the social circles they attended. As Goran
Stanivukovic observes, in the study entitled “Between Men in Early Modern England”
(2006), man was perceived as “the hero, the prince, the lawyer, the explorer and the master of
the household” (232). It is not surprising, therefore, that men were viewed as leaders of the
family.
Inside a family, a man would have different roles and responsibilities depending on
the level of wealth of his household; a rich man would benefit from various domains of
activity. Men were usually involved in academic, political, economic, or social activities and
played important roles in the parish and the local community. If they were members of rich
families, men in early modern England would have the possibility to study at universities and
they would take jobs of lawyers or physicians after graduation. When they decided upon
marrying someone, they had to make sure they had the necessary financial possibilities to
provide for his new family on his own. Otherwise, most men chose not to get married and
waited until they reached that desired level of wealth. However, it was believed that a
family’s wealth was given by divine blessing; as William Perkins observes in the Dedicatory
Epistle appended to the treatise Christian oeconomie, or, A short survey of the right manner
of erecting and ordering a familie (1609), “no Familie can be interested in the blessing and
favour of God, which is not founded in his feare, and ordered according to the reveared will”
(Perkins ¶3v). For this reason, it may be concluded that family life and wealth were regulated
by Christian norms.
In this social context in the early modern period, private and public life was supposed
to blend harmoniously, with the father providing for the entire family. Being a father was
rather a “valuable component of a man’s public persona” (89) according to Patricia Crawford.
This status meant that men needed to be able to take care of their children. Certain
Elizabethan or Jacobean men chose to educate their boys from a very early age, while others
waited until the little ones were seven years old in order to begin their education. The man of
the household was also the one responsible for correcting the bad behaviour of male servants
within his house; his wife was to inform him of a situation in which a male servant was
involved, without taking action on her own. Similarly, if a man had a problem with a female
5
servant in his house, he was not supposed to correct her, but was expected to inform his wife
and let her take the necessary measures. These gender roles within the family highlight not
only the gender difference (men versus women), but also the specific roles that each gender
should perform in a hierarchically organized and harmonious family and society.
In poor families, however, a man would spend most of his time outside the house,
separated from his wife and children, doing everything possible to find resources to provide
for them. In most situations, all members of the poor families would go out and find work in
order to have food and everything needed for at least a decent life. A lot of poor men were
also helped by the parishes to which they belonged, either with food and clothes or with
money. In certain cases, some parishes were more generous than others, and this led to great
differences between lifestyles in one region or another. Despite all these familial issues
related to charity, as Bruce W. Young observes in Family Life in the Age of Shakespeare
(2009), “marriage in early modern England was a complicated institution involving
discrepancies between ideals and reality as well as the complexities contributed by
differences in gender roles and individual temperament” (47). It is always important to keep
in mind the intricacy of these social parameters when speaking about marriage and family in
this period, including both the poor and the rich, as well as the middle-classes, into the
general concept of early modern family.
In early modern England, society was gender-oriented, in the sense that women were
seen as having specific responsibilities in the social circles, within the household, and
towards their husbands and children. Women were educated to understand that their role
resided in the practice of and reputation for chastity. They had various attributes: it was their
responsibility to understand and administer medicine; they were supposed to have good
cookery skills; they grew vegetables; they took care of the dairy work; they preserved and
made new clothes; and they knitted and took care of children. In the influential book about
family entitled Of Christian oeconomie (1609) by William Perkins, the author looks at the
family as a harmoniously ordered form of government, saying that “the happie and
prosperous estate of the family, which consisteth in the mutuall loue and agreement of the
Man and Wife, in the dutifull obedience of children to their parents, and in the faithful service
of servants to their masters, wholly depended upon the grace and blessing of God” (Perkins
3-4). Therefore, whatever the position of women in society might have been, the entire family
was expected to live harmoniously under the guidance of Christian principles, in mutual
understanding and harmony.

6
 After they were married, women had the possibility to adopt the role of a female sole
trader, which meant that they could do business, such as selling fruit and vegetable at the
market; unmarried women did not have this privilege, and so they had to work for themselves
and had no revenue. Unmarried women, and also wives, were required to be silent in public
and obedient to their fathers and husbands, and have a suitable behaviour in the social circles
they would attend. Widows enjoyed most freedom, as they could make their own decisions,
without being forced to consult with a man, and they could manage their own affairs and
were treated differently in men’s circles. This is because widows had certain financial
independence, as Bruce W. Young observes: “Many customs related to inheritance remained
the same throughout this period, including primogeniture among most of the gentry and the
standard granting of a third of the deceased man’s goods to his widow” (Young 62).
However, widowhood was not a social status considered to generate familial harmony. For
this reason, the few examples of widows in Shakespeare’s plays (the Countess of Rousillon in
the dark comedy All’s Well That Ends Well or Volumnia in the tragedy Coriolanus) show that
animosities between parent and child (in these cases, Count Bertram in Renaissance France
and Coriolanus in ancient Rome) may also occur as a result of the absence of the father’s
regulatory2 presence.
Another category of women was represented by those living and working in brothels,
as this was a way for some of them to make a living. They were subordinated to men, but also
superior to them, as they used their sexuality to offer men something they wanted. This can
be seen as an example of indirect power, which meant nothing in society. Prostitute women
were discriminated against, pushed away, and humiliated in most cases. Most men considered
them as an example of how weak women were, debating the case that women in brothels
were clear examples of how women yielded to temptation and sexual desire more than men
did. On the other hand, prostitutes were considered as a bulwark against men’s excessive
sexuality, which enabled husbands to keep the family safe by taking their sexual desires
outside the sacred familial circle. In London, prostitutes hovered in the area of the theatres on
the Southbank. As Julia Laite observes in “A Global History of Prostitution: London,” a
chapter in the collection of essays entitled Selling Sex in the City: A Global History of
Prostitution, 1600s-2000s (2017), “In the seventeenth century, most of the sex for sale in the
metropolis could be found in Southwark around London Bridge, harking back to the Tudor
and mediaeval periods which saw the official regulation of brothels there” (112). This has

2
In Christian oeconomie, William Perkins notes that one of the father’s roles in the good government of the
household is “To keepe order and to exercise discipline in his house” (168).

7
some connection with the idea that sexual relationships outside the family were vilified, and
those women who did otherwise were relegated to the margins of the city and society.
However, things started to change throughout the sixteenth and the seventeenth
centuries, when women found the strength necessary to speak their minds, to evolve, and thus
gain power. Women started to have their voices heard in their parishes and communities,
asking for political rights, writing books, or being business entrepreneurs. The attitude
changed, as all the members of the family were now required to make their own contributions
and to be productive for the household’s well-being; this meant that women were allowed to
go outside their established limits. As Pamela Sharpe correctly observes in “Gender in the
Economy: Female Merchants and Family Businesses in the British Isles, 1600-1850,” an
essay from the historical study Women in Early Modern England (1998), “Women inhabited
some unlikely settings in the early modern world, and in some cases their impact extended
well beyond the confines of their home and local community” (284). However, these women
were the exception to the rule; the majority of women was still relegated to the household
duties and did not go outside the house; at most, they helped with their husbands’ business.
At a higher level, however, the role of women was very important in the monarchy.
This is because a woman could succeed to the throne if there were no male heirs, which was
excluded in France, for example. For this reason, Queen Elizabeth I succeeded in becoming a
female monarch and her rule extended over most of the period that included Shakespeare’s
creative activity, during the Elizabethan period (1558-1603). In the same manner, women
belonging to the aristocratic class enjoyed a different social environment and opportunities to
develop their knowledge and education. They enjoyed a different status, such as being able to
go to the theatre, but they had to wear masks to conceal their identity and to make sure no one
would recognize them. Therefore, the status of Elizabethan noble women was more
privileged than that of womenfolk from other social classes. While they could not hold
important positions in the state hierarchy, Elizabethan noble ladies excelled in arts and crafts
(embroidery, tapestry, etc.) and they were cultivated writers and translators. In the time of
James I, noble women were also entitled to participate in theatrical performances at court,
and even perform in plays, such as Queen Henrietta Maria, who performed in Ben Jonson’s
masques.
Families were the primary place where children could learn how to socialize and how
to behave by looking at the examples offered within the household. The expectation was
quite simple: to adapt to these models and to follow them in their future adult lives. The first
lesson that children were taught was to revere and obey their parents. For example, in the
8
educational treatise The ciuilitie of childehoode by Desiderius Erasmus, translated by Thomas
Paynell (1560), Erasmus says that “Modestye and simplicitie is required to be in Yonge
children” (sig. Aiiiir). This is an English translation of Erasmus’ De civilitate morum
puerilium (1530) and it shows sixteenth-century expectations for children’s modest behaviour
within the family. Christian parents raised their children on the principle that they should fear
and love God, and parents could punish children to make sure that they did so. Children were
taught that God punishes sins, and they were given examples of what was considered sinful
or not, and observed to make sure they would not commit mistakes. As a consequence, even
the servants in a house would be chosen according to the way they were brought up, and they
were raised according to the same principles and values, in order to make sure they would
have the same influence as the rest of the family.
As feminist critic Stephanie Tarbin observes, citing Henrich Bullinger’s The Christen
State of Matrymonie (translated by Miles Coverdale 1541), girls were to be brought up in “all
feare and drede” and be corrected with harsh punishments (Tarbin 106); this means that boys
were taught with love, while girls were not. According to Stephanie Tarbin, when she writes
about the position of children in the family,

Whether nurtured by parents or kin, foster carers, benevolent strangers, employers, or

teachers, children learnt how to conduct themselves in the social world through the
interactions and examples they encountered in the domestic settings of childhood. Just
as it is today, this process had an inherently emotional aspect, as medieval and early
modern children negotiated the forms of emotional comportment, control, and
expression they encountered and were expected to adopt. (Tarbin 106)

Women and children were perceived as being weaker and more easily attracted by
temptation, so their education started from a very early age by cultivating and instilling a
sense of shame. This is why the education of daughters would merely belong to mothers,
while the education of sons would belong to fathers.
In early modern England, parents were interested in investing in their children, not
only when they were very little, but even later, after they left house and got married. In
general, the elder son was privileged, while the father also offered the other children shared
amounts of money, food and clothing, medicine and schooling. As children grew up and they
needed to follow a specific path, many of them left their homes and went to schools,
apprenticeships, domestic and agricultural service. Some may say this was not very good, and
9
parents should not let their children go away from home at a very early age, but others saw it
as a method through which early modern families tried to help and protect their children.
Those were times of economic uncertainty and a lot of people were unemployed. Children
would become part of a circle in which they played the role of maintaining a business or a
household, in case of their parents’ death, and they also offered their families the necessary
support when needed.
As drama was one of the main entertainment domains of life in this period, it is
important to mention the ways in which social roles were performed on the stages of early
modern London. The theatre was the place to which both the rich and the poor could go, a
place in which people socialized and took the opportunity to see others and to be seen.
However, the London theatre was not considered as an appropriate place for women, as they
were supposed to be at home taking care of children and the house, according to Jean
Howard’s The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England (97). Theatrical
companies of the time, located at the London theatres, The Swan, The Rose, The Blackfriars
Theatre, The Globe, The Hope, The Curtain, The Red Bull Theatre, had the same common
feature: they included only male actors, so the female parts were usually played by young
teenage boys, who wore women’s costumes. In this context, apparently, the theatre had no
interest in women. However, as I will demonstrate throughout this dissertation, women,
children, and even servants as members of the extended family played important roles in the
plays’ social and spatial texture. I will apply concepts derived from spatial studies to
demonstrate that issues of parents and family are placed differently on the early modern
stage, in accordance with the specific dramatic interaction.

5. Critical Theories of Space and Place

In spatial critical theory, space is an interchangeable area; an individual’s involvement
and experiences inscribe space and make it a place. That particular place and those specific
experiences contribute to the individual’s subjectivity and the fashioning of identity. Henri
Lefebvre’s The Production of Space was one of the earliest studies in philosophy to
emphasize the importance of where things happen. Lefebvre theorises that the philosophers
have failed to envisage how to get from mental space to social space. Ideologies, as Lefebvre
observes, “do not produce space; rather, they are in space, and of it” (210). Space is self-
contradictory, therefore. Because space is “neither subject nor object” (92), Lefebvre suggests
that one should look, first, to the body as subject, or as the experiencing agent, in order to

10
comprehend space; as Lefebvre says, “For it is by means of the body that space is perceived,
lived—and produced” (Lefebvre 162). This focus on the body is especially important to my
argument in this dissertation: the individual actor’s body is necessary to create space and
place on the early modern English stage, in different circumstances triggered by the play’s
plot and language, in accordance with the emotion produced by the specific placing of the
dramatic action in the minds of the audience.
Gaston Bachelard’s La Poétique de l’Espace was published in 1958 and was written
before Lefebvre’s work. The English translation by Maria Jolas of La Poétique de l’Espace is
entitled The Poetics of Space (1994); this translation uses the terms space and place
interchangeably (in relation to the French words espace and lieu). Even if there is this
confusion of terms in the English translation, Bachelard suggestively concentrates on an
individual’s experiences in generating space. Bachelard explains how we experience
“intimate places” (46), specifically the house; as Bachelard says, “The house acquires the
physical and moral energy of a human body” (46). He connects the house, especially specific
places in it (dressers, corners), and particular places in nature (nests, shells) with the
experience of the visionary (or the poet); he argues that these places can reflect personal
components of our being. Bachelard believes that the home symbolizes a retreat and shelter
to the individual. According to Bachelard, “Life begins well, it begins enclosed, protected, all
warm in the bosom of the house” (7). To Bachelard, home is the quintessence of place. From
the perspective of my argument, home is necessarily connected with the social concept of
family, so the embodied place of home—in Bachelard’s understanding—directly reverberates
on the placing of family on the early modern English stage.
Michel de Certeau’s 1984 work entitled Arts de faire was published in English as The
Practice of Everyday Life, translated by Stephen F. Rendall (2011). De Certeau argues that
“space is a practiced place” (117). In understanding space as “practiced place” (117) de
Certeau focuses on the connotation of walking as a form of experience. For de Certeau,
walking is like speaking; moving within a space (or practiced place) is like making a
statement (98). This “rhetoric of walking” (de Certeau 99) creates what he calls “space” (99),
inscribing upon place the stamp of multiple possibilities and rendering a space like a
palimpsest (de Certeau 109).3 The idea of space as a palimpsest is similar to Henri Lefebvre’s
“contradictory space” (292), in The Production of Space (2000); a palimpsest, in its multiple
and concurrent layers, may contain inconsistencies. Central to this palimpsest metaphor is the

3
Edward Soja, in Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (1989), also
supports the palimpsest approach to space.

11
notion that numerous individuals and experiences make place. Even more so, in drama,
representations of place take palimpsestic characteristics because each production of a
particular play—represented at a certain time—may epitomise space and place differently,
according to the social and cultural parameters of actors, director, and audience.
Departing from these French theorists, I move on to cultural geographer Yi-Fu Tuan
and his study, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (1977). As is apparent from
the title, Tuan focuses on the importance of experience in establishing place. Tuan argues that
familiarity (or experience) is essential to the creation of place. As Tuan observes, “When
space feels thoroughly familiar to us, it has become place” (73). Place varies from person to
person, based on individual experience, so place “define[s] space” (Tuan 17). Expressed
differently, without a person’s involvement through experience, space remains indeterminate.
Possibly because of his field of study, geography, Tuan ranks space over place; space is
limitless, whereas place looks like an object (Tuan 12). Tuan emphasizes the individual’s
importance in grasping both space and place, particularly in mythic representations of space;
the human being, a microcosm of the universe, locates himself or herself at the centre of the
cosmos (Tuan 96). Traversing a space develops a person’s familiarity with that particular
space and changes it from a space to a place. 4 In all examples, place is “anthropocentric”
(Tuan 45); the personality or subject continues to be at the centre of comprehending place.
All the more so, understanding the notion of place as experience and familiarity—as debated
by Y-Fu Tuan—has a meaning in drama, where individual encounters among the characters
interacting in a play are merged with the involvement of the audience viewing that particular
play.
Australian philosopher J. E. Malpas, in Place and Experience: A Philosophical
Topography (1999), rejects the idea that place is subordinate to space, like the spatial critics
mentioned above. However, as he notes, place cannot be disconnected from space, since
“place is inextricably bound up with notions of both dimensionality or extension and of locale
or environing situation” (Malpas 25). As he dismisses the idea that place is merely personal
or psychological, Malpas argues against the idea that place is an extension of the intellect
(Malpas 31-32). The philosopher insists that place is inscribed on a person’s subjectivity; as
Malpas says, “Place is instead that within and with respect to which subjectivity is itself
established—place is not founded on subjectivity, but is rather that on which subjectivity is
4
The notion of movement and place is in not only de Certeau’s work (as quoted above) but also Gilles Deleuze
and Felix Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. While Deleuze and Guattari focus on
the fluidity of space, not place, they do focus on the body—just not on the necessity of human experience to
define a place.

12
founded” (35). Malpas argues for a more comprehensive perception of the individual’s
understanding of place as experience: “place is integral to the very structure and possibility of
experience” (Malpas 32). For Malpas, place is not totally determined by experience; it is part
of experience (Malpas 33). Therefore, according to Malpas, place cannot be comprehended
without experience, and experience cannot be realised without place. Even if Malpas argues
that place and experience cannot be separated, I think that early modern playwrights work
through the debate as to whether place or experience is more meaningful to the shaping of
identity.
A house, a city or a country can be a specific place of experience to the individual that
experiences it. For example, sixteenth-century London may represent the experience of place
in city comedy. Steven Mullaney’s study entitled The Place of the Stage: License, Play, and
Power in Renaissance England (1988) has meaningfully affected the ways in which critics
view the consequences of London’s geography on early modern drama. Mullaney discusses
how the position of the theatres in the liberties (outside of the city’s authority) influenced the
plays. As Mullaney observes, “Effectively banished from the city by increasingly strict
regulations, popular drama translated the terms of its exile to its advantage” (23). Mullaney
argues that the position of the London liberties offered the playwrights the capability to
perceive and remark on the events occurring in contemporary London. As Mullaney observes
about early modern English theatre, “its displacement provided it with something
approaching an exterior vantage point upon the culture it was both a part of, yet set apart
from—a vantage point from which it could occasionally glimpse the fragile conditions of its
own possibility” (54). Mullaney’s argument that London’s geography prompted the themes of
early modern drama continues to have an exceptional importance for critics of the early
modern period.
The location of the theatres in London’s Southwark district influenced the
representations of space in various plays. Janette Dillon argues, in Theatre, Court and City,
1595-1610: Drama and Social Space in London (2000), that the position of the theatres in the
liberties connects them to the issues of the court, which, like the liberties, was outside of the
city of London’s authority (Dillon 1). Dillon considers how the theatre is comparable to the
court and its conventions (3). Dillon also argues that, since the theatres were capitalist places
where business was conducted, they were closely related to the commercial exchanges in
London, such as the Royal Exchange and the New Exchange (Dillon 6; 10-11). Like
Mullaney, Dillon advocates that the theatre observes and discusses contemporary London and
its society (Dillon 7), but she does not consider the consequences of this fact for individual
13
identity. Instead, Dillon argues that the theatre points out and participates in the city’s vices,
particularly economic vices, and an economic sense of “commodity” (12) and “fashion” (16).
As Dillon observes, “an appetite for plays about the city and the court reflects the location of
the audience, given that these were the two primary places of performance” (17). Like Y-Fu
Tuan and others, Dillon distinguishes between space and place, and the places of
performance, namely the two theatres located in London’s Southwark (The Globe and The
Rose, besides The Swan and The Hope). I would add that this popular specificity of early
modern London theatres can be extended to dramatic representations of families: just as
members of families represented on stage formed diversified and sometimes eccentric social
character-groups, the audience attending the plays at a certain time formed a kind of family,
with similar theatrical experiences, because of the place in which they found themselves.
Jean Howard and Julie Sanders continue to dwell on this approach to the liberties,
expanding the discussion to additional regions within and around London. In Theater of a
City: The Places of London Comedy, 1593-1642 (2007), Jean Howard suggests that the
theatre serves as a place where the people of London can challenge and better understand the
“social change and dislocation” (Howard Theater of a City 2) that occurs in their swiftly
developing city. The theatre, which is a place itself, is engaged with noticeable places in
London, just as Dillon’s marketplaces (the Royal Exchange and the New Exchange), but also
with prisons, whorehouses, and ballrooms, in order to respond to the changes in London’s
society (Howard Theater of a City 3). Discussing the Royal Exchange and its manifestations
in drama (Theater of a City 2), Jean Howard analyses the ways in which Londoners tried to
comprehend the international market economy and their place in that economic context.
Besides, the Royal Exchange helped audiences deliberate on the shifting roles of women in
the marketplace; women are often portrayed as commodities in the new economy. Howard
uses the concept of theatre as a specific place of experience, working alongside other socially
significant places in early modern London.
Similarly, Julie Sanders discusses the location of the theatres in London, in The
Cultural Geography of Early Modern Drama, 1620-1650 (2011); she considers the effect of
London’s natural landscape in the surroundings (such as rivers and woods), country estates,
new ways of transportation, as well as parishes and communities. As Sanders observes,
“Place, then, functions in these dramas as the material arena within which urban social
relations were regulated and urban problems negotiated” (3). Sanders observes, for instance,
that the closeness of the Thames to the playhouses influenced the audiences’ experiences; she
examines how ferrymen in early modern plays would have evoked the ferrymen on the
14
Thames, who were audible from within the outdoor amphitheatre. This river onstage, as
Sanders argues, would suggest the river’s importance to economic activity (Sanders 5). As
Sanders observes, cultural geography is a “process” (3); the physical geography of a city may
change, and so does the cultural geography that is associated with that city. For Mullaney,
Dillon, Howard, and Sanders, London, as a cultural place, is very important for
comprehending the places represented within the early modern plays. As the centrality of
London is not questioned in Sanders, I argue that development within London, as well as the
durability of theatres within London, influenced contemporary representations of place and
identity in relation to the family. I am more concerned with what these places say about
individual characters, not necessarily the London economy.
Early modern advances in new cartographic methods allowed landowners to better
understand their land and property, which affected concepts of Englishness and nationhood.
These new representations of space shown on maps likewise coincided with new meanings of
geography, as John Gillies has observed. In Shakespeare and the Geography of Difference
(1994), Gillies establishes the fact that Shakespeare shows a multifaceted association with
geography, even more than earlier critics have observed. Instead of demonstrating a medieval
or an entirely European comprehension of geography, Shakespeare had an appreciation of
geography and the “exotic” (or “the other”) (Gillies 99), in accordance with a global
perspective; this global view was itself influenced by the more and more accurate maps of the
world available to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. However, John Gillies observes that
there can be no global mapping of Shakespeare’s “imaginative geography” (Gillies 1); as
Gillies says, “the large question of Shakespeare’s global (as distinct from merely European)
geographic imagination is often begged by related questions arising in the course of readings
of individual plays” (Gillies 2). It is logical, therefore, to seek the placing of families within
the context of each play analysed, in each space, without attempting to draw generalized
statements.
The essential argument of these studies—from the perspective of space and cultural
geography—is often the social function of a place; these critics, just as London-centric
critics, often advance the argument that early modern plays help the audience comprehend
new economic and social transformations occurring around them. The fact that the Globe
assimilates a play with a marketplace would help the audience members to understand better
the capitalist economy and the New London Exchange; the plays show characters engaging in
economic transactions, and the Globe itself is a marketplace, with Shakespeare as a
shareholder in the enterprise. Focusing on social connections and social meanings of places,
15
on the other hand, we lose the perception of how physical places are created by an
individual’s experiences. Several individuals who experience a specific place makes that
place a palimpsest, a place where several experiences are overwritten one above the other.
Yet many critics tend to treat this special theatrical palimpsest as one unit: as a monolithic
place. However, I think that we have to reflect on the ways in which a place and the
distinctive experiences and emotions that create a place influence a person’s identity in
relation to family and society in a particular play.

6. Place, Audience and Identity in Early Modern English Theatre

Place and the early modern English theatre are domains which critics have
approached extensively. Heather Dubrow has produced important studies on domestic places
in drama. In Shakespeare and Domestic Loss: Forms of Deprivation, Mourning, and
Recuperation (1999), Dubrow focuses on the hazards emerging from outside the home; this
differentiates her book from Frances Dolan’s Dangerous Familiars: Representations of
Domestic Crime in England (1999). As Dolan argues, “Whereas her important book
[Dubrow’s] mainly emphasizes threats from within [domestic violence], I am primarily
concerned with invasive outsiders” (Dolan 6). Dubrow argues that home is a microcosm that
reflects larger phenomena: “in a period of intense nationalism, the connection of home and
homeland intensified” (Dubrow 4-5). I agree with Dubrow’s relationship between an
individual’s identity and a sense of place, and I might include a number of discussions related
to the place of home in the theatre; according to Bachelard, home is an ideal place. However,
I believe that the home is only one among the many places that define a character’s identity
in the theatre. Moreover, there can be certain parts of the home that define a character’s
identity more than the entire house, depending on the particular dramatic action.
Andrew Hiscock’s study entitled The Uses of this World: Thinking Space in
Shakespeare, Marlowe, Cary, and Jonson (2004) explores the same domains of space and
place. Hiscock analyses the ways in which spaces (his own terminology) are socially
constructed, and how those spaces define subjectivity. For example, he shows how particular
geographic locations—including Denmark, Jerusalem, Malta, Egypt, Rome, Venice, and
London—produce certain experiences. Hiscock goes along with Lefebvre’s theories
concerning the social construction of space. He does not delineate the notion of space
explicitly, but he applies it to larger geographical locations, such as cities, and more
particular places, including houses and homes. The spaces in the plays analysed by Hiscock
(Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta, Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra and Hamlet,
16
and Ben Jonson’s Volpone and The Alchemist) are not projections of individual psychological
traits; as an alternative, these spaces are socially constructed through the associations
between characters and various demonstrations of power. I will go even further in my
analyses of the placing of Shakespearean families in their homes to show that notions of
space and power are closely related to the character’s personality and, even more, interiority.
Identity in early modern English drama is another perspective from which the
problems of parents and family can be approached in relation to space and place. As a result
of new historicist studies, we can understand that defining a sense of self or identity for early
modern characters is a difficult business. Stephen Greenblatt’s Renaissance Self-Fashioning:
From More to Shakespeare (1980) argues that the rules of society fashion an individual’s
subjectivity. Even when individuals rebel against society (as Greenblatt argues that
Christopher Marlowe’s characters do), this rebellion reinforces the power of society
(Greenblatt Renaissance Self-Fashioning ix; xi). Greenblatt observes that this absence of
defined space (or, in the terms of my doctoral dissertation, defined placing) demonstrates the
limitations of dramatic art. As Greenblatt observes about the effect of improvisation in
Shakespeare’s plays, “in the very act of homage to the formal structures, there open up small
but constant glimpses of the limitations of those structures, of their insecurities, of the
possibility of their collapse” (Greenblatt Renaissance Self-Fashioning 297-298n11). Indeed,
the fashioning of identity through space and place in early modern dramatic structures is
somehow distorted and controversial; so is the placing of families and their identity markers
within the social spaces in which they evolve, in the specific place of the theatre.
In the same way as Greenblatt neglects place in favour of the fashioning of identity,
so the concept of place and individual subjectivity is not entirely investigated in another
noticeable study of identity in early modern drama, Katherine Eisaman Maus’s Inwardness
and Theater in the English Renaissance (1995). In the case of Maus, the theatre explores, in a
thematic way, the disparity between the inward and outward self. Yet the theatre also places
the audience in a privileged position, because the audience is frequently notified of a
character’s genuine motives (even if those motives are not known to the other characters),
through dramatic irony. Among other subjects, Maus explores Machiavellian theory,
particularly how the Machiavel’s true motives are unknown to others, but known to the
audience (Maus 35); she also explores the distinction between what one may say and what
one really thinks (Maus 72). Maus supports the idea that individuals can simulate their
innermost feelings, but the places that they create onstage are not contrived. As Maus
observes about deception in the theatre, “Once the possibility of deception has been granted,
17
the effect of truthfulness can be difficult to convey to a wary audience, even when there is no
intention to mislead” (Maus 6). From this statement, I believe it is clear that relations of
character identity and truthfulness as opposed to the audience’s interpretations are often
difficult to define.
London audiences need to be taken into consideration when discussing the placing of
families on the early modern stage. In his study entitled Elizabethan Stage Conventions and
Modern Interpreters (1984), Alan Dessen encourages readers to contemplate on the
implications of Elizabethan theatrical conventions, as compared to analysing early modern
English drama in relation to our modern theatrical conventions. Dessen maintains that by
applying our modern conventions to understand plays (with their settings, entrances and exits,
and stage directions), we often miss the intricacies within the plays that influence their
overall meaning. For instance, as Dessen notes, equivalent entrances/exits can build
associations between two characters, which are not automatically suggested by language
(Dessen 162). As Dessen observes about the dim possibility of deciphering the place of
action in a play through dramatic language, “Especially in the collision between Elizabethan
and modern notions of ‘night’ and ‘place,’ moreover, some of the original metaphors or
metaphoric actions may be buried under the accumulated strata of post-Elizabethan
accretions” (162). Indeed, even if it is difficult to discern the placing of early modern families
on stage for modern or contemporary audiences (including ourselves), it is still important to
try to analyse the metaphoric meanings that lie at the basis of the representations of place
through discourse analysis. This is what I intend to do in this dissertation.
Erika Lin does something similar to Alan Dessen’s argument in Shakespeare and the
Materiality of Performance (2012), in which she demonstrates that early modern audiences
did not perceive the plays passively, in the manner that modern audiences do. Instead,
interpretation was demanded of them, and Lin reconsiders Robert Weimann’s concepts of
locus and platea (Lin 23). This is to say that the early modern theatre was not wholly
committed to mimesis; much of it was based on allegory and representation (Lin 68). As Lin
remarks about the theatre’s visual aspect, “what becomes evident from an analysis of early
modern visuality is the extent to which early modern theatre may have adopted a kind of
allegorical logic when it represented the act of seeing. Rather than treating vision as a
biological experience to be represented mimetically, early modern performance used it to
point indexically toward a range of social and cultural issues” (Lin 67). This is why my
concept of the placing of families on the early modern English stage can be found to reflect
on larger social, economic and cultural problems of the period in which the plays were first
18
performed. Based on the visual aspect of representing families allegorically in each play
analysed, this spatial view may generate a new understanding of how families were located
within a larger social perspective.
Interpretations of space and place in early modern theatrical performance depend,
therefore, on the audience that perceives these spaces, from the perspective of audience-
response theory. In Theatrical Convention and Audience Response in Early Modern Drama
(2003), Jeremy Lopez considers the significance of Elizabethan and Jacobean stage
conventions and their effect on the audience. Some of these conventions may look as if they
are outdated for a modern audience (such as asides, puns, and various other stage practices,
including disguises, incest, and dismembered bodies) but they would have prompted a
specific response from an audience that would know that these elements were “conventions”
(Lopez 98). According to Jeremy Lopez, “These conventions are: scenes involving one or
more characters conversing with an echo; scenes that take place in a dark or a thick fog;
scenes involving graphic on-stage violence; the use of incest as a plot device; and moments in
disguise plots where one character immediately and unexpectedly sees through the disguise
of another” (Lopez 98). Most of these instances—labelled as “conventions” (98) by Lopez—
have a spatial component, and this has led me to conclude that the specific placings of early
modern families (from the perspective of audience-response theory) should be looked at in
accordance with the theatrical conventions of the time.
Interpretation of place and action on the early modern stage is connected to the bodies
of actors representing characters and it influences the audience’s emotions and imaginary
understandings of place. In Thinking through Place on the Early Modern English Stage
(2020), ecological critic Andrew Bozio argues that environment and embodied thought shape
one another in early modern English drama. Bozio shows how characters think through their
surroundings and how their environment functions as framework for perception, memory,
and other forms of embodied thinking. Bozio advances the concept of “ecological thinking”
(5), which “suggests both that thinking and feeling are distributed across environments and
that these distributions of perception, cognition, and affect bring environments into being,
capturing a process that unfolds on at least two distinct registers within the early modern
English playhouse” (Bozio 5). These registers show how characters “struggle to discern the
contours of their location” (5) and they occur when “the playgoers relied upon the sights,
sounds and smells of the performance to reimagine the stage as the settings of the dramatic
fiction” (Bozio 5). This process of “thinking through place” (1), according to Bozio, is
essential for my argument because it forms the basis for my conceptualization of placing on
19
the early modern stage. By showing the ways in which drama makes visible the metaphoric
and linguistic means by which place and its emotional and sensory connotations are
represented, it is possible to understand both the audience’s responsive reaction and the
metatheatrical means by which the dramatic places are conveyed on stage. For this reason,
the placing of family on the early modern stage is both a convention and a device through
which playwrights denote, highlight and distort the social realities of their times related to
family issues.

7. Early Modern Families in Social Context

As concerns the definition of the early modern family, critics such as David Cressy, in
Birth, Marriage and Death: Ritual, Religion and the Life Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England,
(1999) and Bruce Young, in Family Life in the Age of Shakespeare (2009) use imaginary
narratives as models that highlight domestic dealings in early modern English society. The
studies of these authors (together with many others) encompass perceptions of the early
modern family’s patriarchal structure; these critical conceptions comment on (or even ignore
totally) the particular kind of power relations that kept the early modern family together and
gave them a successful aura: parental authority.5 As concerns marriage as a part of social life
in early modern England, David Cressy observes: “The ritual marked the passage form one
state to another, assigning new social and sexual roles, rearranging patriarchal obligations,
and conferring new duties of status, authority and dependency” (Cressy 4). Even if marriages
were performed with the parents’ blessing, there were instances when parental authority was
heavily enforced to the sons and daughters.
Marriage and the construction of family were usually attained with the consent of
both parties involved (husband and wife), and especially their parents. As Bruce Young
observes in Family Life in the Age of Shakespeare (2009), “Despite the requirement of
consent, parents and other authority figures could use various forms of persuasion and
pressure to influence marriage arrangements, especially for children in upper-class families”
(24). As Bruce Young observes about family life in the early modern period, “Like the

5
Whereas “power” is about robust, perhaps even violent, domination, “authority” refers to a person’s ability to
direct and implement decisions; in a family, children would be voluntarily compliant with these decisions and
reverent to their elders because of the expectations of parental authority in the family. In this dissertation, I refer
to “parental power” and “parental authority” synonymously, understanding them both as describing adult
control over children.

20
natural and social worlds, family life was held to be organized hierarchically, with the father
at the head, assisted by the mother, and with children and servants accepting the father and
mother as ‘governors’ and themselves as ‘subjects’” (Young 30). It is not surprising,
therefore, that many Shakespearean comedies (and sometimes tragedies) include servants as
members of the dramatic family. Regarding family life in Shakespeare’s plays, Bruce Young
asks the question of how similar Shakespeare’s representation of family life is to the realities
of his time (Young 70). The answer is that “he [Shakespeare] sometimes distorts and often
heightens the realities” (Young 70). Starting from this statement, I would add that
Shakespeare and his contemporaries play on the family relations in their time by placing
various situations and conflicts in tension, in accordance to the dramatic action.
Recent feminist criticism has significantly enhanced our understanding of gender
dynamics and, more specifically, women’s authority within the family in the early modern
period. Whereas certain critics would have readers believe that domestic boundaries were
clearly defined, with women being wholly objectified and living completely repressed lives,
studies by scholars such as Phyllis Rackin (“Misogyny is Everywhere” 2000) resist making
strict arguments that severely limit women’s household authority and accept women’s
disempowerment (Rackin 42-56). Natasha Korda’s exploration of household matters, in
Shakespeare’s Domestic Economies: Gender and Property in Early Modern England (2002),
locates female power in and around the things that women managed in the domestic sphere.
One of Korda’s most salient points calls attention to how the division of domestic labour
between husbands and wives inevitably meant that occasionally a wife might have to be
autonomous and operate without her husband’s supervision (Korda 32-49). According to Tim
Meldrum, in Domestic Service and Gender 1660-1750: Life and Work in the London
Household (2000), as housekeepers, women managed things in ways that were not entirely
passive; their actions undoubtedly led to tensions between men and women, especially since
the latter’s role threatened to undermine firm patriarchal control (Meldrum 66). Such
evidence fissures the generally promoted scholarly perception of early modern women’s
defencelessness.
In their introduction to Family Life in Early Modern Times: 1500-1789 (2001),
Marzio Barbagli and David I. Kertzer offer a concrete rationale for why the patriarchal family
is a complex subject. They contend that “The image of the large, stable patriarchal family is,
we discover, far from an accurate portrait. This is for two reasons. First of all, it
overemphasizes and exaggerates certain aspects of the families of the past. Secondly, it offers
a view of a European past that is undifferentiated” (Barbagli and Kertzer xi). This submerged
21
understanding that a patriarchal family would have the father at its centre, while the mother
was marginal,6 makes us question the meaning of single-parent families in Shakespeare’s
plays. The absence of King Lear’s wife, or Prospero’s wife in The Tempest, or Egeus’s wife
in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or the single father Baptista Minola in The Taming of the
Shrew, and so many other single fathers, who are concerned with their daughters’ future
marriage, does not seem so surprising in this patriarchal context. On the other hand, the
absence of the father in single-parent families (such as Sycorax, single mother to Caliban in
The Tempest, or the Dowager Countess of Roussillon in All’s Well That Ends Well, widowed
mother to Bertram) looks as if it is meant to disturb society’s established norms. The
inaccuracies found in theatrical representations of the early modern patriarchal family reflect
an unsustainable, patriarchal desire to see men in a superior light in relation to women. Yet
the same desire is subverted during the actual placing of families on stage.
The same principle applies to the role of children in the early modern family. In her
essay, “Parent-Child Relations,” in Family Life in Early Modern Times: 1500-1789 (2001),
Linda Pollock explains, “Children were taught early to honor their father and mother, and
they were told repeatedly that the first duty of a child was obedience. Outward marks of
deference, respect, and obedience to parents such as bowing, uncovering the head, or
kneeling in their presence were insisted upon” (Pollock 198). Children had to meet certain
expectations, so too did parents: “It was the duty of parents everywhere—one which they
owed not just to their children but also to society—to instruct their offspring in the ways of
the world, to regulate their behavior, and to fit them for their future role in society” (Pollock
197). The biblical resonances in early modern parent-child discourse further diminish the
value of the analogy with James I, which is comparing kings and fathers (because he was
both a monarch and father to two sons and a daughter). It could be implied that mothers and
fathers were responsible for educating their children in ways that kings were not responsible
for their citizens. However, again, during the theatrical placing of families in a particular
play’s dramatic context, such social generalizations fade in the way of the specific spatial
interactions, which link dramatic place with interiority.
My dissertation uses readings of Shakespearean and non-Shakespearean drama to
reflect on the function and meaning of parental authority and to reconceptualize the ways in

6
Mary Beth Rose observes the inconsistencies of early modern drama in relation to mothers on stage, in “Where
Are the Mothers in Shakespeare? Options for Gender Representation in the English Renaissance” (1991); as
Rose notes, “in contrast to sermons and advice books, dramatic discourse, with its obligation to action and
dependence upon conflict, is better equipped not only to acknowledge potential ideological inconsistencies but
also to exploit them” (Rose 298).

22
which an important social unit—the nuclear family—was structured. Moreover, this
dissertation reveals the spatial function of the placing of parents and children, as well as
servants, on the early modern stage, with the result of destabilizing and heightening the
commonly-held social norms of the period. In the plays we can see women acting as equals,
not as total subordinates to their husbands, but working as their husband’s helpmates; elderly
mothers leading the entire household; non-white and non-Christian mothers and fathers being
made more humane because of their parenthood roles; parents having virulent or laughable
encounters over their children; and adults who are not biologically related undertaking the
roles of parents. Drama is concerned with essential issues related to being a parent, such as
courtship, marriage, class, sexuality, blood relations, race, heredity, and death. In certain
instances, in plays such as Titus Andronicus, which examines religious and racial distinction,
dramatic interaction functions to highlight individual problems not yet totally defined by
early modern cultural historians; for example, certain concepts such as racial passing 7 and
modern conceptions of race. Yet, in many cases, discourse analysis can help us appreciate
why and how playwrights dramatize certain issues and the dramatic role of the placing of
families on stage.
By reflecting on what the placing of the family on stage means during specific
instances of dramatic action, I analyse the behaviours of the dramatic characters functioning
as mothers and fathers, and I will distinguish several women, besides men, as playing
important roles in connection with children, and within the households in early modern
drama. Although women could not perform on stage, as actors on the English public stage, or
even write plays for the stage, the parental function permitted that fictional characters, and
mainly mothers, should have a great impact within the world of the plays; this occurred
because of the parents’ capacity to exert discipline and determine certain aspects of the
dramatic action related to family relations. This is what I have called the placing of parents
on the early modern English stage. As a result of this analysis, a part of this doctoral
dissertation recomposes the recent knowledge of gender and power relations in the early
modern period and aims to place women, daughters, and other marginalized figures, next to
their male matching parts. In the context of the male-dominated early modern period, men
characterized the dominant culture, but women were also important.
7
According to the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, “passing” refers to “a person changing his
or her racial or ethnic identity” (Brown, Thomas 165); this historical situation is related to the nineteenth-
century context of the Jim Crow regime of racial segregation in the United States. Therefore, the concept has
been coined much later than the period on which the analysis in this dissertation is focused. However, this
concept may be applied to the racial difference and Aaron’s humanization through parenthood in Titus
Andronicus.

23
 Apart from reinterpreting what the placing of the dramatic family means, this
dissertation works with a more extensive definition of “family”; this includes connections
that are not entirely described under Lawrence Stone’s account, which defines a family as
“members of the same kin who live together under one roof” (Stone 28). Rather different
from this definition, my analysis will search beyond conventional nuclear households, or the
mononuclear family in modern sociological terms. Therefore, I use the term “familial
authority” (Jardine 28), which Lisa Jardine uses in “Twins and Transvestites: Gender,
Dependency and Sexual Availability in Twelfth Night” (1992), in order to frame this
dissertation. However, this concept is at once a representation that is both too restricted and
too wide-ranging. First, the term “familial authority” dismisses specific forms of parental
connections that are known to occur outside of an instituted household, or even between two
households (Jardine 28). Secondly, “familial authority” does not demarcate the distinctive
power-dynamic that subsists mainly between adults and children. For instance, “familial
authority” could incorporate a husband’s asymmetrical authority over his wife.
Taking all these things into account, this dissertation contemplates on what I have
called the dramatic parental family—a social form that reconsiders the representations of
family, children, and servants on the place of the stage. This expression unequivocally refers
to fictional characters in early modern plays; it involves both adults and children, as well as
servants; they are members of a family who are biologically and non-biologically related with
each other. The dramatic parental family is supervised by parental characters, particularly
male and female adults. They employ autonomous power and assume distinct roles and
assignments: they are decision-makers, defenders, educators, and/or caregivers—in relation
to their male or female offspring. This comprehensive understanding of the family allows us
to have a far-reaching viewpoint on being a parent (not only maternity and paternity) and
analyse the connections between other adults and youths as comparable to the traditional
bonds between a father and mother and their biological children. Although these characters
are not related by blood, their parent-child association develops because of the apprenticeship
system (or being a servant), which is one of the many ways in which parental authority may
be considered in dramatic action. Other possibilities take into account adoption and certain
characters pretending to be surrogate parents, or adopting the child in infancy.
I will focus on the comportment of women on the early modern stage and I propose
that the theatre is a place to locate a comparatively stable and familiar source of female power
in the period. It is true that early modern women were marginalized politically and socially,
to a certain extent. Few women were monarchs, because the laws of inheritance favoured the
24
male successors; marriage and courtship tended to transform women into objects or, even
worse, into commodities; sons experienced a higher degree of social independence than
daughters did; and the male culture in itself looked as if it adopted misogynistic ideas. From
this perspective, women were supposed to be invisible in the public sphere. However, by
understanding the function of the placing of women in dramatic representations, we can
notice that even within an alleged patriarchal culture, women could have parental authority.
Rather than abandon the presence of women, this dissertation analyses gender issues not only
to show the essence of gender relationships in the period, but also to explore aspects of
family life that have been ignored. The early modern English stage allowed for men to
portray women characters; in this way, playwrights dramatize the authentic social tension
between men and women. Women are both powerful through their fictional presence (woman
as queen, mother, duchess, empress, and even murderer) and powerless, because of a
meaningful physical absence (woman only suggested by other characters).
The alignment of mothers and fathers as parents and members of family in early
modern England suggests that women (mothers) were not entirely subordinate to their
husbands in the household. This emerging notion strengthened over time. The same applies
for the understanding of notions of childhood in the period. According to Hugh Cunningham,
in Children and Childhood in Western Society Since 1500 (2005), “one of the theories about
the history of children and childhood is that they have become increasingly separate from
adults and adulthood, that is in fact all the more reason why we need to embed their history in
wider economic, social and political developments” (Cunningham 3). By reconsidering the
study of families (the near family represented by father, mother and children) as well as the
extended family (the servants and the elders) in relation to the social realities of the time,
historians have concluded certain basic facts about the early modern period. The father is a
godlike figure who, on some level, must try to be omnipresent for the sake of his household’s
success. He is responsible for giving care, protection, education, discipline, and advice to
household members. However, these early modern families are placed in specific dramatic
circumstances on stage, and this is what I call the placing of families.
The main body of evidence on which this dissertation is based is early modern drama.
Yet I engage early modern non-fictional sources, such as the English translation of Erasmus’s
Civilitie of Childhood (1560) and The Christian Oeconomie by William Perkins (1609),
particularly to consider different historical viewpoints connected with non-fictional discourse.
I propose an exploration of the extensive nature of parental authority in the early modern
period by taking into account the ways in which family succession was imagined. I suggest
25
that the dramatic parental figures strengthen the notion that family was quite important in the
period. After considering historical views, as shown in the non-fictional texts analysed, the
dissertation works on an analysis of the dramatic interactions between children and parents,
or surrogate parents, as well as the servants. The play-texts chosen for exploration include
several authors beside Shakespeare (Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton’s The Roaring
Girl and Thomas Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside). Apart from reading different
authors, this dissertation discusses various dramatic genres (comedy, romance, and tragedy),
identifying the concept of dramatic parental family within the identifiable contexts of these
plays.
The recognition and dismissal of specific early modern ideals within the plays
analysed are emblematic indications that suggest the fact that sixteenth- and seventeenth-
century English society was entangled in a struggle with its own social and cultural
parameters. I focus on the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as my primary
sources because early modern plays are culturally and socially significant; they strengthened
and defied social norms connected with domestic life. It is true that the plays should not to be
trusted totally, in the sense that they may be considered to be totally truthful illustrations of
family life. When we see a production of Titus Andronicus, for example, we should not think
that early modern fathers are as aggressive and violent as Shakespeare’s father, Titus, who
murders his daughter Lavinia. The plays offer several meanings related to early modern
families and households. However, Shakespeare and his contemporaries use artistic license in
their dramatic representations of families, related to the authority of mothers and fathers. I
will use the placing of families on stage to challenge the generally established views of
patriarchy as the controlling form of social authority in early modern households and
families. In this way, I demonstrate how marginalized figures become empowered and central
in the hierarchical ordering of family relations. The theatre destabilizes the common
assumptions about families and power by showing dysfunctional families or families in
which the roles are reversed. Thus, the placing of families on the early modern stage is
similar to—but also different from—the social realities of the time.

8. Overview of Dissertation

Building on the critical theories of spatiality (Henri Lefebvre, Gaston Bachelard,

Michel de Certeau, Edward Soja), cultural geography (Yi-Fu Tuan, J. E. Malpas, Julie
Sanders, John Gillies), new historicism (Stephen Greenblatt, Katherine Eisaman Maus),

26
feminist criticism (Phyllis Rackin, Natasha Korda, Tim Meldrum, Linda Pollock, Lisa
Jardine), and geocriticism (Andrew Hiscock, Andrew Bozio), as well as performance theories
(Jean Howard, Steven Mullaney, Janette Dillon, Allan Dessen, Erika Lin) and audience-
response theory (Jeremy Lopez), this dissertation examines the theatrical placing of families
in the context of early modern plays by William Shakespeare, as well as by Thomas Dekker
and Thomas Middleton. The concept of placing is based on dramatic action and the dramatic
space developed in each play under discussion. So is the concept of dramatic parental family,
which refers to representations of families in the theatre. As the theatre space represents the
social world in Shakespeare's time—but it is also different from it—this dissertation follows
the theatrical concept of placing the family issues along the lines of dramatic interaction, as
the social concepts of family, marriage, parenthood, children and service are dramatized on
stage.
The notion of family in drama cannot be dissociated from the stage world, or from the
specific characters involved in the dramatic action. For this reason, whether I discuss parents
and children (mothers and fathers, sons and daughters), racial issues within the family, or the
position of servants within the family, the performance space is always present. I argue that
families are dramatized and placed in the social space of the theatre—including meta-
theatrical allusions—and within the fictional space of the respective play's setting. Rather
than being mere replicas of the social interactions within the early modern family in the time
of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, the placing of these theatrical families is both like
and unlike the real-life social relations of the time, based on patriarchy and commodification
of women. The plays reveal alternative models of early modern families, where women
question patriarchate and devise theatrical schemes of their own, sons and daughters play
tricks on their fathers and mothers, and where servants are part of the family, but they also
contest and undermine the social assumptions of family relations, just as the theatre does.
These diversified representations of the dramatic parental families can be realized only in the
theatre, with its dynamic alternative versions of various worlds.
Chapter 1, entitled “The Placing of Parents on Stage” (1), examines issues of
parenthood in two Jacobean city comedies (The Roaring Girl by Thomas Dekker and Thomas
Middleton and A Chaste Maid in Cheapside by Thomas Middleton) and an early
Shakespearean revenge tragedy (Titus Andronicus), in order to show the placing of parents on
stage, through the embodiment of the actors’ roles and the fashioning of the dramatic parental
family, with all the implications derived from the social life of the time. I argue that the
spatial and cultural representations of family issues in comedy and tragedy depend on the
27
play’s genre and on various interpretations of the family relations, derived from the social
customs of the time and the actors’ interpretations of dramatic roles. Therefore, there is a
reciprocal relationship between the characters interpreting various members of the family in
the respective play and the space of the stage. While in the London city comedies ( The
Roaring Girl and A Chaste Maid in Cheapside) parental authority (of both mother and father)
is vocally claimed, but it becomes ultimately a game (like a play-within-the-play), in
Shakespeare’s tragedy (Titus Andronicus) parental relations in ancient Rome are pitted
against those of the barbarous peoples from distant lands (such as the Goths and the Moors),
along with issues of race, and all of them are found lacking.
The subchapter entitled “Fathers and Sons: The Roaring Girl” (1.1) of chapter 1
examines the placing of the figures of fathers and sons in Thomas Dekker and Thomas
Middleton’s The Roaring Girl (1607) in order to show that parental authority is placed in a
particular position in relation to the stage and the city by depicting parentage in the context of
the early modern community. I argue that the placing of the families of Sir Alexander
Wengrave and his son (Sebastian), of Mary Fitzallard and her father (Sir Guy Fitzallard), as
well as those of the marginal fathers Sir Adam Appleton and Sir Davy Dapper shows, in
opposition, patriarchal authority and female concealed power. Similarly, the families of the
working women (Mistress Openwork, Mistress Gallipot and Mistress Tiltyard) are set in
contrast with the transvestite woman Moll Cutpurse, the roaring girl of the title. While
fatherly and motherly authority was expected to function in the early modern period, mothers
in this city comedy are conspicuously absent and fathers cannot exercise their authority on
their children (on Sebastian Wengrave and Mary Fitzallard, respectively). Thus, the comedy
challenges the expectations of social notions of the time by showing that mothers are
powerful figures and, when they are absent, family values are contested.
The subchapter entitled “Mothers and Daughters: A Chaste Maid in Cheapside” (1.2)
of chapter 1 examines the placing of the dramatic parental family in the city comedy A
Chaste Maid in Cheapside by Thomas Middleton (1613) in order to show that the urban
space in which citizens’ families evolve opposes two types of families and relationships: the
legitimate Yellowhammer family (father, authoritative mother and daughter), formed of
people who pursue material wealth; and the illegitimate Allwit family (with Whorehound as a
surrogate father), which ends up in dire straits because the father’s authority is undermined.
Other families in the play (that of Touchwood Sr. and Sir Oliver Kix) raise issues of
parenthood and fertility. Several legitimate and illegitimate babies (represented by prop dolls)
appearing in the play’s subplot demonstrate that children have no choice in the
28
materialization of authority in the family, while parents have various obscure reasons for
using legitimate/illegitimate children in gaining material wealth. Families are images of
social conformity rather than harmoniously working organisations; when social conventions
are transgressed, families collapse, and it is the children who are the victims of their parents’
greed.
The subchapter entitled “Family and Race: Titus Andronicus” (1.3) of chapter 1
analyses the issue of race in relation to parentage in Shakespeare’s early tragedy Titus
Andronicus (1593), in order to show that the key parental issues are related to the regulation
of the body of the “other”—particularly the children’s bodies. Drawing on Foucault’s
discourse on the symbolic functions of blood (in The History of Sexuality), I argue that the
placing of Aaron’s character as a Moorish (and therefore “black”) father is related to religious
and racial difference. While Aaron’s politically manipulative figure is redeemed by his
parental love and compassion for his mixed-race baby, the Roman and Goth families (Titus
Andronicus and his sons and daughter, as well as Tamora and her sons) are placed in
relations of power one against the other. Rather than favouring their children’s lives and
happiness over political authority, both Roman and Goth families in this tragedy are more
concerned with civil influence and honour than they are with their children’s survival. Parents
in this revenge tragedy are victims of their own greed and insufficient understanding of
parenthood, while a typical villain, such as Aaron, shows compassion for his recently born
(but illegitimate) son. Families in Titus Andronicus are not identical mirrors of parental
relations in Elizabethan or Roman society, but they reflect these relations in a distorted
manner, through the bloody lens of metatheatrical revenge. Parents are cruel and vengeful to
their children (and to other parents’ children), while a marginalized mixed-race baby is saved
from the brutal circuit of revenge.
Chapter 2, entitled “The Placing of Families on Shakespeare’s Stage in the
Romances” (2), discusses the placing of the dramatic families in three Shakespearean
romances, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest. I argue that the
dysfunctional families represented in these plays transform physical geographic space into
individually circumscribed place. As the stage is the site for the placing of these social
concepts related to family relations in the dramatic context, families in the romances are
located in metaphoric places that suggest their contrastive emotions. Whether these intense
passions develop throughout the Eastern Mediterranean locations in Pericles, or in a fiery
Sicilia and a seemingly-pastoral Bohemia in The Winter’s Tale, or in a metaphoric island of
imagination in The Tempest, the families in Shakespeare’s romances are not so much related
29
to issues of power and authority as they are influenced by their prevailing emotions and
anxieties. While patriarchal authority is a dominant feature of these plays, female soft power
is opposed to these predominant trends, as the women in the plays restore the final harmony
in the couples—in both the older and the younger generations. Even if geographic space
divides families, they are reunited through the mothers and daughters, by traversing physical
space.
The subchapter entitled “Dysfunctional Families in Pericles, Prince of Tyre” (2.1) of
chapter 2 examines the representation of the dramatic parental families in the play by William
Shakespeare and George Wilkins, showing that the multiple locations of the play’s geography
influence the placing of families. The play subverts the pro-monarchic message according to
which King James I should be a benevolent father and king, showing that Pericles is an
indecisive father who wanders throughout the Mediterranean places in search of identity. The
incongruent spaces and the images of disease and loss in the play are arguments for the
distorted placing of families. Prostitution in the brothel space of Mytilene is a sign of
corruption of family relations, while Marina is the daughter who reinstates traditional notions
of purity in a corrupt Hellenistic world. The incestuous king and father of Antioch is not a
model parental figure to his daughter. Pericles is a weak prince and father, who wallows in
self-pity most of the time, and he is not the ideal authoritative head of the family. Neither is
Cleon, the governor of Tarsus, who cannot control his wife’s ambition and envy. Old King
Simonides is the image of the benevolent father, but his authority does not extend beyond the
confines of his Pentapolis, so his daughter (Thaisa) is harmed as soon as she exits this
protected world. When families are reunited through wife and/or daughter, they are allowed
to live harmoniously, as befits the ending of a romance play. The three metaphoric places of
the first half of Pericles (Antioch, Tyre and Tarsus) signify disaster for the three rulers (King
Antiochus, Pericles and Cleon) and their royal families. By contrast, the other three places
from the second part of the play (Pentapolis, Mytilene and Ephesus) advocate hope and
emotional recovery.
The subchapter entitled “Emotionally Confused Families in The Winter’s Tale” (2.2)
of chapter 2 examines the oppositional families in the play’s Sicilia and Bohemia (as well as
Russia, the country of Hermione’s birth) to show that the final reunion of the psychologically
muddled families of the three kingdoms is a responsive result of the errors and transgressions
of the fathers. The placing of the family of Sicilia (Leontes, Hermione, Perdita and Mamillus)
represents the figurative power of femininity, as opposed to faltering patriarchy, while the
family of Bohemia (King Polixenes and Prince Florizel) show the imperfect affective
30
relations between father and son. Even the faraway space of Russia suggests imagination and
divisiveness of family, like a disturbing tale told during the long winter nights. As distorted
manifestations of real-life familial relations, the play’s dramatic families evolve in an
illusionary world where relations of power and marriage are opposed to emotions such as
love, jealousy, mistrust and compassion. I argue that the play’s fictional families are placed in
a metatheatrical context, which acts as a kind of fictional drugging, or like a parallel world, in
which audiences react to the reality of performance.
The subchapter entitled “Distraught Families in The Tempest” (2.3) of chapter 2
discusses the anxiety dramatized through the play’s disturbed families. None of the families
in this romance are placed in a consistent environment. Duke Prospero and his daughter are
banished from Milan to a deserted island. King Alonzo and his son Ferdinand find their
identity only when they temporarily lose their royal status and understand who they really
are. Caliban’s single-parent family (his mother is the dead witch Sycorax) makes him
unsuitable for developing normal relations in society, so Prospero relegates him to the
position of slave. The magic island is a dystopic place in which each family evolves
according to its members’ frustrations, anxieties and hopes. The final reconciliation of these
dramatic families, however, instils a surreal sense of impossibility, as there is no perfect
harmony among different members of the family. The single-parent ducal family of Milan
(Prospero and his daughter) are expected to find happiness through Miranda’s marriage, but
the union is marred by the impending thought of death. The usurping brother Antonio never
learns the values of compassion and familial harmony. The single-parent royal family of
Naples (Alonzo and his son) apparently find themselves after uncontrollable changes of fate,
but neither father nor son is aware of this revitalisation. Finally, Caliban’s enslaved family
remains incomplete, as the son regains his power over the island, but remains alone and
isolated in his world of ignorance. Like in the theatre, there are several possibilities for the
development of the play’s dramatic families, and none of them is fully accomplished.
Chapter 3, entitled “The Placing of Shakespeare’s Servants as Family” (3) examines
the figures of servants (actors, playwrights, jesters, clowns, and playful pages) as members of
the theatrical family. Drawing on the proven fact that actors in Shakespeare’s time were
considered “servants” to a noble patron (Thompson 6), servants in the three Shakespearean
comedies analysed (The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, and Love’s Labour’s Lost) are
dynamic go-betweens, or messengers, linking various spaces of transition throughout the
play’s action. I argue that these theatrical servants destabilize the commonplace stereotypes
related to the mononuclear family in Shakespeare’s time, showing how actors (as servants)—
31
interpreting roles in the theatre—are able to undermine commonly held assumptions about
family issues. The chapter also analyses an important primary text of Shakespeare’s time
related to masters and servants, entitled Of Christian Oeconomie (1609) by William Perkins,
to highlight the social rules that governed these relationships. I argue that, in the three
Shakespearean comedies analysed in this chapter, servants are middlemen linking members
of different social classes and households—but also people of different financial positions or
interests—and they are associated with the world of the theatre, as actors interpreting roles.
The subchapter entitled “Inconstant Launcelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice”
(3.1) of chapter 3 discusses the placing of families in Shakespeare’s romantic comedy and the
role of servants as meta-theatrical go-betweens, transitional figures that link various spaces of
performance (the commercial world of Venice and Portia’s household in Belmont), as well as
the world of the play and the theatre space. Shylock’s single-parent family (Shylock and his
daughter, Jessica) is contrasted with the orphaned daughter in Belmont (Portia) to show that
opulence and money are not always the answer to a well-balanced family life. Belmont is a
place where new and young families are forged out of frustrations existing in Venice. The
rich families of Venice are rather imperfect and partially dissatisfied with their lives. Nor are
the newly formed families of Belmont (Portia and Bassanio, Graziano and Nerissa, and
Jessica and Lorenzo) more content and harmonious in their relationships, as mistrust is often
an issue dividing these couples. The servant (Launcelot Gobbo) is the figure of transition
linking the two spaces and families, as he used to be Shylock’s servant and then moves on to
become Bassanio’s man. Launcelot Gobbo is the play’s clown, just as his father (Old Gobbo);
as a symbol of the theatrical mask, he represents the theatre, linking the world of the play and
the theatre space, where actors play roles in front of an audience.
The subchapter entitled “Clowns, Servants and Actors in Twelfth Night” (3.2) of
chapter 3 examines the figures of servants in Shakespeare’s romantic comedy from the spatial
perspective of an indefinite Illyria, a kind of non-place where characters cannot define their
individuality. I argue that the play’s servants are associated with actors in the theatre; they
express intimate feelings through language; yet they do not speak with their own voice, but
with that of their master (the playwright), who scripts their role for them. Audiences are
placed in an elusive time-space continuum, in which the identity of actors interpreting roles
in the play is merged with the characters’ spurious identity. The play’s clown character
(Feste) and other servants (Malvolio, Fabian, Servant, Viola as page Cesario, musicians) and
companions (Maria) suggest theatrical art and the space of the stage. They are transitional
characters—or dynamic go-betweens—linking the households of their respective master and
32
mistress (Orsino and Olivia), but they also connect the imaginary Illyria to the theatre space
of each production by means of metatheatrical references. Feste, as the clown, suggests the
theatrical world; he adopts a disguise (as Sir Topas) and acts as a mediator between Olivia’s
and Orsino’s house, but he is also a middleman linking the audience with the world of the
play. Similarly, Viola (as page Cesario) transits various environments (from Orsino’s
household to Olivia’s), but she/he is constantly hindered by uncertain identity. Malvolio’s
self-importance and his misunderstanding of social relations place him among the characters
who do not know themselves; yet he is also interpreting a role, which draws attention to
meta-theatricality. Maria designs a play-within-the-play by devising the plot involving
Malvolio and the members of the audience to this theatrical production within the comedy, as
well as other servants and companions.
The subchapter entitled “Page Moth in Love’s Labour’s Lost” (3.3) of chapter 3
examines the placing of servants (Page Moth, Jaquenetta, but also Costard the clown) within
the world of the Shakespearean comedy, in relation to the stage space. Whereas the city of
Navarre, where the four lords develop their intellectualized opinions, typifies abstract and
sophisticated reasoning, the park in which the princess and her ladies are hosted is a place full
of life and empathy. The servants running between these two symbolic places are erudite
intellectuals who can break any argument and who can sing and dance (such as Page Moth),
or illiterate country bumpkins who display a kind of home-spun practical philosophy (such as
Costard the clown). The dairymaid Jaquenetta is also an illiterate country girl who provides
much of the fun in this comedy. Despite their lack of sophistication and their low social
position, however, these servants draw attention to the fact that all characters are interpreting
roles, because page Moth and Costard play in the pageant of the Nine Worthies, and the four
lords and ladies attend the performance. In this way, they are not only literal servants and
members of the Navarre family, but they also perform the tasks of carrying various messages
between the two parties. Thus, they are go-betweens, linking two social areas, but they are
also agents of comedy, interpreting a role in the theatre. Whether they are highly educated or
illiterate, their presence in the comedy is like a catalyst, advancing the comic development.

33
 CHAPTER 1
THE PLACING OF PARENTS ON STAGE

This chapter applies the theories of space and place as distinct dimensions of culture to early
modern drama to show the embodied and interconnected manner related to space when
representing parenthood on the English stage. In Family Life in the Age of Shakespeare
(2009), Bruce W. Young maintains that family is an important concern in almost all of
Shakespeare’s plays, as the plays present husbands and wives, parents and children and
siblings and cousins interacting in a variety of ways and the plots often focus on courtship
and familial conflict. As Young observes,

the plays present familial bonds not only as natural, but as sacred. In contrast to
modern ideas concerning personal autonomy, the plays depict characters whose
identities are essentially and unavoidably derived from their family relationships.
Furthermore, the plays often point to the self-sacrifice and humility, rather than self-
assertion, as the means for achieving personal fulfilment and happiness within
families. (Young 69-70)

Indeed, each Shakespearean play represents family life in a specific manner, generally related
to the real-life family situation, yet the dramatic milieu is different from reality. For this
reason, Shakespeare sometimes distorts and often heightens the realities of the time. This is
also the case of other dramatists, contemporary to Shakespeare, whose plays represent
families on stage in a particular manner, specifically related to the plot of comedy, tragedy, or
tragicomedy, and to the place of action.
In addition to requirements of plot and character, I introduce the concept of placing in
relation to the representations of parenthood on the early modern English stage. In Thinking
through Place on the Early Modern English Stage (2020), Andrew Bozio argues that there is
a form of thinking through place, which Bozio calls “ecological thinking” (2), which is a
mode of cognition in which “an environment—defined as the physical, social, and cultural
surrounding of an individual creature—functions as both the object and the medium of
thought” (2). Bozio’s ecological reading of the notion of “environment” (5) embodies not
only the spatial element that defines a particular place, but also the bodies, objects and
cultural features that constitute the particular dramatic environment. As a reverberation of
this concept, I have conceived of the notion of placing, which means the totality of spatial
34
and cultural features related to family life and parenthood, represented on the early modern
English stage, in a specific play. While these features have some relation to the social and
cultural reality of the time when the plays were first performed, there is a particular side-
effect of dramatic embodiment, which is connected to the actor’s body interpreting a certain
role and the director’s interpretation. The concept of placing, therefore involves various
forms of representing a certain play on different stages, by different actors and various
directors acting at distinctive points in time. In this way, the notion of placing of fathers,
sons, and daughters acquires specific interpretations, in accordance with the time in which
parenthood is performed on stage, besides the original form of placing emerging from the
playwright’s version of family life, which is the focus of this dissertation. All these aspects
create a specific form of relating family life to social and cultural background, without
neglecting time and place.
The concept of the placing of families in comedies or tragedies, therefore, involves a
form of reciprocal relationship between individual characters and their surroundings, as the
different ways in which characters engage with their surroundings work to actualize different
sets of possibilities that remain latent within the same location. In this way, as Bozio argues
in the conclusive chapter of Thinking through Place on the Early Modern English Stage,
Descartes’ concept that there is “no need of place” (Bozio 180) in the fantasies created by the
disembodied placeless mind is substituted to the opposite notion that “early modern drama
stages the impossibility of separating thought from its foundation in embodiment and
environment, as well as the consequences—alternately tragic and comic—of attempting to do
so” (Bozio 183). In this way, the place of action shapes the thought of the embodied actor and
audience, and this is the concept of the placing of families that I have conceived of. I argue
that families are positioned in direct relation to the genre of the particular play—whether
comedy, tragedy or tragicomedy—as identity is viewed as inseparable from its spatial
foundations. The metaphoric place that allows families to evolve on the early modern stage is
directly related to the social realties of the time in which the play was created, but also to the
hybrid dramatic selves generated by the play’s action in relation to the actor’s representation
of a certain character. Whether tragedy, comedy or tragicomedy, each play engages with a
dynamic metaphoric place that coincides with—and is derived from—the characters’
fractured or questioning selves.

1.1. Fathers and Sons: The Roaring Girl

35
This subchapter focuses in-depth on Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton’s The Roaring
Girl (1607), which has a plot that examines the challenges confronted in early modern
families and the relations between fathers and sons. This city comedy is particularly
convenient to explore because it offers the perspective of a single (probably widowed) father
in relation to his son, and also the single father of a daughter, as well as alternative figures of
fathers and sons. Moreover, this comedy underlines a particular kind of early modern
community and represents the London streets as influential public spaces, where the
judgement of the people, the citizens of London, might influence parental authority and
behaviour. This issue places parents in a particular position in relation to the stage and the
city, within the space of the theatre world. By examining this portrayal of family and parents
within the framework of the community, I show the ways in which the family is both a
private and socio-political entity, and how the placing of these families has a distinctive role
in the spatial and social setting of the play.
Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton’s The Roaring Girl is a fictionalized
dramatization of the character Mary Frith, known as Moll Cutpurse, who dressed as a man
and smoked a pipe and was famous as a domineering and violent woman in seventeenth-
century London. The family portrayed in the play, however, is that of Sir Alexander
Wengrave and his son, Sebastian. The son is in love with Mary Fitzallard, but their fathers
never permit the union because Sir Alexander demands a large dowry for Mary. Sir
Alexander scorns Mary Fitzallard’s “dowry of five thousand marks” (I.i.90) and calls Mary
“a beggar’s heir” (I.i.89).8 Sebastian uses dissimulation, by pretending to be in love with Moll
Cutpurse, the city’s notorious cross-dressed roaring girl. In this way, Sebastian hopes that his
father will be so worried by this unsuitable match that he will see marriage to Mary as a
preferable alternative. As Sebastian tells Mary, “all that affection / I owe to thee, on her in
counterfeit passion / I spend to mad my father” (I.i.103-105). Since Sebastian knows that his
father abides by the social conventions of the time, he intends to make him “mad” in order to
achieve his purpose. As Sebastian says, “he [Sir Alexander Wengrave] believes / I doat upon
this Roaring Girl, and grieves / As it becomes a father for a son / That could be so bewitch’d”
(I.i.105-108). Indeed, Sebastian Wengrave is just as conventional as his father is in observing
social relations, because Sebastian thinks that it is appropriate for a father to worry about the
social and material suitability of his son’s marriage.

8
All references to Middleton and Dekker’s The Roaring Girl are to the 1885 edition, edited by A. H. Bullen;
references to acts, scenes, and lines will be given parenthetically in the text, as well as page numbers from the
Preface, Prologue and Epilogue.

36
 In the play’s Preface, written by Thomas Middleton and entitled “To the Comic Play-
Readers, Venery and Laughter” (The Roaring Girl 7), the author draws a parallel between
fashion and playwriting, saying that plays are similar to nice dressing, and more particularly
to cross-dressing. As Middleton avers, “for Venus, being a woman, passes through the play in
doublet and breeches; a brave disguise and a safe one, if the statute untie not her codpiece
point” (Middleton and Dekker, The Roaring Girl 7). This statement is about appearance and
reality, because Moll Cutpurse, in male disguise, seems to be a man, but the reality of her
female genitalia is hidden behind her codpiece; this is a pouch attached to a man’s breeches
or close-fitting hose to cover the genitals. While the codpiece is a garment symbol of
masculinity, the character Moll Cutpurse hides the truth of her femininity behind this
masculine emblem. In this way, fashion and cross-dressing, like the theatre, hide certain
truths behind the appearance of metaphor and symbol. The theatre metaphor is continued in
the Prologue of The Roaring Girl, which expresses the audience’s expectations: “A PLAY
expected long makes the audience look / For wonders, that each scene should be a book, /
Compos’d to all perfection” (Prologue 1-3), which “shall fill with laughter our vast theatre”
(The Roaring Girl Prologue 10). The vast space of the Fortune theatre—where the play was
first performed—is reconsidered in accordance with the audience’s expected reaction of
laughter to the heroine’s cross-dressing. Therefore, the character of Moll Cutpurse is placed
within the theatre’s spatial environment.
Moreover, in the play’s Epilogue, the author states that Moll Cutpurse herself (the
real-life person) will be in the audience to view the play: “The Roaring Girl herself, some few
days hence / Shall on this stage give larger recompence” (The Roaring Girl Epilogue 35-36).
The world of the theatre, in which Moll Cutpurse figures as a character, therefore, coalesces
with the reality when, at the Fortune Theatre, the real-life personage attends the play. The
borders between theatre and reality are blurred, and the real-life Mary Frith becomes one with
the play’s character, Moll Cutpurse. In the Epilogue, the playwrights compare theatrical art
with the visual art of a painter, who paints a portrait, just as a writer depicts dramatic
characters. In the same way as the painter displays a portrait, and the people passing by have
different opinions about it, so the audience of the comedy has different opinions about plot
and characters: “Such, we doubt, / Is this our comedy: some perhaps do flout / The plot,
saying ’tis too thin, too weak, too mean” (Epilogue 15-17). The authors’ self-criticism is
suited to different types of audience attending the play. Therefore, images of character and
place, developed in the audience’s imagination, cannot be controlled by the author, just as the
perception of the work of visual art cannot be controlled by the painter. The metaphor of
37
fashion in the Prologue and the allegory of painting in the Epilogue of The Roaring Girl
direct the audience’s attention to the distinction between appearance and reality, which the
theatre addresses. For the same reason, I would say that the comedy does not totally
assimilate the deleterious social preconception about roaring termagant women dressed as
men. Jacobean society’s sanction of such women is opposed to the selective acceptance of
these manners, in a dialectic fashion.
Moll Cutpurse is a transgressive woman who dresses as a man and talks in cant, 9
which is the language of the low-life thieves in London. She is also very loud and makes a lot
of noise. In an article entitled “‘The Voice that Will Drown All the City’: Un-Gendering
Noise in The Roaring Girl” (2011), Jennie Votava argues for “the centrality of the o/aural in
the play’s construction of the title character” (69). As Votava explains, Moll Cutpurse
“emerges as a figure of the volatile and mobile o/aural phenomenon of noise as it traverses a
variety of embodied, theatrical, and geographic spaces” (Votava 69). Indeed, the female
character is everything that a young lady of the time should not be, including the loud noise
that she creates in the various places she visits: the apothecary’s shop, where she takes a pipe
of tobacco,10 the tailor’s shop, or the featherer’s shop. The spaces that Moll Cutpurse visits
are re-fashioned according to her turbulent personality. In this way, the spaces that are
frequented by both men and women are infused with the characteristics of the personality of
this woman, who behaves like a man. In this way, space is gendered and it becomes a place
of performance of Moll’s androgynous and transgressive behaviour. Therefore, the placing of
this character (Moll Cutpurse) is an illusion, based on the audience’s interpretation of the
play’s various spaces.
In “Orange Women, Female Spectators, and Roaring Girls: Women and Theater in
Early Modern England” (2009), Marion Wynne-Davies notes the gender-specific discourse
associated with early modern theatres. As Wynne Davies observes, “there are elements

9
In the article entitled “Gender, Cant, and Cross-Talking in The Roaring Girl” (1994), Jodi Michalachki
analyses Moll’s translation of cant language into English in 5.1, and concludes: “Like her cross-dressing, Moll’s
translating allows her a certain license to move between the rogues of the London suburbs and the gentlemen
and lords who visit the City” (119). Indeed, Moll Cutpurse is a transitional figure that has connections with both
the low-life characters of the London streets, as well as the London gentlemen, such as Sebastian Wengrave.
This transitional character has no family herself, but her influence on the families in the City is evident
throughout the play.
10
In “The Smoking Girl: Tobacco and the Representation of Mary Frith” (1999), Craig Rustici considers
tobacco smoking a vital feature of Moll’s character. As Rustici observes, “In the eyes of tobacco’s detractors,
Moll’s smoldering pipe, like her transvestite costume, links her to foreign sources of individual and social
disorder. On the other hand, according to tobacco’s proponents, smoking might instil the strength of body and
will need to sustain Moll’s extraordinary autonomous lifestyle” (Rustici 163). From the perspective of family
life, Moll’s smoking tobacco is another transgression of this extraordinary character, whose presence marks a
notorious kind of androgyny.

38
common to the orange women, the amorous female spectators, and Frith that suggest a
distinct gender-specific discourse, which might have been illicit, but which ran parallel with
the authorized entertainment being acted out on stage” (Wynne-Davies 20). Moll is called
the Roaring Girl because she behaves like the riotous gallants of the period, called “roaring
boys,” and Trapdoor describes her “masculine womanhood” (II.i.369). According to
Alexander Wengrave’s narrative of what an old man told him, Moll is “a thing / One knows
not how to name” (I.i.249-250), who is “woman more than man” (I.i.251) and “Man more
than a woman” (I.i.252). Moll is a scandalous figure because she dresses like a man and
behaves like a man, and because she has no husband; she is also believed to be a thief and a
prostitute. She evolves in the social space of the London city underworld, or the “gynocentric
London spaces” (195), according to feminist critic Fiona McNeill. Other characters perceive
Moll, at first, as a threat to their well-ordered patriarchal society, but later in the play she is
able to reinstall harmony in the same society and the families within it.
The representation of parenthood in The Roaring Girl, therefore, is not necessarily the
conventional image of the rich and noble father who rejects his son’s marriage to a woman of
lower social status because he is not satisfied with the dowry money. Just as Moll Cutpurse is
disguised as a man, Mary Fitzallard is “disguised like a sempster” (SD I.i.1), which is the
masculine version of a seamstress, and has connection with the fashion of the time. In this
disguise, Mary Fitzallard enters Sir Alexander Wengrave’s house to have a word with her
lover, but she first discusses with Neatfoot, Sir Alexander’s servant. The Wengrave house is a
place of the privacy of the family, while the false seamster represents a distorted image of
family values. Yet Mary Fitzallard is the daughter of Sir Guy Fitzallard, so she is of the same
noble social class as her promised lover, Sebastian Wengrave. However, she chooses to
disguise herself as a tailor—a member of the lower merchant class—in order to communicate
with her lover. Sebastian is amazed at Mary’s disguise, as he exclaims: “Ha! Life of my life,
Sir Guy Fitzallard’s daughter? / What has transformed my love to this strange shape?” (I.i.62-
63). To Sebastian Wengrave, who hesitates to violate the social and familial conventions of
his time, Mary’s transformation into a lower-class tailor is a “strange shape” (I.i.63) and a
“strange disguise” (I.i.66), similar to a miracle, which “Holds me with fear and wonder”
(I.i.67). Yet, in the play’s world, this is a theatrical transformation used by Mary’s character
to enact a theatrical play-within-the-play, with the help of which she would be able to trick
the conventional Sir Alexander Wengrave.
The two Marys—Mary Frith, alias Moll Cutpurse, and Mary Fitzallard—are parallel
images of femininity: one disguises as a man and hides her vulnerability behind an
39
outrageous lifestyle and behaviour, while the other woman conceals her defenceless feminine
identity and emotion behind a false garment, which represents a fake social condition. Mary
Frith is a fencer, which is a masculine occupation, while Mary Fitzallard pretends to be a
seamster, an occupation performed by both men and women, but more suitable for women,
for whom the term “seamstress” is more appropriate. Both women develop in a society that
considers the hierarchical rules of class and gender should be obeyed, and both women
transgress these rules. As Matt Carter observes about Moll Cutpurse, “Moll Cutpurse dresses
like a man, smokes like a man, and notably fights like a man. By engaging in duels, Moll
exerts the same kind of authority and interiority as a duelist, but she uses those skills to
instantiate agency over her body and her social self” (Carter 88). Carter sees Moll’s
destabilization of gender norms as liberating, based on the social realities that expected
women to dress as they did in the period, which limited their freedom, often by making them
sexually vulnerable. In “‘Quilted with Mighty Words to Lean Purpose’: Clothing and Queer
Style in The Roaring Girl” (2015), James M. Bromley discusses the ways in which London
citizens figured their changing relationship to each other and to material culture, as the city’s
population and economic activity rapidly increased in the early modern period. As Bromley
observes, “It was not beyond the bounds of the thinkable in the early modern period to
implicate clothing, lavish or otherwise, in the production of the wrong kind of sexual
selfhood as well” (145). Yet the transgressive uses to which clothes might be put are
contained, or even neutralized, in the play.
By contrast to Mary Frith/ Moll Cutpurse, Mary Fitzallard is not a transgressive
woman; on the contrary, she intends to integrate into the fold of conventional society by
marrying a nobleman’s son, Sebastian Wengrave. Before being able to do this, however,
Mary needs to perform a kind of cross-dressing herself, which she thinks would enable her to
communicate with her lover and evade Sir Alexander’s intolerant standards. Society and
individual personality are compared to the ship of state in this play, which functions correctly
when family rules are obeyed. When Sebastian Wengrave explains to Mary Fitzallard that his
father intends to disinherit him if he marries the promised woman with a poor dowry, Mary is
devastated and asks, “What follows then? My shipwreck?” (I.i.95). Just as the ship of state
sails smoothly when social and political rules are obeyed, and people behave according to
family conventions, women sail well when they make a good marriage; by opposition, they
fail in their social role when there is only a promise of marriage, and then they are jilted.
When a woman’s reputation is destroyed, as Mary thinks hers would be if Sebastian does not

40
keep his promise of marriage, she is like a ship floating adrift, prone to be shipwrecked on
any coast.
Sebastian takes over the ship metaphor replying that “with a side-wind / Must I now
sail, else I no haven can find, / But both must sink forever” (I.i.98-100). When the winds of
society are antagonistic to one’s purpose, one must adapt to circumstances and sail with a
side-wind, which implies a temporary transgression of the social norms. Sebastian implies
that it is necessary to change according to circumstances, while pretending to obey the correct
social rules. As he is in love with Mary Fitzallard—but his father refuses to sanction the
marriage because of the bride’s poor dowry—Sebastian Wengrave pretends to be filial and
adapt to the winds, sailing the ship of his family in a false direction, with the final purpose of
getting what he wants. From Sebastian’s perspective, the family is a flexible and mobile
social concept, just as the metaphor of the ship. Society is like a complicated architecture, and
when a person is faced with a “labyrinth” (I.i.97) of social norms—as Sebastian feels he is
“wildly” (I.i.97) trapped in a labyrinth—he/she should adapt to circumstances and pretend to
choose the lesser good. Both spatial metaphors—of the ship and the labyrinth—suggest
vulnerability and confusion. However, while the mobile ship of the family might be adapted
to suit the favourable or adverse winds—according to circumstances—the maze is a
complicated structure that cannot be altered so easily, similar to the established social
hierarchy.
Sebastian Wengrave is prepared to make a social compromise by pretending to court
Moll Cutpurse and he uses the private family connection with his father to move him by
making him think that his son is in love with a rowdy woman. As Sebastian tells Mary
Fitzallard, “This crooked way, sigh still for her [Moll Cutpurse], feign dreams / In which I’ll
talk only of her: these streams / Shall, I hope, force my father to consent” (I.i.109-111). By
responding to the privacy of feelings expressed in his dreams, Sebastian hopes to impress his
father. Moreover, Sebastian continues the sailing spatial metaphor by implying that the
feigned dreams are like flowing “streams” (I.i.110) by which he seeks to move his father to
consent to Sebastian’s marriage to Mary Fitzallard. Sebastian’s efficient plot is assimilated
with smooth sailing on the troublesome seas of life: Sir Alexander would be made to consent:
“That here I anchor, rather than be rent / Upon a rock so dangerous” (I.i.112-113). Marriage
to the socially suitable Mary Fitzallard is considered a haven where it is safe to anchor, while
the undesirable marriage with the boisterous Moll Cutpurse is assimilated with social
wreckage on a dangerous rock. Transgressing social norms is not considered an act of
courage—in the context of the socially obedient Sebastian Wengrave and Mary Fitzallard—
41
yet dissimulation and playing a theatrical act in order to deceive others is seen as a
convenient method to evade parental authority.
Sir Alexander Wengrave is a despotic father who forbids his son to marry Mary
Fitzallard because of a financial disagreement with Sir Guy Fitzallard. Sir Alexander is
horrified at the prospect of his son marrying Moll, and he invites his friends, Sir Adam
Appleton, Sir Davy Dapper, and the gallants in his parlour to lament his son’s behaviour. The
Wengrave family parlour is a space of privacy but also social convention, in which the
dictatorial father tries to impose his will to his son. The friends notice the fresh air of the
parlour as a symbol of social obedience. As Sir Adam wonders, “What a sweet breath the air
casts here, so cool” (I.i.128); Sir Davy says it is “A very fair sweet room” (I.i.131); and
Laxton admires the furniture: “See how ’tis furnish’d!” (I.i.130). The house furniture is a sign
of social status, and Sir Alexander Wengrave explains that the furniture “Cost many a fair
grey groat” (I.i.134), which means a lot of money, thus emphasizing social status. As Sir
Alexander concludes, “But good things are most cheap when they’re most dear” (I.i.135).
This means that Sir Alexander considers his expensive furniture as a good investment. He
sees, by inference, his son’s marriage as a social investment, so the lady should have a rich
dowry.
Apart from furniture as a sign of social status, Sir Alexander Wengrave takes pride in
the paintings in his “galleries” (I.i.136), which display his ancestors, who contributed to the
family’s present wealth and prestige.11 The gallery of portraits is a social space in which
visual representations of the family’s ancestors give depth to the notions of ancestry and
pedigree in a noble family. Yet Sir Alexander does not depict an idealistic image of the
ancestors’ portrait. As he says, these portraits are “Stories of men and women, mix’d together
/ Fair ones with foul, like sunshine in wet weather” (I.i.138-139). The implication is that not
all the members of the Wengrave ancestry have good character, but their blend has created a
family of which Sir Alexander is proud. The social space of the portrait gallery—where
friends are invited to view the family members, like in a show of past characters—can be
assimilated to the theatre gallery, where spectators view an array of characters with different
identities and social behaviours. However, these characters’ perceptions by the viewers are
11
In “Mary Frith at the Fortune” (2007), Mark Hutchings analyses this passage, in which Sir Alexander
Wengrave assimilates a portrait gallery to the theatre gallery (I.ii.14-32), and says: “Sir Alexander Wengrave’s
remarks in The Roaring Girl (1611), as he surveys the audience, gestures playfully to the Fortune’s reputation
for cutpurses, connecting the place of performance with the play’s subject. This speech is an early sign with the
play’s complex relationship with Mary Frith, and from the scholar’s vantage point an unwittingly ironic moment
of metatheatre” (Hutchings 89). Indeed, the fact that Mary Frith was surnamed Moll Cutpurse and was in the
audience at the first performance, probably in the theatre’s gallery, speaks a lot about the play’s metatheatrical
meanings.

42
unpredictable, similar to the changings in the weather. The diversity of the characters in the
members of the same family is associated with the diversity of characters in a play, as they
are part of the same dramatic family.
The description of the paintings of Sir Alexander’s ancestors, displayed in the gallery,
is symbolic for the relationship of parents and children and how this family portrayal projects
into the future. Even if not all the ancestors have a commendable character, they are all
members of the same family. As Sir Alexander says, “As many faces there, fill’d with blithe
looks, / Shew like the promising titles of new books / Writ merrily, the readers being their
own eyes, / Which seem to move and to give plaudities” (I.i.142-145). Just as the furniture in
Sir Alexander’s parlour is a symbol of social status, the ancestors’ portraits in the gallery are
images of a promising future, which lookers-on may applaud. They are like the promising
titles of “new books” (I.i.143), portraits of people in whose eyes the future generations may
read ambitious intentions. Even if the row of portraits includes a “cut-purse” (I.i.147), who
“thrusts and leers / With hawk-eyes for his prey” (I.i.148), the proud Sir Alexander need not
show him to his friends, because they may guess who he is “By a hanging, villainous look”
(I.i.149). Even though not all is well in the proud Wengrave ancestry, Sir Alexander has the
honesty to admit it, thus showing that an enterprising spirit is more important than character
honesty. However, the paradox is that Sir Alexander rejects a prospective daughter-in-law,
surnamed Moll Cutpurse, while he also had a cutpurse ancestor in his family. This shows that
Sir Alexander is a socially prejudiced person, who is ready to concede moral faults when they
belong to members of his own family, but who is not prepared to accept the same defects in
others.
Sir Alexander is a father blinded by social position and money, as he demonstrates
when he invites his son’s friend, Greenwit, to remain in the house and have a glass of wine.
When Greenwit wants to leave, Sir Alexander says, “Not so, sir; a merry day / ’Mongst
friends being spent, is better than gold sav’d / Some wine, some wine!” (I.i.162-164). As Sir
Alexander hopes that Sebastian’s friends would have a beneficial influence on his son’s
marriage decisions, the father invites Greenwit for a drink in his house. However, Greenwit’s
name means youth and lust (as in an immature person), and he accompanies his gallant
friends in smoking tobacco in the apothecary shop. Moreover, Greenwit helps Laxton in his
endeavour to extort money from Gallipot by pretending to be a court officer who serves him a
citation; therefore, Greenwit is not such a good friendly influence for Sebastian Wengrave, as
Sebastian’s father believes. However, the naïve and socially formal Sir Alexander Wengrave
is not aware of Greenwit’s transgressions and he believes that the young man could have a
43
beneficial influence on his son’s behaviour, and this is why Sir Alexander invites Greenwit
for a drink in his house. Like a member of the extended family, Sir Alexander perceives
Greenwit (Sebastian’s friend) as a tool he could use in the process of fashioning his son’s
obstinate character.
During the convivial drinking party that Sir Alexander offers to his friends (Sir Adam
Appleton and Sir Davy Dapper), the father laments his son’s behaviour. Yet Sir Alexander
does not dare tell his dissatisfaction about his son directly, but he concocts a story about an
“aged man” (I.i.188), who was dissatisfied with his son. As Sir Alexander narrates, “This son,
saith he, that should be / The column and main arch unto my house / The crutch unto my age,
becomes a whirlwind / Shaking the firm foundation” (I.i.236-239). Just as Sir Alexander
Wengrave’s ancestry is the foundation of the familial architecture, the son is a supporting
column of the family house, or a supporting staff in his father’s old age. However, when the
son transgresses social rules and behaves inappropriately, he becomes a “whirlwind”
(I.i.238), a dangerous column of air moving rapidly in a cylindrical shape, and so he
endangers the family’s stability. Sir Alexander Wengrave sees the family as a sanctuary of
social stability, like a house with solid architecture, and his son as a support for his father in
his old age. For this reason, he does not allow for any transgression on his son’s part.
However, the fact that Sir Alexander presents his familial situation through the indirection of
a third-person narrative shows that the authoritative father is himself insecure. This is like a
theatrical story which represents a father’s insecurities through the indirection of third-person
narrative, just because the father is so preoccupied by social preconceptions that he has no
courage to reveal his own identity and opinions.
Sir Alexander’s friends, Sir Adam Appleton and Sir Davy Dapper, understand a
father’s position and they sympathize with Sir Alexander. Sir Adam Appleton describes the
fictional ingrate son as “some prodigal” (I.i.238), alluding to the biblical prodigal son, while
Sir Davy calls the virago woman (Moll Cutpurse), with whom the fictional son has a
relationship, “A monster! ’Tis some monster!” (I.i.256). The two conservative fathers have
similar opinions about the fictional prodigal son’s bad behaviour, thus showing that they
represent the views of the patriarchal society of their time. The two fathers who agree with
Sir Alexander Wengrave, Sir Adam Appleton and Sir Davy Dapper, have different
approaches regarding the father–son relationship. Sir Adam Appleton, because he has the
name of the biblical Adam, supports the patriarchal perspective according to which the
prodigal son should be supported by his father, despite his many faults and deviations from
the social norms. Conversely, Sir Davy Dapper is dismayed at his own son’s behaviour, as
44
Jack Dapper wastes his money on gambling and his companions. As a result, Sir Davy
Dapper files a false arrest warrant against Jack, thinking that time spent in jail would
discipline his son. These two figures of fathers in the play are set in opposition to Sir
Alexander Wengrave in order to give alternative opinions about what fatherhood means from
the perspective of the fathers.
Both figures of fathers are on Sir Alexander’s side and reprimand Sebastian, as Sir
Adam asks “Will you love such a poison?” (I.i.271) and Sir Davy says, “Fie, fie!” (I.i.271).
Indeed, the three fathers (Sir Alexander Wengrave, Sir Adam Appleton and Sir Davy Dapper)
respond to their sons’ recalcitrant misbehaviour with an authoritarian attitude. All three
believe that paternal authority should be re-established in the family, and their transgressive
sons should be brought to obedience of the social norms. However, the dramatic exchange
shows that the three fathers are wrong in their patriarchal conclusions about parenthood.
Rather than blaming their sons’ unconventional behaviour on their friends, or the women they
hang out with, the fathers should, instead, have created the conditions for their sons to
understand their faults and act upon amending them freely, especially since the young men’s
riotous behaviours seem to have been conditioned precisely by the fathers’ dictatorial
conduct. There is a vicious circle in the authoritarian parenthood dramatized in the play
through these three father figures. Each authoritarian father is not aware of his faults, while
the sons’ excessive attitudes are conditioned exactly by their fathers’ incompetence as
parents.
Sebastian Wengrave’s conclusion to all the three fathers’ reaction is revolt, as he tells
the three father figures, “You are all mad!” (I.i.273); this attitude reveals the son’s rebellion
at the conventions imposed by patriarchal authority, but also the lack of reasonable arguments
that the old man adduces in support of his statements. Yet Sebastian only pretends to rebel
against the patriarchal rules imposed by the elderly fathers, because his attachment to Moll
Cutpurse is only fake, set forth with the exact purpose of making his father accept a lesser
evil (marriage to the impecunious Mary Fitzallard) as opposed to the higher transgression of
marrying the man-like Moll Cutpurse. While Sir Alexander exclaims, “What gentleman but
thou, knowing his disease / Mortal, would shun the cure!” (I.i.276-277), and calls Sebastian a
“cruel boy” (I.i.280), Sebastian calls Mary a “virtuous maiden” (I.i.287) and requests his
father’s approval to marry Fitzallard’s daughter instead. In this game of illusions and half-
truths, where neither the father nor the son is sincere, while both pretend to accept the social
norms unequivocally, the status of family and parenthood is radically distorted. While the
father pretends to give his son lessons about social behaviour and marriage, it is, in fact, the
45
son who intends to teach his father a lesson. Both are essentially insincere, thus showing the
superficiality of social conventions related to marriage and social hierarchy.
For Sir Alexander, the alternative of Sebastian marrying Mary Fitzallard is as
inacceptable as that of marrying Mary Frith, as the father says that he would give his son
“rats-bane rather” (I.i.293), which is a powerful poison. Just as the old man perceives Moll
Cutpurse as “poison” (I.i.271) and “idol” (I.i.278), the alternative marriage to the other Mary
is seen as equally poisonous by the father who obeys social conventions. As Sebastian
persists in his intention of marriage to the transgressive woman, the father appeals to pathetic
invocations to emphasize his son’s mercilessness: “O thou cruel boy! / Thou wouldst with
lust an old man’s life destroy!” (I.i.280-281). Sir Alexander complains that he is almost
dying, in order to provoke his son’s sympathy: “Because thou see’st I’m half-way in my
grave, / Thou shovel’st dust upon me: would thou might’st have / Thy wish, most wicked,
most unnatural!” (I.i.282-284). Indeed, the pathetic father appeals to sentimental examples to
persuade his son, while Sebastian tries to bring reasonable cases into the conversation. As
Sebastian calls Mary Fitzallard a “virtuous maiden” (I.i.289), Sir Alexander’s arguments
seem even more childish and unreasonable.
Sir Alexander Wengrave sees a father’s wrath at his son’s rebellious behaviour as a
force of nature, a compelling storm that destroys everything in its way. The commanding
father (Sir Alexander Wengrave) describes the fictional old man’s anger, when he was asked
about his son, as follows:

… but when th’imperious winds

Use strange invisible tyranny to shake
Both heaven’s and earth’s foundations at their noise,
The seas, swelling with wrath to part that fray,
Rise up, and are more wild, more mad than they:
Even so this good old man was by my question
Stirr’d up to roughness.
(I.i.205-2011)

The metaphor of the rough sea and tempest shaking the foundation of the family—
represented by the bond between father and son—is used here to express indirectly Sir
Alexander Wengrave’s resentment raised by the fact that his son was having an affair with
Moll Cutpurse. Yet Sir Alexander expresses his frustration at his son’s improper social
46
behaviour in the form of an indirect narrative, using poetic metaphors, which signal powerful
feelings. In this way, the father’s discourse sounds contrived, suggesting that his purpose is
rather to impress than amend by using rational arguments.
In his narrative about the old man, Sir Alexander vents his frustration at his son’s
misbehaviour, but he also intends to place himself in a favourable light, by saying that the
fictional old man is not touched by “avarice” (I.i.219), which sickens elderly people. Avarice
is seen as an infectious disease which, as the old man says, “Never infected me” (I.i.220). Sir
Alexander, through the intercession of the old-man narrative, sees himself “like a lamp / Fed
with continual oil, I spend and throw / My light to all that need it, yet have still / Enough to
serve myself” (I.i.222-225). The metaphor of an oil lamp that gives light while the
combustion material is being spent out represents patriarchal authority that is spent in the
service of society, by trying to amend the behaviour of irreverent sons. Even if Sir Alexander
Wengrave is a frustrated father who cannot understand why his son chose to deprive him of
filial support, he represents himself as a benevolent person who does everything for his son,
including giving him money and being generous with paternal resources. However, Sir
Alexander is a deficient father because he does not understand that the father–son
relationship does not reside only in fulfilling the son’s material needs.
Rather than merely being a youthful support for his elderly father, the son should be
affectionately encouraged by his parent, thus showing the bonds that exist in the family,
which were considered the essence of parenthood. Certainly, Sir Alexander Wengrave does
not know that Sebastian’s transgression and his pretended wish to marry Moll Cutpurse are
fake. Through dramatic irony, the audience knows that this is the case, and they may find
little sympathy for the frustrated father, who uses the indirection of narrative to complain that
his son does not obey the conventional social norms. Moreover, Sir Alexander hires Ralph
Trapdoor to spy on Moll Cutpurse and create a situation in which the transgressive woman
might be compromised. When Trapdoor meets with Sebastian in Sir Alexander’s room, he
leaves out valuable items to tempt Moll into stealing them, so that she should be sent to
prison. As Moll does not take the bait, because she is well versed in the ways of the world
and does not fall into the trap, Sir Alexander tries to give her money, intending to claim later
that she had stolen it. As neither of these ploys succeed, Sir Alexander finds himself in the
position of an elderly man who is fooled by others, including his own son; his observance of
social conventions has not helped him in ascertaining people’s real characters.
While Sebastian listens to his father’s narrative about the old man, he is increasingly
aware that this is a story directed at him. When Sir Alexander speaks contemptuously of the
47
outrageous person who seduced the old man’s fictional son as “A scurvy woman” (I.i.246)
and “A creature, saith he, nature hath brought forth / To mock the sex of woman” (I.i.248-
249), Sebastian describes Moll as “A flesh-fly that can vex any man” (I.i.225). In this way,
both father and son have a male-centred view on wilful women as parasites, who live off the
man’s flesh, swarming around his carnal desires. However, Sebastian is aware that his father
is using the old-man narrative to create an indirect story to refer to him, and he expresses his
mistrust at Sir Alexander’s statements: “Now I do smell a fox strongly” (I.i.228). Sebastian
sees himself in the posture of a hound who is chasing a foul-smelling fox, which is his
father’s lie, and his intention is to detect the inuendo hidden behind his father’s narrative
about the old man. The animal and insect metaphors of women as parasites reinforce the
opinion that both father and son are playing roles, in a game of their own invention. It is not
clear, however, who is manipulating whom. While the father believes that he uses allusions to
animal imagery to suggests to his son that women are unscrupulous bloodsuckers who intend
to use their husbands’ wealth, the son is aware that he is the one with manipulative intentions,
trying to persuade his father of a falsity.
When he intends to reveal the double-speak, Sebastian exclaims twice, “’Tis false!”
(I.i.258; 260). While Sebastian thinks that his father’s incorrect reproach touches his filial
pride, in fact it is Sebastian who uses falsity, because he only pretends to court Moll
Cutpurse. Sir Alexander finally reveals the characters involved in the old-man narrative: “O
my dear friends, / I am that wretched father! This that son, / That sees his ruin, yet headlong
on doth run” (I.i.268-270). Sir Alexander feels he is a “wretched father” (I.i.269) because his
son is pursuing an inappropriate marriage, while the unfilial son sees his social mistake—
which would lead to his ruin—but continues in his wrong ways. The tension between father
and son destabilizes the conventional status of harmony in the family, when parents are
expected to be supported by their sons and heirs. While parental authority is thoroughly
undermined by the son’s false misbehaviour, the fictional narrative of the old man distances
and decentres the possible sympathy that the audiences might have for the wronged father,
Sir Alexander Wengrave.
As if in reply to his father’s stubborn attitude of rejecting Mary Fitzallard as his
daughter-in-law, Sebastian represents himself just as passionate and unreasonable. As
Sebastian says, “I am deaf to you all! / I’m so bewitch’d, so bound to my desires, / Tears,
prayers, threats, nothing can quench out those fires / That burn within me” (I.i.296-299).
Sebastian Wengrave just pretends to be an irrational young man who is in passionate love
with the riotous woman (Moll Cutpurse). In fact, he is quite rational and calculating because
48
he knows he is playing a role in a play-within-the-play of his own invention. Just as Sir
Alexander’s paternal anger is like a force of nature, represented by a storm or strong winds,
so the son’s pretended carnal passion is the fire that cannot be quenched. In fact, both types
of fervent feelings are fake: Sir Alexander’s because, when he describes his anger, he uses
the indirection of the old-man narrative, therefore he is playacting, and also Sebastian’s
passion for Moll Cutpurse is fake. All in all, this violent public encounter between father and
son is nothing but a playful and contrived game, like a play-within-a-play, in which each
protagonist has ulterior motives. This conventionalism between father and son replicates the
issues of the conservative society of the time, when patriarchy was an accepted contract. In
the end, when Sir Alexander is reconciled with Sir Guy Fitzallard, and when Sebastian
marries Mary Fitzallard, Sir Alexander is happy to take Mary as a daughter-in-law, which
proves that his attitude towards Mary was unreasonable from the start.
Sir Alexander’s self-interested behaviour also provides justification for Sir Guy
Fitzallard, who is the fourth father figure in the play, and the only one who has a daughter.
He gets involved in the trick that is used to bring Mary and Sebastian together in marriage.
Sir Guy encourages his daughter to marry up, so he plays the role of the supportive, devoted
father, and he stands in contrast to Sir Alexander Wengrave and Sir Davy Dapper. Mary is
the only child (daughter) in the play who is not blatantly disrespectful to her father.
Consequently, Sir Guy Fitzallard tries to help Sir Alexander to see the error he has made in
rejecting Mary Fitzallard in favour of Moll Cutpurse. As Sir Guy says, “A very abject she,
poor gentlewoman! / Your house had been dishonoured. Give you joy, sir, / Of your son’s
gaskin-bride” (V.ii.24-26). The reference to Moll’s musculature is suggested through the
allusion to “gaskin,” which is the muscular part of the hind leg of a horse. This alludes to
Moll being as tall and muscular as a man or a horse. Yet Sir Guy warns of other potential
misfortunes, brought as a consequence of Sebastian’s marriage to Moll Cutpurse: “You’ll be
a grandfather shortly / To a fine crew of roaring sons and daughters” (V.ii.27-28). Sir Guy
mentions Sir Alexander’s accusation that Sebastian’s matrimony to Mary would have brought
dishonour to his house. Sir Guy Fitzallard observes that it is the marriage to the roaring girl
that will bring this shame. Just like all other characters, Sir Guy defines Moll by her clothes,
by what she wears; thus, he indicates to Sir Alexander that he misunderstands Moll, just as
everyone else does. Moreover, Sir Guy’s allusion to the future, through his use of
“grandfather” (V.ii.25), implies that Sebastian might have sex with Moll in order to engender
roaring grandchildren.

49
 Moll is also imagined as a mother in another instance in the play; this time she serves
as Sebastian’s wife. Sir Guy Fitzallard’s position as a parent makes him understand the
impact that this union is able to have on a father; therefore, he uses that knowledge to his
benefit in order to help in the manipulation of Sir Alexander. As the characters develop
together and they collaborate to inspire fear in Sebastian’s father, they force him to accept
Mary. Sir Guy Fitzallard’s conversation with Sir Alexander Wengrave is an essential
intervention that creates an altered perspective on the role of the intermediary in matters of
courtship. During the entire play, Sir Alexander works as an engagement obstruction, because
he hinders his son’s two hypothetical relationships. He interferes precisely to make sure that
his son does not proceed with a marriage to Mary and then Moll. Contrarywise, Sir Guy
Fitzallard plays as a wooing intercessor. He is a marriage agent, or matchmaker, because he
guarantees that his daughter marries the man that she loves. This man, however, happens to
be of superior birth, because Sebastian Wengrave appears to be of higher nobility status than
Sir Guy Fitzallard. Sebastian’s game of delusion and his apparent insubordination towards his
father are supported by the other father figure in the play, Sir Guy Fitzallard. He firmly
encourages Sebastian’s choice to marry his daughter, Mary Fitzallard. Although it is possible
that Fitzallard’s backing comes from a socially egoistic outlook, as he may be aware of the
pecuniary advantages of Mary’s wedding to Sebastian, the play suggests little actual evidence
which sustains Mary’s class ascent as her father’s chief incentive.
Before the nuptial between Sebastian Wengrave and Mary Fitzallard obtains
endorsement from Sir Alexander Wengrave, Sir Guy Fitzallard persists in leading him on,
thus increasing the likelihood that old Wengrave will accept Mary. Earlier in the play,
Sebastian tested his father. So does Sir Guy Fitzallard, who tests Sir Alexander Wengrave. As
Sir Guy begs, “Oh, play not with the miseries of my heart! / Wounds should be dressed and
healed, not vexed or left / Wide open, to the anguish of the patient, / And scornful air let in”
(V.ii.29-32). Suffering in love is associated with an open wound, while fatherly love is also
like a festering wound that should not be infected by the surrounding air. Sir Guy continues
in his advice to Sir Alexander in a grandiloquent manner: “rather let pity / And advice
charitably help to refresh ’em” (V.ii.32-33). In the relationship between father and daughter
(like in that between father and son), the issues of pity and charity are seen as more important
than even love. Moreover, the thought of Moll and Sebastian’s prospective marriage makes
Sir Alexander Wengrave unhappy. For this reason, what he wants at the moment is to aid in
the recovery of his parental “wounds” (V.ii.30). It is as if he has moved to a point in which he
realizes just how out of his control Sebastian seems to be. In his turn, Sebastian looks as if he
50
makes his own decision in point of marriage, regardless of his father’s wish, but his real
intentions are still concealed.
Women play an important role in early modern familial relationships, and in relations
of parenthood. In a society in which work was socially compatible with certain genders,
working women are considered less important in the social economy of the family. For this
reason, less central characters in The Roaring Girl, such as Mistress Openwork, Mistress
Gallipot and Mistress Tiltyard, have been rather neglected by critics, who have focused
mainly on the transgressive woman Mary Frith. These women are distinguished from Moll
not simply as married women, but also as working women. As Mario Digangi observes in
“Sexual Slander and Working Women in The Roaring Girl” (2003), “Urban plays like The
Roaring Girl instead depict citizen-class wives who participate in the public market
economy: an arena, much like the public theater itself, in which female visibility could easily
translate as sexual availability” (Digangi 147). Indeed, Mistress Gallipot and Mistress
Openwork are working women who are ready to accomplish their male clients’ desires. The
first words that Mistress Gallipot utters in the play are “Gentlemen, what is’t you lack?”
(II.i.1). Apart from being a set phrase for greeting clients in an Elizabethan shop, this
expression suggests availability from all points of view, and when a married woman utters it,
the phrase may suggest sexual availability.
Mistress Prudence Gallipot is wife of Hippocrates Gallipot, the apothecary, and she
“minces tobacco” (II.i.8)12 for clients in her apothecary shop. This marriage only seems
convenient from a social perspective, because Mistress Gallipot is enamoured of the gallant
Laxton; yet Laxton plays her along and makes her steal money from her husband in order to
give it to him. As Laxton says about Mistress Gallipot, “she has wit enough to rob her
husband, and I ways enough to consume the money” (II.i.93-94). The lover with expensive
tastes, Laxton, is one of the roaring boys, and his role in the play is that of provoking deep
misunderstandings and mistrust within the family, between husband and wife. When Laxton
demands more money from Mistress Gallipot, even more than she is able to give him without
making her husband suspicious, Mistress Gallipot devises a smart plan. She claims that she
had been betrothed to Laxton but married Gallipot instead, because she believes that Laxton
drowned at sea and he would never come back to her. Now, she claims, Laxton has returned
to demand her marriage promise from her, and he must be bought off. Even if the apothecary
Hippocrates Gallipot agrees to pay Laxton off in order to keep him silent and ensure the

12
At the time the play was written, tobacco was sold by apothecaries and it was considered one of the “Indian
pot-herbs” (II.i.10-11), according to the character Laxton.

51
family’s honour, Laxton returns later to extort more money from him, and this makes
Mistress Gallipot reveal the truth.
The marriage between Mistress Gallipot and her apothecary husband is socially
deteriorated by the wife’s extramarital relationship with Laxton, but Mistress Gallipot is a
working woman who knows how to sail the dangerous seas of life. The family’s name alludes
to a galley, a low flat ship with one or more sails, used for warfare. Galleys were famous for
their stability, but they were aggressive vessels used in naval combat. Working women,
however, depended on their husbands’ business for a living, and they did only small menial
work within that business. As Laxton observes, “’tis many a good woman’s fortune, when her
husband turns bankrout, to begin with pipes and set up again” (II.i.12-14). This statement
implies that Hippocrates Gallipot is not so successful in his apothecary business, and he is
close to bankruptcy, while his wife is striving to make ends meet by selling pipes and cutting
tobacco. The social meaning of Laxton’s words is that the family formed by the married
couple is not only a contract devised for having children—as the Gallipots are childless—but
also a social and business contract to help each other in time of need. From Laxton’s
perspective, the fact that Mistress Gallipot is working in her husband’s shop is some sort of
“fortune” (II.i.12) because she had ready access to hard cash without her husband’s
knowledge, but also to several men who visited the shop to purchase tobacco.
Mistress Gallipot used to be “a gentlewoman born” (II.i.9), according to Laxton, yet
she encountered “hard fortune” (II.i.10) and married the apothecary. Despite this fact, this
woman’s social misfortune does not prevent Laxton from demanding more money from her,
which speaks a lot about the gallant’s profiteering character. Laxton has semi-patriarchal
notions about the importance of man and wife in marriage, as he tells his fellow-gallants that
“the raising of the woman is the lifting up of the man’s head at all times; if one flourish,
th’other will bud as fast, I warrant thee” (II.i.16-18). Laxton looks at marriage as an
ecologically tended garden, in which wife and husband are in symbiotic relationship, and the
wife’s flourishing is a condition for the husband’s budding. This means that women have a
better business acumen than men do. Yet the galley that helps the Gallipots sail through the
rough seas of life does not work well under the particular social circumstances represented in
the play, in which the wife has an illicit relationship with a man. Moreover, a galley, chiefly
used for warfare and piracy, was manned by slaves or criminals. In the Gallipots’
asymmetrical family—which is not blessed with children—material gain is used improperly
by the wife to finance her lover’s demand for luxury goods. For this reason, the family’s ship
has no stability and the apothecary’s business is foundering.
52
 Mistress Rosamund Openwork is the wife of the seamster and she was a seamstress in
a lady’s service before she married. She distrusts her husband’s faithfulness and thinks that
he is having an affair with Moll Cutpurse, as she frequently visits their shop. As Goshawk is
interested in having an affair with Mistress Openwork, her husband is suspicious of him and
tells him—falsely—that he keeps a whore in the suburbs. Goshawk tells this fake news to
Mistress Openwork, in order to alienate her from her husband and to make her have an affair
with him. This is why, when Moll Cutpurse enters the seamster’s shop, Mistress Openwork
greets her with “Get you from my shop!” (II.i.243), instead of a welcoming tone. In her turn,
Moll replies that Openwork has a “poor living” (II.i.247) and she pities him. However, Moll
implies that he “sews many a bawdy skin-coat together” (II.i.248), which implies a licentious
affair. Mistress Openwork, however, thinks herself to be of good family, as she tells
Goshawk that she was “a gentlewoman born” (II.i.344-345) before her marriage to the
seamster. When Mistress Openwork confronts her husband, he denies the bawdy story and
she trusts him; as a consequence, together they set a trap for Goshawk. When Goshawk
intends to take Mistress Openwork to show her where her husband keeps his whore—but, in
fact, Goshawk intends to have sex with her—Openwork confronts them as they are about to
leave. In the ensuing argument, Godshawk’s plot is revealed and he is finally humiliated and
forgiven. In the Openwork marriage, therefore, trust is a relevant issue, as family
relationships are based on mutual confidence and understanding.
Mistress Tiltyard has few lines as a character in The Roaring Girl; her husband is a
feather-seller of London, so he is a representative of the affluent merchant class in the city.
The family’s name, Tiltyard, suggests that the family is like a safe yard, but the preferences
of one or another of the members of the family may be tilted towards the exterior. Tiltyard is
more interested in sport and entertainment than work, leaving his wife, Mistress Tiltyard, to
run the shop while he goes hunting. This leaves her exposed to the gallants’ aggression, but
there is no indication that she falls for one of them, probably because Moll Cutpurse may
have a hand in it. When Moll enters the featherer’s shop, she asks “How does Mistress
Tiltyard?” (I.i.221), which means that the lady is present in the featherer’s shop to attend to
the clients. She does not respond, as Jack Dapper intrudes in the conversation, attracting the
attention towards Moll. When Moll sees Jack Dapper adorned with many feathers acquired
from the featherer’s shop, she exclaims, as a possible allusion to Mistress Tiltyard, “’tis
impossible to know that woman is thoroughly honest, because she’s never thoroughly tried”
(II.i.332-334). Moll’s conclusion is that “Women are courted, but ne’er soundly tried / As
many walk in spurs that never ride” (II.i.339-340). This means that some women just expose
53
themselves to gossip related to their chastity, but they are not transgressive. Moll challenges
Mistress Tiltyard chastity, as if in a tournament: “I’ll try one spear against your chastity,
Mistress Tiltyard” (II.i.356-357). Since this licentious proposal comes from a woman
disguised as a man, Mistress Tiltyard does not feel threatened.
Mistress Tiltyard’s ambiguous position towards cuckoldry is significant in the play, as
it reveals the volatility of relationships outside the family bonds. This does not mean that
Mistress Tiltyard is not important in the economy of the play. On the contrary, her presence
as a working woman shows that, in early modern marriages, many wives took care of their
husbands’ businesses even better than men did. The fact that working women expose
themselves to male clients in the shop does not necessarily mean that they are unchaste and
they represent a danger to the family’s position in society. On the contrary, Mistress
Tiltyard’s unobtrusive presence shows that women are just as capable as men are to manage a
business and they can respond to the clients’ needs without necessarily involving sexual
availability. Even if Mistress Tiltyard has a transitory presence, as she tries to sell Jack
Dapper a feather, this feather is a weighty object, because it shows women’s business
acumen; wives in the City of London try to get money for their family business in any
circumstance, even if their line of work is just the fashionable but less expensive luxury
feather.
Whether the family is placed in Sir Alexander Wengrave’s house (the parlour and
portrait gallery)—showing a noble family and its proud ancestry—or in the apothecary’s shop
or the seamster’s shop, early modern families in The Roaring Girl are social units in which
both the husband and wife, or the father and son, have a role in the relationship. When there
is no wife—as in the case of Sir Alexander Wengrave—the relationship between father and
son takes centre place in the play, seconded by the relationships between the other two noble
fathers (Sir Adam Appleton and Sir Davy Dapper) and their sons. The mother’s absence in
the Wengrave family highlights the bond between father and son, but it also shows that the
father cannot assume the mother’s role in matters of his son’s marriage, because the father is
bound to focus on social roles rather than the affairs of the heart. By refusing to let his son
marry Mary Fitzallard, Sir Alexander Wengrave does not understand his son’s affection and
he stubbornly insists on self-centred financial reasons. Conversely, the son represents the
generation gap, because his wish for marriage takes into account his own feelings,
disregarding social conventions. Yet both father’s and son’s attitudes in the play are fake and
highly theatrical. Sir Alexander Wengrave tells his own story under the pretence of a fictional
old man narrative, while Sebastian Wengrave only pretends to intend to marry the socially
54
unsuitable Moll Cutpurse. These plays-within-the-play, performed by both father and son,
relate to the play’s meta-theatricality and show that the placing of familial bonds in the
theatre can distort conventional social norms.
Paternal and maternal influence existed and functioned in the social life of the early
modern period, so parenthood was a mutual denominator between men and women.
However, in the city comedies discussed in this chapter, things are different, almost reversed,
and we see fathers who pretend to have authority and they do not, while mothers do have
power in the family. In Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker’s The Roaring Girl, a
biological mother does not exist in the dramatic interaction, yet Sir Alexander Wengrave
remembers her fondly, which shows that she was an important pillar of the family life.
Similarly, a pregnant woman does not exist in the play, but she is imagined through the
fictional image of Moll Cutpurse giving birth to roaring children. The patriarchal
authoritative fathers create such fictional pictures. These imagined representations of
motherhood indicate that men and women are genuinely allied in the family through the
parental authority they share. Sir Alexander’s anxiety about Sebastian’s hypothetical
grandchildren from the roaring girl support the idea that Moll might have had control and
influence over her biological children in her family, if she had been married to Sebastian
Wengrave. This shows that motherhood—biologically related or not—gives women real
power, and this operates sometimes in opposition to stern patriarchal authority. However, the
play does not give a definite answer to this issue, because Moll’s presupposed motherhood is
only imagined. The Roaring Girl suggests this avantgarde position in several moments during
the dramatic interaction, while Thomas Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside overtly
strengthens this point through its prominent female character, Maudlin Yellowhammer, and
the dramatic parental family she helps maintain within the comedy.

1.2. Mothers and Daughters: A Chaste Maid in Cheapside

This subchapter discusses the familial bonds and the relations among mother, father, daughter
and son in Thomas Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (1613), which is a city comedy
that focuses on social relations and merchant families in the City of London. This is an urban
space in which citizens’ families evolve, in accordance to the social rules of the time and
personal development. Focusing on how the sprawling city of London was culturally and
literally mapped out in theatrical performances, in “‘Welcome to the Heart of the City’:
Mappings of London in Early City Comedies” (2017), Joachim Frenk observes that Thomas
Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside and Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist are plays that
55
“commented respectively on the Cheapside as a luxury market and on Blackfriars as an up-
and-coming quarter boasting a new and successful theatrical venue” (Frenk 17). Indeed, the
play’s area of Cheapside is suitable for the location of the rich Goldsmith’s house, with his
family as an example of the city’s social life, yet the play’s family relationships are different
from the real-life family in early modern London.
Moreover, Cheapside is also a transposed dramatic image of the real space in the City
of London, where commerce flourished, but which was also considered a place of luxury and
crime. As Michelle O’Callaghan observes in the chapter “Tragicomedy and the City: A
Chaste Maid in Cheapside and No Wit, No Help like a Woman,” in Thomas Middleton:
Renaissance Dramatist (2009), the city comedies “disturb our sense of how dramatic
conventions should function, just as their witty perversity disrupts the commonplaces of early
modern society” (68). Indeed, if the real district of Cheapside was a badly reputed area of
London, but also a place where rich people dwelled, this play’s Cheapside represents the
place through a distorted lens; some families here are honourable, while others are illicit;
some wives are faithful to their husbands, while others are adulterous; and some children
obey parental authority, while others rebel against it. The theatre is a mirror of society, but it
also upsets and distorts the conventional social customs and represents families that are
similar to, but also different from the real ones. In this way, through this original form of
“witty perversity” (O’Callaghan 68), the theatre unsettles social practices and challenges
conventional assumptions.
The main plot of A Chaste Maid in Cheapside focuses on Goldsmith Yellowhammer,
who has two children; one of them, a virgin named Moll (which is short for Mary), is
included in the father’s plan to marry the wealthy Sir Walter Whorehound; for the other child,
a son, who is a pedantic Cambridge youth (Tim), the father has plans to marry Whorehound’s
niece, a wealthy Welsh gentlewoman, who is “Heir to some nineteen mountains” (I.i.131)
and 2000 head of cattle, according to Sir Walter Whorehound. These marriages arranged by
the parents are doomed to some kind of failure, in different ways. While Moll manages to
secure marriage with her love, the gallant Touchwood Jr., Tim does marry Whorehound’s
niece, but she is actually a former prostitute and not an heiress, and she is Whorehound’s
mistress. Therefore, two alternatives of obeying parental authority are represented in this
comedy. Moll Yellowhammer is totally disobedient to her parents and displays hypocritical
action to prevent her parents from finding out her true marriage intentions, and she finally
marries who she wants, in total opposition to the social conventions of the time. By contrast,
Tim Yellowhammer is blissfully unaware of the issue of parental authority and he goes along
56
with his mother’s wishes, but he ends up a living example of unconventional marriage and
unsuitability, as his wife is a former courtesan.
Marriage and family were justified for legitimizing children in the early modern
period and parents considered it their duty to intervene in their children’s marriages,
especially when issues of property were involved. Nancy Mohrlock-Bunker makes an
efficient radiography of the early modern family, from a sociological perspective, in
Marriage and Land Law in Shakespeare and Middleton (2014):
In early modern England, family life included training in conduct and domestic
matters for females and in managing the family estate or business ventures for males.
Newly married couples who knew and followed community norms conducted
themselves so as to gain social acceptance. Marriage also meant care and continuance
of the family’s holdings and the creation of a legacy; both depended upon legitimate
children, so parents took responsibility for their daughters’ chastity. A new couple’s
financial foundation depended on parents. Fathers protected a family’s inheritable
fortune by matching sons and daughters with partners of comparable wealth and class.
(Mohrlock-Bunker 11)
Relationships between fathers, mothers, sons and daughters in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside
are very volatile, as parents try to impose their will on their children, but the daughter is not
responsive to her parents’ wish regarding her marriage and she makes her own way into the
future.
Moll Yellowhammer is the “chaste maid” of the title, who is secretly in love with
Touchwood, Jr., son of the elder Touchwood. Touchwood the father does not appear in the
play, so he is a ghost character, but he is referred to by Touchwood Senior, the elder brother.
Through his absence, Touchwood, the father of two calculating sons, apparently does not
have any authority. However, both Touchwood sons feel responsible for their present and
future families, as any good father should, which shows that they have been taught the
patriarchal principles at home. Unlike the rowdy transgressive woman called Moll Cutpurse
from The Roaring Girl, Moll Yellowhammer in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside is a virgin who
pretends to do what her parents want her to do, but she actually rebels against her parents’
choice of marriage and she follows her heart. As Sally Anglin observes about female
subjectivity in the play, “Thomas Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside engages the
subtle spatial dynamics of early seventeenth-century London domestic and civic spaces and
exposes the power of physical boundaries to create confusion and disorder and confound
subject and object” (11). Indeed, from the perspective of the dynamics of space, the idea of a
57
chaste maid in the London district of Cheapside is rather preposterous, as Cheapside was the
area frequented by prostitutes and cutpurses.
Moreover, the fact that Cheapside was a commercial area implied not only affluence,
but also all sorts of illicit deals performed for the sake of gaining money. According to
Edward Sugden’s A Topographical Dictionary to the Works of Shakespeare and His Fellow
Dramatists, Cheapside was the old marketplace of London, with various streets in which
goods were sold. Being a prosperous area of London, the architecture was suggestive of
wealth and there were several fountains. As Sugden documents, “in 1596 a naked figure of
Diana with water trilling from its breasts was put in the place of the image of the Virgin”
(112), and there was also a street, called Goldsmith’s Row, in which the goldsmiths’ shops
were installed (113). The Virgin Mary symbolizes chastity in Christian thought, while the
goddess Diana represents chastity in classical mythology. Cheapside is symbolically
connected with an affluent area,13 as Yellowhammer is a rich goldsmith and Moll
Yellowhammer is a virgin of Cheapside. However, this is where the connection between the
play’s world and the reality of early modern London stops, because Moll’s virginity (like the
that of the Virgin Mary) is opposed to the lewd image of the fountain of Diana, with water
flowing from its breasts.
The play starts with a conversation between mother and daughter, Maud and Moll
Yellowhammer, in which the mother complains of her daughter’s poor playing on the
virginals, asking her, “Have you played over all your old lessons o’ the virginals?” (I.i.1). 14
The virginal is an old instrument resembling a spinet or a harpsichord, but it is also an
allusion to the word “virgin,” suggesting chastity. The implication is threefold: first, the rich
merchant’s daughter used to take music lessons, as any well-educated lady should in those
times, and now she is taking them no more, so her playing is a little rusty; second, her mother
made her rehearse the old music lessons she used to take, in order to play the virginals
acceptably and, thus, attract potential suitors with her music; and third, Moll was a virgin
playing the virginals poorly because her mind was not focused on getting a rich husband, as
she was already in love with Touchwood, Jr. Moll’s mother is dissatisfied with her daughter’s

13
In the chapter “A Chaste Maid in Cheapside and the Histories of London,” from the book Untimely Deaths in
Renaissance Drama: Biography, History, Catastrophe, historian Andrew Griffin discusses the importance of the
fact that Thomas Middleton was appointed Chronologer of the City of London, an official who had the task of
recording crucial events in the city. As Griffin observes, “Considering the work that Middleton was performing
for London in the early 1620, his appointment offers insight into the city’s historical culture” (69). All the more
so, therefore, we are entitled to consider the places represented in the play as documents of the real places in
London’s Cheapside.
14
References to Thomas Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside are to the 1885 edition, edited by Ah. H.
Bullen. Citations to acts, scenes and lines are to this edition and will be given parenthetically in the text.

58
poor performance of music and calls her a “dull maid” (I.i.4), suspecting her of having been
possessed with the “green sickness” (I.i.6), which is a kind of melancholy, because she is in
need of a husband. As a daughter of a good family should be educated in music and dancing
in order to attract rich and noble suitors, Moll also took dancing lessons, but it seems that
these were also cut short the previous week, so Moll danced “like a plumber’s daughter”
(I.i.20). It seems that the father’s trade determines the daughter’s dowry; as Moll is a
goldsmith’s daughter, her dowry is in gold, while a plumber’s daughter gets hers in lead.
Therefore, a plumber’s daughter is supposed to be inferior socially to a goldsmith’s daughter,
but also to be less skilful at dancing just because of this social inferiority. All these fictitious
inferences are ironic, showing the incongruity and superficiality of social conventions.
The Cheapside area of London was marked by a consumer society in which rich
merchants’ daughters were used as commodity. Conversely, women were also consumers of
nice clothes, jewellery and a suitable education, which they were supposed to use in order to
attract a rich husband. As Joachim Frenk observes about the consumerist side of Cheapside,
“It is here that the wife and the daughter of the affluent goldsmith Yellowhammer are on
display for male consumption, very much like the commodities in the family shop”
(Frenk18). The mercantile connection in the goldsmith family is established when Maud
Yellowhammer complains of her daughter’s bad dancing, so she deserves “Two thousand
pound in lead to your marriage / And not in goldsmith’s ware” (I.i.21-22). As lead was less
valuable than gold, Mrs. Yellowhammer values her social status in accordance with the
higher value of her husband’s business (evaluated in gold) as compared to a plumber’s
business (estimated in lead). Moll’s commodified value as a future wife, therefore, is
established in relation to her dowry, and she is expected to marry a noble knight, respectively
Sir Walter Whorehound. This is just because, according to her mother’s opinion, their family
is placed higher on the social scale because gold, as a commodity, is valued higher than other
metals or goods.
In opposition to her daughter, the mother (Maud Yellowhammer) has a technical and
money-centred opinion about marriage. She calls her husband “a piece of flesh” (I.i.7) and
wonders that, without him, “what had us wives been good for?” (I.i.8). By considering that,
without a husband, women would be of no good but to “make salads” (I.i.8) and sing old
songs, Moll’s mother implies that being a spinster is not an option for her daughter. Maud
Yellowhammer remembers her young days, when she was “lightsome and quick” (I.i.10), two
years before she was married. As the mother’s example goes, when she was her daughter’s
age, the dancing master “miss’d me not a night; I was kept at it; / I took delight to learn, and
59
he to teach me” (I.i.17); this suggests that the lady used to spend the nights with her dancing
master. Maud Yellowhammer sees her daughter’s incapacity to lure a rich husband through
singing and dancing as “errors” (I.i.26) in the hard path of getting married, so she enlists her
husband’s help in persuading Moll to accept the rich knight Whorehound. As concerns her
Cambridge-educated son (Tim), Maud Yellowhammer is keen on showing off his wealth to
his student-friends, so she sends him, according to her husband, a “silver spoon to eat his
broth in the hall / Amongst the gentlemen-commoners” (I.i.54-55). Maud Yellowhammer’s
social standards make her consider that the inequality brought by wealth is a sign of great
prestige, so the contradiction in terms of the phrase “gentlemen-commoners” (I.i.55) does not
seem strange to her.
Mr. Yellowhammer, the father, is of the same patriarchal tradition as his wife, as he
considers that his daughter should marry Sir Walter Whorehound, while his son should marry
“a proper fair young gentlewoman” (I.i.39), who is a “landed niece” (I.i.41) of Sir Walter
Whorehound, recommended by him. However, the Welshwoman is actually a prostitute,
masquerading as Whorehound’s niece. Whorehound means to marry her to the foolish Tim in
order to claim his inheritance, but Yellowhammer is not aware of this plot. It looks like
Yellowhammer is deceived by appearance, as he judges the person whom he believes to be
Whorehound’s niece “By her red hair and other rank descriptions” (I.i.40). Judging a person’s
social and familial status by the colour of her hair is superficial, to say the least, but this is
what Yellowhammer does. Even if he is rich and has gold, 15 Yellowhammer is a poor judge
of character. Not only is his education lacking, but he is also convinced that obeying the
social hierarchy is essential, and a high social status is given by a person’s money (gold) or
land, in the case of the aristocracy. Yellowhammer appreciates value superficially, according
to appearances, and the Welshwoman’s red hair is uncannily associated to the colour of gold,
so this is the cause of the goldsmith’s appreciation of the lady’s social value.
Neither the goldsmith nor his wife is educated, but they are reluctant to admit it. As
Latin was the language of education at university, the goldsmith pays for his son’s studies,
but he and his wife cannot read Latin. When Yellowhammer reads the untranslated Latin
address in Tim’s letter, “Amantissimis carisimisque ambobus parentibus, patri et matri”

15
Placing the origin of the goldsmith’s gold in the New World imports, in “‘Goldsmith’s ware:’ Equivalence in
A Chaste Maid in Cheapside,” Karen Newman observes: “Much of the gold that was the raw material for the
goldsmiths’ fortunes that floated the high property values and rents characteristic of Cheapside, and that spurred
families like Middleton’s Yellowhammers to seek ambitious marriages for their sons and daughters with the
landed gentry, came from far beyond England’s border” (97). Indeed, Yellowhammer’s marriage ambitions for
his son and daughter are closely connected with his wealth, which is derived from the constant commerce with
the New World, in the process of an early modern form of globalization.

60
(I.i.60-61), which means “To both my dear parents, mother and father” (my translation),
Maud Yellowhammer makes funny linguistic associations based on sound similarity; she
translates “Amantissimis carisimis” (I.i.66) as “he has sent the carrier’s man” (I.i.66-67);
“ambobus parentibus” (I.i.67) as “for a pair of boots” (I.i.67-68); and “patri et matri” (I.i.68)
as “pay the porter, or it makes no matter” (I.i.68-69). Mistress Yellowhammer’s capacity of
adapting fast to the fact that she cannot understand Latin—while she will not admit her lack
of classical education—is only equalled by her husband’s wonder, when he says, “this
learning’s a great witch” (I.i.64). When Maud Yellowhammer wants to have the letter in
Latin translated by one of her supposedly more educated cousins at the Inns of Court, her
husband exclaims, “Fie, fie, they are all for French, they speak no Latin” (I.i.92-93).
Unintelligible foreign languages—whether Latin or modern French—are a symbol of the lack
of communication within the family, among husband and wife, parents and son, but also the
parents’ reluctance to admit their poor education to others and to themselves.
Tim Yellowhammer is the foolish son of Mr. and Mrs. Yellowhammer. While at
Cambridge, he communicates with his parents through letters in Latin, although he knows
that both his parents are not educated enough to understand the classical language. As a son,
Tim Yellowhammer is also an insensitive person, since he knows his parents’ limitations but
he still writes a letter in Latin to them, just to show off his knowledge by humiliating them.
His mother, Maudlin Yellowhammer, has high aspirations for her educated son and she wants
him to be in the company of women, in the hope that this would make him an audacious
suitor. When she is visited by the garrulous gossiping ladies, Mistress Yellowhammer invites
Tim to chat with them: “’Tis my son Tim, i’faith; prithee, call him up / Among the women,
’twill embolden him well” (III.ii.102-103). While Maud Yellowhammer boasts to the ladies
that “There’s a great marriage” (III.ii.109) waiting for him, Tim runs away in shame, which
makes his mother exclaim, “He is so bashful, that’s the spoil of youth: / In the university
they’re kept still to men / And ne’er train’d up to women’s company” (III.ii.112-114). Even if
the son proves that he is not able to behave properly in the company of women, Tim’s mother
is indulgent and she tries to justify his impolite behaviour by the fact that universities of those
times were populated only by men. This social fact was proffered as an excuse rather than a
form of misbehaviour.
It seems that the relationship between mother and son is not so close, as Maud
Yellowhammer feels the need to justify her son’s behaviour to the society of ladies. However,
Tim explains his stance further: “’Tis against the laws of the university / For any that has
answer’d under bachelor / To thrust ’mongst married wives” (III.ii.119-121). The male-
61
dominated society of the time excluded married women not only from university education,
but also from benevolent societal conversation with men studying at university. Moreover,
Tim complains he is “serv’d like a child” (III.ii.129) by his mother, even if he is soon to take
his bachelor’s degree. For the same reason, Tim wants to be called by his full name,
Timotheus, to prove that he is an adult. The pedantic Tim also speaks Latin when he wants to
impress the Welshwoman, during his courtship, but she does not understand him either. The
Welshwoman speaks Welsh during this allegedly intimate conversation between future
husband and wife, but Tim misinterprets her Welsh for Hebrew. This shows not only that
they come from totally different social backgrounds and have incompatible levels of
education, but also that they are involved in a dialogue of the deaf, not being able to
communicate properly. In the end, parents are disappointed of Tim, who, according to
Yellowhammer “married a whore” (V.iv.63), but they are forced to accept their deceitful
daughter-in-law just because she is their choice.
Touchwood Jr. is Moll Yellowhammer’s lover, against her father’s wish, and he is no
different from other sons and daughters in point of hypocrisy, in the sense that he keeps his
distance from Moll and deceives Goldsmith Yellowhammer, because he knows that her
parents do not approve of the marriage. Touchwood Jr. comes to Moll’s father to have a
wedding ring made for his intended wife, but he is careful not to tell Yellowhammer that
Moll is his intended. Touchwood Jr. is aware of the Yellowhammers’ need for ascertaining
their social status through marriage into the nobility, and he concludes melancholically:
“How strangely busy is the devil and riches! / Poor soul! Kept in too hard, her mother’s eye /
Is cruel toward her” (I.i.159-161). For Touchwood Jr., wealth comes at the risk of tainting a
person’s soul with the temptation of the devil—as he thinks the Yellowhammers to have been
corrupted by their riches. This is the reason why Maud Yellowhammer becomes cruel
towards her daughter, and also insensitive to her emotional needs. Rather than being aware
that her daughter loves somebody else than the prospective suitor—as a good mother should
—Maud Yellowhammer persists in her blindness and heartlessness towards her daughter. The
mother’s inadequate perception of her daughter’s feelings is supposedly caused by wealth.
On the other hand, Goldsmith Yellowhammer seems to be more responsive to his
daughter’s emotion, as he says that he fears “she’s taken to another love” (I.i.167). However,
Yellowhammer persists in imposing his patriarchal will on his daughter’s preference, as he
concludes, “We cannot be too wary on our children” (I.i.169); thus, the father accepts the fact
that the relationship with the younger generation should be approached with caution,
especially when the dowry money is involved. Both father and mother do not understand
62
their daughter’s emotional needs, as they are blinded by their wealth and their need for good
social reputation. As Touchwood Jr. deceives Moll’s father by having him try the wedding
ring on Moll’s finger, the young man concludes with a common proverb referring to the
parents’ love for their children: “Love that’s wise / Blinds parents’ eyes” (I.i.194-195). The
ambiguity of this proverb is evident, as the audience knows that Touchwood Jr. is deceiving
Yellowhammer. One interpretation of this proverb might be that parents are blinded by their
love for their children. However, in the particular context of Moll’s lover deceiving her
father, Touchwood Jr. means that his love is wise and, consequently, he can blind the eyes of
Moll’s father, preventing him to see the truth of his daughter’s emotional intent and true love.
In this context, Yellowhammer pretends to be wise himself and he comments on this
proverb: “I wonder things can be so warily carried, / And parents blinded so: but they’re
served right / That have two eyes and were so dull a’sight” (I.i.200-202). While
Yellowhammer proclaims himself as a clear-sighted parent, who cannot be blinded by his
children’s manipulation, he is exactly in the position of the gulled father who does not see his
daughter’s deception. However, Touchwood Jr.’s several attempts to elope with Moll are
thwarted by Yellowhammer or Whorehound; therefore, the children’s plans were not so
carefully designed after all. When Yellowhammer surprises his daughter and Touchwood Jr.
on the point of getting married secretly, he quotes the proverb again, “Love that’s wise /
Blinds parents’ eyes” (III.i.36-37), but this time Yellowhammer admits he has been blinded:
“I thank your wisdom, sir, for blinding of us” (III.i.38). The ambiguous interpretation of the
proverb about parents’ blind (unconditional) love for their children demonstrates that young
people’s resourcefulness and capacity of adapting to circumstances may cloud the parents’
circumspection, but not entirely. At the same time, the play shows that people’s actions and
motives may be interpreted differently, according to their interests, which do not always
coincide with the socially established norms.
Nor is Sir Walter Whorehound the ideal son-in-law that parents might wish for their
virgin daughter. Even if Allwit reveals to Yellowhammer that Whorehound is “an arrant
whoremaster” (IV.i.223) and has kept another man’s wife for seven years, and has children
with her, Goldsmith Yellowhammer is not so fast in condemning his future son-in-law.
Moreover, the goldsmith even admits that he has a “bastard” (IV.i.253) himself, by a certain
mistress Anne, who is a grown man now. Because of his social malleability and his tendency
to understand Whorehound’s extra-marital transgressions, Yellowhammer decides that wealth
is the most important thing in marriage, as he concludes: “The knight is rich, he shall be my
son-in-law; / No matter, so the whore he keeps be wholesome, / My daughter takes no hurt
63
then; so let them wed” (IV.i.258-260). The mercantile father thinks that his daughter would
have the same compliant opinion that he has towards Whorehound’s illicit family, and so he
takes the decision instead of her. Indeed, Yellowhammer is a blind father, even if he thinks he
is smart, as he does not understand the relationships between young people from their point
of view. Moreover, to Yellowhammer, marriage is just a social convention and he does not
feel encumbered by Whorehound’s sexual transgressions when it comes to his daughter’s
marriage.
This is not the case for Moll and her lover, who do not accept the parents’ decision
and try to have things their way. When Moll elopes with Touchwood Jr. a second time, trying
to go away by boat on the Thames, Tim describes his “poor silly father” (IV.ii.10) looking at
Trig-stairs16 for her. In contrast to the lecherous Whorehound, the watermen who help the
lovers escape are seen as “gentlemen” (IV.iii.16) and “honest fellows” (IV.iii.17). The lovers
are again apprehended by Moll’s parents, and Maud Yellowhammer exclaims, “I’ll make thee
an example / For all the neighbours’ daughters” (IV.iii.52-53), dragging Moll home by the
hair. Just like her husband, the goldsmith, Maud Yellowhammer is a superficial parent, who
thinks that her daughter’s elopement with her lover is a breach of social convention. The
insensitive mother does not consider her daughter’s feelings, but just what society would say.
One of the watermen is critical of Maud’s treatment of her daughter and says, “You’re a cruel
mother” (IV.iii.50). Both parents abuse poor Moll; Yellowhammer calls her “Impudent
strumpet” (IV.iii.55), while her mother calls Moll “Dissembling, cunning baggage!”
(IV.iii.54). Looked at from the outside of the conventional family circle, even the humble
boatmen feel entitled to judge the rich mother’s insensitive behaviour towards her daughter. It
seems that the wealthier the family is, the tenser the relationships between parents and
children are.
A different kind of family is the Allwit household; its members live in another part of
Cheapside and are marked by social hypocrisy. Allwit is Whorehound’s wittol, a man who is
aware and tolerant of his wife’s adultery. As Allwit says about Whorehound, “I thank him,
has maintained my house these ten years; / Not only keeps my wife, but ’a keeps me / And all
my family” (I.ii.15-17); Allwit considers his social position as “The happiest state as ever
man was born to!” (I.ii.21) and he is “a happy man” (I.ii.38). As his name implies, Allwit
feels he has a lot of wit, just because he accepts an impossible situation of infidelity as an

16
According to Edward Sugden, Trig Stairs was “A landing place on the North bank of the Thames, at the
bottom of Trig Lane” (523). This shows that most of the traffic and travel in the city of London was done
through the landing places on the banks of the Thames, and so the two young people’s eloping could be done by
boat.

64
asset that ensures him a comfortable life. However, as Allwit’s wife is preparing to go into
labour, and the child is Whorehound’s, Allwit appears to be an acquiescent cuckold.
Whorehound beds Mrs. Alwitt, gets children by her, and keeps the family in fine lodgings,
while Allwit is quite happy to live off Whorehound’s money and have his husbandly duties
assumed by Whorehound. As Allwit reasons, Whorehound has all the cares of marriage—
jealousy, expense of household upkeep and children’s needs—while Allwit has all the
benefits, except for copulation, for which he does not care anyway. Whorehound sets spies in
Allwit’s household to make sure Mrs. Allwit takes no lovers other than himself, and he even
questions Allwit about bedding Mrs. Allwit—an act that he does not allow. The carefree
Allwit is able to “laugh inward” (I.i.84) at the worries created to Whorehound by his
illegitimate family.
Indeed, even if, apparently, he has a wife and children out of marriage bonds,
Whorehound is not happy and content. Transgressing the conventional social rules does not
make Whorehound happier, but only more concerned with issues of infidelity and material
gain. When Whorehound arrives at Allwit’s house, he asks for the “slippers” (I.ii.72) from
the servants, just like the master of the house who wants to be comfortable in his home.
However, as Allwit says, “Poor knight, what pains he takes / … I would not have thy toil for
all thy pleasure” (II.i.51; 53). In Allwit’s unconventional family, Wat and Nick are
Whorehound’s sons, whom Allwit calls “two foolish children” (I.ii.109). Therefore, Allwit
despises the children who bear his name, but who are not his biological sons. Even if he
apparently obeys the marriage conventions and has a wife and children, Allwit is a social
transgressor of these conventions, just as Whorehound is, because he accepts to be humiliated
and maintained in style by the richer man. Through Allwit’s cuckoldry, and Whorehound
supporting an illegitimate family, the play distorts the conventional assumptions about
marriage and family, as the biological father of the new-born child is not the legitimate
husband of the family, but he behaves like the master of the house.
Outraged by her family’s treatment of Moll, Touchwood Jr. fights a duel with
Whorehound, in which both men are wounded. When the wounded Whorehound is brought
to Allwit’s house, all lament his misery, but Whorehound rejects them. When Allwit intends
to bring the illegitimate children to comfort their biological father, Whorehound sends them
away, complaining of everybody’s hypocrisy: “Get you away with them, I shall fare the
worse / As long as they’re a-weeping, they work against me / There’s nothing but appetite in
that sorrow” (V.i.58-60). Whorehound suspects that his illegitimate family—incited by
Allwit’s greed—would make the children weep around him hypocritically, pretending that
65
they are grieving only to get his inheritance. Whorehound’s imaginary example of weeping
while having ulterior motives includes “a careless mother / That brings her son with dalliance
to the gallows, / And then stands by and weeps to see him suffer” (V.i.62-64). Whorehound
sees his illegitimate family as putting on a show of suffering, after having contributed to his
social ruin. Even the sight of his baby daughter cannot encourage Whorehound, who thinks
that seeing his illegitimate children “darkens all my hopes” (V.i.69). This is just as far as
Whorehound can go in his remorse, when he realizes that having maintained an illegitimate
family for seven years is no good to his social standing, and he is tormented by his
“adulterous guilt” (V.i.75). Whorehound’s illegitimate family is consumed by greed and
corruption—even to the youngest children—just because their parents (both legitimate and
illegitimate) do not fulfil their assigned social roles.
Whorehound cannot avoid the suspicion that his illegitimate children are only
interested in his wealth, and they do not have any affection for their biological father, who
maintains the entire family. Finally, when Whorehound is enjoined to write his will, he leaves
only curses to his illegitimate children and wife. Even worse, Whorehound learns that he is
about to lose the land he expects to inherit from the Kix family, because Sir Oliver Kix’s wife
is with child; as the fourth servant says, “That child undoes you, sir” (V.i.137). In irony, this
Kix child is not Sir Oliver’s biological son, but he is conceived out of the delusion that
Touchwood Sr. (a famously fertile man) possesses a magic medicine to make women
pregnant. Throughout the play, Whorehound’s social transgressions turn against him; while
for ten years he believed that he had loving children and a wife, he realizes that, when he has
no money, his biological but illegitimate family does not acknowledge him as its head. On
the other hand, Whorehound’s heir is an apparently legitimate child, who is also begot
illegitimately, as Sir Oliver Kix’s wife has been impregnated by Touchwood Sr. The groups
of legitimate and illegitimate children—of marriageable age or of christening age, or just
foetuses in the womb—threaten the social stability of the play’s representative families.
Rather than being just elements in the plot, these children indicate the social landmarks along
which this city comedy is constructed.
Sir Walter Whorehound is the connective link between the Yellowhammer and the
Allwit families. While he intends to marry Moll Yellowhammer for her rich dowry, he keeps
a semi-official mistress in Allwit’s family. In this way, the play does not deal with the
traditional mononuclear family, in which the father is the head of the social unit, while the
wife is subordinate to the male. In A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, we see a legitimate (Allwit)
and an illegitimate (Whorehound) head of the family, with a surrogate father of Mistress
66
Allwit’s child (Allwit himself) and a de facto father (Sir Walter Whorehound). In parallel, Sir
Walter assumes patriarchal leadership over his former mistress, the Welshwoman, whom he
introduces as his niece, and he wants to get her married to Tim Yellowhammer. As Sir Walter
tells the Welshwoman, “I bring thee up to turn thee into gold, wench, / And make thy fortune
shine like your bright trade; / A goldsmith’s shop sets out a city maid” (I.i.103-105). The
metaphor of gold and wealth is extended, from the goldsmith Yellowhammer to the Welsh
prostitute, who will become rich by marrying Tim Yellowhammer and seizing his
inheritance. Thus, gold and wealth are seen as a contaminating social commodity.
In addition, the association between the maid as a virgin—represented by Moll
Yellowhammer—and the “city maid” (I.i.105)—implying a prostitute—creates contradictory
metaphors of social status and social climbing, as the prostitute must “pass for a pure virgin”
(I.i.108) in the hypocritical family of the Yellowhammers. The Welshwoman’s hypocrisy is
highlighted by Touchwood Jr., who associates her with “an ewe-mutton to find / A ram at
London” (I.i.138-139). The animal imagery suggests the prostitute’s ulterior purposes and her
insincerity, as well as her animal instincts. On the other hand, an ewe lamb is also a symbol
of purity and innocence; it may become a victim of social injustice, just as a prostitute’s
original motives for selling her body for men’s sexual pleasure may have been financial and
social marginalization. The Welshwoman, therefore, is both a victim of the social
circumstances existing in the period and a bird of prey, who takes advantage of the communal
prejudices to which women are subject. The fact that the Welshwoman manages to marry the
goldsmith's only son and heir is just another occasion showing the incapacity of the
patriarchal society to display harmonious relations between parents and children, as well as
between husband and wife. All social actants are like hypocritical actors performing a play.
The Yellowhammer parents are so concerned with the family’s reputation that their
daughter’s attempt at elopement with Touchwood Jr. seems unconceivable to them. For this
reason, they treat Moll violently when they find her on the banks of the Thames. Even the
uneducated Watermen disregard Maud Yellowhammer’s behaviour to her daughter, as one of
them reports to Touchwood Jr. that “Half-drown’d, she cruelly tugg’d her by the hair, /
Forc’d her disgracefully, not like a mother” (IV.iii.79-80). The Waterman is critical of Maud
Yellowhammer’s violent conduct as a mother, and they are the voice of the impartial
observers, who are more kind-hearted than the rich Yellowhammers. Whorehound has a
similar attitude towards his illegitimate family when he comes to Allwit’s house, wounded
and in a state of dejection. As Allwit summons his wife to comfort Whorehound, the knight
calls her “Thou loathsome strumpet!” (V.i.35), while he chases the children away, as he feels
67
they are false in their laments towards their biological father. Whorehound believes that his
illegitimate family is only after his money and there are no feelings for him, as he says,
“Thou weep’st for lust” (V.i.59). Whorehound sees himself as a victim of social conventions,
and his “adulterous guilt” (V.i.75) is only an impediment in his social climbing, because it
prevents him from marrying a rich heiress. When he is asked to make his will, all that
Whorehound can give to his illegitimate family is a load of curses, which tells a lot about a
father’s legacy towards his illegitimate children. In the end, the Allwits give up on
Whorehound and decide to live modestly, by giving up their expensive lodgings in Cheapside
and take up a house in the less fashionable area of Strand.
The Yellowhammer parents behave viciously towards their daughter Moll, when they
think that she has infringed social conventions and eloped with Touchwood Jr. When they
believe she is about to die, however, the parents’ attitude changes, as Yellowhammer says to
his wife, “Ah, my poor girl! Good faith, thou wert too cruel / To drag her by the hair” (V.ii.5-
6). That which, to the parents, formerly looked like a sign of public humiliation directed at
their transgressive daughter seems as an act of brutality now. As Tim prepares to write an
epitaph in Latin for Moll’s funeral, inspired from Ovid’s De tristibus, Yellowhammer
wonders at his daughter’s paleness: “see how she looks like death” (V.ii.18). As Moll’s
parents fret about the half-dead Moll and give her drinks for recovery, Moll concludes, “Your
love comes too late” (V.ii.26) and “It is no doctor’s art can cure my grief” (V.ii.29). When
there is news that Touchwood Jr. is dead and Moll faints, Maud Yellowhammer exclaims,
“Moll, daughter, sweet girl, speak! Look but once up, / Thou shalt have all the wishes of thy
heart / That wealth can purchase” (V.ii.80-83). This is like in a tragedy, similar to Romeo and
Juliet, in which the grieving parents lament the death of their daughter, whom they
misunderstood so completely. However, these parents are prisoners of social prejudice, as
they ask the servant Susan and Touchwood Sr. to “Remove her from our sight, our shame and
sorrow” (V.ii.88). The conformist goldsmith Yellowhammer still worries that “All the whole
street will hate us, and the world / Point me out cruel” (V.ii.92-93). For the conservative
Yellowhammers, Moll’s elopement is still a source of social embarrassment, which works in
equal degrees with the parents’ grief for their daughter’s supposed death.
Another unconventional family is formed of Touchwood Sr. (Touchwood Jr.’s older
brother) and Mistress Touchwood, who have too many children, and the parents cannot
maintain them in appropriate material conditions. Touchwood Sr. must leave his happy home
and live away from his wife. He is too virile and he cannot have more children, but he cannot
abstain from bedding his wife. Touchwood Sr. tells his wife that “our desires / Are both too
68
fruitful for our barren fortunes” (II.i.8-9). In this case, family and having children are related
to fortune. While others might consider having many children as good fortune, Touchwood
Sr. and his wife think they are unlucky for having so many children, as they cannot afford
their upkeep and the many nurses hired for them. As Touchwood Sr. complains, “Some only
can get riches and no children / We only can get children and no riches” (II.i.11-12).
Touchwood Sr. thinks he has responsibility towards his family’s material well-being and, for
this reason, he should restrain his sexual desire to show his love for his family or, as he says,
“The feast of marriage is not lust, but love” (II.i.50). Material responsibility for the family
matters more than having many children, who would drain the family’s resources, as
Touchwood Sr. thinks. A woman with a child accosts Touchwood Sr., suggesting that he is so
virile that each of his one-night stands has produced a child. This does not only reveal
Touchwood Sr.’s extra-marital transgressions, but also the fact that he feels responsibility for
his children got outside of wedlock, as he gives the woman what little money he has, so that
she may take care of the baby.
The married couple Sir Oliver Kix and Lady Kix, on the other hand, are wealthy but
cannot have children—try as they might—though they have been married for seven years,
and this embitters their married relationship. In this case, fertility is also connected with
money, as Sir Oliver says “I would give / A thousand pound to purchase fruitfulness”
(II.i.140-141), because he spent much money on physicians and apothecaries in order to
become fertile. Lady Kix is frustrated that she cannot have children, so she envies even
Allwit’s new child, and she complains that her own sister, after only a few months of
marriage, “can have two children at a birth” (II.i.165), while only one would have sufficed
her. Whorehound is a legatee of the Kix estate and, if they do not produce off-springs, he
stands to inherit their property after their deaths. In this case, non-fertility is connected with
loss of fortune, just as, in Touchwood Sr.’s case, the couple’s fertility threatens their future
wealth. A childless family—as in the Kix case—would ruin the future development of life
and the social order, while Whorehound’s illegitimate family is unable to inherit their
biological father’s fortune. In each of these families, legitimacy and good behaviour are
intrinsically related to the good working of society, and of the families within that society.
As a maid tells the Kix family that there is a man (Master Touchwood Sr.), who has
special water guaranteed to produce children in an infertile couple, the Kixes determine to try
it at all costs. Their plight is all the more urgent as Lady Kix learns that Sir Walter “fats his
fortune shortly / In a great dowry with a goldsmith’s daughter” (II.i.156-157). This is the
threat that marriage to the rich Yellowhammer maid would pose for the Kix family. While
69
her husband takes Touchwood Sr.’s medicinal waters to make him potent, and then he goes
off riding to activate the juice, Lady Kix becomes pregnant by Touchwood Sr., and so she
cheats Whorehound out of the inheritance. As a result of the English law of primogeniture, as
the first-born son inherits everything, some people lose their wealth, while others cannot get
it in the first place. The Kixes would lose their lands because they have no children, while
Touchwood Sr. cannot inherit his father’s fortune, even if he has many children, because he is
the second son, not the eldest son. There are several examples of an early modern family in
the play, but each of them is marred by a problem of property and wealth, or a problem
related to children’s transgression, but also the parents’ social hypocrisy.
At the end of the play, both Touchwood Jr. and Moll Yellowhammer are brought in
coffins, apparently dead, but they only pretend to be so. A servant tells Sir Oliver Kix that “a
pair of lovers / Had never more spectators, more men’s pities, / Or women’s wet eyes”
(V.iii.21-23). People’s reaction to the young lovers’ funeral is like attending a theatrical
tragedy, with “spectators” (V.iii.22) being impressed by the scene. The sociality of the
funeral brings all classes together, the rich and the poor, as the Fourth Servant says, “There’s
such drawing out of handkerchers; and those that have no handkerchers lift up aprons”
(V.iii.24-25). Members of the upper classes, who wear the fashionable handkerchiefs, wipe
their tears with them, while the lower-class artisans in the audience use their aprons to wipe
their tears. Moved by the lovers’ sad fate, the mourners at the funeral agree that parents
should have allowed the young people to marry. Touchwood Sr. speaks of Moll as a “maid,
whom envy cannot hurt / With all her poisons having left of ages / The true chaste monument
of her living name” (V.iv.10-12). The chaste maid has, indeed, gained her renown after death,
but the “true chaste monument” (V.iv.12) may be the theatrical art, which will carry her
“living name” (V.iv.12) throughout the ages.
It is strange that the Yellowhammer parents do not attend their daughter’s funeral, as
they fear social opprobrium. Instead, society praises the two lovers, lamenting their sad
deaths. Upon hearing this, both Moll and Touchwood Jr. rise from their coffins and get
married. This kind of happy conclusion can occur only in a comedy, not in real life. It is clear
that the two lovers’ final stratagem—that of pretending to have died—has been successful,
though extreme, and society has accepted their marriage. Marriage, therefore, is a symbol of
social harmony, and the Yellowhammer parents finally accept both their children’s
marriages; as the father says, “So fortune seldom deals two marriages / With one hand and
both lucky” (V.iv.112-113). Even if Tim Yellowhammer’s marriage to the courtesan is not
the ideal union that parents would have wanted for their only son; even if they opposed their
70
daughter’s choice of husband, the final happy ending suggests that society’s rules may be
transgressed sometimes, and people may yet be successful and content. When Yellowhammer
invites everybody to a dinner in Goldsmiths’ Hall, as it is guaranteed in comedies, all social
inequities are resolved, as parents accept both their children for who they are. Meta-
theatricality is an issue that has helped to the envisaged happy ending; as the audiences are
aware that they are viewing a comedy, they expect social order to be restored at the end of the
play, and all asperities to be resolved in social and familial harmony.
In order to show issues of fertility and infertility in the family, several babies—
probably prop dolls—appear in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside. One baby appears when the
country wench confronts Touchwood Sr. with her new-born baby, born out of a one-night
stand with the man. In Allwit’s house, the wet nurse brings a baby to Allwit and
Whorehound; while Allwit is the official father of this baby, Whorehound is her biological
father. In another subplot, two Promoters—spies looking out for butchers who sell meat
without a license during Lent—are tricked into taking a woman’s baby, believing it to be
contraband meat. The Second Promoter promises to take veal meat to “A kind gentlewoman
in Turnbull Street / That longs” (II.i.114-115). Turnbull Street in London was a disreputable
street in the neighbourhood of Clerkenwell, so the longing pregnant woman who had cravings
for meat might have been a prostitute. In any case, the notion that many women are fertile
and have babies in London—with or without a legitimate husband—creates a complex
environment connected with legitimacy, marriage and the family. Another baby that appears
on stage is when the Midwife brings the newest Allwit child for christening, and Davy brings
the baby to the Allwits with the rest of their children. In the same manner, children of various
families appear on stage, in order to show the thriving fertility of the affluent society in
London. The First Puritan who is present at the christening of Allwit’s baby says, “Children
are blessings / If they be got by zeal by the brethren, / As I have five at home” (III.ii.35-37).
Babies and children are the symbol of a new generation, which has material needs, starting
from the variety of nurses and servants while they are babies and ending to an expensive
university education, such as Tim Yellowhammer is offered, but Touchwood Sr.’s children
probably will not have.
Silver and golden spoons given at babies’ christening are symbols of their parents’
material wealth. The play’s focus on various kinds of families and their children—or the lack
of progeny—generates a complex world in which parents and children are exposed to
material needs, and parents react negatively to such needs. In order to avoid future material
needs for their children, the Yellowhammers even make bad choices for their marriages; Mr.
71
Yellowhammer wants Tim to marry a landed woman, who turns out to be a courtesan, while
Mistress Yellowhammer intends her daughter to marry a landed lord, who is an immoral
person. This commodification of family relations and dependence on financial resources is
part of the city comedy’s plot and character development. Although they highlight the
materialism of early modern English society—with their arranged marriages, expensive
education offered to wealthy children, and even surrogate paternity as an option for gaining
profit—city comedies do not altogether depart from the conventional norms of society. Even
transgressive children are brought back to the fold of conventional marriage and family,
while reluctant parents are convinced that a bad marriage is the lesser evil, as compared to
their children’s death. Like in a reversed image of a Shakespearean tragedy—such as Romeo
and Juliet or Titus Andronicus—parents in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside are allowed to
reconsider their social values and go back on their immature decisions by amending
reversible situations.

1.3. Other parents: Family and Race in Titus Andronicus

This subchapter brings parentage together with race through an exploration of tragedy in
order to reconsider emerging notions of our modern understanding of race. The different
usages for the word “race” in early modern and modern times—meaning family or ethnic
group, respectively—share sex and lineage as important points of contact. The key parental
issues for the racially and religiously different subjects in this chapter, such as Shakespeare’s
Aaron in Titus Andronicus, involve the regulation of the body of the “other,” particularly the
children’s bodies. The chief parental conflicts emerge because of religious and racial
difference, because of non-white “blood,” which is the period’s term. I adapt this concept
through the Foucauldian discourse, which outlines the symbolic functions of blood. I argue
that, on the early modern stage, Aaron is the black and blackened—Moorish—character,
whose role as a parent actually aligns him with both his white counterparts within the play
and the parental members of the English theatre audience. On the other hand, other parental
figures—such as Titus Andronicus and Tamora, as well as their children—develop
relationships that are not connected with issues of race, but with imperial power and
hierarchic domination. Whether Roman, Goth, or Moor, parents in Titus Andronicus are more
concerned with power, political influence and honour than they are with their children’s
survival.
As Michel Foucault explains in The History of Sexuality, “Blood was a reality with a
symbolic function” prior to the nineteenth century emphasis on sexuality (Foucault 147).
72
Although blood is real, it is the symbolic meaning given to it by culture that allows it to
influence people’s attitudes. Thus, it was blood’s symbolic function that enabled some
members of the English audience in the early modern period to make biased determinations
about those with non-English or non-white blood. In English minds, the potential mixing of
blood, or races, had dangerous consequences; it led to what they called “racial pollution,”
which subsequently altered the value of one’s blood. Therefore, as Foucault states, “the blood
relation remained an important element in the mechanism of power” (Foucault 147). A sense
of superiority was supposed to flow through English, or white, blood, while black blood
remained infused with inferiority. According to Foucault, power and control over “the body
and the population” were at the heart of the Englishmen’s justification for separating
themselves from black people (Foucault 147). Therefore, there was anxiety surrounding
sexual commixture and sex, two topics that directly connect with parentage and the
perpetuation of the early modern race.
This subchapter focuses on a dramatic parental figure (Aaron), whom I define as
black, in accordance with the early modern notions of blackness. What might English
audiences have learned from this depiction of non-English black parental figure? What can
audiences learn from this fictional portrayal of a black parent that was crafted in English
minds? The two usages for the word “race” in early modern times—meaning family or ethnic
group—share important points of contact, sex and lineage. The early modern family, like the
modern ethnic groups, thrived because of sex, which sustained the “life of the body and the
life of the species” (Foucault 146). What Foucault writes of sex also relates to parentage, as
parents assume responsibility for sustaining the life of the body. Thus, the key parental issues
for Aaron in Titus Andronicus involves the regulation of the othered body, particularly his
child’s body. Aaron’s primary parental conflict emerges because of racial difference, because
of his non-white blood, but also because of his manipulative intentions. On the Renaissance
stage, Aaron is the black—Moorish—parent, and Shakespeare represents the cultural
perceptions he simultaneously manages and is affected by. The stereotypical ideas fuelled
popular misconceptions about the black parent Aaron. Those misconceptions conflict in both
bodily and social ways of looking at race.
Modern notions of “blackness,” specifically those thoughts regarding who is “black,”
are narrow when compared to early modern ideas about “blackness,” which were more
expansive and appliable “to Native Americans, Indians, Spanish, white North Africans and
Jews,” for instance, according to Kim F. Hall (7). “Black” allowed early modern Englishmen
to disassociate and differentiate themselves from others—the ethnically, culturally, socially,
73
and religiously “strange”—and retain their sense of identity (Hall 7). Therefore, my
discussion of race and blackness goes beyond the external features of the dramatic subject I
scrutinize, because blackness, or being black, may refer to one’s actions, thoughts, or moral
character. The repeated display of “dark” behaviours or qualities came to define particular
groups of people. This is comparable to the familiar mechanism of the modern-day
stereotype, which causes dominant groups to perpetuate essentialist notions about others by
finding confirmation in alleged patterns of behaviour. In other words, the collective thoughts
the English had about non-English people were not based on facts; rather, they were based on
perceptions the English had about human beings who were unlike them in various ways.
People in the early modern period associated the notion of blackness with primitive,
African or New World cultures. The range of reasons for labelling the Jews as racially
different, for example, which are related to Christian prejudice, reveals the instability of
stereotypes. Ultimately, the instability exposes the malleability of such categorical assertions,
as necessary shifts in justification occurred over time in order for the English to sustain their
superiority. Alongside what might be considered emerging stereotypes, early modern scholars
also discuss “race,” because evidence suggests that the English compartmentalized human
beings based on ethnic or biological difference (Hall 176). English observations of, and
interactions with, Moors, Jews, and various others led them to believe in stereotypes that
began to replace reality for many people. Reconsidering racial discourse in Titus Andronicus,
in “Aaron’s Roots: Spaniards, Englishmen and Blackamoors in Titus Andronicus” (2016),
Noémie Ndiaye analyses the play’s genealogy and various allusions to the Spanish black
legend. Ndiaye observes the “crucial” (59) role of Aaron’s character in the play and examines
“the incipient English take on race and slavery that the play proposes” (60). Ndiaye argues
that the character of Aaron reflects “the instability of race within the Spanish identity evoked
on stage by the Gothic clique: the instability of an identity perceived as an inextricable
mixture of Jewishness, Moorishness and blackness” (Ndiaye 63-64). Indeed, Aaron’s
character does not reflect only the unstable notions of race vehiculated in the early modern
period, but also the blending of various racial issues, plus an identity derived from
preconceptions of moral darkness.
Not only Aaron’s character in Titus Andronicus but also the play itself has been
associated with notions of blackness. As Philip C. Kolin observes in “Titus Andronicus and
the Critical Legacy” (2015), “Titus Andronicus has been called the “black sheep” … of the
Shakespeare canon. Over the centuries, critics have denied the play even that status, claiming
that Shakespeare could never have written such a barbaric spectacle” (Kolin 3). From the
74
“barbaric spectacle” of Lavinia’s severed hands and Tamora eating her sons in a pie during a
gruesome feast, there is nothing more horrible in the representation of race, from the so-
called “barbarous Goths” (1.1.28),17 to the Romans’ acts of cruelty, and finally to the
darkness of Aaron’s character, considered so because of his race as a Moor. In addition,
violence and revenge are metaphors that suggest blackness of character and darkness of
purpose. As William W. Weber remarks in “‘Worse than Philomel’: Violence, Revenge, and
Meta-allusion in Titus Andronicus” (2015), “Even in the context of the sensationalized
Senecan violence popular in the drama of its time, Titus Andronicus stands out as especially
histrionic in its virtuosic, almost gleeful depiction of bodily destruction” (Weber 699). What
can be more impressing than the gruesome spectacle of racial inadequacy and cruelty
engrafted on the already prevailing notions of revenge and murder? Moreover, all these are
presented within a “histrionic” (Weber 699) context, which invokes the reality of racial others
played on stage.
The war between the Romans and the Goths can be interpreted as the expansion of
empire, when Rome was looking eastwards to enlarge its dominions, just as other empires
had done before. In “Headless Rome and Hungry Goths: Herodotus and Titus Andronicus”
(2013), Jane Grogan traces the play’s origins and intertexts to Herodotus, explaining the
notions of Rome and Romanitas in the context of the ancient Greek historian’s work. When
looking at the play in this way, Grogan associates the conflict between Romans and Goths
with the earlier clash between the Persians and the Greeks, as described in Herodotus. As
Grogan observes, “The conflict between Media and Persia which first brought Cyrus to
power—a war between a dominant race and a subordinate nation which eventually reverses
that hierarchy—shadows the quasi-historical power struggles between Romans and Goths in
Titus Andronicus” (35). Indeed, the play’s Titus Andronicus is a general who returns
victorious from the wars with the Goths, bringing Tamora and her sons as prisoners of Rome.
As Marcus Andronicus—Titus’ brother—observes about the general’s military actions, “Ten
years are spent since first he undertook / This cause of Rome, and chastised with arms / Our
enemies’ pride” (1.1.31-33). Titus represents the “cause of Rome” (1.1.32), which is the
incipient imperial aspiration of a fictional historical nation.
However, Titus is also a father, who has lost twenty-one sons during the war, and has
only four of them left at the beginning of the play. As Marcus Andronicus explains, “five
times he hath returned / Bleeding to Rome, bearing his valiant sons / In coffins from the

17
All references to Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus are to the Oxford Shakespeare: Titus Andronicus, edited by
Eugene M. Waith, and references to act, scene and lines will be given parenthetically in the text.

75
field” (1.1.33-35). Titus’ sons, therefore, are brought as human sacrifices on the altar of
empire, where military might and conquest are more important than paternal love. The
Andronici family—father and sons, as well as uncle Marcus, the tribune—have contributed to
the greatness of imperial Rome. As Bassianus observes about “Titus and his sons” (1.1.50),
as well as “Gracious Lavinia” (1.1.52), they are all “Rome’s rich ornament” (1.1.52). At the
beginning of the tragedy, a family’s public value is quite important to the nation, and so are
its private merits—such as love and grace—broadcast by honouring them in public. As
Bassianus is the Andronici’s future son-in-law, he makes public his love for Lavinia, raising
the Roman lady’s posture to the status of national glorification, almost similar to her father’s
and brothers’ military achievements. Yet Bassianus’ commendation of the Andronici family
comes in the context of the competition for power, as both Bassianus and Saturninus contend
for the throne in Rome. As Saturninus says, “I am the first-born son that was the last / That
ware the imperial diadem of Rome” (1.1.5-6), so he was the emperor’s first-born son.
According to the right of primogeniture, Saturninus is convinced that he should succeed his
father to the throne.
Alternatively, Bassianus is a popular choice for emperor, and he has a group of
supporters, whom he addresses in a grand style: “Romans, friends, followers, favourers of my
right” (1.1.9), and he invites them to rebellion: “And, Romans, fight for freedom in your
choice” (1.1.17). Besides the Andronici family, the imperial family is contending for power,
and it looks as if Marcus Andronicus and his clan support the general Titus Andronicus in the
contention for power. However, the competition for the Roman empire is held at the level or
rhetoric, as each party forwards its own merits. In point of respected and prolific fatherhood,
Titus Andronicus compares himself to the legendary Trojan King Priam: “Romans, of five-
and-twenty valiant sons, / Half of the number that King Priam had, / Behold the poor remains
alive and dead” (1.1.79-81). Out of these, as Titus’ says, he buried “one-and-twenty valiant
sons” (1.1.195). As a brave father should, Titus boasts that he has sacrificed his sons for the
greater good of the empire. Yet Titus is alienated from himself, as he speaks in the third
person and points out to the deaths that he has suffered as if he were an insensitive father:
“Titus, unkind and careless of thine own, / Why suffers thou thy sons, unburied yet, / To
hover on the dreadful shore of Styx?” (1.1.86-88). As the tomb is opened, Titus laments for
the loss of his sons in a highly rhetorical manner, addressing the dumb grave: “O sacred
receptacle of my joys / Sweet cell of virtue and nobility / How many sons hast thou of mine
in store / That thou will never render to me more!” (1.1.92-95). Yet the dead sons are

76
objectified, and seen only as receptacles of their father’s emotions—whether happiness, pride
or sorrow.
Even if he wants to appear as a grieving father who intends to bury his sons as heroes,
Titus is, indeed, “unkind and careless” of his own (1.1.86), as he himself says, because his
grief is rhetorical and he makes a spectacle of his sons’ ritualistic burial, by having Tamora’s
son, Alarbus, sacrificed at the tomb of his family, in a horrible manner. As Lucius—one of
Titus’ remaining sons—exclaims, “Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths, / That we may
hew his limbs, and on a pile / Ad manes fratrum sacrifice his flesh” (1.1.96-98). It seems that
Lucius is just as merciless as his father is, and the untranslated Latin phrase in the text, which
means taking a sacrifice “to the shades of [our] brothers” (my translation), demonstrates the
cruelty of the Andronici clan. Even if they consider the Goths as barbarous, the warlike
Latins are even more so, as they view family relations as mere stepstones to power and glory,
while the families of other nations, such as the Goths, are seen as dispensable. The cruelty of
the Andronici family relates the issues of race to the notion of clan or kin; as long as the
members of the same clan are linked by blood and action, whatever they do to secure power
is justifiable from their point of view. This might be viewed now as a sign of primitivism in
social rule but, in those times, it was just the thing to do. The play contrasts the lack of
compassion of the powerful families in Rome with an expected understanding of how the
world should work along the positive emotions of sympathy with other human beings.
The Goth family, formed of Tamora’s sons, Alarbus, Chiron and Demetrius, appear as
the enemies and the victims in this gory spectacle of power. Titus offers as a sacrifice the
“eldest son” (1.1.103) and “the noblest that survives” (1.1.102) of the Goth family, thus
symbolically erasing their hope for the future. Tamora’s pleas for mercy are in vain, as she
flatteringly calls Titus “gracious conqueror” (1.1.104) and “victorious Titus” (1.1.105).
Moreover, she appeals to his sense of fatherhood: “And if thy sons were ever dear to thee, /
O, think my son to be as dear to me” (1.1.107-108). Impervious to the mother’s plea, Lucius
describes in even more detail the almost cannibalistic ritual sacrifice to which Alarbus’ body
will be submitted: “Away with him, and make a fire straight / And with our swords upon a
pile of wood / Let’s hew his limbs till they be clean consumed” (1.1.127-129). The cruel
Roman rituals are opposed to those of the so-called barbarous peoples of the North, such as
the Scythians and the Thracians. As Tamora exclaims, “O cruel, irreligious piety!” (1.1.130),
Chiron wonders, “Was never Scythia half so barbarous?” (1.1.131), and Demetrius replies,
“Oppose not Scythia to ambitious Rome” (1.1.132). At the start of the play, when looked

77
from the Goth perspective, Rome is even crueller than the famously barbarous Scythians, an
ancient nomadic people of the Eurasian steppes.
Yet, from the perspective of revenge, Demetrius compares Tamora to Hecuba, “the
Queen of Troy” (1.1.136), who murdered “the Thracian tyrant in his tent” (1.1.138). This
refers to the classical story of Hecuba, who avenged the death of her son by blinding his
murderer, Polymestor, who was a king of ancient Thrace. The space of Thrace is here
associated with barbarity and vengeance—just as the land of Scythia—yet the embedded
allusion is even subtler. As the story is narrated in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (XIII, 645-655, p.
338), the reference has a scholarly meaning, as if the Greek tragic story of Hecuba’s revenge
and murder had been filtered through the Latin poetic glass. Whereas, in Ovid, Hecuba is
described as weeping “on her children’s sepulchres” (XIII, 646, p. 338), Shakespeare shows
the maligned mother Tamora awaiting revenge, while the sorrowful father Titus weeps on his
sons’ tombs. Moreover, the location of the Capitoline Hill, where the Roman political drama
is played out, is opposed to the humble tent of Hecuba’s revenge, associated with nomadic—
and therefore “barbarous”—people. The image of Hecuba taking revenge for her children in
Thrace foreshadows Tamora's own revenge for her son. These spatial allusions suggest that
racial issues associated with the barbarian18 depend on various perspectives, and cruelty has
many facets, according to political and power interests.
As Lucius seems one of Titus’s most vengeful sons, he displays features connected to
barbarous peoples, so the darkness of his character is not racial, but moral. He describes the
scene of Alarbus’ murder to Titus as a ritual sacrifice: “See, lord and father, how we have
performed / Our Roman rites. / Alarbus limbs are lopped / And entrails feed the sacrificing
fire, / Whose smoke like incense doth perfume the sky” (1.1.142-145). What to Tamora and
her sons seems a ritualistic and useless sacrifice, Titus and his son Lucius see as a necessary
tribute to Titus’ dead sons’ souls; only that the gory description of entrails being burned in
the ritual fire reveals that Lucius is too filial and too cruel in accomplishing “[o]ur Roman
rites” (1.1.143). This shows that ancient peoples—whether Goths, Scythians, Thracians or
Romans—considered the ritual sacrifice of their enemy’s body as a form of purification,
which Lucius sees as the perfume of incense rising to the gods. There is no filial or unfilial
son in Titus Andronicus, just members of family clans accomplishing ritualistic acts. From

18
Not only does the play complicate the idea of the barbarian other, but it problematizes the idea of an essential
blood difference between Goths and Romans. As Ian Smith comments on Titus Andronicus, in Race and
Rhetoric in the Renaissance: Barbarian Errors (2009), “The schematic barbarian binary is, however, qualified
in Shakespeare’s presentation of a hybrid, mixed-race Rome, equally guilty of the charges of wanton brutality
and inhumane savagery uniquely accredited to the Goths” (126).

78
this perspective, Lavinia’s dismembering and cutting of her tongue by Chiron and Demetrius
is also a ritual action, in response to Titus’ and Lucius’ dismembering and burning of
Alarbus’ body. There is no difference among ancient peoples, even if some nations (the
Romans) consider others (the Goths, the Thracians and the Scythians) to be more barbarous
than themselves. By contrast, Lavinia is seen as “Kind Rome” (1.1.165) by Titus, and the
virtuous hope of the Andronici family, but her tragic end belies the pompous words that her
father uses about her at the start of the play.
The Andronici family is marred by the contest of power, just as the imperial family is.
When Saturninus19 demands Lavinia from Titus as his wife, the Roman general accepts,
which makes the revolted Bassianus claim his promised wife. In the ensuing conflict, Titus
kills Mutius, another one of his remaining sons, because Mutius supports Bassianus’
proposed marriage to Lavinia, after Titus has decided to give her to Saturninus. Titus
reprimands Mutius: “What, villain boy, / Barr’st me my way in Rome? (1.1.290-291). When
a son impedes his father’s political ascension, in the brutal world of Roman politics in Titus
Andronicus, he is cruelly disposed of, as Titus does to Mutius. In response to his father’s
cruelty, Lucius exclaims, “My lord, you are unjust, and more than so, / In wrongful quarrel
you have slain your son” (1.1.292-293). Intransigent as always, Titus denies the filial
relationship with his transgressive sons, when political interests are at stake: “Nor thou, nor
he, are any sons of mine” (1.1.294). The inflexible father, Titus Andronicus, denies his
biological sons when they stand in the way of his ascension to power. This heartless vision is
far beyond what the early modern English society thought about the familial harmony, but it
is rather more similar to their vision of the barbaric peoples in ancient times.
Through his initial cruelty—when he demands the execution of Alarbus as a ritual
sacrifice to the gods—Lucius helps initiate the play’s cycle of revenge. Even more so, Lucius
later leaves Rome to join the Goths—Rome’s former enemies. This shows that the boundaries
between enemy and ally are blurred in the play, just as the differences between barbarous and
civil nations are. After capturing Aaron—another father—Lucius returns to Rome in charge
of the Goth army. During the gory banquet scene, Lucius kills the emperor Saturninus, then
he is declared the new Emperor, and he sentences Aaron and Tamora to be punished for their
crimes. Although he might be seen as the meritorious hero who comes at the end to achieve

19
Saturninus is a character that shows the volatility of racial identity in relation to power, as he marries Tamora,
the Queen of Goth, after having been refused by Titus to marry Lavinia. As Lara Bovilsky observes in
Barbarous Play: Race on the English Renaissance Stage, through Saturninus Shakespeare shows “how dramatic
representations of racial identity are no less important, no less powerful—both compelling and punitive—for
being fluid, variable, and often contradictory” (33).

79
divine and human justice, Lucius is not exactly the white-washed character who punishes the
guilty people. Just as Tamora and Aaron are not the ultimate villains—despite their
despicable personalities and their wish for revenge—Lucius is ready to accept political
compromise and rise against the emperor. This shows that, when political interests prevail,
even filial sons, like Lucius, think of advantages and crave for power. Precisely because of
that, from Lucius’ perspective, things are not simply right or wrong. The tragedy, therefore,
displaces the focus of the play from the notions of cruelty and barbarity ascribed to certain
races, moving it to any legitimate or illegitimate pursuit of power, in the family or in the
nation.
When he feels that the Andronici family has achieved too much power in Rome,
Saturninus gives up Lavinia and reprimands Titus’ “lawless sons” (1.1.312). Since Saturninus
resents the popularity of Titus and his sons, he aids Tamora in her revenge against Titus. As
Saturninus unjustly sentences Martius and Quintus—Titus’ other sons—for the murder of
Bassianus, the emperor’s injustice is increasingly evident. As the murder of Bassianus is
orchestrated by Aaron and Tamora—with Chiron and Demetrius as executors—Saturninus
makes no effort to find evidence and to discover the true culprits. Even if Saturninus is the
eldest imperial son and he feels entitled to the crown by right of primogeniture, his name,
related to Saturn, symbolizes Father Time, and this planet personifies the forces of age,
transformation, and death. Thus, the time–space notions are reversed; the son becomes an
elder member of the family, not necessarily wiser because of that, while the younger brother,
Bassianus, is a rash young man who does not understand the corridors of politics and, for this
reason, he ends up framed by Chiron and Demetrius. In Greek mythology, Saturn was held
prisoner by his father in a deep cave while he was still a child. As he is not a father but a son,
Saturninus is held prisoner to his own wish for power, and he cannot be a biological father
himself. For this reason, Saturninus is considered only a surrogate father to Tamora’s
illegitimate and mixed-race baby son by Aaron. This shows that legitimacy does not
necessarily lie in primogeniture or race, but in the capacity of adapting to political and social
circumstances.
Saturninus believes that his “wisdom” (1.1.336) has conquered Tamora, but the new
queen speaks in the third person—showing emotional distance from her new husband—as
she says, “She will a handmaid be to his desires, / A loving nurse, a mother to his youth”
(1.1.331-332), which suggests the disparity between their ages. Saturninus’ parenthood is of
an incomplete sort; while he longs for having a family—which would legitimize his imperial
aspirations and succession—he is no more than a deficient parent, who can only be a short-
80
lived substitute father to Tamora and Aaron’s baby. Shakespeare reverses the traditional
mythological view of Saturn as the Father God, who is timeless and immortal, but who was
deposed by his son, Jupiter. As the god of generation, dissolution and regeneration in Roman
mythology, Saturn signifies periodical renewal. However, in the play, we have a royal son
who cannot be a father, and who symbolizes the renewal of absolute power, aggression and
deceit. As Saturn was celebrated in Roman times during the festival of Saturnalia in
December, the time of feasting and revelry shows that the royal character trades off tradition
and rationality for a brief time of pleasure and sexual gratification. In the same manner,
Saturninus gives in to anger and pride when he is prevented from marrying Lavinia, and so he
marries the prisoner of war, Tamora, instead, which triggers the sequence of tragic events and
cyclic revenge in the play.
The Andronici tomb is a symbolic space of ancestry and of filial duty, as well as duty
towards the country, kin and clan, which is also a kind of relation to family and race, as
understood in early modern times. When Marcus Andronicus insists that Titus should give
the rebel son Mutius a proper burial in the family tomb, together with his heroic brothers,
Titus refuses, and exclaims, “No, foolish tribune; no; no son of mine, / Nor thou, nor these,
confederates in the deed / That hath dishonoured all our family / Unworthy brother, and
unworthy sons” (1.1.343-346). Titus’ stubbornness and his relentless opposition to all those
who are not of the same opinion as he is—including his own family—is almost theatrical and
suggests the rigidity of Titus’ character. As Joseph Mansky explains, in “‘Unlawfully
published’: Libels and the Public Sphere in Titus Andronicus” (2016), when writing of
demagoguery in the play’s Rome, “The play’s public sphere is called into being and deployed
in the interests of the aggrieved—if imperious—aristocratic family, but it nevertheless relies
on the cultural associations between libels and popular agency” (Mansky 298). Indeed, Titus’
popularity, and that of Marcus Andronicus, who is a tribune of the people, is pitted against
the transgressive behaviour of the son Mutius, and later Lucius, who are aristocratic sons
deviating from the social norms imposed by their father.
Just as Tamora is an image of the tragic queen grieving for her son, so is Lavinia a
figure of the innocent lamb/ child sacrificed on the altar of her family’s ambition. Before
Chiron and Demetrius rape Lavinia, Aaron characterizes their violence as a re-enactment of
Ovid’s Metamorphoses, particularly the story of Philomela being raped by Tereus (Ovid,
Metamorphoses, Book VI, 767-775, p. 150). As Aaron says, “Philomel must lose her tongue
today” (2.2.43). Later, on finding Lavinia with her hands and her tongue cut, Marcus
Andronicus also alludes to Ovid: “But sure some Tereus hath deflowered thee / And, lest thou
81
shouldst detect him, cut thy tongue” (2.3.2-27). As Stephanie M. Bahr notes in “Titus
Andronicus and the Interpretive Violence of the Reformation” (2017), “This textually
inspired violence transforms Lavinia herself into a text to be read by her family” (260).
Indeed, not only does Marcus recognize the source text, but he also discovers that the loss of
Lavinia’s hands is a variation of that text. When the perpetrators are finally discovered, this is
also a result of an interpretation of Ovid, as Lavinia draws the names of Chiron and
Demetrius in the sand and she points to the book of “Ovid’s Metamorphoses” (4.1.42). The
book as a prop must have existed on stage, thus showing the metaphoric affiliation with
Ovid’s stories.
The play’s intertextuality has often been discussed—especially in relation to Ovid—
and the interpretation of Lavinia and her family as a text to be decoded, which is a relevant
issue in the play. However, there are differences related to various levels of interpretation of
Ovid, as several characters look at Lavinia’s maimed body differently. While Chiron and
Demetrius wish to avoid recognition of their bloody actions, and they reconstruct Philomela’s
story in their criminal and vengeful minds, Marcus Andronicus is highly rhetorical and rather
ineffective in rescuing his niece. Whatever the level of interpretation, however, the members
of Lavinia’s family possess the necessary clues—derived from their classical education—to
identify the perpetrators, but so do the murderers. As Tereus rapes Philomela in the savage
woods of Thrace—and Ovid compares him to a “wolf” (Ovid, Metamorphoses VI:782, p.
150)—so do Tamora’s sons rape Lavinia and cut her tongue in the wild woods of Rome.
There is no difference between the woods of ancient Thrace, where Tereus raped Philomela,
and the wild woods of ancient Rome. Both are places of perpetuation of murder for power,
and the victims are always innocent women, who cannot speak for themselves and their
families.
Tamora is a mother who has lost her sons—Alarbus at the beginning of the play and
Chiron and Demetrius at its end—and she is a turbulent Queen of the Goths, a race often
associated with barbarity. In “‘Thou map of woe’: Mapping the Feminine in Titus
Andronicus and King Lear” (2016), Sharon Emmerichs associates Lavinia to Roman values
and Tamora to a wild unmapped land of savage people. Emmerichs sees Lavinia as
“representing bounty, fertility and prosperity, while Tamora would be more akin to the
wilder, more barbaric outer landscapes and the scantily clad island map-women at a distance
from the civilized centre” (Emmerichs 555-556). I would have accepted such an
interpretation if a reductionist image of Shakespeare’s tragedy had been possible. However,
as I see it, Tamora is a much more complex character, and her wish for revenge is connected
82
with a very sophisticated and highly educated woman. Yet as women tend to rely on
emotions, Tamora’s feelings as a mother take precedence over her stance as a queen. As she
tells Saturninus, “I’ll find a day to massacre them all, / And raze their faction and their
family. / The cruel father and his traitorous sons, / To whom I suèd for my dear son’s life”
(1.1.450-453). As a mother, Tamora has her own reasons to pursue revenge against Titus’
children, but as a queen (both of the Goths and of the Romans) her passionate and revengeful
actions are not justified.
Tamora’s sophisticated revenge plot surpasses any action taken by a barbaric queen.
She orchestrates several acts of vengeance upon Titus and his family; she frames Marcus and
Quintus for the murder of Bassianus; she facilitates the rape and mutilation of Lavinia; and
she disguises herself as the spirit of Revenge in order to drive Titus insane. As she is highly
educated, Tamora uses the disguise as Revenge, which is like a play-within-a-play, in order
to inspire dread in the minds of the Andronici clan. However, in order to pursue her goals,
Tamora needs power, and this power is recklessly relegated to her by her husband Saturninus,
who makes her his queen, without heeding the consequences. As Tamora is now “incorporate
in Rome” (1.1.462), therefore a part of the Roman family, “A Roman now adopted happily”
(1.1.463), Tamora surpasses in cunning any of the supposedly civilized Romans. While Titus
is not able to achieve his revenge in an original manner—and he appeals to textual framings,
such as, again, the Ovidian story of Procne serving her son Itys to Tereus 20 in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses—Tamora resorts to theatrical action and delusion. By disguising herself as
the image of Revenge—while her sons are disguised as Murder and Death—Tamora
accomplishes the deathly rituals of her clan, who are supposed to defeat their enemies
through psychological warfare. Just as the ancient Goths, Tamora is aware of the role of fear
in destroying the enemy’s resilience.
Tamora’s plot is intelligent—and so is the Gothic Queen—as Aaron compares her
bright mind or “wit” (10) to “the golden sun” (2.1.5) around which all planets revolve. This
heliocentric theory sanctions a male actant rather than a female one, since kings and emperors
are associated with the sun. Aaron proposes to cast away his “servile thoughts” (2.1.18) and
“To mount aloft with thy imperial mistress” (2.1.13). Yet Aaron speaks in the third person—
as if he is alienated from his own thoughts—and his ambitious cosmological metaphors
concerning Tamora are merged with other mythological allusions suggesting deceit, such as
“This goddess, this Semiramis, this nymph, / This siren that will charm Rome’s Saturnine”

20
In Ovid’s Metamorphoses (VI: 975-1049, pp. 155-156), Philomela’s sister, Procne, kills her son Itys and
serves him to her husband at a banquet, in revenge for her sister’s rape and humiliation.

83
(2.1.22-23). Semiramis was a war-like Assyrian queen, while nymphs and sirens were
believed to lure mortal men from their prescribed path of virtue. However, Tamora fails as a
mother, since Chiron and Demetrius are found by Aaron quarrelling with each other over
“Lavinia’s love” (2.1.36), and they soon start fighting with Aaron and call him “Foul-spoken
coward” (58). Yet Aaron’s devious speech alludes to betrayal, as he plots Lavinia’s rape. The
“plots” (2.1.116) of land in the spacious woods during the hunting party are associated with
villainous plots, as Aaron says that, in the forest, “many unfrequented plots there are / Fitted
by kind of rape and villainy” (2.1.116-117). The double-meaning words and spatial
metaphors delineate a savage world in which infamous plotting is woven, while the hunt 21
stands for both courtship and savage pursuit. In this context, Tamora is an accomplice of her
sons, and her “sacred wit / To villainy and vengeance consecrate” (2.1.121-122). Not only
does Tamora fail as a mother to her remaining sons—as she teaches them to behave unjustly
—but she also fails as a mother to her baby son, whom she wants murdered to protect her
position as Queen.
Chiron and Demetrius are Tamora’s sons, who seek vengeance for their murdered
brother Alarbus by raping Lavinia and cutting her hands and tongue to prevent her from
telling the story. Although they are of Goth origin, they are educated in Roman literature, as
they know Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the story of Philomela; she was raped by her brother-
in-law Tereus, who subsequently cut her tongue to prevent her from telling the story, but she
wove the narrative in a tapestry and she showed it to her sister, Procne. To prevent Lavinia
from weaving her story of rape into a tapestry, Chiron and Demetrius add another dimension
to the Ovidian narrative of violence by cutting Lavinia’s hands. Not only is their revenge
action based on intertextuality, but they also rewrite the Ovidian story. However, they are
incited to revenge by their mother, Tamora, who tells them, “Revenge it, as you love your
mother’s life, / Or be ye not henceforth called my children” (2.3.113-114). Tamora, as a
mother, conditions her sons’ filial duty to performing acts of revenge, and Demetrius
responds readily by stabbing Bassianus, as he says, “This is a witness that I am thy son”
(2.3.116). Chiron and Demetrius also satisfy their lust by raping Lavinia, which shows that
their passions take precedence over reason. Parenthood in this tragedy is viewed under the
conditions of war and revenge, which drastically modifies the characters' reactions under
definite circumstances.

21
While Saturninus refers to “Our Roman hunting” (2.2.20), claiming to show Tamora a supposedly civilized
form of sports and entertainment, the actual hunting is performed by the Goth queen, who incites her sons to
pursue Lavinia and to frame Titus’ sons for the murder of Bassianus.

84
 Aaron is a mixed figure, but he is not only the racial other that provides a contrast to
the Roman and Goth characters. On the contrary, he adopts many of the Roman customs and
aspirations, including the Roman wish for power. Aaron intends to rise together with Tamora,
by manipulating Tamora’s sons into killing and maiming Lavinia. At the beginning of Act 2,
Chiron and Demetrius argue with each other over which one of them has the truer right to
woo Titus’ daughter. As Brian J. Harries observes in “The Fall of Mediterranean Rome in
Titus Andronicus” (2018), “Aaron, acting in the role of perverse tutor, chides them to cease
their foolishness, remember their learning, and think like Romans” (201). Indeed, despite his
race, Aaron intends to use the political and social standards of the Roman civilization to
manipulate both Romans and Goths for his own purposes. As Aaron says to Tamora,
“Madam, though Venus govern your desires / Saturn is dominator over mine” (2.3.30-31) and
“Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand, / Blood and revenge are hammering in my
head” (2.3.38-39). According to Elizabethan astrologers, Saturnine men are melancholy and
will never forget until they are revenged, while Tamora is a symbol of femininity and she is
governed by the planet Venus. In this respect, Aaron is associated with the emperor
Saturninus, whom he cuckolds, except that the Moor only has power over the human mind. In
addition, Aaron is fertile, and he becomes the biological father of Tamora’s son, while
Saturninus is infertile and he is unable to create a new generation of kings.
On the other hand, however, Aaron the Moor has a Jewish name, which partly shows
that he is a representative of the other, but also that racial otherness has no connection with
vengeance and political manipulation, because he is also associated with the Roman
Saturninus through the Saturn–vengeance pattern. Bassianus calls Aaron “swarthy
Cimmerian” (2.3.72); this is another classical reference to a race of nomadic Indo-European
people that roamed the Eurasian steppes around the eighth century BC and were considered
barbaric. Through this description, the Roman Bassianus associates Aaron with blackness and
savageness, as he is “swarthy” or dark-complexioned, and the Cimmerians were considered
barbaric. However, Aaron may have been dark-skinned, but he is far from being barbaric, as
he is able to weave complex plots to trap Titus and his sons, as well as Tamora’s sons.
Therefore, Aaron is associated with several foreign and barbaric others—Moor, Jew,
Cimmerian—but he behaves like none of these peoples; instead, he acts cunningly and
rationally, as it is believed the Romans would do. Thus, the play dislocates the common
assumptions of race and otherness, by showing how a racially different other behaves in ways
considered to be proper to the adoptive nation.

85
 Aaron deceives Titus into chopping up his hand in exchange for the lives of his sons,
Martius and Quintus. After Titus cuts his hand, Aaron announces his intention of deceiving
Titus by actually having his son Martius executed. As Aaron says, “If that be called deceit, I
will be honest / And never whilst I live deceive men so; / But I’ll deceive you in another
sort, / And that you’ll say ere half an hour pass” (3.1.187-190). Although Aaron is a master of
deceit, he manages to transform duplicity into honesty, in his own interpretation. By
reversing western values and notions about family and nation, Aaron appears to impose a
new set of values to the play. As he intends to have Titus’ sons’ heads brought to their father
on a platter, Aaron promises to Titus, “Look by and by to have thy sons with thee” (3.1.200),
but in an aside, he says “Their heads, I mean” (3.1.201). However, Aaron’s dissimulation has
nothing to do with race, as he might have been a manipulative person even if he had been
Roman or even Goth, as the play’s action amply shows.
Yet Aaron is also a father to his illegitimate son with Tamora, and he defends his
baby against the Roman prejudice regarding a child of mixed race. The baby is supposed to
pass for Saturninus', as the emperor’s legitimate son, but this cannot be, because of the baby’s
dark skin colour. The Nurse expresses the conventional view about the baby, saying that he is
“Our Empress’ shame and stately Rome’s disgrace” (4.2.60), and she describes the baby as
“A joyless, dismal, black, and sorrowful issue. / Here is the babe, as loathsome as a toad /
Amongst the fair-faced breeders of our clime” (4.2.66-68). The association of the baby’s dark
skin colour with a toad, in opposition to the white-faced babies of the land, highlights not
only blackness but an inherited evil spirit, as the toads were supposed to be the familiar
companions to witches. As the Nurse tells Aaron, “The Empress sends it thee, thy stamp, thy
seal, / And bids thee christen it with thy dagger’s point” (4.2.69-70). While the baby’s
biological mother, Empress Tamora, has no mercy for her son, and she sends him to his
father to be murdered, Aaron refuses to harm the baby, as he says, “Is black so base a hue?”
(4.2.71). By rejecting the early modern prejudice according to which black is evil, Aaron
acknowledges his son as his own because, to him, the baby looks beautiful.
Aaron addresses the baby, in a gesture of fatherly love, as “Sweet blowse, you are a
beauteous blossom, sure” (4.2.72). As a blowse is a normally red-faced wench, in applying it
ironically to his baby, Aaron reverses his reaction against the nurse’s contempt for the baby’s
blackness. While Demetrius curses the baby, “Accursed the offspring of so foul a fiend”
(4.2.79), Aaron refuses to harm the child. Aaron’s fatherly love takes precedence over his
wish for power, so he is ready to risk everything to save his baby. As Chiron and Demetrius
are ready to kill their own baby brother, Aaron exclaims, “Coal-black is better than another
86
hue / In that it scorns to bear another hue” (4.2.99-100). By asserting that the colour black
will take no other tone, Aaron expresses an issue of identity and fidelity against the hypocrisy
of those who can change their opinions according to circumstances. Therefore, through the
incompatible figure of Aaron, Shakespeare questions and possibly invalidates the period's
understanding of the notions of “blood” and the new concept of “otherness” in relation to
race. Rather than being a concept referring to racial difference and black blood construed as
negative and evil (as some theorists in the early modern period maintained), the notion of
blackness acquires ambiguous meanings, in accordance with what occurs on the stage space,
in relation to each character.
However, in trying to save his baby, Aaron resorts to murder, as he kills the nurse
who knows of the black baby’s birth, and he also intends to kill the midwife. Aaron aims to
substitute his dark child to the child of one of his countrymen, Muliteus, whose wife had
given birth to a mixed-race white-skinned baby, whom he intends to present as the emperor’s
heir. As for his baby, he intends to run away with him and protect him, as a good father
should. As Aaron tells the baby affectionately, “I’ll make you feed on berries and on roots, /
And fed on curds and whey, and suck the goat, / And cabin in a cave, and bring you up / To
be a warrior, and command a camp” (4.2.177-180). The father Aaron has expectations for his
baby’s future, because in the martial world of Rome or the Goths, a respectable future means
a military career. However, through the intervention of fate, the father and the baby are found
by a Goth, who intends to spare the baby and raise him as a Goth, as a symbol of fidelity for
Queen Tamora. This is actually the last-surviving member of the Goth royal family line, and
the baby’s survival is a symbol of hope for the future.
In the new order of events in Titus Andronicus, Aaron’s dark-skinned baby is brought
to the Roman Lucius, Titus’ son, who is prejudiced against Tamora, not against her innocent
black baby, but he transfers his hatred to the baby, so he orders that Aaron should be hanged
on a tree with the baby hanging on his neck. In order to save his baby’s life, Aaron is ready to
be a witness against Tamora’s sons: “For I must talk of murders, rapes, and massacres, / Acts
of black night, abominable deeds, / Complots of mischief, treason, villainies, / Ruthful to
hear, yet piteously performed” (5.1.63-66). As Aaron exposes the tales of murder, he
transfers the images of moral blackness from his baby to the murderous deeds that the Goth
brothers performed at his instigation. Finally, Aaron’s mixed-race baby is saved, 22 but the

22
Neither Titus nor Tamora could save their sons, Martius, Quintus, or Alarbus, but Aaron can save his son. He
acknowledges the child’s royal roots and begins the process of convincing Lucius to allow his heir to live by
trading information. As the only parent in the play who actively stops the murder of his child, Aaron has real
power in Titus Andronicus. Though the father is not of royal blood, the mother is, so Aaron finds a legitimate

87
father brands himself as a villain, confessing his reprehensible actions. Even if Aaron’s
illegitimate dark-skinned baby is not his legitimate family, the father’s love for his child
redeems such a villainous character as Aaron and gives him a humane dimension. The dark-
skinned baby represents innocence and purity, unlike his father, and the father’s character is
redeemed by parental love. On the other hand, the baby is an agent of fate, because his father
is willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of his son’s future.

Conclusions
The Roaring Girl restores the audience’s sense of how children should adhere to parental
authority and show respect for their parents. Father and son—Sir Alexander Wengrave and
Sebastian Wengrave—play a game of act and react. For Sir Alexander, Sebastian’s desire for
a manly woman has less to do with nature and more to do with nurture. The former’s
opposition to Moll reaffirms the way in which early modern parents could serve as courtship
impediments for a variety of social reasons. The play suggests that while this particular type
of parental intervention is both problematic and troubling for the younger generation, there
are ways around such oppressive demonstrations of parental authority. As much as Sir
Alexander might try to control Sebastian’s decisions, the latter’s resistance shows that there
can be real limits to the efficacy of parental power. Parents often use their authority to guide
and mould their children into the ideal kinds of people that they would like them to be—good
citizens who follow the rules. This shows just how much parental authority, perhaps like most
forms of power, depends on the subordinate’s individual obedience. As Sebastian’s actions
indicate, disobedience has the potential to allow children to control their parents on some
level. However, the son’s disobedience is just in jest—as this is a comedy—and the
disruptive social situation is resolved through the socially suitable marriage between
Sebastian Wengrave and Mary Fitzallard. Families in The Roaring Girl, therefore, are placed
in various social locations—the parlour and the gallery of Sir Alexander Wengrave’s house,
the apothecary’s shop, the seamster’s shop or the featherer’s shop, or just the streets of the
city of London—to show that fathers and sons have important roles in the social life of the
city, yet the theatre represents distorted family relationships.
When parental authority is at odds with true love, as it often happens in Renaissance
drama, the latter can prevail, even if the lovers are ultimately united in death, like Romeo and
Juliet. However, in the city comedies, death is present only as a theatrical device to impress
the parents and remind them of their love for their children, as in A Chaste Maid in
angle for his persuasive case and he exploits it to the best of his ability.

88
Cheapside. In this play, there are two parents (mother and father)—Yellowhammer and
Maudlin Yellowhammer—so the parental partnership is important. Middleton concretely
establishes the mother’s status by choosing to begin the play with her voice. The opening
scene reinforces Maudlin’s important parental position, especially because the action occurs
outside the Yellowhammers’ home and inside their shop, which is understood as a separate,
commercial part of their home. Therefore, what makes Maudlin Yellowhammer important is
not solely her relation to her husband but also her parental authority, as Maudlin consistently
focuses on her children and family. Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside highlights
different kinds of family dynamics in order to emphasize the social importance of parental
authority. Moreover, the play highlights the fact that, just as there were women who might
not have fit the image of the ideal woman, there may have also been entire families that did
not represent what people may understand as the model for an early modern family. In this
way, the play dislocates the commonly-held notions of the nuclear family and presents
different varieties of families—legitimate or illegitimate.
In tragedy, unresolved issues of parental authority may lead to disastrous effects and
the destruction of entire families. Titus Andronicus highlights notions of blood as related to
family; from the shedding of Mutius’ blood in the first act, to the succession of murders in the
final act—Lavinia’s, Tamora’s, Titus’ and Saturninus’—blood figures prominently in the
play. Blood’s symbolic function is interrelated with family and race in this tragedy. In
parallel, the reduction of Rome’s civilized nature is inextricably linked to parental authority.
The play shows the transferability and malleability of parental authority, as Aaron could
emerge as a quasi-parental figure for Tamora’s boys, Chiron and Demetrius, but he incites
them to do evil, so he is not such a good adoptive father figure, after all. Moreover, Aaron’s
non-Englishness in Titus Andronicus makes him different from his Goth and Roman parental
counterparts (Titus, Tamora, Saturninus). This difference outlines applications for wider
concerns about parentage and race in the period. As a villain, this father of an illegitimate
baby showcases the dangers of parental authority, but it also shows that parental feelings of
love and care for the young child may surpass the selfish desire for power. The roles of Aaron
as parent, as well as villain, complicate the assumptions one may make about this character.
Therefore, the term “black”—and synonymous early modern English terms such as
“Moor” and “barbarian”—was a rhetorically calculated way for the English to differentiate
themselves from non-English people. Yet, a more general term, such as “parent” actually
aligns black individuals with their English counterparts on a basic level, as children of all
men and women make them fathers and mothers, black or otherwise. Therefore, the tragedy
89
tends to annihilate racial distinctions as far as parenthood is concerned. With regard to
parentage, Aaron can be regarded as a father in the same way as the Roman Titus can be so—
despite the religious and cultural differences. Therefore, parentage is a unifying concept
which connects nations together, whether English or non-English, Roman, Goth, or Moor.
Moving on from this racially-defined concept of parentage in Shakespeare’s early tragedy,
Titus Andronicus, I will discuss the representations of parenthood and family in
Shakespeare’s romances, in order to show that the social function of family has not changed,
but the ways of representing families on Shakespeare’s stage have embraced different
interpretations, according to genre and the placing of families in various dramatic contexts.

90
 CHAPTER 2
THE PLACING OF FAMILIES ON SHAKESPEARE’S STAGE IN THE ROMANCES

This chapter examines the spatial concept of the placing of families on the Shakespearean
stage, from the perspective of geocriticism and spatial literary studies, audience-response
theory, social performance studies, and close-text analysis. Placing refers to the metaphoric
and existential spaces represented in the plays discussed (Pericles, Prince of Tyre, The
Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest), to which are added the theatrical experiences of living and
action in the play's world and the emotions provoked during the dramatic interaction
concerning families on the Shakespearean stage. Space is transformed into existential place,
with a specific identity and aura, according to the concepts of space and place described by
Y-Fu Tuan in Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (1977).23 I argue that the
social notion of the Elizabethan family (sons, daughters, parents, brothers and, more
inclusively, servants) is represented as a kind of specific placing in the Shakespearean plays’
world in the romances, because dysfunctional families turn physical geographic space into
individually circumscribed place, whereas the stage is the ultimate site for the placing of
these social concepts related to family relations in the dramatic context.
Regarding the concepts of space and place in early modern drama, Lloyd Edward
Kermode is even more precise—referring to the theatre—than Y-Fu Tuan, in his essay
“Experiencing the Space and Place of Early Modern Theater” (2013). Kermode refers to Y-
Fu Tuan’s division between space and place, but he moves further to restructure the concepts
of space and place as viewed from the perspective of early modern theatre. As Kermode
observes, “clearly the categories of place and space require the complement and the contrast
of the other to be understood, talked about, constructed, and utilized. Dramatic activity puts
into practice this inevitable symbiotic relationship, privileging a ‘place’ of activity, which is
constantly fed by the actors’ and audiences’ sense of the space around and within the theater”
(Kermode 2). Indeed, theatrical place is related to “dramatic activity” and “symbiotic
relationship” (Kermode 2), therefore it is different from the places of experience in real life,
referred to by Y-Fu Tuan. At the same time, the audience experiences the space evoked in

23
For Y-Fu Tuan, “space” and “place” are “familiar words denoting common experience” (Tuan 3). However,
there is a difference between them. According to Tuan, “Place is security, space is freedom: we are attached to
one and long for the other. There is no place like home” (Tuan 3). As “[s]pace and place are basic components
of the lived world” (Tuan 3), we take them for granted. However, my chapter does not take the concepts of
“space” and “place” for granted; my attempt is to apply them to the social concepts of home and family and look
at the ways in which the placing of family functions, according to dramatic rules, on the Shakespearean stage.

91
each Shakespearean play—during a specific production—as irreplaceable and dynamic
action, directly related to the performance occurring on stage.
Performance studies are an area of criticism distinguished from traditional text-based
drama, in the sense that they offer ways to examine performance theory in connection with
the play's text. The discussion extends beyond the walls of the traditional theatre and is
concerned with theatrical images that could be framed or presented during dramatic
interaction. Richard Schechner is the foremost representative of performance theory, and his
Performed Imaginaries (2015) examines the key themes of the twenty-first century:
contemporary avantgarde, the counter-cultural movement of the 1960s and 1970s and the
Occupy movement, from the perspective of the theatre. However, Schechner refers to theatre
in general, and especially to postmodern theatre, not early modern drama. Writing about
nowadays’ cyberspace, global corporations and interlocked systems of business,
governments, ideologies and religions, Schechner observes that “Distance no longer matters:
netspace trumps geospace” (20). He writes about the “unorthodox use of space” (Schechner
22) in site-specific theatre, which knits together “the performers’ real lives and fiction”
(Schechner 22). Schechner calls these sites of interactive theatre, or art, “found spaces” (41),
because artworks and theatre happen in storefronts, lofts, and on the streets. The artists and
the public interact together in the same space, where they behave like the members of a
family.
Another form of expression, according to Schechner, is “performance art” or “site-
specific” art (41), which brings artists together in a garage or a studio-performance space.
Audiences to these performative spectacles understand art or the theatre differently because
they participate actively in the construction of the connection between theatre and audience.
There is a symbiotic relationship between the spectators and the actors in interactive theatre,
so the space of performance acquires new dimensions. I take Schechner’s concepts drawing
on performance studies as a starting point for my concept of the placing of families; sons,
daughters, parents, brothers, and servants on the Shakespearean stage are placed in the same
unconventional manner, in the environment of their respective play, and all the characters
interact as if they were part of the same dramatic parental family, acting in a home-like
environment, which is the place of the stage and the play. Characters, therefore, are placed in
a specific spatial context created by the play, while the geographic spaces represented in
these plays—in relation to families—are so many triggers for the audience’s responses to the
performance.

92
 Behavioural theory in social anthropology is another model informing this chapter’s
theoretical framework. In his book Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of
Experience (1974), sociologist Erving Goffman argues that in each social situation people
present an appropriate “front”, or “mask,” or “persona,” which is further encoded in its
“frame,” which is the context of the encounter or performance, the “theatrical frame” (123).
“Primary frameworks” (21), according to Goffman, are defined by concrete occurrences
existing in society, in daily life. Social frameworks, on the other hand, “provide background
understanding for events that incorporate the will, aim and controlling effort of an
intelligence, a live agency, the chief one being the human being” (22). These social
frameworks involve rules that depend on “keys” (40), which are specific elements of the
social interaction. During the theatrical performance, the agency belongs to the director
creating a specific version of the play, the actors’ interpretation, and the audience, who
perceives the play in a specific manner. Performance, therefore, may be seen as a kind of
gangplank between life and the theatre. It exists in both areas and helps us understand both.
Audiences can travel from the theatre to life through their understanding of performance, just
as they can go from life to the theatre across the same passageway of performance.
Audience response theory relates performance and audience in a unitary whole, with
specific performances suited to specific audiences and theatres. Starting from the assumption
that performance is a dialectical activity—involving the audience as well as the social
environment of the stage—drama is shaped throughout this interaction of social milieu,
theatrical performance and theatre space. From this theatrical and spatial perspective, Jennifer
A. Low, in “Door number Three: Time, Space, and Audience Experience in The Menaechmi
and The Comedy of Errors” (2011), examines Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors as
displaying an “organic” (71) difference when compared with Plautus’ Roman comedy—the
source of Shakespeare’s play. Low distinguishes between “stage-space” and “audience
space” (72) and argues that the audience’s experience, in Shakespeare’s comedy, is shaped by
the relation between the stage and the spectators’ area, and the way in which the playwright
positions the audience with regard to the action. This kind of spatial arrangement is similar to
my concept of placing, as the audience’s imagination perceives the play’s dramatic space as a
specific place of performance.
In this line of spatiality, Jennifer A. Low writes about “conjuring space” (75) in The
Comedy of Errors, which means conjuring up a reality in which the character “is completely
engaged with the beings he describes” (Low 76). Referring to “Shakespeare’s Roman stage
space” (Low 79), Jennifer Low notices that Shakespeare applies a method of “staging time
93
with space” (80), which is a kind of visual perspective that offers the audience a new way of
seeing space. From the angle of my interpretation of placing, this kind of innovative audience
perspective is an expressive place, as I argue, in which the character creates his/her own
imaginary placing by evoking emotions and stories related to feelings, memories and
mythological narratives. This metaphorical place is fictional, but it is just as real as the space
of the stage on which the play’s action takes place. It is an archetypal and real place at the
same time, in which classical mythology, the characters’ emotions, and the space of action
converge to create a specific performative place, in which the audiences are placing what
happens on stage during the performance. I have re-interpreted Jennifer Low’s example of
Shakespeare’s manipulation of time and space in The Comedy of Errors from the perspective
of my concept of placing.
Shakespeare’s romances, or the Last Plays, are a group of plays traditionally
considered according to the four main genres of Shakespeare’s plays: comedy, history,
tragedy and romance. The genre is considered to have yielded common themes and
representations of time and space. As Kiernan Ryan observes in the Introduction to
Shakespeare: The Last Plays (1999),

it is by now critical commonplace to note the plays’ obsessive resort to the stock
motifs, narrative clichés and dog-eared devices of the ancient genre they inhabit: the
absurd predicament and outrageous coincidences; the violent simplifications of
character and motive; the scandalous liberties taken with time and place; the
fortuitous interventions of supernatural forces and pagan divinities; and the benign
resolutions contrived in fake contempt of the laws of likelihood. (Ryan 4-5)

Indeed, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest are thriving
with unlikely happenings, strange geographies, and incongruities of space and time.
As concerns representations of families in Shakespeare’s romances—apart from the
strong family resemblance of the plays within the genre—they are concerned with lost and
found families, which are social units within the larger circle of society, but which are also
curiously affected by changes of fortune. In addition, each play achieves a specific kind of
placing of family matters, in accordance with the geographic spaces represented in the play,
the characters’ relation to them, and the audience’s emotions when viewing a particular
Shakespearean last play. From Pericles as a strange story of family romance and adventure,

94
through the royal family in Cymbeline,24 to Leontes’ royal family in The Winter’s Tale and
Prospero’s family in The Tempest, the last plays evince a kind of family dynamics that makes
them resonate with early modern social issues of parental and patriarchal authority.
This issue of patriarchal authority has been the preoccupation of new-historicist critics
throughout the 1990s. Leonard Tannenhouse, for example, writing from a new historicist
standpoint in “Family Rites: Patriarchal Strategies in Shakespearean Romance” (1999),
contends that at the heart of the plays is an ideological struggle between paternalism and
patriarchalism, between the law of the father and the rule of the king. As Tannenhouse
argues, the plays use the family to perform “the need for a patriarchal figure who can reform
corrupt social practices, supervise the exchange of women and ensure the proper distribution
of power” (Tannenhouse 44). Moreover, as Tannenhouse observes, “the romances deliberate
the relationship between family and government” (Tannenhouse 44). Indeed, the family was
the site of intense political conflict from the late sixteenth century to the middle of the
seventeenth century. Sermons, handbooks, pamphlets, treatises royal speeches took up
contending sides in the representation of the family within the larger social circle. From the
behavioural perspective of social performance theory, therefore, the early modern family was
an integral part of the political and social structure, which, in those times, was predominantly
patriarchal and male-authoritarian.
As regards the space in Shakespeare’s romances, psychoanalytical critic Janet
Adelman gives a feminist interpretation of Cymbeline, in “Masculine Authority and the
Maternal Body: The Return to Origins in Cymbeline” (1999). As Adelman observes, “The
Cymbeline plot celebrates the return of male authority only by destroying the wicked mother
and her son, clearing an imaginative space for an all-male family and hence for reunion with
the father’s Rome; in each of its elements, it realizes Cymbeline’s parthenogenetic fantasy”
(Adelman 116). The “imaginative space” (Adelman 116) created by the play in the minds of
the audience in relation to family issues conforms to the early modern standards of male
authority. It is not only in Cymbeline, as I observe, that the plot finalizes with the restoration
of male authority. In The Tempest, Prospero, the commanding father, returns successfully to
Milan at the end of the family’s adversities on the island; his daughter, Miranda, becomes
Queen of Naples by her marriage to Ferdinand, and thus she achieves her father’s political

24
For essays on the significance of the royal family in Cymbeline, see Gary Schmidgall’s Shakespeare and the
Courtly Aesthetic (1981); David Bergeron’s Shakespeare’s Romances and the Royal Family (1985); and Leah
Marcus’ “Cymbeline and the Unease of Topicality” (1999). In this essay, Marcus defines the new historicist
localization of Shakespeare and argues that Cymbeline can be decoded to reveal a topical exercise in royalist
propaganda, where the appearance of Jove (Jupiter) in the play is associated with James I (Marcus 135).

95
ambitions. In The Winter’s Tale, Leontes commits many mistakes (both as a father and as a
king), but finally he is united with his daughter, Perdita, and his entire family, including his
supposedly dead wife, Hermione. In Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Pericles’ maritime adventures
end in the family’s reunion and the revival of his allegedly dead wife, Thaisa. In all these
Shakespearean romances, therefore, there is a sense that the family can be restored to its
normally functioning parameters through the reinstatement of male presence and authority.
However, as I see it, in each of the Shakespearean romances there is a contradictory
turn of events that allows for a patriarchal authoritarian interpretation and its opposite—the
restoration of female power—to coexist. The passageway or gangplank that reflects the
transition from patriarchal rule to predominance of motherhood is represented by metaphors
of space in the romances. Geographic space divides families, and then they are reunited
through the mothers, by traversing physical space. While mothers are absent, families are
separated and dysfunctional; as soon as mothers are recovered (as the miraculous revival of
Hermione in The Winter’s Tale or Thaisa’s resuscitation in Pericles), families gain their
existential harmony. Even if the mother is not physically recuperated—as in The Tempest or
Cymbeline—there is a final sense of familial harmony. There are many incongruities related
to the discursive space and time in these plays, which contribute to the idea that events are
incredible, and even miraculous. As metaphoric spaces are dissipated and even peculiar, the
plays potentially allow a structural transformation that permits the two discursive spaces—the
split areas of the self, male and female—to flow together in the end. In Cymbeline, even if
Cymbeline, the king of Britain, achieves peace with the Romans and successfully finds his
long-lost sons (Guiderius and Arviragus), who would inherit his kingdom, Imogen is still
under the beneficial star of harmony and fertility gained through marriage. Her problems
have been resolved after the successful trials in the wild woods of Wales and the coast of
Milford Haven.
In The Winter’s Tale, the two opposed locations, Bohemia and Sicilia, achieve unity
and harmony through the marriage between Florizel and Perdita, but only after King Leontes’
metaphorical roaming through the labyrinth of his own mind, where the monsters of jealousy
lurked. Leontes' reunion with his supposedly dead wife (Hermione) and his lost daughter
(Perdita) is achieved in the metaphoric space of Sicilia—only after incredible events occur in
the strangely romantic space of Bohemia and even, miraculously, at the oracle of Delphos. In
Pericles, Prince of Tyre, the royal family of Tyre is finally reunited, but Pericles' split self is
symbolized by the metaphoric Eastern Mediterranean spaces he traverses (Antioch, Tyre,
Tarsus, Pentapolis, the storm at sea, Mytilene, and Ephesus). The male hero does not
96
exemplify the strong and shielding wing of power protecting his family. Instead, the caring
stability comes from his daughter, Marina. Similarly, Prospero, in The Tempest, may have
overcome his former enemies and returned to Milan—after the soul-splitting experience on
the desert island—but his ducal power is outshined by his daughter’s future position as Queen
of Naples. In the end, the ultimate space that Prospero may think of is his grave. In all the
four romances, the protagonists traverse several spaces of adversity and, finally, their families
are reunited and social asperities are resolved.

2.1. Dysfunctional Families in Pericles, Prince of Tyre

Pericles, Prince of Tyre is one of Shakespeare’s romances that is the most confusing, in point
of authorship and the representations of space and family. Not only is it the product of
collaboration between William Shakespeare and George Wilkins (published in the first quarto
of 1609), but also the geographic spaces represented in the play (derived from the Hellenistic
source story of Apollonius of Tyre) are spread over three continents and several countries of
the ancient world. In “Liminal Geography: Pericles and the Politics of Place” (2003),
Constance Relihan explores the various ways in which social energy circulates throughout
and within political texts of the early modern period and in Shakespeare’s romance.
However, as Relihan observes, the play “presents an extremely problematic representation of
political power in Jacobean England” because “Pericles occurs in a series of specifically non-
European locations” (Relihan 71). As Relihan argues, “in creating a romance so dependent
upon locations whose relations to Europe may be considered liminal, and by emphasizing the
drama’s Otherness through the distancing mechanism of Gower’s narrative control,
Shakespeare undermines interpretations of the play that see it affirming both James I reign
and time’s ability to heal and restore” (Relihan 72). From this spatial perspective, therefore,
the play dramatizes difference through the non-European locations that Pericles traverses
throughout his tribulations.
Despite the fact that Shakespeare’s and Wilkins’ play has been construed as a eulogy
to royal absolutism—through the figure of James I and his family—the incongruity of the
represented locations in Pericles and the inconsistent ways of dramatizing and placing the
families in the play are forms of subverting the pro-monarchic message and inserting
disturbing notes of social and familial instability. Although the play’s plot does not deviate
too much from the two reputed sources—John Gower’s Confessio Amantis (Book 8) and
Lawrence Twine’s The Patterne of Painfull Adventures (a translation of the 153rd story of the
Gesta Romanorum)—the play’s performance of space and family—or, rather, the modes in
97
which dysfunctional families traverse space and animate place—function as a form of
subverting the favourable interpretations related to the policies of James I. While the English
monarch promoted an image of benevolent patriarchal and parental authority, as he had two
sons and one daughter and he projected an image of a caring pater familias, Shakespeare’s
Pericles is a frustrated father who spends most of his life wandering throughout the cities of
the Eastern Mediterranean, loses his wife and daughter, only to find them as a result of quasi-
miraculous events.
Moreover, in the context of corruption of values and incongruent spatial coordinates,
the play is suffused with images of disease and loss, such as the pox-ridden brothel 25 of
Mytilene, where “a poor Transylvanian” (4.2.19)26 is already dead because of having lain
with one of the diseased prostitutes, according to Pander. In Shakespeare’s time, the
audience’s knowledge about Transylvania would have been quite scarce. This is the only
mention of Transylvania in all Shakespearean plays in the canon, and it may have something
to do with the Latin origin of the country’s name, which means “across the woods” (my
translation). According to Edward Sugden’s A Topographical Dictionary to the Works of
Shakespeare and His Fellow Dramatists, Transylvania or Siebenburgen (in German, seven
cities) was known, in the early modern period, as “[t]he Eastern portion of Austro-Hungary,
lying between Hungary proper, Moldavia and Wallachia” (522) and “The population is
extremely mixed, including Magyars, Saxons (i.e Germans), Wallachians and a large number
of Gypsies” (Sugden 522). The Transylvanian traveller to Mytilene, in the spatial context of
Pericles, is not only an intermediary between spaces and cultures, but also an indication of
the play’s dramatization of the cosmopolitan milieu of the city of Mytilene. Even if he has no
say among the members of other diseased visitors at the brothel in Mytilene (a Spaniard and a
Frenchman), because he is already dead, the Transylvanian occupies an important part in the
placing of families within the dramatic context of the play.
As in John Marston’s The Dutch Courtesan (1604), the evil of prostitution is
associated with foreigners and disease, and is generally driven away from the circle of the

25
Referring to the play’s representations of early modern syphilis (the Pox), and its medico-moral politics,
Margaret Healy, in “Pericles and the Pox” observes that the play transmits a cautionary message: by having
Marina marry the potentially diseased Lysimachus, Pericles’ image as a father is strongly subverted and
diminished. As Healy observes, “through betrothing Marina to a potentially diseased son-in-law, he [Pericles] is
putting both her health and his future princely heirs’ at stake. He may, unwittingly, through neglect and poor
government, be introducing ‘corruption’ into the virgin body of his daughter and his kingdom” (Healy 65). I
would extend Healy’s argument even further and observe that the subversive elements of corruption in the body
of the state and family—through the images of the diseased body—are signs that things do not function so well
in the play’s world.
26
References to Pericles are to the Arden Three edition, edited by Suzanne Gossett (2018). Acts, scenes, and
lines will be given parenthetically in the text.

98
family. In Marston there is a foreign prostitute, Franceschina, the Dutch Courtesan, while in
Pericles there are foreign male clients at the brothel in Mytilene, on the Greek island of
Lesbos. Ever since ancient times, the island of Lesbos in the Eastern Mediterranean was
associated with classical poetry and Sappho. According to Edward Sugden, Lesbos “is chiefly
famous for its school of Lyric Poetry, adorned by the names of Leches, Arion of Methymna,
Alcaeus and, above all, Sappho” (Sugden 305). The space of classical poetry—enhanced by
allusions to lesbian love—is suggested by the island’s name, and its capital city, Mytilene.
Scenes 5 and 6 of act IV in Pericles are laid in Mytilene, where Marina, Pericles’ lost
daughter, is brought by the pirates and sold to the brothel keeper. The atmosphere of
corruption in the brothel is highlighted by the diseased “poor three” (4.2.7) unnamed
prostitutes, who “can do no more than they can do” (4.2.7) and “they are even as good as
rotten” (4.2.8), according to Bawd. Bolt describes the effect of the prostitute’s disease on the
dead Transylvanian as “she made him roast meat for worms” (4.2.21-22), suggesting
putrefaction and corruption of the body.
What is even more shocking is the suggestion that these prostitutes were recruited
from among the “poor bastards” (4.2.12-13), who, as the Bawd says, were turned into brothel
workers. The Bawd says she has “brought up some eleven” (4.2.13), which suggests not only
the extent and size of child abuse at the brothel in Mytilene, but also the high mortality rate
among the child prostitutes; out of eleven children reared for the purpose of prostitution, only
three reached the age of maturity, and these three were already diseased and probably dying.
This is why the practically minded Bawd and Bolt find it necessary to renew their stock of
human commodity with fresh material, in the person of Marina, bought from the pirates with
one thousand pieces of gold (4.2.47). As the brothel masters intend to gain money by selling
Marina’s virginity and beauty, Bolt says he has “drawn her picture” (4.2.87) with his voice in
detail, “almost to the number of her hairs” (4.2.86). This poetic description seems to have had
an effect on the audience’s imagination, in the multinational market of Mytilene, as Bolt
reports, “There was a Spaniard’s mouth watered and he went to bed to her very description”
(4.2.91-93). This presentation of the effect of Marina’s charms on the imaginative Spaniard is
theatrical because, in a play, the playwright also describes people and places in words, and
the members of the audience recreate the characters described in their imaginations.
The brothel in Pericles is at once a marketplace and a cosmopolitan congregation of
people, where, according to the Bawd, Marina is expected to “taste gentlemen of all fashions”
(4.2.72-73) and “have the difference of all complexions” (4.2.74-75). Not only is the brothel
space a location for the encounter of men of all nations, but also all social hierarchies
99
(gentlemen and commoners) are the brothel’s clients. When Bolt mentions “the French knight
that cowers i’th’hams” (4.2.97), the Bawd identifies him as “Monsieur Veroles” (4.2.98),
suggesting he is a well-known client of the brothel. This French knight is already diseased, as
he walks with hips and thighs bent, as a result of venereal disease and/or sexual exhaustion.
His name, Veroles, comes from the French véroles, or pox. Syphilis was known in England
as the French pox or the French disease, so the nationality of the French knight is significant
in highlighting the international atmosphere of corruption and disease that dominates the
brothel and the marketplace in Mytilene. When Bolt creates Marina’s image with his words
in the marketplace, the French knight, as Bolt reports, “cut a caper at the proclamation, but he
made a groan at it and swore he could see her tomorrow” (4.2.99-101). Just as any royal
proclamation through which the king announces his decisions to the people, the description of
Marina’s charms incites the Frenchman’s imagination; he is so excited that he would like to
jump for joy, but he cannot because of his venereal disease, so he promises to come to the
brothel the next day. This promise forewarns that Marina’s fate would be just like that of the
other diseased prostitutes in the brothel, because she would catch the pox herself. The
Frenchman and the Spaniard are the stereotypes of the Jacobean society’s foreigners, who are
expected to be diseased and corrupted.
The brothel space is associated with cosmopolitanism and multi-social encounters,
where people of all classes and nationalities are corrupted by sexually transmitted disease. As
Bolt and Bawd intend to increase the number of foreign travellers coming to the busy port-
town of Mytilene, Bolt concludes: “Well, if we had of every nation a traveller, we should
lodge them with this sign” (4.2.105-106). The sign is that of the brothel, but it can also be
associated with the theatre space, which can accommodate people of all social classes and
from all nations. Thus, the spaces of the brothel, of the marketplace, and of the theatre, are
amalgamated in one spatial continuum, which associates social hierarchy and the early
modern brothel with classical connotations related to the poetess Sappho and lesbian women.
By opposition, Marina invokes the aid of Diana, the goddess of virginity and chastity:
“Diana, aid my purpose!” (4.2.140). The goddess Diana is supposed to help Marina in
maintaining her chastity. Yet the realistic Bawd wonders, “What have we to do with Diana?”
(4.2.141), thus showing the moral corruption existing in the brothel, but also the irrelevance
of romantic ideals related to belief in the classical goddess of virginity in a world focused on
pecuniary gain and material interest. Two worlds are set in opposition in the Mytilene
brothel: one of ideals and purity, represented by the chaste child, Marina, who is a victim of

100
circumstances; and one of hard-hearted pragmatic gain, represented by Bawd and Pander, for
whom people can be turned into commodity in order to enhance their personal profit.
As Marina tries to convince the customers at the brothel in Mytilene of her innocence
and moral standards, the two unnamed Gentlemen who exit the brothel—unsatisfied of the
so-called prostitute’s behaviour—indicate the public opinion concerning prostitution in the
Jacobean period. While customers coming to a brothel do not expect to have a morality
sermon preached to them, as Marina did, they feel frustrated and flee the place which
confronts them with their own weaknesses. The First Gentleman says, “But to have divinity
preached there—did you ever dream of such a thing?” (4.4.4-5), as he shuns any form of
moralizing sermon preached in an unsuitable place, such as the brothel. Second Gentleman,
however, seems reformed, as he gives up going to bawdy houses as a result of hearing
moralizing speeches, and he responds, “No, no. Come, I am for no more bawdy houses.
Shall’s go hear the vestals sing?” (4.4.6-7) Paradoxically, the Second Gentleman, who
wanted sexual gratification at the brothel, is ironically moved to morality, and proposes to go
to listen to the vestals, the symbols of the purest virgins in Roman culture. Just as the Vestal
virgins cultivated the sacred fire, which was not allowed to go out, as a symbol of their
chastity, Marina is associated to a Vestal virgin because of her rhetorical defence of her
virginity before the men who came to the brothel to have sex. Thus, imaginary places related
to female chastity in classical mythology (Diana’s temple and the temple of Vesta) are
associated with Marina, while the brothel in Mytilene is a place which she avoids, but where
she is ultimately forced to earn her living as an educator—teaching young ladies to embroider
and sing.
This brothel’s atmosphere of corruption is hardly compatible with the image of the
perfect royal family that King James I wanted to project to the English nation. The king may
have been—apparently—a good father for his family and the nation, but in reality, things
may have been different. Shakespeare shows that in the same London in which King James
promoted the myth of an ideal family, there were also brothels 27 and places of perdition,
frequented by many people. In the brothel of Mytilene, a member of the local government
solicits the services of prostitutes. This is Lysimachus, the governor of Mytilene, who comes
27
According to William Sugden’s Topographical Dictionary to the Works of Shakespeare and His Fellow
Dramatists, there was a brothel in London, opened in 1603, which was called Holland’s Leaguer and was owned
by a woman called Elizabeth (Beth) Holland. As Sugden writes, Holland’s Leaguer was “A notorious house of
ill fame in Southwark, at the corner of Holland St. and Bankside, just E. of where Blackfriars Bridge now spans
the river. It was originally an old moated manor house, but fell to low uses. Leaguer is used in the sense of a
military camp, the women being supposed to be the soldiers” (Sugden 255). The moat presupposes a fortified
house, to keep the enemy out, but also to keep the corruption of the house seeping into the city. The brothel was
located in Southwark, in the same district as Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.

101
in disguise to solicit the sexual services offered in the brothel. The Bawd is talking to Bolt
and Pander about the pox, and then, when seeing Lysimachus, she says, “by the way to the
pox” (4.5.22-23), referring to the pox; this suggests that the Bawd knows that the governor
may also be diseased with syphilis. When the Bawd says, “Here comes the Lord Lysimachus
disguised” (4.5.24), these words show that Lysimachus may wear a mask or a veil, but the
Bawd knows her client well enough to recognize him through his attempted concealment.
Lysimachus’ words also show that he does not care for human life and treats women as
commodity, as he says while unmasking, “How now, a dozen of virginities?” (4.5.27-28). His
callous words are a jocular way of asking how much a dozen of maidenheads would cost—as
if asking for a dozen of birds—so Lysimachus treats human life as commodity.
The brothel scene involves practices of corruption and fornication, which Lysimachus
calls “deeds of darkness” (4.5.37), but he does not refrain from attempting to buy Marina’s
virginity from the brothel masters. When seeing Marina, he says, “Faith, she would serve
after a long voyage at sea” (4.5.49-50), and then he pays the Bawd. This cynical comment
can hardly be interpreted as a compliment to Marina’s beauty, but paradoxically, it includes
Marina’s name, which is related to the sea, in Latin. This phrase may be sardonic or coarse,
but it may simply express intense admiration from a man who has not yet been dissuaded
from sexual adventure. Whether Lysimachus can be interpreted as a fundamentally corrupt
governor or merely an intemperate youth, who is vulnerable to conversion by Marina, is a
matter of debate. However, Lysimachus’ words also allude to the fact that Pericles found his
wife, Thaisa, after a long voyage at sea, and then Pericles rediscovered his long-lost daughter,
Marina, after another voyage. The sea may foster desire, as it is the symbol of extensive
space that nurtures people’s imagination. After a voyage full of deprivations at sea, men may
crave for coarse sexual encounters, just as much as they would cherish the image of a beloved
person in their imagination. Both possibilities are true in the world of the theatre, so
Lysimachus may be interpreted as a lewd person, or just an imaginative one.
During his conversation with Marina, Lysimachus implicitly threatens Marina by
reminding her of his position, even while he assures her that he will not invoke his authority,
his rightful power, to regulate social action. As he says, “my authority shall not see thee, or
look friendly upon thee” (4.5.94-95), Lysimachus implies that he will either ignore or assist
Marina, but he makes a distinction between his public persona and his private self. While, as
a private person, Lysimachus is able to disguise himself and visit the city’s brothels, as a
public authority he does not intend to favour a woman just because he had sex with her in the
brothel. After speaking to Marina, Lysimachus seems reformed and he is persuaded by her
102
speech of innocence. As he says, “Had I brought hither a corrupted mind / This speech had
altered it” (4.5.108-109); Lysimachus’ hypothetical construction implies that he had not come
with a corrupted mind. There are also indications that Lysimachus may be a disguised and
investigating prince, like the Duke in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. However, the
atmosphere of corruption associated with the brothel casts a shadow of darkness on this
character, who eventually marries Marina, at her father’s behest.
Pericles does not seem to be the ideal father and ruling prince in this play. He is a
king who is seldom in his own state, and Tyre is a troubled kingdom. According to the
Second Lord, debating the situation in Tyre with Helicanus and Escanes “this kingdom is
without a head—/ Like goodly buildings left without a roof / Soon fall to ruin” (2.4.34-36).
The kingdom of Tyre—Pericles’ initial home—is compared to a house in ruin because of the
absence of its ruler, who is like a father to the family-nation. At the same time, the house is
the place of home, just as the nation state (Tyre in this case) may symbolize home and family.
The deplorable state of the Tyrian kingdom does not suggest an image of patriarchal power,
because the legitimate ruler has relinquished his responsibilities in order to go on an
indeterminate voyage. Pericles, as a ruler, a prospective father, and a man, flees from danger
rather than confronting it. As Pericles wants to escape the potential threat from the direction
of Antioch, because he knows the incest secret between Antioch the Great and his daughter,
the Prince of Tyre runs away, leaving Helicanus to rule in his place. Moreover, when his
daughter Miranda is born at sea, he readily commits his baby daughter to the care of Cleon
and his wife, Dionyza, who prove to be rather dubious foster parents.
Pericles also wallows in self-pity most of the time, almost like a woman. He admits in
front of his daughter, during the reunion scene, that he suffered like a girl. Pericles is
overwhelmed by the news of his daughter’s supposed death—which is added to his wife’s
alleged death while giving birth to Marina on a ship—so he refuses to enjoy life and travels
incessantly at sea, until he reaches the port town of Mytilene. As Pericles says to Marina on
the ship in Mytilene, where she is brought to comfort the depressed and haggard stranger,
“Tell thy story. / If thine be considered to prove the thousand part / Of my endurance, thou art
a man, and I / Have suffered like a girl” (5.1.125-128). This is a hypothetical situation, since
Pericles implies that his suffering is greater than Marina's. In addition, Pericles says, “I am in
great woe, and shall deliver weeping” (5.1.98), when he sees that Marina looks just like his
dead wife in appearance. Moreover, Marina’s manner of walking—like Thaisa’s—is
compared to that of Juno, the Roman goddess of family and hearth. Pericles is supposed to be
a strong man, but he loses his balance—like a woman would—in the face of danger and grief.
103
This reversal of roles between father and daughter is contrary to the supposed patriarchal
image of the father who conquers all perils and protects his family.
In a reversed image, Marina’s suffering is compared to the statue of Patience, the
metaphor of human suffering responding to adversities with strength. As Pericles says to
Marina, “Yet thou dost look / Like Patience gazing on kings’ graves and smiling / Extremity
out of act” (5.1.128-130). This is a reversal of gender roles, as kings are usually male, while
the mythological figure of Patience is female. The fact that Marina smiles through extreme
calamity and suffers patiently elevates her above the average woman, and even the typical
princess, since she may be associated with formidable rulers. However, this image is also a
memento mori scene, as the statue of Patience guarding the kings’ tombs is there to remind
passers-by that power is not eternal and even mighty kings die, given enough time. These
paradoxes, through which Marina acquires prerogatives of male power, while Pericles looks
rather effeminate in his suffering, have led new historicist critics to associate the character of
Pericles with James I and his rule. As Margaret Healy observes, “If the neglectful manner of
rule of Pericles’ royal protagonist bore resemblances to James VI and I’s style of
administration c.1607–9, some pointed comments about Jacobean power politics are thinly
concealed in this play” (Healy 65). This statement corresponds to my indication that places
and rulers represented in Pericles subversively destabilize the idea of eulogy of the Jacobean
monarchy, turning the play into a critique of patriarchal authority through the images of
corruption in the brothel and the reversal of roles between male and female.
The spaces that Pericles traverses during the play are transformed into emotional
places that localize and enhance his feelings of melancholy, anxiety, and inadequacy. In
Antioch,28 where Pericles goes in search for a future wife, he is confronted with issues of
“foul incest” (1.1.127) and the threat of death. As Gower says in the first Chorus, “This
Antioch, then. [Gestures.] Antiochus the Great / Built up this city for his chiefest seat—/ The
fairest all in Syria” (1 Chorus 17-19). The place of action in Antioch is defined by the gesture
of the actor interpreting Gower; “This Antioch” (1 Chorus 17) is supposed to mean the bare
stage of the theatre, on which the action of Pericles takes place. Moreover, according to the
Chorus, King Antiochus the Great is an efficient king, who built the city of Antioch and

28
According to Sugden’s A Topographical Dictionary to the Works of Shakespeare and His Fellow Dramatists,
Antioch was “[t]he capital of Syria, on the Orontes, founded by Seleucus Nicator, 300 B.C. and named after his
father, Antiochus. Enlarged and embellished by subsequent kings, it became one of the greatest and the most
famous cities of the East” (Sugden 22). Therefore, even the city’s name is associated with familial relationships
between father and son, as the son named the city after his father, the founder of the Seleucid dynasty. These
things should have been known by Shakespeare’s and Wilkins’ audiences, as they were educated in classical
culture.

104
raised it to be the greatest city in ancient Syria. As King Antiochus’s wife is dead, he engages
in a sexual relationship with his own daughter—an unnamed character in the play. The
daughter is defined only through her actions, as she is seen as “this sinful dame” (1 Chorus
30) by the narrator; she is only able to produce desire in the minds of her suitors, who “seek
her as a bedfellow, / In marriage pleasures playfellow” (1 Chorus 33-34). Not only is
corruption suggested by incest, which is rife in Antioch, but even marriage and family are
seen as sources of mere pleasure and sexual gratification, rather than procreation.
King Antiochus the Great’s Antioch is a place of corruption, incest and unrestrained
sexual desire, but also of death, as all the suitors who are not able to decode the riddle would
lose their life. When the young Prince of Tyre arrives in Antioch, he is faced with the heads
of so many suitors displayed on the castle walls. As Gower explains, “So for her many a
wight did die, / As yon grim looks do testify. [Points to the heads displayed above.]” (1
Chorus 39-40). The stage direction indicates that the Chorus points to the heads displayed on
the castle walls, just as Gower’s reference to “this” city and “this” woman inscribes the
locations of action in the reality of performance. By pointing to the gruesome spectacle of the
dead youths’ heads, Gower not only associates Antioch with incest and death, but he also
signifies that this is an imaginary place, in a play in which death, incest and corruption are
not real, but fictional. As if to reinforce this meta-theatrical statement, Gower continues,
“What now ensues, to the judgment of your eye / I give, my cause who best can justify” (1
Chorus 41-42). This emphasizes Gower’s meta-theatrical insistence that he is ready to yield
his narrative to what the audience can see; and he compliments them on their judgment. In
this way, the prose narrative derived from the Hellenistic story of Apollonius of Tyre is
transformed into theatrical action, during which the audience has complete liberty to imagine
distant spaces and families.
The dramatic place of Antioch, therefore, is inhabited by a corrupted king and his
daughter, while marriage with the tainted and incestuous princess could bring only death.
Pericles pretends to be fearless, as he says he knows about the deadly danger of the task,
informing everybody that he has heard the conditions of the riddle: “I have, Antiochus, and
with a soul / Emboldened with the glory of her praise / Think death no hazard in this
enterprise” (1.1.3-5). It seems that the young prince is rather reckless and too confident in his
own powers of defeating the odds, despite the fact that he sees the heads of his predecessors
on the castle’s battlements. As Antiochus orders music to be played—to create a harmonious
atmosphere before Pericles is presented with the riddle—the king invites his daughter in:
“Music! / Bring in our daughter, clothed like a bride” (1.1.6-7). There is a clash here between
105
the harmony of music—supposed to bring purity and calm the soul—and the appearance of
the beautiful but sinful princess, dressed as a bride. While the bridal garments symbolize
female purity and innocence, the situation is totally opposite in the case of the Antiochian
princess. Even if she may be seen as a victim of her powerful and corrupted father, there is no
indication that the unnamed princess is totally innocent, as she may have complied with the
incest scheme. Bridal garments and marriage, therefore, which are the foundation of the royal
family—like any kind of family—suggest corruption and death here.
Yet Pericles is unable to see beyond the appearance of the Antiochian princess’
beauty before being presented with the riddle. He compares her with “spring” (1.1.13), who
has “Graces” (1.1.14) as her subjects, and who “Of every virtue gives renown to men”
(1.1.15). In Greek mythology, the three goddesses, the Graces (Euphrosine, Aglaia and
Thalia) represent, by transference, female beauty and charm. This picture of the Antiochian
princess as representing beauty and virtue is totally false, as the audience knows, via dramatic
irony, that she is her father’s mistress. In his turn, King Antiochus compares his daughter
with “this fair Hesperides / With golden fruit, but dangerous to be touched, / For death-like
dragons here affright thee hard” (1.1.28-30). In classical mythology, the Hesperides were the
daughters of Hesperus, in whose garden hung golden apples. One of the labours of Hercules
was to pass the guardian dragon and pick the fruit. Wilkins (the author of this first part of the
play) merges the classical metaphor of the Hesperides with the biblical imagery of the tree in
the Garden of Eden. In this way, Antiochus’ daughter is, ambiguously, either the garden, or
the tree with golden fruit, the object of desire from which the sexual fruit is to be plucked.
This somatotopic metaphor—treating a woman’s body as a geographic site—gives the
impression of beauty combined with danger.
Yet Pericles is no brave Hercules in Antioch, as he is not able to defeat the dragons of
the mind, represented here by the desire for power and sexual gratification, or for domination
over larger groups of people. Pericles desires to marry the Antiochian princess not only
because of her beauty and the sexual pleasure she might give, but also for political reasons. In
his suit for the Antiochian princess, Pericles refers to both his marital and political ambitions.
Historically, the various kings named Antiochus were imperial monarchs descended from
Seleucus, a general of Alexander the Great. Thus, within the fiction of the play, Pericles’
travels occur in the cultural moment and geography of the late Hellenistic kingdoms that
governed and fought over Alexander’s empire. The Seleucid monarchs, including Antiochus
the Great, controlled lesser kings like Pericles of Tyre, and they ruled through governors such
as Lysimachus in Mytilene. Therefore, even historically speaking, the spaces that Pericles
106
traverses are symbolically marked by corruption and competition for power, as well as
political manoeuvres and supremacy. From this perspective, the incest riddle is a rhetorical
symbol of the dragons of the mind, which lurk within the individual’s psyche.
As Antiochus does not wish his story of incest to be known throughout the empire, he
reasons that “instantly this prince must die” (1.1.149), and he orders his servant Thailard to
accomplish his directions. Antiochus says about Pericles, “He must not live to trumpet forth
my infamy, / Nor tell the world Antiochus doth sin” (1.1.146-147). As a human being and a
father, Antiochus is aware that his incest with his daughter is “infamy” (1.1.146) and “sin”
(1.1.147), but as a king he persists in his wrongful ways. Moreover, Antiochus perpetuates
the line of murders and iniquities by paying Thaliard and giving him poison to murder
Pericles secretly. Since King Antiochus is not able to murder Pericles openly—as he did with
the other suitors to his daughter’s hand in marriage—he uses the secret and anonymous
weapon of poisoning to get rid of the Tyrian prince. However, as he learns that Pericles has
fled Antioch, king Antiochus orders Thaliard to leave and fin him: “Till Pericles is dead, / My
heart can lend no succour to my head” (1.1.170-171). This shows that—just like his troubled
country—King Antiochus the Great is a disturbed father, who vents his anxiety on the
surrounding world.
Paradoxically, just as Antiochus’ family is an abnormal one—placed in this aberrant
space of the Middle East—so is the king placed on the stage, among the heads of the previous
suitors whom he has murdered. Antiochus may ironically compare his distressing situation to
that of the princes whose heads surround him, which are visible to the audience. Yet
Antiochus actually gives voice to the deadly thoughts forming in his mind, which are
visualized by the dead bodies. Thus, the space of anxiety and incest (the city of Antioch and
the Antioch castle, the Seleucid king’s home) becomes a metaphor for the inner demons of
the mind (whish for power, sexual gratification, incest, revenge), which plague Antiochus’
family. The audience is thus able to place the king’s inner anxieties and his wish for revenge
within the space of his own home, which is just as corrupted as his royal family. There is no
judgemental attitude in the play’s representation of Antiochus’ incestual relationship with his
daughter, but it is relevant that the Seleucids’ parental links are perverted, and this ambience
of depravity extends to the spaces they inhabit.
The incestuous family of Antioch is opposed to the relatively safe environment
represented by Pericles’ native Tyre,29 but here the situation is no better in point of life-
29
According to Sugden’s A Topographical Dictionary to the Works of Shakespeare and His Fellow Dramatists,
Tyre was “[t]he greatest of the Phoenician cities, lying on an island on the coast of Syria, about half-way
between Acre and Sidon” (Sugden 537), but the city was taken by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C., after he had

107
threatening events. During the conversation between Pericles and his Lords, the prince only
thinks he feels safe at home: “And danger, which I fear, is at Antioch, / Whose arm seems far
too short to hit me here” (1.2.7-8). In this sentence, Pericles conflates the location of Antioch
with King Antiochus the Great, and he hopes against hope that the king’s power would not be
able to reach him in the comfort of his home and dynastic family. The location of Tyre—
placed on an island—only appears to be unassailable, however, because Alexander the Great
managed to conquer it a century before. As Pericles is based on a Hellenistic story and takes
place in the second century BC, there is historical proof that Tyre was conquered by
Alexander the Great, so it was not such a safe haven after all. Pericles estimates things too
superficially, as danger is already on its way to Tyre, in the person of Thaliard, who seeks to
poison him. Two metaphoric places are opposed here: the relative comfort and safety of
home and family—represented by Tyre for Pericles—and the dangers coming from foreign
and corrupted locations, embodied by the threatening Antioch.
Yet Pericles is depressed in Tyre, as he admits that his mind is overwhelmed with “the
sad companion, dull-eyed melancholy” (1.2.2), so he is worried and fears for his life. It seems
that this is Pericles’ defining psychological state, as he is identified as “melancholy” both at
King Simonides court in Cyrene (2.3.52) and in Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos, during his
encounter with his daughter (5.1.209). As a head of the royal family and of the Tyrian state,
Pericles is anything but a good father to Marina, and an efficient ruler. When he fears for his
life, he flees faint-heartedly and he prefers to roam the world and experience several
adventures rather than face the hidden enemy at home. In a way, Pericles’ incapacity to
confront the difficulties of life is connected with the private nature of his predicament; he
cannot proclaim to the world that he has guessed Antiochus’ riddle because he would admit
that he knew about the incest scheme. In his turn, Antiochus cannot pursue the prince of Tyre
through open war—even if he is a more powerful king than Pericles—because he would have
to admit to incest. Therefore, even if the places of Antioch and Tyre are set in opposition—
suggesting power, incest and death, as opposed to home, family and safety—things are
reversed in the world of the play. Home and family are no longer safe, as long as corruption
and corruptors exist in the world.
The reason for which Pericles travelled from Tyre to Antioch was to search for a wife
and to found a family, as he tells his counsellor, Helicanus: “against the face of death / I
sought the purchase of a glorious beauty / From whence an issue I might propagate, / Are
arms to princes and bring joys to subjects” (1.2.69-73). Pericles, who does not yet have a
made a causeway connecting the city of Tyre with the mainland (Sugden 537).

108
child, stresses the dynastic rather than the personal benefits of procreation; he anticipates joy
at the birth of a child coming to the people, his “subjects” (1.2.73), while he, as one of the
“princes” (1.2.7), will gain strength and support, or “arms” (1.2.73). However, “arms” may
also mean weapons of war, so Pericles stresses the potentially threatening situation of
dynastic troubles. There is another opposition here, namely between Pericles’ illusions of
family and the real-life situation, in which his potential future wife (in Antioch) is corrupted
by incest. The political context in Jacobean England was that King James I had two sons and
a daughter, so he had his dynastic family ensured, and he was, supposedly, free from danger;
yet the volatility of history might lead to trouble, or raise arms and war, whatever the case. In
this way, by apparently sending a message of eulogy to the Stuart royal family, Shakespeare
and Wilkins introduce a threatening note regarding the potential off-springs of royal families
and the royal wives’ chastity. Even without the topical political note related to the Stuart
dynasty, the instability of relationships within the royal family is emphasized.
The next place Pericles runs to in search of a safe haven, after leaving his native Tyre,
is Tarsus,30 which is governed by Cleon. His wife is Dionyza, and she appears as a suitable
companion to her husband. They also have a daughter (Philoten), who later engages in a
competition with Marina, and she is the reason for which the envious Dionyza wants to
murder Marina, so that Pericles’ daughter might not obscure her daughter’s social (and
dynastic) brilliance. In Tarsus, before Pericles arrives here for the first time, Cleon’s family is
distressed because of the famine in the city, so this is another place—apart from Antioch—
ridden with disaster and corruption. Despite its fame for luxury and wealth, Tarsus is a place
where people die of hunger. Cleon prises the former glory of his city as follows: “This
Tarsus, o’er which I have the government, / A city o’er whom plenty held full hand, / For
riches strewed herself even in the streets” (1.4.21-23). The city is conventionally personified
as a woman, because the city has been walled for most of its history, and it has come to be
associated with the female principle and body. Just as the city safely keeps its inhabitants
within its walls against the invaders, so is a woman expected to maintain her chastity within
the boundaries of her body.
Yet Cleon does not seem to be a good ruler of the city of Tarsus, as he cannot contain
the famine that plagues the formerly prosperous city, just as he cannot contain his wife and
prevent her from attempting to have Marina murdered out of envy. Despite his good
intentions, Cleon is a weak ruler and a pathetic head of family, with little paternal authority,
30
In Sugden’s A Topographical Dictionary to the Works of Shakespeare and His Fellow Dramatists, Tarsus is
presented as “[a]n ancient city of Cilicia, in S.E. Asia Minor, on the Cydnus. It was the residence of the kings of
Cilicia, and it was reputed to be wealthy and luxurious” (Sugden 501).

109
just as Pericles is. Cleon’s city is plagued with famine as a result of bad fortune, as the
governor believes, and as he tells his wife: “But see what heaven can do by this our change. /
These mouths who but of late earth, sea and air / Were all too little to content and please, /
Although they gave their creatures in abundance, / As houses are defiled for want of use, /
They are now starved for want of exercise” (1.4.33-38). Apparently, the city’s misfortune
was the effect of heaven’s wrath, which caused a “change” (1.4.33) in the lives of the
inhabitants. In reality, however, it was the self-absorption of the inhabitants of Tarsus that
caused the calamity of famine; in times of prosperity, they did not remember death, and there
is an emphasis on unbalanced ostentation, or conspicuous consumption. Moreover, the
metaphor of the house as home is opposed to the metaphor of the starving body; just as an
unused house is reduced to ruin when unused, so the starving body is depleted for want of
food.
Cleon’s speech describing the famine in his city is theatrical, in the sense that he
describes the famine in Tarsus by pointing to individual people who suffer from it, which
means that the scene must occur in the street, where people affected by famine are visible. As
Cleon says, “Those palates who, not yet two summers younger, / Must have inventions to
delight the taste / Would now be glad of bread and beg for it” (1.4.39-41). In saying “those
palates” (1.4.39), Cleon must have pointed to some of his people. The palates or roofs of their
mouths were accustomed to delicacies, while in times of famine they would be glad to have
plain bread. The metaphor of the body (represented by the metonymic mouth) as the house of
the soul and the individual house as the protective shelter of the family emphasizes the image
of the home city as sheltering the family. However, this home city of Tarsus cannot shelter
the families within it. Cleon continues to point to “Those mothers, who to nuzzle up their
babes / Thought nought too curious, are ready now / To eat those little darlings whom they
loved” (1.4.42-44). By pointing to the mothers—as the symbol of fertility and the
continuation of the family—who are engaged in cannibalistic practices, eating their babies for
hunger, Cleon gives a depressing image that shows the degree of atrocity that people may
perform when they are hungry.
The interesting thing is that even if “those mothers” (1.4.42) are not actually eating
their babies while Cleon is speaking, the imaginary picture of appalling cannibalistic acts
performed by adult parents against their defenceless children is devastating. In this bleak
world of Tarsus, distressed by famine, family relations are distorted and cannibalism is no
longer considered a moral crime. As Cleon says, “So sharp are hunger’s teeth that man and
wife / Draw lots who first shall die to lengthen life” (1.4.45-46). The metaphor of hunger
110
shows that it is like a wild animal, which consumes human beings and makes them incapable
of kindness; husband and wife draw lots to decide who should die first in order to feed the
family for a while longer. People do not have the strength to bury the dead, so it is understood
that the city’s streets are strewn with bodies. Cleon translates everything in the reality of
performance, by using the adverbs “here” and “there” repeatedly: “Here stands a lord, and
there a lady weeping; / Here may sink, yet those which see them fall / Have scarce strength
left to give them burial” (1.4.47-49). This imaginary picture of disaster and loss of moral
values in the once-prosperous city of Tarsus is painted with such convincing clarity that the
members of the audience imagine themselves surrounded by dead bodies, probably even
smelling the decay of the rotting bodies. All these disasters have been brought about by self-
sufficiency and wealth, which have destroyed family relations and have made humans behave
worse than animals.
Pericles lands in this world of disaster in Tarsus and brings hope to the people by
sailing in with ships full of corn, as in food. Initially, Cleon thinks that the ships sailing to the
port of Tarsus belong to some invading enemies, sent by “some neighbouring nation / Taking
advantage of our misery” (1.4.64-65), as the governor is used to seeing disaster piling on
disaster. However, the benefactor, Pericles, avers that he brings food, but he uses a curious
metaphor: “And these our ships, you happily may think / Are like the Trojan horse was
stuffed within / With bloody veins expecting overthrow, / Are stored with corn to make you
needy bread” (1.4.90-93). The allusion to the mythological Trojan horse, through which the
crafty Greeks insinuated themselves beyond the walls of Troy and massacred the population,
changes the meaning of Pericles’ benevolent gesture. The “bloody veins” (1.4.92) refer to the
live Greek warriors stuffed within the Trojan horse and anticipating to overthrow the city.
This allusion to the massacred population of ancient Troy is contrasted with the images of the
dead bodies in Tarsus to create a bleak vision of humanity. Despite appearances, Pericles’
mission may not have been as humanitarian as he wanted people to think. Maybe Pericles has
ulterior motives and he wants an alliance with the governor of Tarsus against the more
powerful King of Antioch, if need be.
Up to this point, the play represents three weak rulers suffering the effects of their
own selfish passions, each of them preoccupied with their own interests and familial issues.
King Antiochus is enclosed within the walls of his incestuous passion for his daughter,
apparently oblivious to the outside world and interested only in preventing the truth about his
dysfunctional family from seeping out. Pericles is ensconced in his own shell of self-
appreciation and wish for progeny and power through dynastic rule, while he displays
111
humanitarian principles only to dissimulate concealed political motives. Cleon is a weak
governor who cannot control his city’s self-absorption and excess, just as he cannot control
his wife, Dionyza (when she attempts to have Marina murdered). All these apparently
powerful rulers are helpless in the face of adversity. Antiochus—for all his political power—
cannot control a weak princeling of Tyre and prevent him from disseminating the dreary truth
about his incest. Cleon—for all his former wealth and successful family—cannot control his
people and is frustrated as a husband, probably because he does not have a male heir, but
only a daughter. Finally, Pericles is unable to learn the truth about himself and travels around
the Mediterranean world in search of he knows not what. He is unlike Ulysses, who knows
exactly where he wants to arrive, but who is prevented from reaching Ithaca by fortune and
the gods.
Even if the apparent message of the play’s erratic spatial arrangement is that Pericles’
changes of fortune are due to implacable fate—like in Greek tragedy—and he accepts his
suffering with stoic fortitude, the undercurrent is that Pericles is a weak ruler, husband and
father. As a ruler, he leaves his native Tyre in the hands of his counsellor and at the mercy of
adversity. As a husband, he deserts his wife, Thaisa, at the mercy of sea-waves, only because
she is presumed dead and the mariners say that a dead woman on a ship is a bad omen. As a
father, he deserts Marina as a baby, leaving her in the hands of the unscrupulous and
perfidious Dionyza, who later seeks her death. Similarly, Cleon is weak and unsuitable to
being a ruler. He cannot see that the people of Tarsus do not appreciate their prosperity and
their consumption has surpassed the boundaries of reasonable life. Even if his name is similar
to the tragic character, Creon, from the classical Greek play Antigone by Sophocles, he does
not have the strength of a tragic hero. Whereas Creon, in the Sophoclean tragedy, forbids to
bury the body of the traitor in the city, and orders to give the body to be torn by dogs and
birds, Cleon of Tarsus, in Pericles, is watching helplessly as bodies of his citizens are left
unburied in the city devastated by famine. Antiochus of Antioch, despite of being called the
Great, is not great at all, as he places his personal incestuous passions above the needs of his
people.
The three metaphoric places represented in the first part of Pericles (Antioch, Tyre
and Tarsus) signify disaster and loss for the three rulers (King Antiochus, Pericles and Cleon)
and their royal families. The next three places represented in the second part of the play
(Pentapolis, Mytilene and Ephesus), by contrast, suggest hope, recovery and psychological
healing. The medium that links these disparate spaces is the sea, with the storm representing
the vicissitudes of fortune. While Pericles is still in Tarsus, he receives a letter telling him
112
that Thaliard has come to murder him in Tyre, and is likely to follow him everywhere he
goes. For this reason, Pericles sets to sea again, but he is caught in a storm, described by
Gower as follows: “And he, good prince, having all lost / By waves from coast to coast is
tossed” (2 Chorus 2.0.33-34). The theme of Fortune is used here: “Till Fortune, tired of doing
bad, / Threw him ashore to give him glad” (2 Chorus 2.0.36-38). Apart from the archaic
language, supposed to replicate the medieval poet’s narrative, Gower’s intervention as
Chorus has the authority of the Bard who comments on the events he narrates. In this case,
the sea and the storm at sea are associated with changes of fortune, as in the Apollonius of
Tyre story.
When the exhausted Pericles is cast ashore on the coast of Pentapolis, 31 he is
disconsolate and deplores his unjust fate, but has an illuminating conversation with three
fishermen. Pentapolis is a space of hope, where Pericles is almost miraculously saved from
the waves and achieves his goal of establishing a family. During his conversation with the
fishermen, the latter determine the location generally, as “in our country of Greece” (2.1.63),
when they refer to people who earn “more with begging than we can do with working”
(2.1.63-64). As the play is set in the Hellenistic world, the Greek colonies in Asia Minor and
around the Mediterranean basin formed a whole—a group of countries governed by several
kings or governors descended from the Greek dynasties of Alexander the Great’s generals.
The authors of Pericles might have known the North African location of Pentapolis from
Ortelius’ Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1595). However, the imaginative geography of Pericles
confines the area of Pentapolis (literally “five cities”) to the coastal cities of the north-eastern
Mediterranean basin, from Tyre in Asia Minor to an indeterminate location in the colonized
Greek lands for Simonides’ imaginary kingdom. The possessive adjective “our” delineates a
common area that includes colonized cities, in which the common language was Greek. The
fishermen’s pragmatic remark about beggars who earn more money than honest-working
citizens might have been a general reality in ancient times, as it was in Jacobean England, or
even now, in contemporary times.
The fishermen describe their country in general terms, as part of the Greek colonies in
the Mediterranean, but also particularly, when they inform Pericles about the place he has

31
According to Sugden’s A Topographical Dictionary to the Works of Shakespeare and His Fellow Dramatists,
Pentapolis was “on the Northern coast of Africa, between the Great Syrtis and the boundary of Egypt, formed by
the Romans into the province of Cyrenaica. ... Cyrene was governed by a dynasty derived from its founder
Battus but this was overthrown in the 5 th century B.C. and a republic established” (402). As for Pericles, Sugden
observes the anachronism of placing the hero on the coast of Pentapolis, because, at the time of the action, there
was no king there: “In Pericles, Simonides, the father of Thaisa and grandfather of Marina, is called the King of
Pentapolis, which is an anachronism, as the date of the play is the early part of the 2 nd century B.C.” (402).

113
been shipwrecked to: “This is called Pentapolis, and our king, the good Simonides” (2.1.95-
96). From the people’s perspective, Simonides is a good king, but he is also a good father for
the princess Thaisa, as he takes into account her choice of suitor. Pericles participates in a
tournament with a Knight of Sparta, a Knight of Macedon and a Knight of Antioch—so the
Hellenistic circle is represented by countries from each area. Pericles wins this multinational
tournament—set according to the chivalric rules—and he wins the hand of the princess, who
is also in love with him. In Pentapolis, Pericles remembers his familial duties as a son; when
his armour is fished out from the sea, with the family’s coat of arms on it, Pericles tells the
fishermen that it belonged to his father: “He loved me dearly, / And for his sake I wish the
having of it” (2.1.14-135). When he barely escapes with his life after the shipwreck, Pericles
realizes the vulnerability of life and remembers his father’s love for him with fondness, and
his duties as a son to continue the family line. For this reason, Pericles decides to participate
in the tournament contesting for the hand of the princess and, ultimately, have an heir.
Although he does not say so in so many words, the fact that he decides to compete for the
hand of the princess under such dire circumstances is proof that Pericles pursues his marital
purpose steadily throughout his adventures.
King Simonides of Pentapolis is a good father and king, and he calls his daughter
“queen o’th’feast” (2.3.16). King Simonides expresses views about the princes’ rule that are
similar to the Jacobean political beliefs. During the formal talk before the tournament, which
celebrates Thaisa’s birthday, the daughter commends her father’s worth, while King
Simonides speaks of the rulers’ merits and duties: “It’s fit it should be so, for princes are / A
model which heaven makes like to itself; / As jewels lose their glory if neglected, / So princes
their renown if not respected” (2.2.10-13). It was a belief of King James I that the display of
royal magnificence—especially represented at a tournament—was part of the princes’ duties.
Even more so, King Simonides’ daughter is given a voice in the ceremonial context, as she
deciphers the three contestants’ coats of arms, inscribed in Latin, thus making public their
families’ ancestry. However, even if, traditionally, the authoritative king can be assimilated
with the commanding father within the patriarchal family, King Simonides takes his role as a
father as being more important than that of a king; or at least he takes those roles as being of
equal importance.
Even if Pericles is a stranger in Pentapolis, and he presents himself in a rusty armour,
the motto in Latin on his shield is “In hac spe vivo” (2.2.43) [“in this hope I live”] (my
translation); the motto is not translated in the play. This shows that, for Pericles, Pentapolis is
a space of hope, just as his family’s hope for an heir lies in winning the tournament.
114
Alternatively, Thaisa is associated with “Juno, that is queen of marriage” (2.3.29), so the
coordinates of a blessed royal family, united in the harmony of marriage, are set ever since
the beginning of the tournament, when the stakes are not yet set. Thaisa’s “virgin honour”
(2.5.12) is associated with Diana (the virgin goddess), and also to Cynthia, who is Diana in
her capacity as the moon goddess. Pericles calls Thaisa “a most virtuous princess” (2.5.33)
when he speaks to her father about her. Virtue is a necessary prerogative of the female in the
royal family, in order to ensure the purity of the family line. To Pericles, King Simonides
looks like a father figure, even before he becomes his father-in-law; as Pericles says, “Yon
king’s to me like to my father’s picture, / Which tells me in that glory once he was” (2.3.36-
37). In order to express the harmony that rules at the court of Pentapolis, the knights dance
after the tournament (SD 2.3.96), and Thaisa dances with Pericles (SD 2.3.103) out of
courtesy. Pentapolis, therefore, is a place of hope, marriage, and family love. King
Simonides’ fatherly love for his daughter, as well as Pericles’ love for his wife, combine in
the harmony of music and dance to create an almost idyllic space of honour and justice,
where the princess is fairly won during a tournament, while the princess’s father is the
honourable father of the nation.
The atmosphere of homely peace and calm in Pentapolis—after Pericles’ marriage to
Thaisa—is enhanced by Gower in his description of the palace and its calmness during the
night. No sound is heard, except for the “snores about the house” (3 Chorus 3.0.2), while the
cat sleeps and “crickets sing at the oven’s mouth” (3 Chorus 3.0.7). During such a peaceful
night, blessed by the god Hymen (the classical god of marriage), baby Marina is conceived.
The moment of Marina’s tumultuous birth at sea is opposed to the peaceful moment of her
conception. As Pericles receives letters from the court of Tyre with the news that Antiochus
and his daughter are dead, there is also the threat of “mutiny” (3 Chorus 3.0.29) in Tyre—as
the lords intend to put the crown on Helicanus’ head. The tension arises and Pericles is forced
to leave for Tyre with his wife—who is about to give birth. During the storm at sea, when
Marina is born, Pericles invokes Lucina (the goddess of childbirth) to aid “the queen’s
travails” (3.1.13). A woman’s pangs of childbirth are associated with the storm and sea—
signifying fortune—and with the perils of Pericles’ life. The peaceful and calm place of the
palace in Pentapolis is opposed to the tormented ship tossed at sea, at the moment when
Marina is born. Both places—metaphors of home and sea travel—are visualized by the
audience through the scenes described by Gower and Pericles. Similarly, the chest in which
Thaisa is buried at sea is a coffin, but it is also like a new home to her, from which she will be
reborn in Ephesus.
115
 While Pericles marries Thaisa in Pentapolis, Tyre is a dejected place, without a ruler,
as only the old counsellor Helicanus is left as a substitute governor. The lords complain that
they do not know where their prince is and the kingdom is left “without a head” (2.4.35). Just
as the father is considered to be the head of the family, the king is the father of the nation, and
his absence is reflected on the subjects’ destiny. The Lords of Tyre even try to elect
Helicanus as “our sovereign” (2.4.39), but the old man refuses and requires for a year’s
respite32 to “leap into the seas” (2.4.43) and go in search of Pericles. Besides spatial and
temporal anachronisms, the play presents spatial and temporal gaps. The sea is a metaphor for
such spatial gaps, while the temporal gaps vary from one year—as in the case of Helicanus
going in search of Pericles—to fourteen years—the time necessary for Marina to grow up in
Tarsus. The sea in Pericles is a symbolic space of loss and reunion, but it also represents
hope and regeneration. Time is also regenerative, and it allows for human destinies to mend.
During the time of Pericles’ shipwreck at sea and his tournament in Pentapolis—during
which he has gained a wife—the sinner Antiochus, in Antioch, is reported to have died. As
Helicanus reports to the lords in Tyre, King Antiochus was sitting in his chariot with his
daughter when “a fire from heaven” (2.4.9) came and destroyed their bodies, turning them
into stinking corpses. Retribution for sin in Antioch occurs simultaneously with recompense
for virtue in Pentapolis, as Pericles is rewarded with Thaisa’s hand in marriage. Time and
space in the play are both healing and separating, retributive and rewarding.
In Ephesus,33 the next symbolic location in Pericles, Thaisa’s apparently dead body is
revived by the renowned doctor Cerimon. The setting is Cerimon’s home and his surgery, in
whose antechamber local inhabitants come for the “blest infusions” (3.2.35) and “charity”
(3.2.43), for which Cerimon is renowned. While Cerimon gives prescriptions to a Poor Man
(a patient) to be sent to the apothecary (3.2.9-10), the Second Gentleman praises Cerimon’s
magnanimity: “Your honour has / Through Ephesus poured forth your charity / And hundreds
call themselves your creatures, who / By you have been restored” (3.2.42-45). When the
servants bring up the coffin containing Thaisa’s body, accompanied by a letter from King
Pericles, which says she is his queen, Cerimon revives the lady with the help of music, fire

32
The “twelvemonth” of married life (2.5.3), while Helicanus was searching for his king, is necessary for
Pericles to beget a child with Thaisa, as his wife is heavily pregnant when he gets the news (in Pentapolis) that
King Antiochus is dead and he may return to Tyre.
33
According to Edward Sugden, in A Topographical Dictionary to the Works of Shakespeare and His Fellow
Dramatists, Ephesus is “[a] city near the West coast of Asia minor on the Cayster. It was famous for the temple
of Artemis (Diana), which was burnt down by Herostratus on the night of the birth of Alexander the Great and
rebuilt with extraordinary magnificence” (180). As Ephesus is associated with the temple of Diana and virginity
—and Thaisa becomes a priestess of Diana after being rescued from the waves—the place has a metaphoric
significance in the play’s context.

116
and air. Cerimon is a wise doctor, who invokes “Apollo” (3.2.65) to help him in his healing
practice and whose medical learning is extensive. When seeing Thaisa’s apparently dead
body, he says he heard of “an Egyptian” (3.2.83) who was revived after being dead for nine
hours. The allusion to Egyptian medical practices in the context of Cerimon’s Ephesus
creates a cultural geography that associates the Hellenistic world with other spaces of ancient
culture, including Egypt. From the dramatic perspective, however, the allusion focuses
attention to Cerimon rather than Thaisa. When she awakens, Thaisa invokes Diana (3.2.103),
which is a suitable connection, as she is in the city renowned for the famous temple of Diana.
The place of Ephesus in Pericles, therefore, is associated with miraculous revival and hope
for a new life of the family.
The play’s fascination with family relations should be interpreted not only through a
universalizing, transhistorical, or psychoanalytic lens, and even a spatial perspective, but also
within the distinctive early modern cultural understanding of the family. In a time of high
mortality and rapid remarriage, similar terms may designate or insinuate incestuous
relationships, and those situations were created by multiple matrimonies between people of
varying ages and marital histories. Incest, therefore, is only one indicator of the play’s
obsession with disrupted family relationships. Another suggestion is the jealousy of Marina’s
foster mother in Tarsus. When Dionyza is upbraided by her husband for the apparent murder
of Marina, she explains her motives: “She did disdain my child, and stood between / Her and
her fortunes” (4.3.31-32). This is the image that any loving mother would create when her
daughter is in competition with another princess. Yet there is a long way from mere jealousy
to attempted murder, and Dionyza’s cruel favouritism parallels the sin of incest in the family
of Antiochus. This attitude is non-sexual, but dangerously incongruous and disproportionate,
and it is apparently deep-rooted in Dionyza’s psyche. On the other hand, however, Dionyza
can be a good mother to Marina, as she brought her up and educated her in music and poetry,
teaching her to sing and embroider, just as any lady of her high social status. This double
image of Dionyza as both a monstrous murderer and a suitable mother is replicated at the
level of most parents in the play.
Cleon’s deficiency as a husband and father, who cannot control his family and state, is
not isolated. An absent parent is mentioned in the play’s earliest description of a
dysfunctional family—Antiochus' wife. As Gower narrates the story of the family of King
Antiochus, “This king unto him took a fere, / Who died and left a female heir” (1 Chorus
1.0.21-22). The Old English word “fere” meaning “wife”—inserted here as a reminder that
the story is narrated by the medieval poet Gower—suggests that Antiochus’ wife died and left
117
this female heir. Like in Cleon’s and Pericles’ families—where the birth of a daughter
precluded any male legacy—King Antiochus’ female heir seems doomed to perdition and
misfortune just because she is a woman. As the riddle reveals, the daughter’s cannibalizing
instincts devour the memory of her mother: “I am no viper, yet I feed / On mother’s flesh,
which did me breed / I sought a husband, in which labour / I found that kindness in a father”
(1.1.65-68). This gruesome image is similar to the mothers cannibalizing their babies during
the famine in Tarsus. In both cases, the instinct for survival and perpetuation of species is
stronger than any moral injunction related to family. This accumulated coldness and hostility
towards family members characterizes the Hellenistic world of Pericles. In their lived
experience, members of Shakespeare’s audience would presumably have condemned such
attitudes, though they may well have recognized them.
Pericles is another character whose family ties are at least uncanny, if not
straightforward cynical. When we first see him, Pericles seems to be drifting socially, without
family. No mother is mentioned. He remembers his father as an impressive and remote king,
who “Had princes sit like stars about his throne / And he the sun for them to reverence”
(2.3.38). The double image of the monarch as the sun, illuminating his subjects—and the
authoritative father as the sun of the family—sends to emblematic illustrations. However, in
this crowd of princes sitting about their father’s throne—suggesting notes of polygamy
related to the Tyrian family—Pericles saw himself as a humble glow-worm: “Where now his
son’s like a glow-worm in the night / The which hath fire in darkness, none in light” (2.3.42-
43). Pericles is humbled by his father’s resplendence and he feels frustrated and outshined by
his father’s personality. These are the words that Pericles tells in front of another father and
daughter in the play, the good King Simonides and his daughter Thaisa. Perhaps on the model
of his own father, Pericles is an undemonstrative parent. Pericles leaves Marina in Tarsus and
does not contact her for fourteen years. This separation from children in the noble families—
a common practice in Elizabethan and Jacobean England—is a source of disaster in the lives
of the play’s parents and children.
Parental love is never unadulterated in the play, until the final reunion scene between
Marina and Pericles. Even the “good Simonides” (2.5.23), who can be interpreted as a good
father, displays a form of parental authority over his daughter, which might be interpreted as
overbearing. When Pericles arrives at King Simonides’ court in Pentapolis, competing in a
tournament for the hand of the beautiful princess, the events at the court of Antioch are
replicated correctly; the tournament is fairly conducted and the daughter is fairly yielded to
the suitor. In Pentapolis, the potential tragedy that might have happened to Pericles in
118
Antioch is resolved happily, and the hero gets the wife. However, King Simonides has a hint
of menace to his daughter, as he concludes, “’Tis well, mistress, your choice agrees with
mine” (2.5.17). Later King Simonides stages a mock demonstration of what could have
happened if Thaisa’s choice had violated his will. As Simonides calls Pericles a “traitor”
(2.5.53) and a “villain” (2.5.49) for having dared to aspire to his daughter’s hand, Pericles
defends himself and imagines that this is another remake of the Antioch story. Fortunately,
not all parents are incestuous and selfish like King Antiochus, and the scene ends in marriage
and a kiss, as Simonides says, “sir, hear you, either be / Ruled by me, or I’ll make you—man
and wife” (2.5.80-81). Even at this moment of apparent happiness and harmony, King
Simonides asserts his parental authority, by demanding obedience from both Thaisa and
Pericles.
The plot of Pericles takes the hero and Marina through parallel attempts to find and
create families. When he discovers that Antiochus is not the potential father he thought,
Pericles seeks elsewhere. King Simonides, the next father figure, combines appropriate social
status and generosity, and Pericles will eventually choose to reign in his kingdom, Pentapolis.
Marina’s unloving foster family in Tarsus (represented by Cleon and Dionyza) is parodied by
Marina’s second placement, this time in the brothel, with the Bawd and the Pander as
substitute mother and father. When the separations are over, Pericles and Thaisa are assigned
to Pentapolis, while Marina and Pericles’ new son-in-law, Lysimachus, are relegated to rule
Tyre. This geographic separation suggests that family intimacy is always threatening, and the
fear of incest is never eliminated. However, the end of Pericles is calculated to keep the focus
largely on parental love (if not parental authority) rather than marital happiness. The reunion
of Pericles with his wife Thaisa is rapid and brief—like the happy ending in a fairy tale—
while the recognition scene between Pericles and Marina has ample psychological dimension.
In this way, the reestablishment of the bond between parent and child overshadows the sexual
union—or reunion—of husband and wife. The play concludes with the double restoration: the
finding of that which was lost at sea (Marina) and the reconstitution of families. Like in all
Shakespearean romances, the play’s central figure gains a new son through the marriage of
the daughter.

2.2. Emotionally Confused Families in The Winter’s Tale

The Winter’s Tale is mainly concerned with emotionally confused families, whose
demonstrative actions are diversely placed on the stage space, but whose adventures extend
over contrastive and incongruous spaces. Shakespeare's famous sea-coast of Bohemia—when
119
this country is a landlocked region in Central Europe—has preoccupied critics ever since the
play’s early productions. Shakespeare got the idea of Bohemia, in the first place, from the
play’s main source, Pandosto: The Triumph of Time (1592) by Robert Greene, a romantic

novella; only that Shakespeare reverses the locations of Bohemia and Sicilia in relation to the
source story. According to Greene, the king of Sicilia sailed into Bohemia to visit his old
friend (Greene 5) and later there is a description of mariners seeing the coast of Bohemia
(Greene 217). Shakespeare would have known that Bohemia is an area of land surrounded by
mountains from one of the maps of the atlas by Abraham Ortelius, entitled Theatrum Orbis
Terrarum (1570), so there would be no confusion as to the country’s geography. As I see it,
in Shakespeare’s metaphoric spatiality related to the two places (Bohemia and Sicilia),
geographic incongruity is not a problem; on the contrary, it is part of the imaginary
geography that may be associated with the two symbolic locations in The Winter’s Tale.

Map of Bohemia from Abraham Ortelius’ Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1570)

Why would Shakespeare, therefore, give his Bohemia a sea-coast (like in Greene's
Pandosto) when he knew from the geographic treatises of his time that there was no such
thing? Theatre critic Andrew Gurr observes that “[t]he only conceivable point of the switch
was to flout geographical realism, and to underline the reality of place in the play” (422).
Gurr correctly discusses “such disunities in both time and place” (422) as being part of the
dramatic “games” (422) and “crude theatrical tricks” (Gurr 422) that Shakespeare uses to

120
surprise the audience, apart from the revival of Hermione’s statue and the appearance of a
bear on stage. Margaret Jones-Davies explains such occurrences as moments of “suspension
of disbelief” (259) in dramatic art, and argues that the number of oaths in The Winter’s Tale
suggest the predominant issues connected with the language of Reason and the silences of
Faith. As Jones-Davies observes, Hermione “is resurrected in Shakespeare’s play and speaks
at last the language of the silent triumph of Faith and Time over the logic of fear and
suspicion that binds its victims in oaths of allegiance to tyrannous powers” (Jones-Davies
259). As Hermione is the symbolic mother-figure in the family of Sicilia, the importance of
her revival in Shakespeare’s play—even if it is theatrically amazing—casts a significant light
on the placing of families on stage in The Winter’s Tale.
Hermione’s status in the family of Sicilia—where she is Queen, wife of King Leontes
and mother of Prince Mamillus and, later, of princess Perdita—is disconcerting to say the
least. She is the daughter of the Emperor of Russia and is married into the royal family of
Sicilia. Apparently, her destiny is suppressed by patriarchal power and she falls victim to her
husband’s unreasonable jealousy. However, she survives miraculously for sixteen years of
seclusion and emerges as a revived statue in the family reconciliation scene. Mathew
Hendricks, in “Imagetext in The Winter’s Tale” (2015), looks from the perspective of sexual
politics at how Hermione’s status as a living statue, or speaking image, challenges the
discursive assumptions of male power (Hendricks 697). According to Hendricks, “As
Leontes’ figurative emasculation occurs as the result of Hermione’s unexpected display of
verbal agency, so his hope of re-establishing his male authority primarily involves an effort to
reclaim a monopoly over speech” (Hendricks 704). While Hendricks sees Hermione’s
proactive discourse as “figurative emasculation” (Hendricks 704) of Leontes’ patriarchal
power, I argue that the placing of the family of Sicilia in The Winter’s Tale represents,
metaphorically, figurative femininity,34 rather than patriarchal power, as has been believed by
several critics.
As is well-known, the early modern configuration of patriarchy situated individual
male-controlled relations of domination as analogically linked to the organisation of state
power. The king was the father of the nation, as he was the father of his royal family. As
Lena Cowen-Orlin notes, in Private Matters and Public Culture in Post-Reformation
34
Other critics have emphasized the ambivalence of Hermione’s femininity within the context of the family in
The Winter’s Tale. As Hiewon Shin observes in “Fatherly Violence, Motherly Absence, Servants’ Resistance”
(2011), “Shakespeare challenges the notion of loving and protecting biological parents: this father acts far from
lovingly and this mother is not able to defend the life of her baby” (666). Indeed, Hermione may seem to be
unable to defend her baby, Perdita, but in the end, she emerges as a powerful mother, whose deferral has
actually saved her baby’s life.

121
England (1994), this relationship constituted “a kind of super-family—that is, government in
any one of its variant constitutions—that assumed precedence over the subordinated units. By
means of analogy, this government could be made to seem a natural extension of its own
constitutive elements” (Cowen-Orlin 86). Therefore, Leontes’ inability to control his wife
threatens the credibility of not merely his role as a husband but as a sovereign as well. Even if
one might assume that the kingdom of Sicilia is a patriarchally governed state, where Leontes
reigns supreme—and he can even prosecute his wife if his personal feelings of jealousy
command him so—I argue that Shakespeare’s Sicilia in The Winter’s Tale is a place of
feminine latent power, where events only seem to be controlled by male authority. The power
of the theatre—represented by the revival of Hermione’s statue—destabilizes the commonly-
held patriarchal categories of the father as the ruler of the family and the king as the
sovereign of the state. As the audience is amazed and taken by surprise by this meta-theatrical
act, they witness the placing of an atypical family on stage. This is a family in which
Hermione has moral dominance, while Leontes is weak and overwhelmed by his irrational
emotion of jealousy.
Not only does the revival of Hermione’s statue appear as miraculous but also the way
in which the statue appears on stage is revealing for the play’s incongruous spatiality. The
Third Gentleman informs, in the final revelation scene, that Perdita desires to see her
mother’s statue; this is an incomplete sentence which introduces the issue of visual art: “the
princess [Perdita] hearing of her mother’s statue, which is in the keeping of Paulina—a piece
many years in doing and now newly performed by that rare Italian master, Julio Romano…
(V.ii.93-96).” The gentleman continues with a complimentary description of the statue by
Giulio Romano, but he does not explain exactly what the princess does or wants in relation to
the statue, and this sentence remains open-ended. It is later understood that the princess
spends much time in Paulina’s chambers to admire the statue. The insertion of the
Renaissance Italian painter in the play’s ancient setting is a Shakespearean anachronism. As
Tom Rutter explains, in “Shakespeare, Serlio and Giulio Romano” (2019), “there is the
anachronism of including the reference to a painter of the cinquecento in a play set in the
ancient world” (248). In the play’s dystopic society and family, represented by aberrant
spatiality, the insertion of a Renaissance Italian painter from Rome brings a sense of
incongruity of space and time, but also highlights the reality of performance. It is impossible
for a Renaissance artist to design a statue erected in ancient times, but the statue may be
“newly performed” (V.ii.95) on the Jacobean stage; the performance of the play is here and

122
now. The revival of Hermione’s statue is a metonymy for the miraculous placing of family in
the theatre space.
The placing of families in The Winter’s Tale depends on the reality of performance, in
which Bohemia and Sicilia are both real geographic spaces and imaginary places related to
power, love, jealousy, friendship, maternal feelings, and socially dysfunctional families,
generated by paternal fault. The dramatic place is cinematic, like in photography, where the
architect creates a fulcrum—a centre of spatial convergence—around which the characters’
actions congregate. In addition, this dramatic place is choreographed in such a way as to
correspond to the emotions of the characters and the audience, rather than the geographic
reality of the countries in which the action is set. Whether these countries are primarily Sicilia
and Bohemia—reversed by Shakespeare from the source story—or the oracle at Delphos
(where Leontes sends messengers to receive a prophecy), and Russia (Hermione’s native
place), these regions are places of emotion that resonate with the audience’s knowledge about
geography, but they also respond to the dynamic interrelationship created within the world of
the play during performance. The metatheatrical feature is frequently highlighted, and the
audience is aware that they are seeing a play; this is an illusional world in which spaces are
arranged to correspond to a particular dramatic focus.
The Winter’s Tale begins with a spatial antagonism between Bohemia and Sicilia,
when two lords, Camillo (a lord of Sicilia) and Archidamus (a lord of Bohemia), discuss the
differences between their countries—in point of customs and entertainment. From the very
start, spatial antagonism is established when Archidamus says, “If you shall chance, Camillo,
to visit Bohemia, on the like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see, as
I have said, a great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia” (I.i.1-4). 35 While one
may expect laudatory comments about “our Bohemia” (I.i.4) from the loyal Bohemian lord,
however, the audience hears that the visitors will be drugged. Archidamus claims that he
speaks “in the freedom of my knowledge” (I.i.11), which highlights objectivity, as he says,
“We will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses (unintelligent of your insufficiencie) may,
though they cannot praise us, as little accuse us” (I.i.13-16). Even if this may only be
metaphorical drugging, Archidamus speaks of means of avoiding reality. The comparison
between the “entertainment” (I.i.8) provided in Bohemia—as compared to what Archidamus
has witnessed in Sicilia—is in favour of Leontes’ kingdom. This means that, in Sicilia,
Archidamus attended great pageants—while he did not expect to offer such things in

35
References to The Winter’s Tale are to the Arden edition, edited by J. H. P. Pafford (1991) and acts, scenes
and lines will be given parenthetically in the text.

123
Bohemia. Yet, the metaphorical “sleepy drinks” (I.i.13) that Bohemia would offer are
designed to prevent the visitors from seeing reality as it is.
This kind of fictional drugging, as I argue, symbolizes the theatre, which creates a
different image of reality. When they are in the world of the theatre, the audience are not
even able to distinguish reality from performance, so they are “unintelligent” (I.i.14) in their
“insufficiencie” (I.i.14); this means that they are not even aware that they live in the reality of
performance, because their senses are bewitched and cannot see the truth properly, as if in a
dream. Moreover, when seeing such fascinating entertainment, as a result of their senses
being benumbed, they are unable to be judgmental, so they cannot “praise” (I.i.15) their hosts
or “accuse” (I.i.15) them. In the fictional world provided by the theatre—where playwrights
speak through the voice of their characters—nobody can judge others, because several
perspectives are presented on stage, emerging from various characters. Therefore, the
fictional Bohemia in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale is associated with the metaphoric
world of the theatre, which offers audiences (or guests) the experience of a different space. It
is for this reason that Shakespeare’s Bohemia has a seacoast, unlike in reality; it is irrelevant
whether—geographically—Bohemia is a landlocked region in Central Europe. What counts
in the world of the theatre is how the playwright makes the audiences see this polyvalent
space.
After establishing the contrastive coordinates of the fictional spaces represented in
The Winter’s Tale, the dialogue between Archidamus and Camillo moves to the characters
inhabiting these spaces. At this point, the king is identified with the country he rules, as
Camillo calls Leontes “Sicilia” (I.i.21) and he names Polixenes “Bohemia” (I.i.21). The long
speech about the two kings’ friendship—ever since childhood—is dominated by Camillo’s
spatial description: “Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia” (I.i1.21). Yet this is a
fictional image of Leontes’ magnanimity, as he is already consumed by jealousy, believing
that his wife Hermione has an affair with Polixenes. The opposition between the two
countries continues in Camillo’s narrative with the idea that, even when the two friends were
prevented by their royal duties to see each other frequently, they exchanged letters and
“loving embassies” (I.i.28), and “shook hands, as over a vast; and embraced, as it were, from
the end of opposite winds” (I.i.29-31). By showing that the two friends were separated by a
“vast” (I.i.30)—a wide expanse of country, sea, or time—Camillo emphasizes not only
spatial distance, but also emotional division. The two kings’ territories are at the intersection
of “opposite winds” (I.i.31), as their countries are placed at the sources of winds blowing
from opposite points of the compass. The suggestion is that their minds are like winds
124
blowing from points separated by a great distance—a world apart. This cartographic image
belies the tone of diplomatic affability and friendly alliance between Sicilia and Bohemia.
The imaginary vision of space is like the one seen in contemporary maps, where it was
common to find faces of cherubs representing winds blowing from the four corners of the
world.
As a result of the two kings’ antagonistic spatiality and mindset, the family of Sicilia
(King Leontes, his wife, Hermione, and Prince Mamillus) is set worlds apart from the family
of Bohemia (formed of Polixenes, an unnamed and absent wife, and Prince Florizel). Even if
the two kings may seem to be in harmony, they are worlds apart, separated by an
immeasurable vastness of sea and emotions. It is for this reason that Shakespeare’s Bohemia
is represented as having a seacoast; in order to imagine the placing of the two royal families
over a huge area of water, symbolizing changes of fortune and loss, but also reunions and
revivals. Sicilia is an island, whereas the imaginary Bohemia is given a seacoast in order to
symbolize the cartographic representations of the self as volatile and governed by emotions.
Leontes is enclosed in the island of his own destructive emotions—jealousy and
misrepresentation of his relationship with his wife—and surrounded by the troubled seas of
his psyche. Similarly, Polixenes is surrounded by the seas of make-believe and illusion, as he
misrepresents his relationship with his friend, Leontes, because he believes they are united by
an amiable and peaceful friendship, while the spiders of jealousy lurk in Leontes’ mind.
Therefore, Sicilia and Bohemia are defining spaces related to their kings’ identities. The
rational mind divides and unites these spaces, just like the subconscious does, which is one
with the individual’s conscious and rational intellect.

Map of Sicilia in Abraham Ortelius, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1570).

125
 Sicilia, as presented in the Latin edition of Abraham Ortelius’ Theatrum Orbis
Terrarum, is an island famous for its volcanic Mount Aetna (“Aethnae montis,” Ortelius 38).
Similarly, Shakespeare’s Sicilia in The Winter’s Tale is a fiery region governed by Leontes’
passionate personality. His jealousy is as volcanic and unpredictable as Mount Aetna lying on
its eastern coast. The influence of the Latin edition of Ortelius’ atlas on Shakespeare’s play
may be seen in the island’s name, because Sicilia is the Latin (and Italian) name, while in the
English translation it would be Sicily. This is also a metaphoric allusion to the Italians’ and
southerners’ volcanic personality, as opposed to the nations of the north. Moreover, the
island’s triangular shape may be associated with the hypothetical love triangle Leontes–
Hermione–Polixenes, which suggests division of the mind. The metaphoric space of Sicilia in
The Winter’s Tale offers a bird’s eye view of the minds of the three protagonists of the love
triangle, just like three points on a map. The cartographic imagery shows a self-absorbed and
delusional Leontes, an innocent but repressed Hermione, and a fearful and disappointed
Polixenes. All three are placed at the three corners of a psychological divide that represents
the island of their own selves. In Sicilia, each of them acts according to a part prescribed for
them by an invisible playwright, who transforms geographic space into psychological place.
In the 1570 Latin edition of Abraham Ortelius’ Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the
kingdom of Bohemia is described as surrounded by woods: “Sylua vniuersam claudit”
(Ortelius 25) [“all enclosed by woods,” my translation]. The title on the map is “Regni
Bohemiae Descriptio” (Ortelius 26), the description of the kingdom of Bohemia (my
translation). This shows the interest in the country’s form of government. Bohemia’s woods
may represent a space of imagination, just as the woods of dreams and illusions in A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, or the pastoral Forest of Arden in As You Like It. Shakespeare’s
Bohemia is at once wild and untamed landscape, where a bear may appear on the sea-coast,
from the woods, and devour Antigonus alive, while leaving the baby Perdita unharmed
(III.iii.55); but it is also the lively pastoral setting where Florizel and Perdita develop their
romantic love affair (IV.iv.2). Antigonus may have known about “the deserts of Bohemia”
(III.iii.2) from geography books, and he sees Bohemia as a wilderness. Similarly, the Mariner
has a pragmatic view of Bohemia, derived from experience, when he warns Antigonus not to
go “Too far i’ th’ land” because “the place is famous for the creatures / Of prey that keep
upon’t” (III.iii.10-12). Beside these perspectives derived from geographic or practical
knowledge of Bohemia, however, there is the emotional state in which Antigonus finds

126
himself; he is in a desolate place, having survived a storm at sea, he has the responsibility of
baby Perdita, and his mind is disturbed.
The night before, while Antigonus was sleeping in his cabin on the ship at sea,
irrational dreams occurred in his mind. Antigonus narrates that he dreamt of the supposedly
dead Hermione. In Antigonus’ dream, Hermione spoke to him and told him to give the baby a
name, Perdita, and leave her in a deserted place, because “Places remote enough are in
Bohemia” (III.iii.31). Bohemia, therefore, is a desolate land of despair, of extremity and
irrationality, when seen from the perspective of the depressed Antigonus, who is so troubled
as to dream of the dead. It is also a territory famed for its wild beasts, as the experienced
Mariner warns. When Antigonus narrates his dream about what Hermione says about
Bohemia, he is in the middle of the remote country, so the isolated sea-coast and the woods
may summon such scary interpretations of dreams to Paulina’s 36 husband, based on his
imagination. Even if he obeyed his wife and took baby Perdita away from the unpredictable
Leontes, Antigonus feels scared and overwhelmed by the wild landscape, so he is in a dreamy
mood. However, his rational side tells him that “Dreams are toys” (III.iii.38), in the sense that
the subconscious toys with the human mind and prevents people from seeing reality properly.
Antigonus’ mind is torn between believing in the dream about Hermione’s apparition or not,
just as Hamlet’s mind is ambivalent when he encounters his father’s ghost. Finally,
Antigonus decides to be directed by the dream, even if “superstitiously” (III.iii.40), which
means that he knows this is mere superstition.
The deserted Bohemian sea-coast is a suitable environment for Antigonus to develop
visions and to respond to irrational impulses. He acts based on these incentives and believes
that the baby is “indeed the issue / Of King Polixenes” (III.iii.42-43), and that Hermione is
dead. Antigonus also believes that the god Apollo has given him this premonitory dream and
has directed him to the forsaken Bohemian seacoast in order to leave the baby there.
Antigonus is driven by emotions and irrationality rather than reason when he is shipwrecked
on the Bohemian seacoast, because he is in a highly-strained emotional state. For him,
Bohemia is a place of terror and unknown dangers, where wild animals lurk in the woods. It
36
Paulina is another female character (wife to Antigonus) who has a role in the development of the play’s action
related to family. As Paul D. Stegner comments in “Masculine and Feminine Penitence in The Winter’s Tale,”
“Although Shakespeare’s representation of Paulina foregrounds her loyalty to Hermione and resistance to
Leontes’s tyranny, his treatment of her penitential vision, nevertheless, reiterates the common stereotype in
penitential writings of women being imperfect penitents due to their susceptibility to over-scrupulousness”
(192). Moreover, I would add that the fact that Paulina remains in Sicilia, while her husband Antigonus leaves
and dies in Bohemia, shows that the wife represents the relationship related to home and marriage. Just as
women were considered imperfectly penitent because they looked at religious faith as constructive of identity,
so is Paulina’s preservation of home and hearth (of both Hermione’s family and her own), represented through
her strong link to Sicilia’s space, which fashions her identity.

127
is because he acts upon irrational belief—based on fictions and emotions—that Antigonus is
vulnerable and he dies, being reported dead by the Clown, the shepherd’s son. The darkness
of the sky before the storm, as Antigonus says, “The heavens so dim by day” (III.iii.56), and
the noise of the storm, represented as “a savage clamour” (III.iii.56), create the disturbing
conditions that lead Antigonus to be terrified and lose his mind. Then follows one of the most
famous stage directions, “Exit, pursued by a bear” (SD III.iii.57), which suggests the
wilderness of the metaphoric place of Bohemia through the metonymy of the bear.
The perception of a wild Bohemia—triggered by Antigonus’ emotions of fear and
anxiety—is soon followed by a Bohemia torn by tempest, as seen and described by the
Clown. He reports to his father that he has seen two terrifying images of death, “by sea and
by land” (III.iii.83). He witnessed the mariners’ ship being destroyed by the storm and
Antigonus being eaten by a bear. Although the Clown is terrified by what he saw, his
description of the scenes of people dying are rather comic, which shows that various people
experience fear and extreme situations differently. The Clown even displays a sarcastic sense
of humour when he describes the time that passed since the horrid events happened: “I have
not winked since I saw these sights: the men are not yet cold under water, nor the bear half
dined on the gentleman: he’s at it now” (III.iii.103-105). The pragmatic Clown has a different
perception of reality, and he describes the scene of the ship being swallowed by the storm as
“the sea flap-dragoned it” (III.iii.98). In Shakespeare’s time, flap-dragon was a game in
which players caught raisins out of burning brandy. The Clown describes the terrifying event
of the mariners’ death through his own experience of an amusing boys’ game.
Russia is another geographic point of reference in The Winter’s Tale, as Hermione
says, in her defence trial, that her father was “the Emperor of Russia” (III.ii.119). According
to the title of the entry about Russia in Abraham Ortelius’ Latin edition of Theatrum Orbis
Terrarum, Russia was an empire rule by the Grand Duke of Muscovia: “Russia, aut potius
Magni Ducis Muscoviae Imperium” (Ortelius 46). An interesting cultural remark is that they
admit divorce (“Diuortia admittunt”, Ortelius 46). Moreover, according to Ortelius, when he
writes about the Russians, he says, “Adulterium non appellant, nisi quis alterius vxorem
habuerit” (Ortelius 46). As Ortelius notes about the Russians’ marital practices, they do not
appeal for committing adultery unless a man has a wife and the property of another (my
translation). This shows that women were considered property, and also that women’s
property was held by their husbands. Ortelius’ comment on Russian divorce and adultery is
interesting in the context of The Winter’s Tale because the mention of the Emperor of Russia,
Hermione’s father, comes at the point when Hermione herself is accused of adultery by her
128
husband and is threatened with separation and divorce. Therefore, Hermione is in a position
to appeal for her innocence. The play shows that marital practices are different in various
countries, while these customs are not lessons to be learned by others, because each custom
has its own good and bad parts, and everything is perfectible. The Empire of Russia is an
essential geographic point in the group of countries set in opposition in the play, apart from
Sicilia and Bohemia, because it offers an alternative to marital practices, as compared to
Western European countries.
The oracle at “Delphos” (II.i.183), in the play’s spatial configuration, appears to
sanction the truth of Hermione’s innocence and cause Leontes to give up the demons of his
jealousy. Leontes sends Cleomenes and Dion, two of his lords, “To sacred Delphos, to
Apollo’s temple” (II.i.183), to learn “spiritual counsel” (II.i.186) from the “Oracle” (II.i.190).
However, there is a spatial conflation here between the names of the Greek island of Delos,
where Apollo was born, and the oracle at Delphi, which is in mainland Greece. The “isle of
Delphos” (Greene 195) is used in Greene’s Pandosto. However, I argue that this spatial
conflation has a different meaning in the context of The Winter’s Tale. When Cleomenes and
Dion reach Delphos, Cleomenes observes the beauty of the island: “The climate’s delicate,
the air most sweet, / Fertile the isle, the temple much surpassing / The common praise it
bears” (III.i.1-3). This idyllic image of the Greek island where the oracle is placed is
undermined by Cleomenes’ description of the terrible sound of the oracle: “And the ear-
deaf’ning voice o’th’Oracle, / Kin to Jove’s thunder, so surpris’d my sense” (III.i.9-10).
Thus, Delphos is a self-contradictory place, similar to the spatial opposition between Sicilia
and Bohemia.
Even if Edward Sugden avers that Delphos was “the usual Elizabethan name for
Delphi, taken from the accusative plural of the Latin” (148), I believe that the spatial
conflation of the name has a significance in the play. Delphi was a town in mainland Greece,
in Phocis, lying in a great natural amphitheatre at the foot of Mount Parnassus, and it was the
seat of the world-famous oracle of Apollo (Sugden 148). Delos is the smallest of the
Cyclades, a group of islands in the Aegean Sea, and it was one of the most sacred places in
the Hellenic world (Sugden 147), famous for being the birthplace of Apollo and Diana. In
The Winter’s Tale, “Delphos” (II.i.183; III.ii.126), mentioned twice by this name, is
definitely an island, but there is also an oracle on this island. The space is both beneficial and
terrifying, and this is where the prophecy from “Great Apollo” (III.i.14) comes: “Hermione is
chaste; Polixenes blameless; Camillo a true subject; Leontes a jealous tyrant; and his innocent
babe truly begotten; and the king shall live without an heir, if that which is lost be not found”
129
(III.ii.132-135). Paradoxically, however, Leontes refuses to admit the truth of the prophecy at
first and he says, “There is no truth at all i’ th’ Oracle” (III.ii.140). This shows that Leontes’
paranoia has reached incredible proportions and he refuses the oracle’s confirmation. I argue
that the conflation of “Delos” and Delphi” to make the play’s “Delphos” shows the confusion
in Leontes’ mind and his alienated self. The distant space of the Greek island of Delos and
the oracle at Delphi, therefore, like the volcanic Sicilia, typify Leontes’ unpredictable
identity.
Sicilia’s royal family is formed of Leontes, Hermione and their seven-year-old boy,
Mamillus; later, Perdita is born. Just as Perdita means “lost” in Latin, “mamilla” means
“breast,” “teat,” but the feminine word is transformed into masculine in order to suggest both
the gentleness of a mother’s breast and the required masculinity supposed to characterise a
royal successor. When Archidamus and Camillo speak contrastively of Bohemia and Sicilia,
Archidamus says that the young prince Mamillus is an “unspeakable comfort” (I.i.34) and “a
gentleman of the greatest promise” (I.i.35-36). Mamillus is, therefore, the hope of the Sicilian
nation. Leontes apparently identifies with his son and heir when he tells him to look on him
with his “welkin eye” (I.ii.136), which means blue as the sky. Leontes then reminisces of his
own childhood: “Looking on the lines / Of my boy’s face, methoughts I did recoil / Twenty-
three years, and saw myself unbreech’d / In my green velvet coat” (I.ii.153-156). 37 However,
Leontes’ mind is full of doubt, so he questions frequently his relation with his son, as when
he asks Polixenes, “My brother, / Are you so fond of your young prince, as we / Do seem to
be of ours?” (I.ii.163-165). Leontes’ incipient jealousy is foreshadowed through the image of
his “green velvet coat” (I.ii.156) from his boyhood, as it is known that jealousy is called “the
green-eyed monster” (III.iii.170) in Othello. Leontes’ doubts and jealousy are negative
emotions, represented by the metaphor of the “spider” in the cup (II.i.39), which project an
aura of pessimism pervading the kingdom of Sicilia.
When Mamillus is reported dead, the royal family is left without an heir, and it is not
until Perdita is found that king Leontes’ family would be complete, as the oracle of Delphos
avers (III.ii.132-135). Only when the death of Mamillus is reported to him does Leontes
accept the truth, sent in a sealed letter from Delphos, and he prays Apollo to forgive him

37
Mamillus is probably about seven, and so this passage indicates that Leontes is about thirty at this point, while
he will be about 50 when the royal family is reunited with Perdita. Referring to this scene (I.ii.153-156), Jeremy
Tambling, in “The Winter’s Tale: Three Recognitions” (2015), observes: “This double image, or portrait, is a
dialectical opposite to the one at the end of the play, when he sees Hermione as statue” (Tambling 34). This
statement corresponds to my idea of contrastive spaces, represented in different scenes in the play.

130
(III.ii.15-154). In Sicilia, Leontes’ royal family is disfigured 38 and maimed through the
father’s error,39 and this distorted image is metaphorically represented by the volcanic island
of Sicilia. This does not mean that the royal family of King Polixenes is more harmonious
than that of the Sicilian king. When, in Bohemia, Polixenes reminisces “of that fatal country,
Sicilia” (IV.ii.20-21), but he does not want to speak about it anymore, while Camillo misses
his home. Then Polixenes utters a general statement referring to the princes’ heirs, in the
context of remembering prince Florizel: “Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not being
gracious, than they are in losing them when they have approved their virtues” (IV.ii.27-29).
This statement implies that Florizel is not “gracious” (IV.ii.28), or suitable to be a prince,
while Mamillus was fitting the role, but was lost to his royal father. Polixenes compares
Florizel to his son’s disadvantage, while Leontes’ son, the dead Mamillus, was a promise for
his father. This comparison is significant, since Florizel, by marrying Perdita in the end, is to
be heir both to Bohemia and Sicilia. In this way, the two royal families are reconciled.
In Bohemia, the king’s royal family is formed of King Polixenes and his son and heir,
Florizel. As Hermione says, King Polixenes “longs to see his son” (I.ii.34), as he has spent
nine months in Sicilia, visiting his life-long friend. When describing the times of his youth to
Hermione, Polixenes mentions his wife: “in those unfledg’d days was my wife a girl”
(I.ii.78); this happened in those times when Leontes had not met his wife yet. This shows that
Polixenes’ wife might have been a childhood friend of the two princes. Polixenes reminisces
about the times when they were immature, not yet developed, but Hermione cuts him short
with: “Of this make no conclusion, lest you say / Your queen and I are devils” (I.ii.82).
Hermione continues in the same line of teasing the two men from the feminine perspective. It
seems that Leontes has different memories than Polixenes about their childhood days,
memories of the times when the unnamed girl who would become Polixenes’ queen played
pranks on Leontes. This might show that Leontes’ frustration against Polixenes might have

38
In a psychoanalytical study entitled “Interpreted Statues: Collapse of Femininity and Psychotic Denial in The
Winter’s Tale” (2018), Christopher W. T. Miller argues that Shakespeare changes the source story, where
Pandosto has incestuous desires for his daughter. Miller notes that “Shakespeare alters the fates of the characters
through largely disavowing the incestuous urges of Leontes” (100), as the final two acts show “the redemptive
powers of nature and love, re-establishing the family unit through mutual forgiveness and a deux ex machina in
the coming-to-life of Hermione’s statue” (100). This statement is in line with other critical comments about the
play, which argue for the re-establishment of family values at the end of the play.
39
In “Gendered Narratives of Marital Dissolution in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale” (2017), feminist critic
Claire Dawkins argues that “The Winter’s Tale presents two competing narratives about culpability in its
presentation of its dissolution of the royal marriage of Leontes and Hermione” (95). One of these narratives
belongs to “the jealous king Leontes,” who “constructs a narrative of female sexual betrayal to explain the
breakdown in his marriage” (Dawkins 95). The other one belongs to Hermione, who “constructs her own
narrative of Leontes’ tyranny and abuse” (Dawkins 95). I totally agree with this view, adding that contrastive
narratives are paralleled by contrastive spaces.

131
originated in their innocent and apparently happy childhood days. At the same time,
Hermione empathizes with Polixenes’ queen, like two women who married two kings and
had the responsibility of continuing the royal line. The royal family is complete in both
Bohemia and Sicilia, as Polixenes has his son, Florizel, and Leontes has his son, Mamillus.
However, in this scene, the family’s continuity is presented as depending on the women,
although the two men reminisce melancholically about their childhood days.
The Bohemian royal family of Polixenes and his queen, with Florizel as the legitimate
heir, is opposed to the lower-class family of the shepherd and his son, the Clown. The Clown
is a fun-loving youth who gives little attention to life’s details, so he is cheated by the peddler
Autolycus. After Antigonus is torn by a bear in the wilderness of Bohemia, the shepherd
adopts Perdita and raises her as his own daughter. In the sheep-shearing scene, when Perdita
is already sixteen, the shepherd tells Perdita about his deceased wife; “she was both pantler,
butler, cook, / Both dame and servant; welcom’d all, serv’d all” (IV.iv.56-57). According to
the shepherd’s memory of his wife, she was a commoner woman—unlike the ladies of royal
family, such as Hermione or Polixenes’ wife—and she was both the lady of the house and a
housekeeper; however, the shepherd’s wife was also responsible for the family’s honour. The
shepherd’s dead wife accomplished her wifely tasks with honour and gusto, as she was a
merry woman; according to her husband, she “would sing her song and dance her turn”
(IV.iv.58), and she would drink from everybody’s cups (IV.iv.62). The shepherd evokes this
image of a merry woman and wife because he compares (unfavourably, from his perspective)
his late wife to Perdita, who is “retired” (IV.iv.62) at her own birthday feast. The commoner
woman’s merry behaviour was better, from her husband’s perspective, than a royal lady’s
reserved attitude.
However, everything the shepherd says about his former wife and family is
misleading, to say the least, since Perdita does not have a known birthday, because she is a
foundling, yet they celebrate her birthday at the sheep shearing feast. They probably celebrate
the date when Perdita was found on the deserted Bohemian sea-coast. Moreover, the
shepherd’s dead wife is not Perdita’s biological mother, nor did she raise Perdita, so they
could not have behaved similarly. Perdita’s reserved behaviour at the popular sheep shearing
feast suggests her royal ancestry. Nobility of character, however, is not necessarily associated
with royalty, as Polixenes observes when he tells Perdita about the art in which “we marry /
A gentler scion to the wildest stock” (IV.iv.92-93). However, Polixenes’ remark is ironic,
because he refers, in general, to the possibility of marriage between a person of noble birth
and a commoner. When it comes to his son marrying Perdita, however, about whom he
132
thought to be a shepherd’s daughter, King Polixenes is not so generous in his broad views
about marriage. By contrast, Perdita’s resolute sensitiveness and feminine refinement makes
her shine, even before Polixenes’ allusion to her supposed unchastity. Perdita’s simple
gestural answer is to give flowers to Polixenes, which symbolizes purity and chastity, so she
performs the idea of a temperate personality, rather than proffering elaborate speeches.
Families in The Winter’s Tale, therefore, are placed in symbolic and contrastive
spaces that typify emotions and incongruous destinies. While the Sicilian royal family suffers
great hardships as a result of the father’s irrational and aggressive behaviour, the Bohemian
royal family seems to be more balanced, until the confrontational situation in which the father
(Polixenes) realizes that his son is in danger of marrying a shepherd’s daughter. Then, just
like Leontes in Sicilia, Polixenes gives up his reasonable pose, disguises himself as a
commoner, and tries to change the course of events. Despite their efforts, however, none of
the authoritative and noble fathers succeeds in his attempts at controlling his family; Leontes
is seized with remorse and he regrets his past mistakes, while Polixenes sees how his son and
heir elopes with and marries a shepherd’s daughter, who is also a king’s daughter. The royal
mothers, on the other hand, have a proactive resistance to male aggression and interference,
which makes them the true heroines of the play. It is not clear how the queen of Bohemia
reacts to her son’s potential marriage to a shepherd’s daughter—nor is it clear whether she
knows about it. However, Hermione is clearly the winner in the contest of spiritual
ascendancy, as she emerges victorious over her husband. Similarly, Perdita has the last word
in the debate with her future father-in-law, Polixenes. The contrastive spaces of Bohemia and
Sicilia represent royal families that are psychologically deficient, and in which the women
(mother and daughter) are stronger than the ruling men.

2.3. Distraught Families in The Tempest

The Tempest famously begins with a storm at sea, which typifies the play’s troubled social
and familial relations. Shakespeare dramatizes social and familial anxiety in the play through
the imaginary space that he creates on the magic island. As Stephen Greenblatt observes in
“The Tempest: Martial Law in the Land of Cockaigne” (1999), “Prospero’s chief magical
activity throughout The Tempest is to harrow the other characters with fear and wonder and
then to reveal that their anxiety is his to create an ally” (Greenblatt The Tempest 219). I
suggest that the desert island’s space in The Tempest represents anxiety and meta-
theatricality, as far as family relationships are concerned. The spaces mentioned in the play
are points in a four-dimensional configuration that forms a mental map, a psychological
133
cartography representing the play’s distorted family relations. The three-dimensional space
represented by Prospero’s deserted island overlaps with the characters’ anxiety, while they
are stranded on this island, to form a four-dimensional time-space continuum, in which the
characters’ frustrations and desires are points on the map. The families of Milan and Naples
—including their servants and counsellors—interact in the world of the play to recreate a
dystopic place40 in which family relationships work in accordance with their members’
anxieties and hopes. Finally, the reconciliation of the competitive families—through the
marriage of Ferdinand and Miranda—is not only welcome, but also required by
metatheatrical conventions. This is because audiences are constantly reminded that Prospero
stages a theatrical performance on the island.
The single-parent family of Milan, formed of Prospero and his daughter Miranda, is
incomplete because there is no mother. Stephen Orgel, in “Prospero’s Wife” (1984), notes
that Prospero’s wife is alluded to only once in the play, but Miranda has no memories of her.
As Orgel observes, “Prospero’s wife is absent from his memory. She is wholly absent from
her daughter’s memory: Miranda can recall several women who attended her in childhood,
but no mother” (Orgel 1). According to Orgel, Miranda’s mother is “a figure conspicuous by
her absence from the play” (Orgel 1). When Prospero narrates to Miranda the story of their
suffering in Milan, he mentions his wife only once: “Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and /
She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father / Was Duke of Milan” (I.ii.56-58). 41 Prospero
identifies his wife as Miranda’s mother in the context, implying that his consort was virtuous
and Miranda’s legitimacy was not in doubt. However, Prospero refers to his long-lost wife in
the same breath as when he says that he was Duke of Milan. The dukedom of Milan becomes
—in the play’s spatial configuration—just as forgotten and abandoned in memory as
Prospero’s missing wife.
Indeed, the play makes a clear distinction between the real geographic space of Milan
and the fictional dukedom from the past, of which Prospero was the ruler. This shows that the
characters’ emotions lend a specific aura to the spaces in which they evolve, such as when
Prospero tells his daughter about her native Milan. Just as the island where the play is set is a
place of imagination—in which the characters evolve according to their own feelings and
40
In “Revisiting The Tempest” (1995), Arthur F. Kinney observes that “there is indeed something archetypal
about The Tempest” (172), because “the sense of symbolism in the storm, the father-governor, and the good and
bad servants keeps driving us towards a dual registration of the play as both universal and particular” (172). In
my discussion of families and space in the play, I will look at the particular details that delineate families in the
plot, but the sense of dystopian narrative is part of the general understanding of the play’s configuration of space
and social order.
41
References to The Tempest are keyed to the Arden edition edited by Frank Kermode (1988), and acts, scenes,
and lines are given parenthetically in the text.

134
anxieties—the Milan of which Prospero speaks is remote in time (the events that Prospero
describes occurred twelve years before the time of action) and in memory. 42 Miranda may not
have remembered her mother because she was just three years old when Prospero was
banished from Milan, but there is no explanation for the fact that Prospero says so few things
about his wife. It may be that Prospero, in Milan, was not such an attentive husband, just as
he was not a devoted father, because he was “neglecting worldly ends” (I.ii.89) and was
“transported / And rapt in secret studies” (I.ii.76-77). Prospero, therefore, was an oblivious
father, and he was a neglectful husband, in Milan, so his brother, Antonio, could find an
opportunity to usurp his dukedom. Prospero’s single-parent family represents power of rule
(Prospero was the Duke of Milan) but also frustration and neglect (he neglected his wife and
daughter for the sake of his secret studies). The wife’s absence can be translated into the
ducal family’s anxiety through the loss of empathic care and love.
When all things are settled, at the end of the play, Prospero wants to retire “to my
Milan, where / Every third thought shall be my grave” (V.i.310-311). Milan, therefore,
appears as a city of anxiety, which is seen through the lens of the dissatisfied Prospero,
because he feels frustrated that his brother had usurped his throne and banished him to the
deserted island, or a place where Prospero has thoughts about his own death. Even if the play
apparently ends happily, with families reunited and the young couple married, Prospero’s
anxieties are not resolved once he regains his dukedom. He may have vanquished his enemies
(and his brother) through the power of his mind, but Prospero’s return to Milan does not
suggest complete happiness. Although he has given up the habit of controlling the others,
including his family, friends, and spirits (his daughter, Gonzalo, his counsellor and the spirit
Ariel), Prospero does not shed off his patriarchal anxiety the moment when he casts off his
magical robe and drowns his magical wand. On the contrary, as long as Prospero continues to
believe that he is the undisputed ruler of country and family, he will never be content and will
only expect death, just as any human being. The play’s Milan, therefore, does not cease to
represent anxiety only because the ducal family returns to this place.
From the perspective of Prospero’s usurping brother, Antonio, government of Milan
was a thing to be desired twelve years before, so he desired to become “Absolute Milan”
(I.ii.109), according to Prospero. As the ruler is identified with the dukedom, the usurped
42
In “‘The Dark Backward and Abysm of Time’: The Tempest and Memory” (2006), Evelyn Tribble observes:
“If memory is figured as a trusted holding place, a ‘treasury’ owned and ordered by an individual agent, it must
be defended both against its own tendencies to slide into disorder and against the onslaughts of other minds and
competing memories” (153). Tribble proposes for this play “a model for thinking about memory that stresses its
intersubjective character and avoids the false binary of individual versus social memory” (153). Indeed,
Prospero’s memory of his family in Milan is linked with his damaging memories about his usurpation.

135
Prospero longs for Milan, while Antonio aspires to become absolute ruler of the dukedom.
The usurped duke, Prospero, describes his brother to Miranda as “perfidious” (I.ii.68), “thy
false uncle” (I.ii.77), and “my false brother” (I.ii.92), and Prospero deplores the state of
subjugation of Milan to the King of Naples, saying “alas, poor Milan!” (I.ii.115). The Milan
that Prospero has in mind when he refers to his dukedom is not the city described in
geography books, but the fictional image created in his imagination, caused by his disturbing
experience of dethronement and banishment. In the Latin edition of Abraham Ortelius’
Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the dukedom of Milan is “Mediolanensis Dvcatus” (Ortelius 33)
and it includes a large space, “Spatium complectitur amplissimum” (Ortelius 33, my
translation). This large duchy, however, is reduced to the circumscribed space of Prospero’s
mind and his frustrations in the play, dimmed by his troubled memory, or limited to
Prospero’s negative feelings concerning his usurping brother.
From the perspective of the shipwrecked Ferdinand, the son of the King of Naples,
when he is shipwrecked on the desert island, Antonio is “the Duke of Milan” (I.ii.440)—a
person who was on the lost ship. Ferdinand considers Antonio “and his brave son” (I.ii.441)
sympathetically, as fellow souls who have suffered during the storm and are probably dead.
There is no further mention of Antonio’s son in the play, so he is a ghost character who may
have the function of reminding the audience that the usurping brother Antonio is also a father.
Ferdinand may have been assuming that Antonio’s son was drowned in one of the other ships
lost in the storm. However, from the focus of my discussion of families, Antonio’s absent son
—supposedly lost at sea during the storm—is a figure that humanizes the usurper Antonio.
Antonio is a loving father, just as Alonso is for his son, Ferdinand; or Prospero is for his
daughter, Miranda. As Prospero eavesdrops on Ferdinand’s conversation with Miranda, when
Ferdinand speaks of Antonio’s son, Prospero remarks cynically, “The Duke of Milan / And
his more braver daughter could control thee, / If now ’twere fit to do ’t” (I.ii.441-443). The
opposition between Antonio’s “brave” (I.ii.441) son and an even “braver” (I.ii.442) daughter
(Miranda) shows Prospero’s biased opinion about himself. Although there is no indication in
the play to qualify Miranda as being better than Antonio’s fictional son, Prospero is proud of
his daughter and excludes any other possibility that somebody else’s children might be better
than his own.

136
 The family of Naples43 is formed of Alonso, King of Naples, his son and heir,
Ferdinand, as well as the daughter Claribel, who is married to the King of Tunis. The Naples
party return from Claribel’s wedding, in Tunis, when they are caught in the magic storm and
shipwrecked on Prospero’s magic island. The King of Naples helped Antonio with an army to
usurp Prospero’s dukedom and, in return, Antonio promised him “[t]o give him annual
tribute” (I.ii.113) and “[s]ubject his coronet” (I.ii.114). For this reason, when Alonso deplores
what he thinks to be his son’s death, he laments: “O thou mine heir / Of Naples and of Milan,
what strange fish / Hath made his meal on thee?” (II.i.107-108). Even when lamenting his
son’s death, king Alonso considers the dynastic inheritance that he lost in Ferdinand. The
father’s extreme grief prevents him from seeing the possibility of Ferdinand being alive.
Alonso is depressed and dejected, but Francisco, one of his lords, looks at the situation
objectively and says, “Sir, he may live” (II.i.109). As Alonso laments the loss of both his
children—because Claribel is “so far from Italy removed / I ne’er again shall see her”
(II.i.106-107) and Ferdinand is presumed drowned—he refuses to see things in perspective
and he loses hope. This is an emotional event that can occur only on Prospero’s magic island,
just because the Naples single-parent royal family is just as disturbed and fraught with
anxiety as Milan’s ducal family is.
At the same time, it is this feeling of loss that makes the king of Naples understand
the value of family and children, as opposed to power and riches. At the end of the play,
when Prospero reveals himself as “the wronged Duke of Milan” (V.i.107), Alonso admits that
“a madness held me” (V.i.116), when he acted against Milan's rightful ruler in the past.
Alonso returns Prospero’s dukedom (“Thy dukedom I resign” V.i.118) and he apologizes
(“Thou pardon me my wrongs” V.i.119). In this way, the authoritarian king of Naples is
transformed as a result of the extreme events of the island and he understands the value of life
and family over power and political success. To Alonso as a king and father, therefore, the
space of the island is redemptive, as he realizes he had been wrong in trying to appropriate
the power over Milan, which was not his. Therefore, this royal father’s mind has changed and
he has learned to place parenthood and family love above dynastic interests. It looks as if the
psychological effect of the magic island’s place is different in relation to various characters in
the play.

43
In the Latin edition of Abraham Ortelius’ Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the kingdom of Naples, or “Regnum
Neapolitanum” (37), is represented as a powerful kingdom. Its capital, the city of Naples is the most magnificent
among the cities, “Extra magnificentissimam hanc Ciuitatem” (Ortelius 37, my translation). This does not mean
that this objective description cannot be used by playwrights such as Shakespeare to denote subjectivity and
distorted emotions. Naples means craving for power, as well as using power for illegitimate ends.

137
 Antonio, Prospero’s scheming brother, however, was and is continually searching to
appropriate power; in Milan, in the past, and even on what he thinks to be an uninhabited
island. While Alonso, the King of Naples, and the others are asleep, Antonio tries to instill in
Sebastian’s mind the impression that he might become the king of Naples. As Antonio tells
Sebastian, while the others are sleeping, “my strong imagination sees a crown / Dropping
upon thy head” (II.i.203-204). It looks as if Antonio had no qualms in usurping his brother’s
throne, as he tells Sebastian: “twenty consciences, / That stand ’twixt me and Milan, candied
be they, / And melt, ere they molest!” (II.i.273-275). Antonio implies that his conscience is
like candy as compared to the thoughts about power; it can melt easily, even before it bothers
him. When Sebastian decides to strike for power against his brother (the king of Naples)—as
if in a remake of Antonio’s usurpation—he makes an implicit comparison between himself
and Antonio: “as thou got’st Milan, / I’ll come by Naples” (II.i.286-287). In the play’s
distribution of power relations, family ties are insignificant for certain characters—such as
the paralleled brothers, Antonio and Sebastian. In their race for power, the dukedom of Milan
and the kingdom of Naples are not spaces populated by human beings, but objects to be
seized by force. Through Antonio and Sebastian, and the spaces they crave for, Shakespeare
dramatizes the objectification of family ties in the competition for royal or ducal power.
Sebastian, Alonso’s brother, is a counterpart image of Prospero’s usurping and
conniving brother, Antonio. In the Neapolitan royal family, Sebastian is just the second
brother, but if the heir (Ferdinand) is dead, and the next in line, the daughter (Claribel) is
married to a distant king of Tunis, according to dynastic inheritance he would be the next
king of Naples. This thought occurs in Sebastian’s mind when he is so callous as to disregard
his brother’s grief for the loss of his son, and he emphasizes a double loss: “Sir, you may
thank yourself for this great loss, / That would not bless our Europe with your daughter, / But
rather lose her to an African” (II.i.119-121). Sebastian’s cynical remark reminds the grieving
father that he lost both his children: one to death, and another one to a distant country. The
two continents, Europe and Africa, are set in opposition in this spatial perspective of families
in the play to show that family ties are stronger than power networks. While it was a custom
among royal families to enhance their dynastic power by marrying their children off to other
royals in distant countries, Sebastian’s comment is cynical and out of place. Sebastian shows
that he is more concerned with diplomatic relations within “our Europe” (II.i.119) rather than
the alliance with the distant African continent. On the other hand, Sebastian does not care
about his brother’s grief as a father and takes the opportunity to rub salt on Alonso’s mental
wound.
138
 Sebastian is dramatized as a cynical brother to Alonso, when he comments that “we
have lost your son” (II.i.127) and “Milan and Naples have / Mo widows in them of this
business’ making / Than we bring men to comfort them” (128-130). This is so hard-hearted,
as it is callous to emphasize to a father the loss of his own son, and also to imply that,
because of their travel to Claribel’s wedding to Tunis, they killed many other men in Milan
and Naples, which would generate even more widows and bereaved families. Sebastian is
confident that himself and the other members of the crew—as they escaped with their lives
from the storm—would return safely home, but he is doubtful about the rest of the fleet. This
is why Sebastian believes that their voyage has created more widows than they might think.
Other families, therefore, would be affected by the Neapolitan King’s travels. Sebastian is not
only callous in his neglect of his brother’s grief, but he is also myopic in thinking that he
would return home just because their lives have been saved. Perhaps this is the reason why
Sebastian lets himself be lured by Antonio to plot the murder of Alonso and the Neapolitan
party, so that Sebastian would become King of Naples. It is only the fortuitous intervention of
the spirit Ariel—who causes the king and his party to wake up suddenly and prevent the
attempted murder—that saves Alonso from death.
The two usurping brothers—Antonio and Sebastian—live in the darkness of their own
murky ambitions and they see the island as their own space to be conquered. However, things
are not so, because for all they know, this is just a deserted island, and having power over it
and a small group of subjects does not seem such a great achievement. Sebastian and Antonio
do not see things from this perspective, and their minds are like those of the Spanish
conquistadors, when they first saw the New World of the Americas; they just wanted the land
and its potential riches, without thinking of the consequences to the native population.
Finally, Sebastian acknowledges his error when he sees the vision of Ferdinand and Miranda
playing chess in Prospero’s cave; when he sees that Ferdinand is alive, he considers it “A
most high miracle” (V.i.177), and his wonder seems to redeem him from his guilt. In the end,
Sebastian seems to have understood his limitations as an aspiring king and he is content to
revert to his position as the king’s brother and Ferdinand’s uncle. Unlike Antonio’s action in
Milan, which occurred twelve years before, Sebastian’s failed usurpation of the lost kingdom
of Naples is as fictional as Prospero’s magic island.
Naples and Milan, therefore, in the world of the play, are not necessarily thriving
countries populated with many people—as represented in geographic atlases of the time—but
objects of desire for most characters. The families in these kingdoms or dukedoms are in
permanent competition for power and they strive hard to secure leadership. Some would do
139
anything to grab power—such as the usurper Antonio (Prospero’s brother) and the apparent
murderer Sebastian (Alonso’s brother). Prospero is ready to magically provoke a storm and
manipulate many people in order to regain his Milan, which shows that he is also ready to do
anything to get his dukedom back. Prospero is even prepared to sacrifice his own daughter,
for whom he has aspirations of becoming the Queen of Naples by marrying Ferdinand.
Prospero is almost as ruthless as his brother Antonio in manipulating others to achieve his
own aim. When he discloses himself to his former enemies, Prospero cannot do so while
being dressed in his magic robes, so he orders Ariel to fetch his sword and his hat from his
cell and present himself “As I was sometime Milan” (V.i.86). Prospero identifies himself
with his dukedom and does not allow others to see him differently. In his mind, he was
forcefully deposed, or “thrust forth of Milan” (V.i.160), and he assumes it is his right to rule
the island, “to be the lord on’t” (V.i.162). This might have been the likely assumption of a
European prince in those times, but the play does not definitely sanction Prospero’s
colonizing aspirations.
Just as Prospero sees himself as the colonizer of the island, so Ferdinand sees himself
as the colonizer of Miranda’s body, interpreted as both an object of desire and a possession to
be owned. When Ferdinand introduces Miranda to his father, he says, “She / Is daughter to
this famous Duke of Milan / Of whom so often have I heard renown, / But never saw before”
(V.i.192-194). Ferdinand uses more laudatory terms when speaking about his father-in-law
than when referring to his future wife, and he presents Miranda as the daughter of a famous
duke. To Ferdinand, Miranda’s body is like a territory that should be possessed, or, as he
says, “she’s mine” (V.i.189). To the good Gonzalo, whose services towards Prospero were
essential in saving his life before the banishment, the ruler is still identified with his kingdom,
as when he asks rhetorically, “Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue / Should become
Kings of Naples?” (V.i.205-206). Gonzalo leaves the audience in no doubt about the fact that
Miranda will raise higher in power than even her ducal father, and this is a happy occasion.
Just like Ferdinand, Gonzalo sees Miranda as an object of dynastic exchange, not as a
daughter, whose identity is inextricably related to her status as a princess.
Gonzalo’s conclusion of final marital harmony is transferred from the political level
to the personal family relationship when he says, “In one voyage / Did Claribel her husband
find at Tunis, / And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife / Where he himself was lost”
(V.i.208-211). Gonzalo implies that the royal family believed that Ferdinand was lost, or
dead, but the young man may have been lost as a human being, as a person who is incapable
to know his position in society. Gonzalo’s eulogy of marital bliss—as Claribel married the
140
Tunisian king and Ferdinand married the princess from Milan—has strong political
implications. Each ruler is identified geographically with his kingdom (Prospero with Milan,
the King of Tunisia with Tunis, and Ferdinand is seen as the future king of Naples). Across
the spatial divide, princesses and princes are often used in dynastic marriages to settle
political alliances. Even if the play’s end may give the impression of personal marital
happiness—and therefore social and familial harmony—the ending is political. This radical
message is suggested through the identification of the rulers with the spaces they govern.
Another atypical single-parent family in the play is Caliban and his mother, Sycorax. 44
Yet Sycorax is dead when the events of the play are set. The audience learns about her from
various characters, mainly Caliban and Prospero. Caliban may be identified with the island,
his birthplace, as he tells Prospero, “This island’s mine, by Sycorax my mother, / Which thou
tak’st from me” (I.ii.333-335). From Caliban’s perspective, Prospero is a usurper 45 who used
a child’s sensitivity to take advantage of him and seize his property. As Caliban was born on
the island, he feels he is its owner, and Prospero is the intruder. At first, Prospero showed
love to Caliban, stroked him and taught him language, and also taught him to give names to
the sun and the moon. When the child Caliban started to like Prospero and showed him “all
the qualities o’ th’ isle” (I.ii.339), the fresh springs and the barren and fertile places, Prospero
took the island from him and reduced Caliban to a mere slave, made to carry wood. Caliban
still preserves some of his witch mother’s naturalistic incantations, as he curses Prospero with
“All the charms / Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!” (I.ii.341-342).
Since he has no other means to defend himself before the authoritarian Prospero,
Caliban uses the destructive power of language to curse his benefactor. From his perspective,
Caliban learned only how to curse when he was taught the expressive function of language.

44
In “‘Be not afeared’: Sycorax and the Rhetoric of Fear in The Tempest” (2019), Ahmet Süner observes that
Sycorax represents fear, and shows how “the fear of illegitimate birth and non-contractual sexuality not only
shapes entire characters such as Sycorax and Caliban, but also infiltrates the uses of language and figures that
prevail in Prospero’s orchestration of the marriage plot, his betrothal masque, and his deployment of Graeco-
Roman mythologies (Hymen, Venus, and Cupid)” (188). Indeed, the masque of Juno and Ceres in the play
sanctions the formation of legitimate royal families, while Sycorax did not benefit from a marriage to certify the
birth of her son, Caliban. This explains the opposition between legitimate and illegitimate dramatic families in
the play.
45
In “Theatrum Mundi: Rhetoric, Romance, and Legitimation in The Tempest and The Winter's Tale” (2018),
David A. Katz notes that both Prospero and Sycorax are usurpers. As Katz observes, “Caliban inadvertently
confesses that his mother only assumed rulership after having been banished from their homeland, and both
used coercion to control the island’s original inhabitants. Caliban’s claims have the advantage of precedence,
but the play does not portray this argument any more valid than Prospero’s humanist justifications. Instead of
validating either claim, The Tempest muddies the difference between the various usurpers. The romance’s
weblike network of parallelisms ironizes pretensions to right to rule” (Katz 736). This is exactly what I claim in
relation to the representations of families and space in The Tempest; the ironic perspectives do not allow for a
single interpretation of dynastic or rightful rule of royal families.

141
As Caliban says, “You taught me language; and my profit on’t / Is I know how to curse”
(I.ii.365-366), and then Caliban gives a sample of his curse: “The red plague rid you / For
learning me your language” (I.ii.366-367). As the parents’ role is to teach their children to
speak, Prospero is a surrogate parent from whom Caliban only learned how to curse. At the
same time, Caliban shows that he does not know the semantic difference between “teach” and
“learn,” and he uses the two words incorrectly, thus distorting the power of language.
Prospero himself chases Caliban away with a curse, “Hag-seed, hence!” (I.ii.367), which
shows that Prospero also uses language inadequately. Caliban may be a “hag-seed” (I.ii.367),
or the son of a witch, from Prospero’s perspective, because he was conceived by a witch and
an incubus, yet this is only Prospero’s evaluation of Caliban. Prospero abuses Caliban by
telling him he was “got by the devil himself / Upon thy wicked dam” (I.ii.320-321). This is
an unwanted and unfortunate miscegenation. It is no wonder that Caliban grew up to hate
Prospero and his language, as he was continually abused by the authoritarian master of the
island and reduced to being a slave.
Yet Caliban is afraid of Prospero’s superior magic, because he is able to “control my
dam’s god, Setebos, / And make a vassal of him” (I.ii.375-376). Setebos was a god of the
Patagonians, but Shakespeare associates his name to any pagan god of the Amerindian
peoples. Caliban emphasizes here Prospero’s overwhelming wish to control everybody,
without regard of the individual’s thoughts and feelings, as well as religious beliefs, as he
behaves like a god to his subjects. This is not such a positive view of Prospero as Caliban’s
surrogate father figure. Even if Prospero assumes the role of father towards Caliban, the
adoptive son does not accept this parental authority. As for Miranda, instead of being the
image of a sister, Caliban lusts for her. As he tells Stephano and Trinculo, “I never saw a
woman / But only Sycorax my dam and she; / But she as far surpasseth Sycorax” (III.ii.99-
101). As a motherless young child who has learned to vent his frustrations against the
destroyer of his idyllic world, Caliban may be viewed with some sort of sympathy. The
mother’s absence has influenced the child’s development, and all he can remember of his lost
mother is when she was gathering dew in the early morning, probably to use it for her
magical practices.
However, Caliban is destined to be a slave, and he wishes to exchange his slavery to
Prospero to a new form of bondage, when he suggests to Stephano and Trinculo to usurp
Prospero’s rule on the island and make Stephano king. Though Stephano and Trinculo abuse
Caliban and call him “monster” (II.ii.145; 146) several times, Caliban is ready to give up
Miranda to the new king of the island, Stephano, whom he wants to accept as the new master.
142
As Caliban says about the fictional marriage between Miranda and “king” Stephano, “she
will become thy bed, I warrant, / And bring thee forth brave brood” (III.ii.102-103). Even in
the fictional marriage that Caliban and his new master set up for Miranda, she is only an
object to be used for procreation, as Stephano says, “his [Prospero’s] daughter and I will be
king and queen” (III.ii.104-105). The commodification of women in Caliban’s and
Stephano’s visions of a royal marriage is not different from Ferdinand’s possessiveness
towards Miranda, or Prospero’s manipulation of his daughter to become Queen of Naples.
This shows the male appropriation of the institution of marriage and the submissive role of
women within that institution. However, the play does not seem to credit such views, as
Caliban's plot fails lamentably because the schemers are deceived by the appearance of
stately garments that Prospero had Ariel arrange before his cell. All attempts at power and
glory are doomed to failure if the values of humanity are not observed.
The placing of families in The Tempest is erratic and disconcerting, following no set of
rules, except for the pursuit of power. Families are divided across space and time, but the
same space and time reunites them in the end. Milan and Naples are places representing
competition and quest for power, whose rulers identify themselves dynastically with their
dukedom or kingdom. For this reason, the play’s Milan and Naples are different from the
geographic locations described in the geographic atlases of the period, because they are
places in which the characters’ anxieties are performed: angst, wish for power, control over
others, domination of the weakest, or merely stupid pursuit of worldly riches. Even the
metaphoric island dominated by Prospero’s magic is a special place, which is seen from
different perspectives by various characters, according to the ways in which their personal
anxieties are played out: fear, remorse, manipulation, or merely grudge and sexual
gratification.
Families are divided and reunited, but the final reunion has a vague note of
unaccomplished venture because not everybody is satisfied. Even if the play offers an
apparent image of happy ending, with Prospero’s family reaching its former grand status and
Alonso’s family gaining a suitable daughter-in-law, the final note rings like a dynastic
alliance rather than a union of souls. Prospero’s cynical manipulation of his vulnerable
victims—including his own daughter—suggests that his family may not be as exemplary as
one might expect. The single-parent family of Milan—including Prospero, Miranda, but also
his usurping brother Antonio and a fictional son—are placed in a theatrical environment of
past desires and frustrations, which condition their present actions. The single-parent family
of Naples—Alonso, Ferdinand, and Alonso’s brother, Sebastian—evolve in a space of angst
143
and apprehension on the island, which corresponds to their past and present psychological
disorders. Finally, the single-parent family formed of Caliban and Sycorax project their
frustrations and unfulfilled desires towards the others—including the innocent Miranda and
the spirit Ariel—to show that altered family relations are inextricably related to the space in
which they develop.

Conclusions
In all the three Shakespearean plays discussed in this chapter there are parents and children,
both of royal families and commoners, but the royal families are central to the plays’
respective plots. In each royal family there is the immediate prospect of marriage of a central
young couple, as well as the reuniting of a young couple recently married when the play
opened (as in Pericles). But there is also ahead a re-established life for the older central
characters: Pericles and Thaisa in Pericles; Leontes and Hermione in The Winter’s Tale; and
Prospero, as well as Alonso (the King of Naples) in The Tempest. The single-parent families
—Prospero and his daughter, Miranda; Alonso and his son, Ferdinand; and Caliban and his
mother Sycorax, in The Tempest; along with the shepherd, Perdita’s adoptive father in The
Winter’s Tale and the incestuous Antiochus and his daughter in Pericles—are never totally
reunited across time and space, as each of them is left with a frustration or fault. Prospero
loses his daughter through marriage to the future King of Naples; Alonso lives in repentance
as King of Naples; Caliban remains alone on his island—with frustrations and partially-
fulfilled wish for power; the foster-parent shepherd delivers his princess-daughter to her
legitimate parents; and Antiochus and his daughter pay for their sinful actions through a
horrible death represented offstage. Families are divided across geographic space and then
are reunited (through the revived mothers), by traversing physical space.
A vital characteristic regarding the families in these three plays is that, in varying
degrees, both these main groups of characters—the young and the old alike—suffer and have
to win the reward against adversity. In Pericles and The Winter’s Tale, the older couples (the
parents) suffer severely, but they are rewarded with seeing their children completing their
lifelong wishes. In each of these plays, the young woman (Marina in Pericles and Perdita in
The Winter’s Tale) is put to great physical danger and subsequent hardships. The young men,
however, are not called upon to suffer: Florizel has his resolution tested, but Lysimachus has
no test after his conversion and his engagement to Marina. The Tempest, again, shows
differences from the other two plays. The young people (Miranda and Ferdinand) have no
real suffering; they do not, in any comparable way, win their ultimate happiness by suffering
144
and struggle. Their significance is mainly symbolic: while the older generation (Prospero and
even his usurping brother, Antonio, as well as Alonso, the King of Naples) struggled for
power, the younger generation do not need to struggle at all, because everything is laid out
for them. Only for a short time, the man (Ferdinand) undergoes labour and dishonour (in the
log-bearing scene); and the woman (Miranda) has been exposed to mortal danger at sea in her
early childhood. This is also the hazard of the young women in Pericles and The Winter’s
Tale. Indeed, in each of these three plays, the sea poses dangers to young and old characters
alike.
Expressive place is perceived differently in all the three plays, according to the play’s
specific spatial configuration and the characters’ psychological state. Characters are placed
on a stage that reflects their inner condition and emotions. Family relationships are
represented as four-dimensional configurations, like mental maps that figure distorted
relationships through the depth of time and space. The dysfunctional families in Pericles
evolve in different places of the Hellenistic world and their twisted psychologies configure an
alienated universe separated by the anxiety-generating sea. The maladjusted royal families of
Bohemia and Sicilia in The Winter’s Tale are defined by the incongruous geographies of their
kingdoms, but also by their inner emotions of jealousy, anger and fear, which are carried
across the sea of troubles dividing the two countries. The three-dimensional space of the
island in The Tempest is associated with a fourth-dimensional psychological space, or rather a
time-space continuum, in which families are placed in a dystopic environment, according to
their frustrations, anxieties, hopes and desires. All these overlapping theatrical spaces
converge in the meta-theatrical environment created by Prospero’s magic art. Prospero is the
master puppeteer manipulating all the other characters, which may be assimilated with his
servants, as Prospero sees himself as their master. As early modern families included the
servants in the larger circle of the family members, the next chapter will look at the functions
of servants in the context of three Shakespearean comedies, in relation to the placing of
family in the theatrical space.

145
 3. THE PLACING OF SHAKESPEARE’S SERVANTS AS FAMILY

In Shakespeare’s time, servants were an integral part of the masters’ family. For this reason,
when discussing the placing of families on Shakespeare’s stage, the servants play an
important role, as they are the go-between messengers linking various aspects of the action.
Not only are they the link between the different members of the family in the play—as they
convey messages or create confusion—but they are also connections among various symbolic
spaces of performance. Their dynamic presence creates the conditions for the placing of
families in the Shakespearean play under discussion in this dissertation (The Merchant of
Venice, Twelfth Night, and Love’s Labour’s Lost). In A Place in the Story: Servants and
Service in Shakespeare’s Plays (2005), Linda Anderson argues that “[s]ervants were an
intrinsic part of early modern life” (12). As Shakespeare’s world can be viewed as a hierarchy
of service corresponding to the hierarchy of classes, a Shakespearean character may have
several servants—or be the servant of one master, and be considered as part of the master’s
family. In addition, as Linda Anderson observes, “[a]lthough the relationship between master
and servant was acknowledged as a human creation, it was nevertheless often described as
being as natural and basic as that between husband and wife or parent and child” (Anderson
22). Moreover, Anderson argues that Shakespeare offers his servants “a place in the story,”
according to the book’s title, which means that servants are just as important as their noble
masters in the context of their respective play.
The early modern patriarchal social milieu related to the family praised the master of
the house as the head of the family, and all the other members are related to him. In Of
Christian Oeconomie (1609) by William Perkins, two full chapters (15 and 16) are dedicated
to the relationships between masters and servants. In the chapter entitled “Of the Master”
(Perkins 152), the author avers: “Next vnto parents and children, whereby the family is
increased, is a second sort of couples, which are helps thereunto. And they are Masters and
seruants” (Perkins 152). This idea of the master and servant as “couples” (Perkins 152)—
working together for the family’s well-being—is a significant feature of early modern
culture. According to Perkins, the master has several duties towards his extended family;
first, to select his servants judiciously; second, to propose labour to them, but only the kind of
labour that their strength may bear; and third, to recompense the servant (Perkins 152-154).
The forms of recompense, according to Perkins, are of three kinds: preferred food (“meat and
drink” 154); financial remuneration (“by paying him his hire in the end of his seruice” 155);
and to care for the servant when he/she is sick (“to procure his recouery” 156). Therefore, the
146
contract between master and servant in the early modern period was a social contract, a work
contract, and some form of health insurance. There are several biblical examples in support of
these arguments in Perkins’ Christian Oeconomie related to masters and servants, and the
conclusion is that “Equitie must be the rule in these cases; and masters are to do to their
seruants that which is just and equall” (Perkins 156). The family is regarded as a well-
ordered universe governed by economic rules and the master is the one who is expected to
deliver justice and behave with magnanimity and equity towards his servants.
Nor are the servants’ duties less binding in relation to the masters’ family and to their
work. Hierarchical relations are highlighted from the beginning, in the chapter entitled “Of
Seruants” (Perkins 156), where the servant is defined as follows: “The Seruant is a person in
the family subiect vnto his master” (Perkins 156). The servant’s duty is to serve his/her
master “faithfully and diligently” (Perkins 156). Servants should take care not to be negligent
in doing their master’s business and not to answer back when rebuked (Perkins 157). This
subservient attitude is not so excessive as to transform a servant into a kind of slave, in total
submission to the master, but it involves a certain amount of reverence and politeness in
relation to the employer. Servants should not steal from their master, or, as Perkins says, the
servant should “withhold his hands from picking” (157) and refrain from deceiving his
master. Servants are divided into two categories, “free” or “bond-seruants” (Perkins 157). A
free servant is hired for wages, while a bond servant is bought for money and is generally
called a slave (Perkins 158). There follows a debate as to whether a Christian is entitled to
own a slave, and several arguments are brought in support of this thesis: the master should
not have the power of life and death over his slave, but the slave should be deferred to the
magistrate when he is wrong; the master should refrain from using his servant “at his owne
will and pleasure in all things” (Perkins 158); the master’s power should not be so large as to
infringe upon the principles of piety and justice (Perkins 159); the servitude should not be
enforced (Perkins 160); and the master should not take the liberty to separate the married
couples or to separate parents from their children (Perkins 159). Therefore, social rules of the
family (marriage and parenthood) take precedence over the work contract between master
and servant.
Several critics have made consistent references to the function of servants in early
modern plays. In Household Servants in Early Modern Domestic Tragedy (2020), Iman
Sheeha advances the existing scholarship concerning the institution of service in early
modern culture, as represented on the early modern stage. Sheeha focuses on the homes of
the middle-class, as represented in the domestic tragedies, and examines the consequences of
147
disordered domesticity for the employer–servant relationship. Sheeha notes that the study of
early modern household service is no longer the under-studied topic that it once was, because
social and cultural historians of the early modern period have focused on the centrality of
these relationships in early modern culture (Sheeha 1). As Sheeha observes about
Shakespeare’s plays, however, “While offering excellent insights into contemporary social
and cultural practices connected with relationships of mastery and service, the servants
depicted in the Shakespearean canon do not offer much by way of opening a window into the
master-servant relationships within the middling sort household whose members constituted
the majority of the audiences who flocked to the playhouses” (Sheeha 4). Taking this
observation as a starting point, I argue that in the Shakespearean comedies analysed in this
dissertation, servants are some sort of middlemen linking members of different social classes,
but also people of different financial positions or interests. Even if their masters are not
always members of the middle class—but rather of the higher classes of the nobility or the
rich merchants—these servants speak eloquently about who their employers are, as well as
about who they are.
In addition, one should not forget that, in the theatre world of the time, Shakespeare
and his contemporary playwrights themselves were considered servants to the nobility, as
they were themselves under contract of work and were patronized by a member of the
nobility. As Peter Thompson observes in the chapter entitled “The Lord Chamberlain’s
Servants” (Thompson 6), from the book Shakespeare’s Theatre (1997), the situation was very
unpleasant in 1597 for Shakespeare’s troupe (the Lord Chamberlain’s Men) because, if they
were no longer given the protection of a nobleman’s livery, they were liable to fall under the
law against vagabonds (Thompson 3). As a result, the troupe became “The Lord
Chamberlain’s Men” (Thompson 6), a term which basically means “servants” (Thompson 3).
Thompson mentions that the troupe of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men “had twelve adult
members and four boys” (Thompson 9). It is necessary to highlight this kind of work contract
within the theatre in which Shakespeare developed most of his activity because the situation
explains the social relations within Shakespeare’s London. Whereas itinerant actors were
considered some kind of vagabonds because they were not affiliated to a nobleman’s house,
their position as servants was strictly in relation to the work they fulfilled as actors and
playwrights. Therefore, the theatrical stage was aptly positioned to mirror correctly the social
relations of Shakespeare’s time and the social position of servants within the larger social
group of the early modern family.

148
 In Service and Dependency in Shakespeare’s Plays (2005), Judith Weil goes even
further to relate servants in Shakespeare’s plays to families. In the chapters entitled “Sons,
Daughters and Servants” (18), “Wives and Servants” (50), and “Friends and Servants” (80),
Weil analyses—from a dramatic perspective rather than as social one—the function of
servants as surrogate members of the early modern family. Claiming that she approaches
“Shakespeare’s plays as evidence of how he tested and explored cultural attitudes towards
service and dependency” (1), Weil uses the concept of “inhabited border” (6) to describe
complex social transactions existing in Shakespeare’s time, as represented on the
Shakespearean stage, from the cultural historian’s perspective. Taking into account “the
agency of actors, their relationships as border dwellers and their involvement in crises” (15),
Weil argues that servants are involved in the lives of both children and adults and “the
‘salience’ of servants in households is one of the defining traits of the English family” (Weil
3). From Weil’s argument I derive the notion of the Shakespearean servant as a peripheral
figure or, in my view, a go-between that connects the spaces related to the family’s home and
the social world beyond it. Moreover, the servant also links the spaces of performance,
whether these are Venice and Belmont (in The Merchant of Venice), Olivia’s and Orsino’s
households in Illyria (in Twelfth Night), and the lords’ enclosed city of Navarre and the
ladies’ camp in the park near Navarre (in Love’s Labour’s Lost).

3.1. Inconstant Launcelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice

In the dramatic world of The Merchant of Venice, the two locations of action (Venice and
Belmont) are set in contrast, but they are also allegories of various identities represented by
characters. Venice epitomises cosmopolitanism and mercantile industry, with the rich usurer
Shylock and Antonio (as the “merchant” of Venice), placed as two opposite (but also
ambivalent) poles of social behaviour. In contrast, Belmont appears to be an idyllic place of
love and fulfilment, where riches play their role in binding families together. For this reason,
families in the play are placed in contrast, according to their locations. In commercial Venice,
there is Shylock’s single-parent family (Shylock and his daughter, Jessica). Yet there is also
Antonio, who is single and isolated from the circle of families; his only surrogate family is
his friend, Bassanio. Antonio does not seem to be too happy about his single state, because,
as he tells his friends at the very beginning of the play, “In sooth I know not why I am so sad”
(I.i.1).46 In the larger social family group of Venice’s merchants and gallants, there are also

46
All references to The Merchant of Venice are to the Arden edition edited by John Russell Brown (1988);
henceforth, acts, scenes and lines will be given parenthetically in the text.

149
Bassanio and his merry friends (Gratiano, Salerio and Solanio), who comment on Antonio’s
sadness, and who may be considered the merchant’s surrogate family. The families in rich
Venice, therefore, are rather imperfect and dissatisfied with their lives, such as, for example,
Jessica (Shylock’s daughter), who elopes with the Christian Gratiano because she is
frustrated with her dreary life in Shylock’s family.
In Belmont there is the rich orphan lady, Portia, whose father is in attendance, even
after his death, through the legacy of the three caskets. Even if Portia plans to marry and form
a family according to her father’s indirect choice of husband, it seems that she intends to
make her own selection of future spouse. Several unwanted suitors are tactfully sent away by
default (a Neapolitan Prince, the County Palatine, a French lord, Monsieur le Bon,
Falconbridge, the young baron of England, and the German Duke of Saxony), or by choosing
the wrong casket (Prince of Morocco and Prince of Arragon). Even if Portia seems to be
satisfied with her position as a rich orphan heiress—determined to obey her father’s will—
she indirectly influences her life and manages to marry young Bassanio. Belmont, therefore,
is a place where new and young families are forged out of frustrations existing in Venice:
Portia and Bassanio, Nerissa and Gratiano, and Jessica and Lorenzo. In Belmont, women are
the positive nuclei of the new families, and their intelligence and wit far surpass those of their
husbands. For this reason, it is possible to see Belmont as positively placing the families in a
favourable context, which could not have been wholly fulfilled in mercantile 47 Venice.
However, the young families in Belmont are not perfect, as they evolve in a commercial
social context and they are also touched by greed, mistrust, and social dissimulation.
Shylock’s single-parent family in Venice is deficient and incomplete because the
wife, Leah, is not present. Like Miranda’s mother in The Tempest, Leah is a ghost character,
in the sense that she is not an acting character in the play, but she projects an aura of
benevolence on Shylock’s family. When Tubal gives Shylock news about his runaway
daughter Jessica—that she might be in “Genoa” (III.i.97), where she exchanged a family ring
for a monkey (III.i.118-119)—Shylock exclaims, “it was my turquoise, I had it of Leah when
I was a bachelor: I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys (III.i.111-113). This

47
In “Pity Silenced: Economies of Mercy in The Merchant of Venice” (2018), Alessandro Marzola argues that
the mercantile value of mercy in the play is contrasted with the value of pity, related to the spectres of poverty
threatening the emerging mercantile economy. As Marzola observes, “The generic Christianity of the
forgiveness summoned by Portia relies in fact upon an all-inclusive mercy which qualifies as Protestant to the
extent that it subsumes, incorporates and represses all traces of Catholic pity” (21). From this multi-cultural
religious perspective, the play does not give a definite answer as to the places of mercy (possibly Belmont) and
mercilessness (possibly associated with Venice). However, as I see it, the servants in the play are humble
observers who link the two places with the ideas of poverty, social justice, and the limits of Christian
forgiveness.

150
shows that Shylock is a sentimental husband, who values the precious ring that his wife gave
him before marriage. This family ring is a symbol of the harmonious union between husband
and wife. For example, in the 1652 book entitled Lapidary: History of pretious stones,
Thomas Nicols describes the “Turkey-stone” (149), or turquoise, as having the property “to
take away all enmity and reconcile man and wife” (149). Therefore, Shylock’s family may
have been a harmonious one while the wife was around. However, as the mother is no longer
present, Jessica is dissatisfied with the dismal atmosphere in her father’s house and she
elopes with Lorenzo. As her father gives her instructions to fasten the door overnight for fear
of thieves, Jessica takes a definitive farewell from her father, as she says, “Farewell—and if
my fortunes be not crost, / I have a father, you a daughter, lost” (II.v.55-56). Jessica defines
the father–daughter relationship not only through the physical presence in the house, but also
through the caring love that Shylock is too oblivious to show to his daughter.
Shylock is not an insensitive father, but he equates feelings with jewels. He complains
to his friend, Tubal, that a diamond is missing: “a diamond gone cost me two thousand ducats
in Frankfort” (III.i.76-77). Then Shylock continues, “I would my daughter were dead at my
foot, and the jewels in her ear” (III.i.80-81). From this apparently callous remark one might
conclude that Shylock would prefer his daughter dead, rather than be deprived of the
possession of his jewels (because Jessica had taken her jewels when eloping with Lorenzo).
However, the implication may also be that Jessica is her father’s most precious jewel, and he
implicitly views her as a valued possession. This might not be so surprising when thinking of
the common conception of fathers in those times; they viewed daughters as nothing else but
possessions, ready to be used in profitable marriages. Such a person may also be Portia’s
father, another ghost character; he does not appear in the play, but he leaves a will stipulating
that the person who chooses the right casket (gold, silver and lead) would be able to marry
the rich heiress. Even after his death, Portia’s father views his daughter as a valuable
possession, but one to be exchanged for a wise husband. In both places (Venice and
Belmont), both fathers (Shylock and Portia’s unnamed father) have their daughters’ best
interests at heart, but they view them as nothing else than live possessions.
In the grim atmosphere of Shylock’s household, Launcelot Gobbo is Shylock’s
servant, but he is also called “clown” in the stage directions (SD II.v.1). Like Jessica,
Launcelot is dissatisfied with Shylock’s behaviour, but he does not dare to contradict his
master. As an obedient servant should, when Shylock calls Jessica, Launcelot does so as well.
When Shylock is angry that the servant dares to call Jessica by name—thus showing lack of
respect—Launcelot answers pertly: “I could do nothing without bidding” (II.v.8). Apparently,
151
Launcelot Gobbo is aware of his duties as an obedient servant, who does nothing without his
master’s command. However, by echoing Shylock’s call, Launcelot shows disrespect and
familiarity towards Jessica, and this is disruptive in itself. Moreover, as an echo to his
master’s words, Launcelot expresses his role as a theatrical mask, an actor. In the book
entitled 'What May Words Say?': A Reading of the The Merchant of Venice (2011), Inge
Leimberg discusses the different levels on which Launcelot Gobbo may be approached.
Leimberg examines the three perspectives of reading this character (literal, moral, and
allegorical), as she writes: “On the literal level, Launcelot is the Jew’s servant deciding to
leave his master; on the moral level, he is the ‘fool’ who is ‘fain of flitting’; on the allegorical
level, he is giving the slip not so much to the Jew as to his own conscience; and finally, on
the symbolic level, he becomes a dramatis persona in the original sense of the word: a mask
through which the words reverberate, disturbingly and strangely” (Leimberg 63). From this
pertinent analysis of the character, I retain the idea that Launcelot is a theatrical “mask”
(Leimberg 63), taking many shapes and symbolizing many things at the same time.
As he is dissatisfied with life in Shylock’s house, Launcelot Gobbo decides “to run
from this Jew my master” (II.ii.1-2). However, Launcelot feels that this is against the
common rules of society, as he would break the work contract between master and servant.
As a consequence, Launcelot Gobbo enacts a meta-theatrical performance, in the form of an
argument between “the fiend” (II.ii.2), the devil, sitting at one elbow, and his “conscience”
(II.ii.6), the good spirit, who is responsible for the actions of “honest Gobbo” (II.ii.7). In this
way, Launcelot imagines himself the central character of a morality play, in which the fight
between good and evil is enacted. However, this is a rhetorical fight and, in the end, the fiend
“gives the more friendly counsel” (II.ii.29), and Launcelot is persuaded to leave the
employment of the Jew. Just at the moment when Launcelot takes this decision, he
encounters his father, old Gobbo, “my true-begotten father” (II.ii.33). Here, again, Launcelot
uses allusive language, because the phrase “truly begotten” is used in Christianity when
referring to Christ, the truly begotten son of God, the father. While using a mockery of
Christian theological language in relation to his biological father, Launcelot reveals his
spurious personality; his relation to his father is ambivalent, to say the least.
Launcelot Gobbo has a disrespectful and even aggressive attitude toward his father
when he meets him, especially since he knows of old Gobbo’s disability; the father is “sand-
blind, high gravel-blind” (II.ii.34) and, for this reason, he cannot see his son. The metaphors
that Launcelot Gobbo uses in relation to his father’s blindness are connected to the common
phrase “stone-blind,” but they are different from the conventional phrase. Through this
152
ambivalent metaphor, Launcelot shows that he has a rather thorny relationship with his
father, who sent him to work as a servant for the rich Jew at an early age. Neither does the
father know his son, nor is the son willing to care for his father. On the contrary, Launcelot
Gobbo displays callousness when he gives his blind father wrong directions towards
Shylock’s house, as Launcelot knows that his father cannot see the way. Then, Launcelot
pretends to be a stranger to his own father and speaks of himself as “young Master
Launcelot” (II.ii.47), thus pretending to be of higher social status. The son’s intention to “try
confusion” (II.ii.35) with his old and disabled father shows that the son lacks empathy
towards his father, but also that he is ready to play roles, or masks, in the game of life. Old
Gobbo knows his humble social position, so he corrects the speaker by saying, “No ‘master’
sir, but a poor man’s son—his father (though I say’t) is an honest exceeding poor man”
(II.ii.48-49). During the conversation between father and son, when the father is unaware that
he is talking to his own son, Old Gobbo has a realistic sense of his social position of humility,
while his son, Launcelot, has high aspirations of social climbing.
As Launcelot continues to mock his father, he pretends that “Master Launcelot” … “is
indeed deceased” (II.ii.57; 60-61). This fictional character, “Master Launcelot” (II.ii.57),
which is a term used to address the young members of the nobility or of the rich families,
acquires great proportions in Launcelot Gobbo’s imagination. As he has aspirations of
transcending his humble social status as a servant and become a “young Master” (II.ii.47) in a
rich family, Launcelot Gobbo invents a spurious personality, which he presents to his father
as real. When he decides to end the confusion game, he tells his father that this fictional
young master is dead. This shows that Young Launcelot Gobbo wears a fictional mask and he
pretends to be somebody else than he really is. The young man is dissatisfied with his humble
position as a servant, so he leaves the Jew’s house, but he continues to be a servant in
Bassanio’s employment. When Old Gobbo hears that his son Launcelot is allegedly dead, he
exclaims: “the boy was the very staff of my age, my very prop” (II.ii.63-64). Indeed, in the
social context of the early modern family, the son was expected to be a supporting staff for
his parents in old age, in a metaphorical sense. However, Launcelot takes his father’s words
literally, and exclaims, “Do I look like a cudgel or a hovel-post, a staff, or a prop? (II.ii.65-
66). Finally, when he decides to end the game of mockery in relation to his father, Launcelot
asks repeatedly, “Do you know me father?” (II.ii.66; 70). As Launcelot concludes, “it is a
wise father that knows his own child” (II.ii.73-74). This shows the lack of understanding and
miscommunication between father and son in the lower-class servant family.

153
 The father-son relationship in the lower-class families in early modern times was as
distant as that between master and servant. When Launcelot Gobbo reveals himself to his
blind father, he says, “I am Launcelot your boy that was, your son that is, your child that shall
be” (II.ii.81-82). This shows the stages of a person’s development in relation to his family;
when a boy, he is dependent on his father; as a son, he is a mature young man who feels he
should be independent of his family; as a future “child” (II.ii.82), the reference is probably to
the son’s duty to his father until the end of his father’s life. For a parent, the son is forever a
child, even if he is already a mature man. Since Old Gobbo cannot take in Launcelot’s
impersonation of his son, and the old man tends to disbelieve the young man’s words,
Launcelot mentions his mother’s name, Margery. Only when the family is complete (father,
mother and son) does Old Gobbo recognize his own son. The mother is the central figure of
the family, and when she is given identity (a name), her position in the Gobbo family is
complete and the father admits that “thou art mine own flesh and blood” (II.ii.88). The Gobbo
family is placed in an unequal position as compared to the rich families of Venice, such as
that of Shylock. However, when the servants are dissatisfied with their master—as Launcelot
Gobbo is dissatisfied with the service to the Jew—they have the right to change their
position, as Launcelot does. Launcelot uses his father’s authority to change masters, as he
introduces himself as the former servant of the Jew.
The Gobbo family—father and son—are placed lower on the social spectrum than
Shylock’s family because the Jew has money. When the servant (Launcelot) wants to change
jobs (because he has ambitions), he uses his old father as a recommendation, telling Bassanio
that it is his father’s wish to change jobs. As Launcelot says, “the Jew having done me wrong,
doth cause me as my father (being I hope an old man) shall frutify unto you” (II.ii.125-127).
Launcelot uses his father’s old age as a recommendation for his new job, and he uses the
malapropism “frutify” (II.ii.127), or “fructify”, which is meant to stand for “certify”; thus,
Launcelot means that his aged father is there to certify that it is his wish that his son should
leave Shylock’s employment. This is some sort of legal bind through which Launcelot’s
servant status is transferred—by the authority of the father—from one master to another. In
exchange for the new master’s benevolence, Old Gobbo offers Bassanio “a dish of doves”
(II.ii.128), the gift from a country peasant who comes to the city to please his son’s master. In
fact, Old Gobbo’s gift was meant for Shylock—as Shylock was his son’s master initially—
but now the gift of doves is transferred to Bassanio, who accepts it graciously. As he orders
his followers to “give him a livery” (II.ii.147-148), Bassanio is ready to include Launcelot
Gobbo in his household and, consequently, his extended family, as the livery signifies that a
154
person is employed by a nobleman. In this way, Launcelot Gobbo achieves his ambitions,
rising from the position of a serving man in a Jew’s house (considered to be of a lower status
in society) to that of a Christian nobleman’s servant.
Once he has achieved his social ambitions, Launcelot Gobbo is radically changed: his
language improves, as does his view on life. It seems that the nobleman’s livery is a
miraculous object, which can offer social status. In The Stage Clowns in Shakespeare’s
Theatre, Bente A. Videbaek observes about Launcelot Gobbo that his function in the play
changes as he leaves Shylock’s house and moves to be a servant in Bassanio’s household. As
Videbaek notes, “after he is employed by Bassanio, his style becomes more polished. Even
his language changes, leaving out the malapropisms and adding elaborate puns, and his
propensity for practical jokes disappears” (Videbaek 67). Indeed, Launcelot even changes his
social status, as he is called “friend Launcelot” (II.iv.9) by Lorenzo, Bassanio’s friend.
Actually, Lorenzo has an ulterior motive for trying to ingratiate himself with Launcelot,
because Lorenzo wants to send a secret message to Jessica via Shylock’s former servant.
When he arrives at Shylock’s house to invite Shylock for dinner at Bassanio’s house,
Launcelot subtly mocks Shylock’s superstition, when the father tells Jessica to lock the doors
as a result of a bad omen, because he had dreamt of “money-bags” (II.v.18) last night.
Launcelot speaks of a “masque” (II.v.23), a theatrical entertainment, in order to scare
Shylock away, because he knows that Shylock hates such forms of entertainment. Not only is
Launcelot Gobbo a good psychologist in relation to his father, but he can also manipulate the
fears and frustrations of his former master, Shylock, making him leave his house on that
particular night. Thus, Launcelot is instrumental in helping Lorenzo to elope with Jessica.
Launcelot Gobbo, therefore, is a go-between uniting the families of two contrastive
worlds, Venice and Belmont. While in Venice, in Shylock’s service, Launcelot is a clown, he
uses inadequate language and is dissatisfied with his life. When he performs the transition to
being a servant to the gallant Bassanio, Launcelot is prepared to repudiate not only his former
master (Shylock) but also his father (Old Gobbo) and his former self. However, Launcelot
uses his father’s authority to secure the position to his new master. Once he becomes
Bassanio’s servant, Launcelot’s behaviour changes and he becomes self-confident. When
Bassanio marries Jessica in Belmont—thus forming a newly-created nuclear family—
Launcelot Gobbo becomes even more confident and he acts as a critic of his previous social
situation in Venice. In Belmont, Launcelot even engages in a sophisticated conversation with
Jessica—his former master’s daughter—and he uses cultured language to criticize issues of
religion and family. Launcelot starts with a biblical comment regarding “the sins of the father
155
are to be laid upon the children” (III.v.1-2), warning Jessica that she is prone to suffer for her
father’s misbehaviour. In this context, Launcelot considers that Jessica’s only hope is a
“bastard hope” (III.v.7), which is that Jessica might not be Shylock’s legitimate daughter or,
as he says, “that you are not the Jew’s daughter” (III.v.10). Indeed, according to Mosaic law,
the sins of the fathers are supposed to be transferred to their children, but Launcelot is in no
position to judge such matters and to have a theological conversation with Jessica.
On the other hand, Jessica’s rhetorical skills are comparably higher than Launcelot’s
attempt at criticising her birth and her mother’s moral conduct. In reply, Jessica turns the
commonplace phrase around, and she says, “That were a kind of bastard hope indeed, —so
the sins of my mother should be visited upon me” (III.v.11-12). Jessica’s reply implies that
she is supposed to suffer in any case—for the sins of her tyrannical father (Shylock) or, in the
opposite case, for the sins of her mother for having committed adultery, which is also
punished according to Mosaic law. In this dialogue, we see Jessica’s spirit and education set
in cogent argumentation with Launcelot’s spurious and incomplete instruction. By setting two
different opinions about the legitimate and illegitimate family in contrast, Jessica implies that
these are just social errors, which might be easily dismantled with suitable arguments. On his
side, Launcelot uses mythological allusions to refer to this no-win social situation in which
Jessica might be involved: “Truly then I fear you are damn’d by both father and mother; thus,
when I shun Scylla (your father), I fall into Charibdis (your mother); well, you are gone both
ways” (III.v.13-16).48 The phrase referring to being caught between Scylla and Charibdis
symbolizes placing a person in an impossible position. Despite the correct use of classical
mythological allusions, however, Launcelot Gobbo is in no position to judge Shylock, Leah,
or Jessica.
Jessica sees through the flaws in Launcelot’s argument and she turns it around by
referring to her current position as a Christian wife, married to a Christian husband: “I shall
be sav’d by my husband, —he hath made me a Christian” (III.v.17-18). Jessica expects
Launcelot to run out of counterarguments when the issue of the overpowering Christian
religion is brought into conversation. In fact, Jessica does not highlight the conflict between
Christian and Jew, legitimate and illegitimate, or parents as being responsible for their
children’s social status and behaviour. Quite the reverse, Jessica illuminates the social and
religious stereotypes that are common to all societies, in Renaissance Venice, in Belmont, or

48
According to The Oxford Classical Dictionary, Charibdis is “a sort of whirlpool or maelstrom in a narrow
channel of the sea (later identified with the straits of Messina, where there is nothing of the kind), opposite to
Scylla; it sucks and casts out the water three times a day and no ship can possibly live in it” (185). Alternatively,
Scylla is “a sea monster living in a cave opposite Charibdis” (Oxford Classical Dictionary 820).

156
in Elizabethan London, and which ruin all possibility of human understanding. In his turn,
Launcelot Gobbo’s new self-confident ego—accustomed to having the last word in a debate
with a woman and a Jewess—continues the argument without noticing the irony of Jessica’s
reply. As Launcelot says, there were enough Christians before, and adding another one would
“raise the price of hogs” (III.v.21-22) and turn everyone into “pork eaters” (III.v.22).
Apparently, the irony is addressed to the Hebrew religion, which forbids eating pork, but
Christianity is certainly ridiculed through Launcelot’s disparaging remark referring to coarse
food. In the end, Launcelot Gobbo’s rhetoric fails when faced with Jessica’s subtle
arguments. This shows that, in fact, the unschooled Launcelot Gobbo may lose face when
pitted up against Jessica’s wit, despite his self-confidence; what he thinks to be a promotion
on the social scale, through his service to the Belmont family, does not help improve his
prejudiced religious and racial opinions.
The conversation between Launcelot and Jessica receives a new social, racial and
religious dimension when Lorenzo joins in, and Jessica reports Launcelot’s argument that
“there is no mercy for me in heaven, because I am a Jew’s daughter: and he says you are no
good member of the commonwealth, for in converting Jews to Christians, you raise the price
of pork” (III.v.29-33). What Launcelot thought as a witty remark—according to his
pragmatic spirit—looks like a silly statement when reported by Jessica. Lorenzo responds
with a direct attack on Launcelot’s morality, by implying that Launcelot had an illicit
relationship with a Moorish woman and that he left her pregnant: “the Moor is with child by
you Launcelot!” (III.v.35-36). This is an unexplained passage, which suggests that Launcelot
is not so keen in forming a legitimate family and he had an illegitimate sexual relationship
with a woman of a different race and religion. The play introduces Islam, besides Judaism
and Christianity, in the play’s complex debate about religion and race. Launcelot’s does not
relent in the battle of wits with Lorenzo, suggesting, by means of a quibble, that his
relationship with the Moorish woman is legitimate: “It is much that the Moor should be more
than reason: but if she be less than an honest woman, she is indeed more than I took her for”
(III.v.37-39). It is not clear, therefore, whether Launcelot Gobbo’s potential new family is
legitimate or not, nor is it clear whether his Moorish woman is from Venice or Belmont, but
this new fictional couple is added to the three legitimate families formed in Portia’s Belmont.
In the end, all religious and racial arguments conclude with the commonality of food, as
Lorenzo orders Launcelot to tell the servants to prepare dinner.
The young families in Belmont (Portia and Bassanio, Nerissa and Graziano and
Jessica and Lorenzo) represent slightly different social positions, but they are not seen as
157
dissimilar to one another. All three couples are young, they represent the second generation
of nuclear families, and their approach to life might be expected to be unprejudiced and
refreshing. However, Portia looks rather set in the conventional ways of a daughter obeying
her father’s will, while Bassanio rejects “ornament” (III.ii.74) and riches in favour of “fair
Portia’s counterfeit” (III.ii.115) by choosing the lead casket. The couple Portia–Bassanio,
however, looks rather unbalanced, as the wife is far wittier and more aware of the social
implications of marriage than her husband is. Moreover, Lorenzo takes Portia as a model in
marriage, when he tells Jessica, “Even such a husband / Hast thou of me, as she is for a wife”
(III.v.77-78). Nerissa has acquired her husband upon the previous promise that, if Bassanio
marries Portia, so Nerissa should love Gratiano (III.ii.205-208). This looks like a promise of
marriage based on duty and imitation, rather than love. Even more so, Gratiano dares to bet
on who will have the first male child: “We’ll play with them the first boy for a thousand
ducats” (III.ii.213-214). This wager on the birth of a first male child shows the callousness of
men’s principles, who think only of the social prestige they would get from the birth of a son.
Moreover, the wager on the child is opposed to the pound-of-flesh contract signed by
Antonio and Shylock to suggest the insensitivity of social contracts and the commodification
of women’s bodies and children’s lives through conventional marriages.
Graziano’s self-confidence in the men’s successful marriage is opposed to the
rumoured loss of Antonio’s riches. As Graziano proudly tells Salerio, his friends in Belmont,
“We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece” (III.ii.240). Salerio comes with bad news from
Venice about Antonio, so he responds, “I would you had won the fleece that he hath lost”
(III.ii.241).49 The men see themselves as great winners, like Jason, the mythological hero who
has won the golden fleece. In this context, Portia’s wealth is associated with the golden
fleece, when Bassanio reports to Antonio that “In Belmont is a lady richly left” (I.i.161) and
“her sunny locks / Hang on her temples like a golden fleece” (I.i.169-170). The woman’s
golden hair is associated with her wealth (the golden ducats), so Portia’s body is
commodified to respond to Bassanio’s need for material wealth. Belmont is associated with
Colchis, the place of origin of the myth of the Golden Fleece. As Bassanio concludes about
Portia’s wealth, “Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos’ strand, / And many Jasons come
in quest for her” (I.i.171-172). Initially men see themselves as the winners of the
49
Here there is a pun between “fleet” and “fleece”, as Antonio’s argosies, or fleet, are supposed to be lost at this
point in the play. In this way, the play allegorizes a series of wins and losses as part of everyday life. Antonio’s
vessels have travelled the world, “From Tripolis, from Mexico and England, / From Lisbon, Barbary, and India”
(III.ii.267-268), but they are supposed to have been lost on “merchant-marring rocks” (III.ii.270). The hard
rocks of the sea and fortune, as well as the hard rocks of life, are metaphors for the loss of mercantile fortunes as
a result of tempests at sea.

158
commodified rich women, comparing themselves with the great hero Jason. However, the
allusion to the undomesticated land of Colchis50 inserts notions of barbarity in the play’s
references to Portia’s Belmont. The indirect allusion to the sorceress Medea, who became a
symbol of cruel motherhood because she later killed her children by Jason, makes the men’s
confidence in their powers of conquest rather spurious. Families are never perfect; even if the
couples Portia–Bassanio and Nerissa–Graziano may seem a match made in heaven, with the
men as rightful winners of the women’s wealth, there is no merry conclusion to these familial
unions.
As for the mixed-race and mixed-religion couple Jessica–Lorenzo, their retreat in
Portia’s apparently idyllic Belmont, far from the commercial world of Venice, does not
necessarily represent a passage to absolute bliss of the young family. The servant, Launcelot
Gobbo, reveals, callously and ironically, the difference in race, religion and wealth between
the Jewish wife and the Christian husband. Similarly, Jessica is realistic about the romantic
love her husband declares to her. Lorenzo is rather jealous of Jessica’s conversation with
Launcelot Gobbo, even if this discussion is like a war of wits. As Lorenzo says, “I shall grow
jealous of you shortly Launcelot, if you thus get my wife into corners!” (III.v.26-27). This is
just imaginary jealousy, and Lorenzo wants to impress his wife by creating a romantic scene
under the moonlight, beginning with “The moon shines so bright. In such a night as this”
(V.i.1). However, what looks as fictional and allegorical interpretation of couples of lovers
from mythology is, actually, an inventory of stories of love, betrayal and loss: the story of
Cressida and Troilus in ancient Troy (V.i.4-6); the tragic story of Pyramus and Thisbe in
ancient Hellespont (V.i.6-9); the story of Dido and Aeneas in ancient Carthage (V.i.9-12);
and the story of Medea and Jason in ancient Colchis and Greece (V.i.12-14). Compared to
these tragic couples, Jessica replies that Lorenzo swore undying love to her, “And ne’er a true
one” (V.i.20). Jessica’s allusion to Lorenzo’s insincerity transforms the apparently idyllic
world of Belmont—where loving couples are supposed to be happy under the stars and the
moonlight—into a world in which families are divided by insincerity and greed.
In this world of social fracture and dysfunctional families, where romantic love is as
artificial as the stories from classical mythology, while pragmatic social behaviour is
relevant, servants play the role of go-betweens. They wear social masks—like everybody else
—which hide their true intentions; they literally travel between the place of commercial
Venice and the apparently idyllic Belmont. Launcelot Gobbo leaves his master (Shylock) in

50
According to The Oxford Classical Dictionary, “Colchis was a region at the east end of the Euxine Sea, just
south of the Caucasus mountains; the legendary home of Medea and the goal of Jason’s expedition” (211).

159
Venice and climbs the social scale by serving his new master in Belmont (Bassanio). He is
the messenger of pleasant news, when he bears the invitation to dinner from Bassanio to
Shylock in Venice (II.iv.17-18); when he slips a secret message from Lorenzo to Jessica
behind her father’s back (II.v.39-42); when he uses quibbling language with Jessica just to
show his wit (III.v.1-23); and when he announces Bassanio’s return to Belmont, after the
successful trial in Venice, “with a horn full of good news” (V.i.47). It looks as if Launcelot
Gobbo is the bearer of happy tidings for the young families in Belmont, but he is an acute
critic of the current social habits that allow for social inequality. The play does not make it
clear that Launcelot Gobbo is right and the others are wrong. On the contrary, the clown
frequently disrupts the expectations of idyllic social harmony in Belmont and shows the
veneer of wealth in Venice as a sign of social hypocrisy. Nor is Belmont a better place for the
young families formed there, as their love is vitiated by mistrust and disguise.
Other servants who bear messages and act as go-betweens between the worlds of their
masters and the outside social circles are Balthazar and Stephano, servants to Portia, and
Leonardo, servant to Bassanio, as well as Antonio’s man. An unnamed Servingman tells his
mistress, Portia, that “The four strangers seek for you madam to take their leave” (I.ii.116), so
he is the bearer of good news. He informs Portia that the four unwanted suitors (the
Neapolitan prince, the County Palatine, the English baron Falconbridge and the German
Duke of Saxony) have given up their suit. However, in the same breath, the Servingman
announces that there is a “forerunner” (I.ii.118) from a fifth suitor, the Prince of Morocco,
who will arrive shortly. This forerunner is another servant, who brings a message from the
Prince of Morocco, his master. Coming one after another, the good and bad news announced
by Portia’s Servingman is mutually reductive; this shows not only that the social world of
Portia’s Belmont is a place of multicultural encounter of international suitors seeking to
found a family by marrying Portia, the rich heiress, but also that Belmont is a place of
competition and conflict, as Portia is generally dissatisfied with all these foreign suitors.
Balthazar is Portia’s servant, who acts as a messenger and takes a letter from Portia to
Padua, to her cousin, doctor Bellario, providing Portia with a recommendation for her
disguise as a lawyer. According to Portia, he has proved to be “honest-true” (III.iv.46) and he
promises to “go with all convenient speed” (III.iv.56) to fulfil his task. Convenient speed is
associated with Mercury, the Roman god of commerce and communication, so Balthazar is
the expedient go-between that links Portia’s Belmont and Padua, the place of the famous
university where young men were educated in the principles of law. Through his intercession,
Balthazar is also an agent of destiny, because he makes possible Portia’s intervention in
160
saving Antonio during the trial scene. The name Balthazar comes from Greek, and in the
biblical tradition it belongs to one of the three wise men of the Orient who brought gifts to the
baby Jesus, though their names are not stated in the Bible. However, this biblical association
sends to the Holy Family—another symbolic family with deep cultural meanings.
Interestingly, Balthazar is also the assumed name that Portia takes when disguised as a
lawyer during the trial scene, which shows that she has little imagination in the choice of
fictional names and she prefers to use the names of her servants. From the perspective of the
master–servant relationship, Balthazar is a faithful servant who fulfils his duty
conscientiously.
Portia’s household is populated with useful and dependable servants, so she is a good
master to these people. Stephano, another one of Portia’s servants, informs Lorenzo and
Jessica of the arrival of Portia and Nerissa, supposedly coming back from a retirement in a
convent. Stephano describes himself as a “friend” (V.i.26) when Lorenzo asks who “comes
so fast in silence of the night” (V.v.25). This shows that Stephano acts according to Portia’s
instructions and he is loyal to her. In fact, Lorenzo is not too pleased that Stephano interrupts
his romantic interlude with Jessica, so he is rather harsh with Stephano. In his turn, Stephano
reports that Portia will be home by morning, as she is delayed on her way by stopping “By
holy crosses where she kneels and prays / For happy wedlock hours” (V.i.31-32). It is not
clear whether Stephano’s report is true, as we know that Portia was in Venice, at Shylock’s
trial, not in the convent. On the other hand, Stephano’s statement may also ring true,
considering that Portia wants to give the impression that she was away to a religious convent.
Therefore, the servant may be lying for his mistress (as she may not have stopped at every
cross on the road); or Portia may have lied to the others (as she was not in a convent, but in
Venice). All signs seem to indicate that Portia is the one who plays an act—as she did in
Venice as a lawyer in disguise—because Stephano reports that she is accompanied by her
maid (Nerissa) and “a holy hermit” (V.i.33). This mysterious character may be another
servant in disguise, who plays the role of the hermit to support the credibility of Portia’s
religious retreat during the time she was actually in Venice, participating in the trial. When
she arrives home, Portia instructs Nerissa to order her servants to keep silent about her
departure: “Go in Nerissa / Give order to my servants, that they take / No note at all of our
being absent hence” (V.i.118-120). This shows that Portia’s servants are satisfied with their
mistress and they are ready to lie for her when necessary.
The musicians in Portia’s house in Belmont are servants of another sort, trained to
entertain their mistress and her guests. When Lorenzo is left in charge of Portia’s house,
161
while Portia is away to Venice to participate in Shylock’s trial disguised as a lawyer, the
musicians take orders from Lorenzo. The young man uses them to provide the musical
background during his romantic scene with Jessica, but it is understood that they play out of
sight, to respect the young couple’s privacy. As Lorenzo tells Jessica, “Here will we sit, and
let the sounds of music / Creep in our ears—soft stillness of the night / Become the touches of
sweet harmony” (V.i..55-57). The musicians play their music in the background, which
allows Lorenzo to meditate on the harmony of immortal souls, in the Neoplatonic style.
When his romantic speech is finished, Lorenzo calls in the musicians with a rather coarse
holler, which is in total contrast to the soft atmosphere created before: “Come ho! And wake
Diana with a hymn, / With sweetest touches pierce your mistress’ ear / And draw her home
with music” (V.i.66-69). As he no longer needs the musicians to provide the discrete
background for his romantic scene with Jessica, Lorenzo treats the musicians as servants and
he orders them in harsh tones to “wake Diana with a hymn” (V.i.66). As Diana is the Roman
goddess of chastity, the allusion may be to Portia’s chastity, but also to Jessica’s.
Alternatively, Diana is the goddess of hunt, and a hymn is a religious song of praise to a god.
Therefore, Portia is associated to a goddess of great power, whose benevolence should be
obtained by singing her praises. This is the attitude that a servant in Portia’s household might
have towards his mistress.
Servants in Venice and Belmont act in accordance to their work contracts, dutifully
enforced in early modern times. They are go-betweens and work as messengers between their
masters’ families and the social world outside the family. Servants are expected to respect the
supremacy of their masters, but in the mercantile world of Venice things are different. As the
uneducated Launcelot Gobbo considers himself above his Jewish master, he wants to move
up in life and he leaves Shylock’s service for Bassanio’s. In this way, Launcelot is a go-
between uniting the places of Venice and Belmont. However, the placing of servants within
the play’s families is adapted to the particular place of action. While in Venice, Launcelot
Gobbo is the rebellious servant who dares to mock his master (Shylock) and behave
irreverently towards his master’s daughter, Jessica. In Belmont, Launcelot seems to be more
integrated in the place’s atmosphere of benevolence and he is the bearer of good news.
However, in both Venice and Belmont, Launcelot Gobbo wears a mask, which shows that he
is a social actor and does not fully conform to the communal norms, which predicate the
servants’ obedience towards their masters. On the other hand, Portia’s servants in Belmont
look as if they are satisfied with their position as servants in Portia’s benevolent household
and they are ready to do anything for their mistress, even lie, if necessary.
162
 3.2. Clowns, Servants and Actors in Twelfth Night
This subchapter examines the figures of clowns and servants in Shakespeare’s
romantic comedy and the ways in which they associate the world of the play to the theatre
world outside the play. Starting from the critical opinion that the play’s Illyria and the
Twelfth Night represent a symbolic space–time continuum (Elam 2), I argue that the servants
in this comedy are figures of transition reconfiguring the theatre world; they act as self-
motivated go-betweens who are, at the same time, characters in the play as well as actors in
the fictional plays-within-the-play being enacted in front of the audience. While transiting the
worlds of their respective masters’ households (Olivia’s and Orsino’s houses), these servants
(the clown Feste, Viola as Orsino’s page Cesario, Fabian, Malvolio, and Maria) use witty
language, disguise, play-acting and play-scripting to recreate an illusionary world of the
theatre in the non-place that is the play’s Illyria. Rather than being mere servants in their
respective households, these characters are theatrical actors interpreting roles, disguised as
other people, thus generating comedic effect and augmenting the issue of meta-theatricality in
the play.
Twelfth Night or What You Will transports the audience to a space–time continuum
that speaks of illusory times of feasting and imaginary places. As Keir Elam observes about
the play’s setting, “The interpretation of ‘Twelfth Night” and ‘Illyria’—not only as seasonal
and geographical settings but also as dominant symbolic time and space—creates an all-
important frame for the understanding of the overall action” (Elam 2). Indeed, not only is the
last night out of the twelve nights of feasting and dancing after Christmas relevant for the
play’s atmosphere of carnival and topsy-turvy world; not only are its clown characters
suggestive of the theatre and wearing masks all the time; but also, the elusive setting of Illyria
has limited correspondence with the real-life geographic space of Illyria in Shakespeare’s
time. As Lisa Marciano observes in “The Serious Comedy of Twelfth Night: Dark
Didacticism in Illyria” (2003), “a dark didacticism, an urgent sense that life must be lived
well because it is short, often underlies Shakespeare’s plays, and, this principle, at least in
part, accounts for the seriousness with which we regard Shakespeare’s comedies” (Marciano
3). This kind of dark atmosphere and seriousness in the play is brought about by the play’s
clowns (Feste), servants (Malvolio, Fabian, Servant, Viola as Cesario, musicians), and
companions (Maria, Sir Andrew Aguecheek), representing the world of the stage. They are
dynamic go-betweens (servants and actors), who link Orsino’s and Olivia’s households to the
world of imaginary Illyria, but also to the theatre space.
163
 Although the play is set in Illyria—and includes some allusions to such distant world
as the Ottoman Empire—the context is basically English. Keir Elam suggests that the name
would not suggest much to Elizabethan audiences, as it was rather linked to exoticism and
imaginary places, similar to Elysium. As Elam remarks in the Introduction to the Arden
edition of Twelfth Night, “The name therefore discouraged the audience from linking the
setting with any contemporary geographical or geopolitical reality” (71). It is true that,
historically, Illyria was an ancient region of the Balkan peninsula, denoting generally the
Adriatic coast north of central Albania and West of the Dinaric Alps. The name was known
to educated audiences from reading the abridged English edition of Abraham Ortelius’ An
epitome of Ortelius his Theater of the world (1601), where “Illyricum” (in Latin) is
represented with an additional map, and the following description: “Betwene the Adriatyke
sea & the kingdome of Hungarie were in old tyme two famous regions, the one Illyricum, the
other Dalmatia, but Illyricum beeing now deuyded into many sundry prouinces, as
Schlauonia, Croatia, Carnia, or Carinthia, Istria, Bosnia, &c. maketh that the confynes of
this country (through diuersiue of the opinions of authors) are not easy to bee set downe”
(Ortelius 9). Therefore, Illyria is a “non-place” (Augé 75), 51 a kind of elsewhere and a space
of transition, where characters cannot establish their identity. The diversity of opinions
among early modern geographers concerning the name of Illyria does nothing to clarify the
ambiguity of the country’s imaginary location. Therefore, the play’s Illyria suggests a holiday
space of license and misrule, governed by ambiguous practices and possibilities.
As concerns the space of action, therefore, Illyria represents a kind of romantic reality
space, where there are certain intruders, such as the Captain of the wrecked ship, who
befriends Viola, and Antonio, a sea-captain who befriends Sebastian. Viola’s first words in
the play are “What country, friends, is this?” (1.2.1),52 suggesting uncertainty and confusion,
as she has been shipwrecked on the unknown coast. The Captain 53 of the wrecked ship, who
51
Non-place has been coined by French anthropologist Marc Augé, in Non-Places: Introduction to an
Anthropology of Supermodernity (1995), in order to indicate the anthropological spaces of ephemerality, where
human beings remain anonymous; these do not hold enough significance to be regarded as places in the
anthropological definition. As Augé notes, “Place and non-place are rather like opposite polarities: the first is
never completely erased, the second never totally completed; they are like palimpsests on which the scrambled
game of identity and relations is ceaselessly inscribed” (79). However, Augé refers to what he calls
“supermodernity” in the title; therefore, the non-places he refers to (hotel rooms, airports and shopping malls)
are related to postmodern identity. In early modern literature, however, non-places are not exactly utopias
(which also means “non-place”, from the Greek ou “not” and topos, “place”); they are rather imaginary
locations that are both here and there, which are marked by transience; they suggest an immaterial land of
elsewhere, which has certain connections to the real-life location and with the theatre space.
52
References to Twelfth Night are to the Arden edition, edited by Keir Elam (2008); acts, scenes and lines will
be given parenthetically in the text.
53
The Captain was a native of Illyria, as he tells Viola he was “bred and born / Not three hours’ travel from this
very place” (1.2.20-21). This character summons many associations with the sea as a symbol of fortune and the

164
saved her—a brave commoner who is used to set in contrast the ideas of home and
homelessness—answers seriously, “This is Illyria, lady” (1.2.1). Viola asks, uncertainly:
“And what should I do in Illyria? / My brother he is in Elysium” (1.2.3-4). As Viola thought
her brother (Sebastian) was drowned, she believed he was in the land of the dead. In Greek
mythology, Elysium was the abode of the blessed after death, a kind of pagan heaven. In this
way, Viola plays on the assonance of Illyria with Elysium, thus implying a remote place at
the margins of human geography and imagination. Increasing the poetic atmosphere of
unreality, the pragmatic Captain implies that Sebastian may not be dead, as he says, “like
Arion on the dolphin’s back / I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves / So long as I
could see” (1.2.14-16). Arion was a semi-legendary Greek poet and musician who, in order to
escape being robbed and murdered by sailors, sang, accompanied by his lyre, and so charmed
a dolphin, which carried him safely ashore on the island of Corinth. The metaphor suggests
the power of poetry to move the souls, but also miraculous survivals from drowning at sea.
These mythological allusions enhance the surreal atmosphere that surrounds the play’s
almost-magical place of Illyria.
As Viola disguises herself as Cesario (Orsino’s page), she is one of the play’s
foremost servants, who is in the duke’s company most of the time, and who shares his most
intimate thoughts and feelings. It is for this reason that Duke Orsino sends the “page” Cesario
as a messenger to his beloved Olivia, creating the opportunity for the bereaved lady to fall in
love with the cross-dressed servant. The ambiguity of Viola’s disguise has associated her
character with an actor interpreting the role of Viola, as Mary Jo Kietzman observes in “Will
Personified: Viola as Actor-Author in Twelfth Night” (2012). According to Kietzman, “In
Viola’s cross-dressing role in Twelfth Night, Shakespeare wrote one of the most
comprehensive descriptions of the actor’s craft within the plays” (Kietzman 260). Going
further from this statement, I would say that Viola’s character as cross-dressed Cesario
alludes to the concept of the actor as “servant” of a noble patron. Just as the “woman” Viola
(who is actually a boy dressed as a girl) is not what he/ she seems, so the “boy” Cesario has a
spurious identity, linked to the idea of the actor on stage. All of them are servants to a noble
patron; in Shakespeare’s case, this was the Lord Chamberlain of Queen Elizabeth I, as his
theatrical troupe was called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.
Another actor-related theme is the doubling of Viola/Sebastian, who are supposed to
be identical twins. For these reasons, just as Cesario is a page to the character Duke Orsino,
so is the boy interpreting Viola/ Cesario (and probably also Sebastian) a servant to the Lord
imaginary country of Illyria.

165
Chamberlain’s Men. This is Shakespeare’s troupe, when the play was first performed on 2
February 1602, at Candlemas, the formal end of Christmastide in the religious calendar.
Malvolio describes the page as “Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy”
(1.5.152), or “between boy and man” (1.5.155). This is the age of the boy-actors interpreting
the role of women (especially young girls) in Shakespeare’s actor troupe. Therefore, the
servant Viola-as-Cesario is not only a boy-actor disguised as a girl, disguised as a boy—
travelling between the courts of Olivia and Orsino—but also a go-between, a platform, or a
gangplank, between the world of the play and the real space of the theatre, in which actors are
servants of their noble patron. Actors, therefore, are members of the same family of the
theatre, but they are also performing families on stage within the world of the play.
Enhancing even further the issue of meta-theatricality, when Olivia sees
Viola/Cesario for the first time, she/he asks him “Are you a comedian?” (1.5.177), to which
Viola replies, “No, my profound heart. And yet—by the very fangs of malice, I swear—I am
not that I play” (1.5.178-179). Viola/Cesario is aware that she/he is playing a role, in the
world of the play, but also on Shakespeare’s stage. In her role as page Cesario—the
"messenger" (1.5.200) for Orsino’s innermost feelings—Viola plays the role of a boy; as a
character in a comedy, she/he is aligned with so many stock characters of the commedia
dell'arte, which she/he represents. During her conversation with Olivia, Viola/ Cesario uses
quibbling language to hide her true meanings, like an actor on stage. When she/he tells Olivia
that she/he is only a messenger, Viola’s reply becomes a defensive response, meaning “I am
only a go-between.” This shows both her position as a servant (Cesario, a page in Orsino's
household) and her place as an actor interpreting a role. Viola/Cesario also emphasizes the
privacy of her message, when she says, “What I am and what I would are as secret as
maidenhead: to your ears, divinity; to any other’s profanation” (1.5.209-210). This passage
refers primarily to Viola’s function as an intimate go-between, but inevitably hints at the
question of her true identity and gender. Servants, therefore, like actors in the theatre, express
intimate feelings through language; they are messengers, or go-betweens, who carry letters
and words of love. In all cases, they are imitators because they are not expected to express
their own feelings, but to be advocates for their masters’ opinions.
Using the same theatrical language linking the servant to an actor in the theatre,
Olivia reproaches Viola/Cesario that “You are now out of your text” (1.5.225), because Viola
requests to see Olivia’s face, in order to make sure that she/he is speaking to the lady of the
house. Just like an actor who follows a script designed by the playwright, Viola/Cesario—as
a servant—is supposed to follow the words scripted for her/him by Orsino (or the
166
playwright). However, the page deviates from the script, and he/she uses extended metaphors
to express Orsino’s love. One of these metaphors refers to the place of home, as opposed to
homelessness, in a love relationship. As Viola/Cesario says to Olivia, “Make me a willow
cabin at your gate / And call upon my soul within the house” (1.5.260-261). A willow cabin
(made of willow branches) is by definition a temporary shelter, but it is also the emblem of
sorrowful and unrequited love. By contrast, the house is a symbol of home, and in this
context, it is the place where the lover’s innermost soul dwells. By showing the distinction
between temporary shelter (or shallow love) and the permanent feeling of home and security,
Viola/Cesario highlights her/his temporary position as servant (messenger, go-between), as
opposed to her/his true identity and genuine love.
When Olivia asks Viola/Cesario “What is your parentage?” (1.5.269), she poses the
question that shows that she is interested in his (her) heritage, as well as social position.
Viola’s reply, “Above my fortunes, yet my state is well: I am a gentleman” (1.5.270-271)
ensures that the social conventions are respected. As gentlemen and gentlewomen would be
companions to noble lords and ladies, Viola is both a servant (a page, an attendant) and a
gentleman companion to Orsino. However, the “gentleman” part is fake, even if Viola, the
woman, is of a noble family. By demeaning herself as a page and absconding her true social
position as a noble lady, Viola implicitly admits that she plays a role in the world of the play.
At the same time, however, her reasons for playing this role are mysterious; she may be
reluctant to reveal her identity as a single woman in a world ruled by men; she may have been
in love with Orsino in the past, when she had met him, and so she intends to spend time in his
presence without being detected; or she might even want a career at Orsino’s court. The
possibilities are just as many as the audience’s imagination, and the play does not clarify this
issue sufficiently, as if it were not important. The central point of the play is the character’s
disguise and playing roles.
Since Viola/Cesario—as Orsino’s page—is not what she/he pretends to be, she/he
sees the dangers of disguise, in life, as in theatrical art. In the theatre, disguise is a convention
that helps promote the action by creating confusion, while in life disguise is a lie. As Viola
meditates on the nature of this falsehood, she also sees its trappings and dangers: “Disguise, I
see thou art a wickedness, / Wherein the pregnant enemy does much” (2.2.27-28). The
weighty enemy is the devil, who is resourceful not because he is fertile, but because he
invents various stratagems to trap credulous people. Satan (whose name in Hebrew means
“enemy”) typifies the subtle ways in which desire, lies, and falsity intrude in peoples’ lives.
Even more so, Viola/Cesario calls herself/himself a “poor monster” (2.2.34), because she/he
167
is an androgynous creature, half man, half woman. However, in Shakespeare’s time, actors
were associated with monsters, because they created illusions in people’s minds. For
example, theologian William Rankins, in his pamphlet entitled A Mirrour of Monsters
(1587), writes: “Some term them Comedians, othersome Players, manie Pleasers, but I
Monsters, and whie Monsters? Bicause under colour of humanitie, they present nothing but
prodigious vanitie" (Rankins 2r). As if she were a monster of humanity, who interprets and
represents lies on the stage, Viola/ Cesario ranks herself with the lowest of human beings,
with outcasts, vagabonds and servants, actors who live a lie and make others believe in lies.
I take Viola's association of herself as a servant of illusion as one of the meta-
theatrical allusions in Twelfth Night. Viola/ Cesario is a member of the theatrical family, a
servant (or “man,” page) of a noble lord, who spreads illusions and lies about herself to the
people around her. Even if, at the end of the comedy, Viola reveals her true identity,
commending herself as “true in soul” (5.1.266), her disguise (in the world of the play and in
the theatre) turns her into an insincere character. In contrast to her assumed personality as
Orsino’s page, Viola/ Cesario considers herself/ himself Olivia’s “servant” (3.1.9), fulfilling
her/his duty and “most humble service” (3.1.94). There is an inversion of roles, as Olivia
says, “Give me your hand, sir” (3.1.91). Olivia’s taking Viola’s hand is ambiguous: it is both
an act of courage and the boldest move so far in her attempted seduction of the page. Viola/
Cesario responds with defensive formality, kneeling and kissing Olivia’s hand, thus re-
establishing the master–servant hierarchy. By explaining that she/he is Orsino’s servant and,
therefore, Olivia’s (because Orsino is Olivia’s servant in love), Viola/Cesario restores the
hierarchical order by saying, “Your servant’s servant is your servant, madam” (3.1.100). This
play-upon-words is rather far-fetched, but it has good traction in performance, as servants and
actors are considered of the lowest social status, and Viola/Cesario is both a servant and an
actor interpreting a page.
Questions of identity are liberally presented in this scene (3.1), as when Viola/
Cesario, at Olivia’s question about what she thinks of her, tells Olivia “That you do think you
are not what you are” (3.1.137). This is a kind of reproach addressed to Olivia, who,
according to Viola/Cesario, forgets herself in loving one so far beneath her rank; the
implication is also that their love is impossible because Viola/Cesario is of the same gender.
By transgressing the social and gender boundaries, Olivia ceases to be the model aristocratic
lady and she loses the attributes of her class. Alternatively, Olivia says that she thinks the
same of the page Cesario, to which Viola/Cesario answers, “Then think you right: I am not
what I am” (3.1.139). By transgressing the gender and social boundaries, both Olivia and
168
Viola/ Cesario are servants—or even slaves—to their own emotions, and so they have serious
problems of identity. Although Viola seems to be more aware of who she is, as compared to
Olivia, she is also playing a role, as an actor, so she becomes the metaphorical servant, or
beggar.
The master–servant relationship reaches new levels in the conversation between
Olivia and Viola/ Cesario when the latter connects identity with truth and honesty, re-
establishing the proper social relations between master and servant. As Viola/Cesario says, “I
have one heart, one bosom and one truth, / And that no woman has, nor ever none / Shall
mistress be of it save I alone” (3.1.156-158). This statement has three concurrent meanings:
(1) no woman is capable of such integrity; (2) nobody will ever win my heart; and (3) I will
never love a woman. The first meaning opposes the misogynistic discourse according to
which women are incapable of sincerity and true identity, because they are false. The second
meaning implies that Viola has a certain reticence towards falling in love with a woman
while being in disguise. The third meaning is directed towards the audience; according to
dramatic irony, the audience knows that Viola/Cesario is a woman (actually, a boy playing
the role of a woman, then playing a boy), so they should relish at the fact that they know the
truth. Yet, which truth? Of Viola’s femininity; of Cesario’s masculinity; or of Viola/Cesario’s
androgynous nature? I think the play gives no answer to these questions, but the notions of
traditional social hierarchy—and the analysis of the relationships between master and servant
—may shed some light upon the play’s gender confusion.
Clowns are also symbols of the theatre, suggesting roles in comedy and the satire of
society. From this perspective, Feste in Twelfth Night is a court jester who travels between
the court of Olivia and that of Orsino, both located in an idealized and unlocalized Illyria.
Bente A. Videbaek observes in The Stage Clowns in Shakespeare’s Theatre that “Feste’s
clowning primarily consists of two levels, the sophisticated level acrobatics he performs with
the court circles and the more earthy interaction with the comic group” (Videbaek 95). The
comic group is formed of Maria, Fabian, Sir Toby, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, who mock
the socially misfit Malvolio. While Sir Toby and Sir Andrew are from the group of masters in
Olivia’s household (as Sir Toby is Olivia’s uncle and Sir Andrew is companion to Sir Toby,
and Olivia’s would-be suitor), the others are servants who have accompanied Olivia
throughout her life: Maria is Olivia’s gentlewoman (or lady in waiting); Fabian is a member
of Olivia’s household; and Feste is Olivia’s jester. All these members of the theatre family
are instrumental in developing the Malvolio plot, but they are also comic characters, which
suggest that the world of the play is inextricably linked to the real place of the theatre. All
169
these characters play roles, create tricks, interpret plays-within-the-play, and even interpret
songs, such as Feste’s final song (5.1.382-401). They are servants who serve their master or
mistress—Viola/Cesario serves Orsino, while Feste, Maria, Fabian, and Malvolio serve
Olivia—but they are also transitional figures that remind the audience that they are viewing a
play.
Besides being considered a fool by Malvolio, Feste’s role as a servant includes
musical entertainment, as his name is the Italian for “revels”. Feste sings to Sir Andrew and
Sir Toby in Olivia’s house: the song beginning with “O mistress mine, where are you
roaming?” (2.3.38-51); the song in Duke Orsino’s household, “Come away, come away death
(2.4.51-66); or the final song that concludes the play, which has the refrain “With hey, ho, the
wind and the rain” (5.1.381-401). After one of these songs (the one in duke Orsino's house),
Feste refuses payment for his musical services, as he says, "I take pleasure in singing, sir"
(2.4.68). When the Duke replies, “I'll pay thy pleasure, then” (2.4.69), Feste meditates wisely:
"Truly sir, and pleasure will be paid, one time or another” (2.4.70). The allusion is to Orsino's
superficiality, because he seeks only self-serving pleasure, in music and in love. Feste even
allows himself to ridicule Orsino, by telling him to be protected by "the melancholy god"
(2.4.73), referring to the duke's insipid form of despondency. As the figure of the wise fool,
who transits between the houses of nobility, but who does not get contaminated with their
melancholy or their vices, Feste is the servant go-between who knows his place in society.
Feste is always indicated as "clown" or "jester" in the list of Dramatis personae, while
the other characters usually refer to him as a fool. He is a musician, but also a performer, an
entertainer. When Viola/Cesario sees Feste, in Olivia’s garden, playing on pipe and tabor, she
asks, “Save, thee, friend, and thy music. Dost thou live by thy tabor?” (3.1.1-2). The question
is meant to refer to Feste’s job, as he is a musician and makes a living by playing on the tabor
and pipe. On the other hand, artists in general—including actors—were considered as
illusion-makers, as the tabor and the pipe were associated with the temptations of an easy life
of the senses, as opposed to the more serious and lasting pleasures of philosophy. Feste’s
retort transforms the derisive metaphor of the pleasures of life into a spatial metaphor, when
he says, “No, sir, I live by the church” (3.1.3). When Viola/Cesario feigns not to understand
the ambiguous answer, and takes it as meaning that Feste is a churchman (which is evidently
not the case because Feste is presumably wearing his motely coat), Feste clarifies the
confusion: “I do live by the church, for I do live at my house, and my house doth stand by the
church” (3.1.5-7). Feste’s explanation complicates matters rather than simplifying them,
because the spatial metaphor of the imaginary church in proximity of Feste’s fictional house
170
raises questions concerning notions of servants’ homes. As Feste is a jester in Olivia’s
household, he almost certainly lives in Olivia’s house, which he does not own, so his home is
just as fictional as the church in the statement meant to confuse Viola.
This kind of quibbling language associates Feste with an itinerant actor, who has no
home, and who is a servant of any noble patron who cares to pay for his services. To
highlight the equivocating language that actors and playwrights use in the plays, Feste replies
to Viola's witty remarks as follows: "A sentence is but a cheverel glove to a good wit: how
quickly the wrong side may be turned outward" (3.1.11-13). Through this metaphor—
referring to the soft elastic leather made of kidskin, which allows for a glove to be turned
inside out easily—Feste introduces the topic, much debated in Shakespeare's day, of the
relationship between linguistic sign and referent (or words and things), and thus the reliability
of language as a representation of reality. In reply, Viola/Cesario agrees, “Nay, that’s certain.
They that dally nicely with words may quickly make them wanton” (3.1.14-15). Viola means
that those who toy daintily with words render their meanings equivocal. These allusions are
to the poet or playwright, who uses metaphors to represent reality, so this is another meta-
theatrical allusion linking Feste’s character to the world of the theatre.
Then again, Feste’s unstable sign–referent relationship is turned against him: words
may be directly contaminated by their users, especially by punning clowns. Feste continues
with “indeed words are very rascals, since bonds disgraced them” (3.1.20), showing that
words have been made disreputable by being too often broken. Yet in this context of the
conversation between Feste and Viola/Cesario, rascals are associated with servants—
connected by bonds of servitude—so the reference is to Feste and Viola/Cesario as well.
Feste concludes that “words are grown so false I am loath to prove reason with them”
(3.1.23-24). Viola as Cesario equivocates language just as intensely as the clown Feste does.
They are both members of that class of servants—actors, playwrights, jesters, clowns, and
playful pages—who use language for their own ends. They twist meanings and make words
meander according to their wish, thus creating metaphors that that audience might interpret
differently. They make people laugh because of the language quibbles they use, so their role
as a go-betweens and actors—linking the stage and the audience—is utterly manifest.
Feste is an actor as well, because he dresses up as a priest and assumes the name of
Sir Topas. This is, in some way, a false role, so Feste's disguise as Sir Topas is part of the
play’s meta-theatrical construction. The name Topas may indicate a pun on top-ass,
suggesting that Malvolio is to be made a fool by a fool. The issue of the fool as a go-between
and a general spreader of wit is expressed by Feste through his remark to Viola/ Cesario,
171
“Follery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun, it shines everywhere” (3.1.48). This is a
reference to the Ptolemaic theory, still current in the early modern period, according to which
the sun revolved around the earth. This philosophical theory is combined with the well-
known proverb “The sun shines upon all alike” to show that wit and folly are common to
many people, regardless of gender or social rank. As Feste continues, “the fool should be as
oft with your master as with my mistress” (3.1.38-39). Feste alludes to his own coming and
going (like Cesario) between both houses, but he also implies that Orsino, Olivia, and
everybody else, are all fools. Feste's position as a clown (and the play-within-the-play in
which he performs) associates the jester’s figure to that of an actor, a servant of a nobleman’s
family, and one who belongs to the distinctive family of role-players in the comedy.
Another allusion to playing a role, as an actor, connected with Feste is when the
clown says to Viola/ Cesario, “I would play Lord Pandarus of Phrygia, sir, to bring a Cressida
to this Troilus” (3.1.50-51). Phrygia was an ancient country of Asia, to which Troy
supposedly belonged, and Pandarus (Cressida’s uncle) was the go-between linking the two
lovers, Troilus and Cressida. The meta-theatrical reference may be to Shakespeare’s own
play, Troilus and Cressida, or to any play involving two lovers. Feste considers himself the
intermediary, or the go-between, who is able to unite the metaphorical Cressida (Olivia) to
Troilus (Orsino). As Feste continues, “The matter, I hope, is not great, sir, begging but a
beggar: Cressida was a beggar” (3.1.53-54). Feste implies that there is no much difference
between him (Feste) and Cesario, since both have to “beg” for service to their social
superiors. He may also allude to the definition of players, who were considered beggars by
hostile commentators,54 such as the Puritans. Feste is a transitional figure, positioned halfway
in the world of the play, and among the spectators. He is not the common servant who passes
on love-letters and messages, but he is the witty fool who crosses various worlds and inhabits
several spaces at the same time; the space of Olivia’s house and garden, which suggests the
lady’s intimacy; the space of the servants in the household—the downstairs area—where
Malvolio thinks he reigns supreme as a steward, but he is outwitted by the fool; and the space
of Orsino’s court, where Feste’s final song signals the familial harmony ending in three
marriages: Viola and Orsino, Olivia and Sebastian, and Maria and Sir Toby.
54
According to Puritan pamphleteer Philip Stubbes, in The Anatomy of Abuses (1583), in the chapter entitled
“Of Stage playes and Enterludes, with their wickedness,” all stage plays and interludes are considered
sacrilegious, and players are hypocrites, and they are associated with beggars. Stubbes rails against actors and
considers them beggars to their masters: “Away therfore with this so infamous an art, for goe they neuer so
braue, yet are they coūted and taken but for beggers” (sig. 92 v). The marginal note on the same page summarizes
the argument: “Players liue vpon begging” (sig. 92 v). Even if it is a kind of metaphorical begging—as actors beg
for applause from the audience—the association of actors with beggars includes the clown Feste in the family of
actors.

172
 Maria is a distracting character in Twelfth Night, one that carries a revenge plot
against Malvolio and triggers the play’s comedic moments. As Olivia’s lady in waiting,
therefore a gentlewoman servant, Maria stages the plot in which she writes a fake letter to
Malvolio—making him believe that his mistress Olivia is in love with him—and then she and
her companions (Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, Fabian and Feste) laugh copiously while
eavesdropping on Malvolio’s antics. Like Viola, but in another form of disguise, Maria
represents theatrical art, which allows playwrights to ridicule social mores. In this case,
however, I see Maria as a servant of the theatrical art, who goes beyond the genre of comedy
or tragedy, because she stages a revenge plot that may have been part of a revenge tragedy
(quite popular in Elizabethan times), but this plot is performed in a comedy. In “Sportful
Malice: Or What Maria Wills: Revenge Comedy in Twelfth Night” (2008), Marguerite Tassi
argues that the interpretative differences in Maria’s character “arise from Shakespeare’s
deliberate use of contradictory figurative constructions of revenge, which create tonal
ambiguity and destabilize generic boundaries” (32). Indeed, Maria’s revenge plot on
Malvolio seems suitable to a tragedy, but it is tragi-comic to say the least. This incongruity
draws attention to the elusive theatrical conventions.
Maria is called a “fair shrew” (1.3.45) by Sir Andrew Aguecheek, by this showing
that she is a bad-tempered woman, a scold. Sir Toby introduces her as “My niece’s
chambermaid” (1.3.49), but Sir Andrew understands that her name is “Mistress Accost”
(1.3.50). This is because Maria, on first seeing Sir Andrew, cries “Accost, Sir Andrew,
accost” (1.3.47), which is a cry of war, a naval term meaning engage with, or assail, when
two ships are about to engage in battle. From the start, therefore, Maria displays a violent
personality, and the play’s naval metaphors—as Illyria is a seafaring nation—suggest the
character’s violent engagement with the world of the play. Moreover, Sir Toby emphasizes
the sexual connotation of “Accost,” when he explains that “‘Accost’ is front her, board her,
woo her, assail her” (1.3.55). Feste highlights the compatibility between Sir Toby and Maria
—as if they were a couple—when he tells her, “If Sir Toby would leave drinking, thou wert
as witty a piece of Eve’s flesh as any in Illyria” (1.5.25-26). Not only does this remark
comment on the compatibility of wit between Maria and Sir Toby, but it also shows the
inferior position in which women were held in those times. Maria is referred to as a “a piece
of Eve’s flesh” (1.5.25), which shows the commodification of women, because all women
were stereotypically related to Eve and the pleasures of the flesh.
Women were considered to be less witty than men, but Maria is seen as equal in wit to
Sir Toby—only that Olivia’s uncle’s intelligence is drastically impaired by his drinking habit.
173
Feste compresses Maria’s two potential attractions: her intelligence and her body.
Simultaneously, Maria and Sir Toby are seen as a couple, which looks forward to the
comedy’s finale (5.1.356-358), in which the audience learns that Maria has married Sir Toby.
Maria calls her trick on Malvolio a “sport royal” (2.3.167), which means a sport worthy of
kings, with reference to hunting. Just as hunting was viewed as a noble sport, intended to
display the participants’ courage, Maria sees her game against Malvolio—represented by the
play-within-the-play—as a noble representation of her wit and courage. For this reason, Sir
Toby calls Maria “Penthesilea” (2.3.172), the Queen of Amazons, adversary of Achilles in
the Trojan wars. The term is an admiring reference to Maria’s combative spirit and
intelligence, but it is also an ironical allusion to the boy actor’s diminutive size. As Maria’s
role is interpreted by a boy actor, by calling her Penthesilea, the Queen of Amazons, the
hyperbole is set in contrast to the reality of performance. This contrast also appears when
Orsino calls Viola/Cesario with “Come hither, boy” (2.4.15), when the duke speaks about the
melancholy of true lovers, showing the page’s diminutive size.
Maria achieves her nobility of character not necessarily through her birth (although
she is a gentlewoman) but through her attempt at exposing the fools of the house (Malvolio,
principally, but also probably Sir Toby and Sir Andrew). As Fabian says about Maria, “Here
comes my noble gull-catcher” (2.5.181), suggesting that she is honourable because she is a
trapper of fools. In this context, Sir Toby expresses his admiration for Maria by showing his
total submission to her when he says, “Will thou set thy foot o’my neck?” (2.5. 183) and
“Shall I play my freedom at tray-trip and become thy bondslave?” (2.5. 184-185). Even if he
is joking, Sir Toby displays a condition of servitude that was common in early modern
England. If somebody played a dice game, he might stake his liberty at gambling, and thus
become another person’s bondslave. In this case, the master would place symbolically his
foot on the slave’s neck. It is true that Sir Toby’s enslavement to Maria is metaphorical—
showing rather a submission in emotion and, probably, marriage, than true slavery—but the
social allusion to human bondage is disconcerting, to say the least. The reversal of social
roles, suggesting Sir Toby as a servant and Maria as a master, shows that the master–servant
rules in the Illyrian family are reversed, as they are in the theatre.
Malvolio is Olivia’s steward, therefore the head of the servants in the noble lady’s
household. Malvolio’s ambition for social mobility is quite high. When Maria and the others
play a trick on him by making him read a cyphered letter, which he interprets as a love letter
from Olivia, Malvolio is the butt of ridicule for the other comic characters, who laugh at his
stupidity. Olivia evaluates Malvolio’s character correctly when she says, “O, you are sick of
174
self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a distempered appetite” (1.5.86-87). The steward’s excess
in thinking and feeling makes him believe that he is higher in social position and intelligence
than all the other servants, including the fool Feste. As Malvolio narrates to Olivia and the
others, Feste is a "barren rascal" (1.5.80), and he saw him compete with another fool, whose
intelligence was visibly lower; Malvolio's conclusion is that "I take these wise men that crow
so at these set kind of fools no better than the fools' zanies" (1.5.84-85). Indeed, Malvolio's
self-sufficiency makes him organize people hierarchically into better or lesser fools, as if it
were possible to assess exactly a person’s level of intelligence. On Malvolio's hierarchical
scale of brainpower, he sees himself on top position, while Feste is on the lower-middle
place, with other people below him. Referring to persons whose intelligence is of a lower
level than Feste’s, Malvolio uses the theatrical term “zanies” (1.5.85), which means stooges,
attendants, or stupid servants. The term derives from the Italian commedia dell’arte, where
the figure of the zanni (literally Giovanni) is an assistant to the clown. In its English form,
zanni has come to mean secondary figure or poor imitator. Malvolio’s reference to the
characters of commedia dell’arte enhances the meta-theatrical undertones of this comedy.
Malvolio’s character, therefore, like Viola/Cesario or Maria, is at the centre of a
comedy in which characters play roles in a play-within-a-play. He is also the gangplank or a
transitory figure—a servant go-between—who links the world of the play and the physical
place of the theatre, where Twelfth Night is being performed. When Maria, Sir Andrew, Sir
Toby and Fabian attend the scene in which Malvolio is lured away by his own stupidity and
imagines himself as Olivia's lover, the three comic characters are the audience of a play-
within-the-play, in which Malvolio appears as a ridiculous character, a commedia dell’arte
stock figure, with his yellow stockings and crossed garters. However, Malvolio is so self-
conceited that he considers the others to be mad, such as when he scolds the drunken Sir
Toby and Sir Andrew for their riotous merriment at night in Olivia’s house. As Malvolio
says, “My masters, are you mad or what are you? Have you no wit, manners nor honesty but
to gabble like tinkers at this time of night?” (2.3.85-87). Malvolio’s censure reverses the
common relationship of respect between master and servant, because the steward approaches
Sir Toby in an impolite manner and he dares to say that the two knights—who are placed in a
higher social position—are mad. This contrasts with the situation at the end of the play, when
Sir Toby and the others consider Malvolio to be mad.
Malvolio even represents himself as Olivia’s mouthpiece, when he threatens Sir Toby
with eviction from the house if things continue in this noisy manner (2.3.93-99). When he
addresses Maria, Malvolio calls her formally “Mistress Mary” (2.3.118). In this way, he
175
reproaches Maria that she condones Sir Toby’s inacceptable behaviour. Malvolio calls Maria
to order, reminding her of her role as Olivia’s gentlewoman. Malvolio’s huge amount of self-
confidence and his contempt for the other servants in Olivia’s house make him the butt of the
other characters’ jokes. Maria calls him privately “Monsieur Malvolio” (2.3.130), which is a
mockery of the French custom of prefixing the title to designations of office. By this, Maria
mocks Malvolio’s self-importance and especially his pompous sense of his office, which is
actually no more no less than the head of the servants in Olivia’s household. Maria goes even
further in her criticism of Malvolio, telling Sir Toby and Sir Andrew that Malvolio is “a kind
of Puritan” (2.3.136). It is not clear whether this is a term of abuse to Puritans, as their
opponents dubbed the reformist Protestants. The term is somewhat ambiguous and
Malvolio’s position as a “Puritan” is rather debatable. Rather than being an extremist and
self-righteous moralist—as the Puritans were believed to be in moderately Protestant early
modern London—Malvolio is just a servant who does not know his limits.
Even if he is a go-between—passing messages from Olivia to Viola/Cesario (and the
reverse), or from the authority of Olivia’s position as mistress of the house to the rowdy Sir
Toby and Sir Andrew—Malvolio does not know who he is; he is almost totally devoid of a
sense of propriety, although he pretends to respect traditional customs. Maria is very
inventive in her characterisation of Malvolio; according to her, he is a “time pleaser”
(2.3.142), “an affectioned ass” (2.3.142), and “the devil a Puritan” (2.3.142). A time-pleaser
is a time-server or opportunist; an affected ass means a stupid person who behaves in a
pretentious manner; and the slyness of the devil is associated with the Puritan’s insinuations
and sanctimonious behaviour. All these epithets are meant to direct Maria’s intelligence and
her comic energy towards playing the letter trick on Malvolio. When Malvolio reads Maria’s
fake letter, he shows his real character of infatuation and self-importance. While he imagines
that his position is higher than it really is—thus creating a contrast between who he thinks he
is and who he really is—Malvolio pretends that he does not let his imagination lead him
astray. In fact, this is just what he does, because he believes that the fake love letter signed by
“The Fortunate Unhappy” (2.5.155) is addressed to him by Olivia.
When Malvolio says, “I do not fool myself to let imagination jade me; for every
reason excites to this, that my lady loves me” (2.5.159-160), the irony of the remark is
evident. While he thinks he does not fool himself and does not let his imagination get the
better of him, this is exactly what happens. Malvolio concludes his self-important reading of
the letter with “Jove and my stars be praised!” (2.5.168). His invocation of the pagan god of
erotic conquest is suitable to Malvolio’s wish to behave differently than he did before, in
176
order to please his mistress, whom he considers his would-be lover. In line with his wished
change—from straight Puritan to excessive lover—Malvolio vows to become a kind of
Machiavelli, being excused if he uses deception and treachery to achieve his ends. As
Malvolio says, “I will be proud, I will read politic authors, I will baffle Sir Toby, I will wash
off gross acquaintance, I will be point-device the very man” (2.5.157-159). Politic authors
were writers concerned with political doctrine or arguments of state; the adjective was
particularly associated with Machiavelli, taken to be an amoral apologist for the cultivation of
power and self-advancement. All the types of behaviour that Malvolio promises to display—
being proud, treating Sir Toby with contempt, ridding himself of vulgar company—are
characteristic to his former behaviour, which has caused him to be despised by Sir Toby and
company. As Malvolio intends to be the man described in the letter in every detail, he is
actually just his old self, with added pomposity and arrogance.
Malvolio’s inflated opinion of himself makes him exceed the boundaries of reason
and proper behaviour. During the scene in which Malvolio presents himself in yellow
stockings and cross-garters in front of Olivia, the steward often associates himself with
Jupiter or Jove, the supreme god in the pantheon of Roman mythology. As Malvolio says to
himself, “I have limed her, but it is Jove’s doing and Jove make me thankful” (3.4.71-73).
Birdlime is a sticky resin used to trap small birds or, metaphorically, the beloved’s heart. As
if Olivia were supposed to be a small bird ready to be ensnared in Malvolio’s sticky trap, the
self-important servant believes himself master of the situation. In fact, he is the one being
limed by the letter, or trapped in the snare of his own illusions. As he believes himself on top
of the world, he thanks to the supreme god of gods for this opportunity: “Well, Jove, not I, is
the doer of this, and he is to be thanked” (3.4.79-80). Malvolio does not even admit to
himself that he is self-important, so he believes that the god (or destiny) is the maker of his
fortune. However, by humbling himself in front of the supreme pagan Roman god, Malvolio
shows that he has a distorted understanding of both divinity and his own place in the
workings of destiny.
However, Malvolio is not a totally ridiculous and unpleasant character. One might
find sympathy for the self-important steward, who wrongly thinks that the whole household
should obey him, and that his mistress is entitled to be in love with him. From Malvolio’s
perspective, he is a supreme ruler—like a kind of Jove among the Roman gods—and
everybody in Olivia’s household (including Sir Toby) should respect the rules of propriety
imposed by him. As Fabian says about Malvolio’s infatuation, “Contemplation makes a rare
turkey-cock of him. How he jets under his advanced plumes” (2.5.28-29). Malvolio’s
177
contemplation is manifested by thinking continuously about himself. This leads him to
pomposity; the turkey-cock is a symbol of self-importance, because it puffs itself up and, like
the peacock, displays its tail feathers. Fabian, as a spectator, also comments on Malvolio's
unrestrained imagination, thinking that he is greater than he really is: “Look how imagination
blows him” (2.5.39-40). As Sir Toby comments on Malvolio’s comic performance in the
cross-garter scene, “His very genius hath taken the infection of the device, man” (3.4.125-
126). The device is the plot in the dramatic representation. Continuing Fabian’s
metatheatrical allusions, Sir Toby explains that Malvolio’s comic performance is even more
convincing than the original script played out for him by Maria. Therefore, Malvolio might
have “genius” (3.4.125), like the playwright scripting the plot, so he is not totally
uninteresting as a character and an actor, nor is he totally devoid of originality.
Malvolio’s being bound in a dark room as a madman is another metatheatrical
situation which might raise the audience’s sympathy for this character. The dark room is the
symbolic space of interiority, of the dark mind of melancholy, but it is a place in which
Malvolio does not wish to be, as he is convinced that he is not mad. Feste (disguised as the
curate, Sir Topas) chides the imprisoned Malvolio with “Out, hyperbolical fiend” (4.2.25).
The unusual epithet addressed to Malvolio, which means excessive and mendacious, seems to
be an insult, but it is also an allusion to the actor’s bombastic interpretation in the theatre,
when he uses hyperbole as an artistic device to impress the audience. Malvolio’s supposedly
exaggerated behaviour and language also betrays the presence of the devil, as Puritan
theologians so frequently complained about the actor’s interpretation in the theatre as being
influenced by the devil’s temptations and illusions. Hyperbole was also condemned by
moralists as dishonest, because it strategically departed from truthful description of reality.
Yet hyperbole is a rhetorical figure of speech, which is frequently used in a play, so the
metatheatrical reference is evident. By using hyperbole, actors and playwrights reveal the
truth by giving the impression that they are departing from it.
While Malvolio keeps complaining that he is locked in a dark room, “as hell”
(4.2.35), Feste/Sir Topas tries to convince him of the contrary, saying, “Why, it hath bay
windows transparent as barricadoes, and the clerestories towards the south-north are as
lustrous as ebony, and yet complainest thou of obstruction?” (4.2.36-39). In his description of
the dark room’s architecture, Feste/Sir Topas does describe a dark room, while pretending
that it is not dark. This is the power of sophistry, which intends to persuade with arguments in
such a way as to convince the audience of anything, including the contrary situation. This
paradoxical description of the metaphorical dark room is turned into a symbol of ignorance.
178
Although the audience might be convinced that Malvolio is right about the layout of the
room, and therefore he is not mad, there is still some doubt about the steward’s perception of
reality. As Malvolio says, “I say this house is as dark as ignorance, though ignorance were as
dark as hell: and I say there was never man thus abused. I am no more mad than you are”
(4.2.45-47). While Malvolio condemns ignorance and aligns it with the darkness of the mind
and the dark room he is imprisoned in, his frustration is evident. However, no one may deny
Malvolio’s own ignorance. Despite the fact that he is able to answer Fabian’s sophisticated
question about Pythagorean philosophy—thus proving that he has not lost his reason—
Malvolio’s ignorance is of a different sort.
As his image of himself is so inflated and irrational, showing ignorance in relating to
society and the others around him, Malvolio’s madness is connected with his hyperbolic and
overinflated image of himself. Although audiences might sympathize with Malvolio’s
frustrations and the feeling that he is neglected by the others, Malvolio proves a fool because
he is unable to assess his relationship with others in a realistic manner. Even at the end of the
play, he still considers the others as “asses” (4.2.92), and he resents them all. In the letter of
complaint that he writes to Olivia, he signs as “The madly used Malvolio” (5.1.305).
Malvolio’s last words in the play express his frustration and anger against the others,
although the “interlude” (5.1.366) is revealed, as in the theatre. As Malvolio says, “I’ll be
revenged on the whole pack of you” (5.1.372). This leads to the conclusion that the
perpetrators of the joke on Malvolio look like a pack of wolves, preying on people’s
weaknesses. Yet, this is also a gang of actors, so the meaning of the insult is softened.
Malvolio remains alone at the end of the play, outside the circle of lovers joined in apparent
harmony, just as Caliban on his lonely island in The Tempest. Solitude represents a moment
of pause, when people are supposed to meditate on social relations and companionship.
Fabian's theatrical form of melancholy is different from Orsino's musings on the
power of music and love; or Olivia's self-pity and addiction to melancholy provoked by the
loss of her father and brother; or even Viola's melancholy (as Cesario), springing from
unrequited love for Orsino and the impossibility of admitting her female identity. Fabian is a
member of Olivia's household, and his name may have been suggested to Shakespeare by
Fabio, the pseudonym of the cross-dressed character Lelia in Intronati. Academia degli
Intronati was a scholarly society in sixteenth-century Sienna, and they wrote collectively the
comic play Gl'ingannati (The Deceived Ones). This is a comedy of intrigue, written by the
Intronati in 1531, and performed on the first day of carnival, and it has been found to be one
of the sources of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Fabian is a somewhat enigmatic character, as
179
he appears suddenly as a replacement for Feste in the gulling plot in 2.5. He is often played as
a servant, or member of Olivia’s household, and he resents Malvolio because he had brought
him out of favour with Olivia for participating in the bear-baiting games (2.4.6). For this
reason, Fabian does not like Malvolio’s self-sufficiency, so he wants to contribute to the trick
played on Olivia’s steward. Therefore, Fabian is the kind of servant who likes bloody
entertainment and is attracted by coarse games, such as bear-baiting.
Fabian is far from being a melancholy person, as he himself says that he would not
want to miss a moment of the “sport” (2.4.2), or entertainment, created by the gulling of
Malvolio. As Fabian tells Sir Toby and Sir Andrew, “If I lose a scruple of this sport let me be
boiled to death with melancholy” (2.4.2-3). Melancholy was considered a pernicious state of
mind, and it was equivalent to almost dying, so Fabian would have none of it. Instead, he
would frequent the bear-baiting arena, which was the object of reformist Protestant attacks,
just as the theatre was in those times. The bear-baiting arena was just next door from the
Globe Theatre, so the location of the theatre coincides with the servants’ appetence for the
blood sports. When he watches Malvolio’s self-important play, while reading the fake letter,
Fabian says, “I will not give my part for this sport for a pension of thousands to be paid from
the Sophy” (2.5.174-175). The Sophy was the Shah of Persia, and Fabian’s remark is
probably an allusion to the claim by Sir Anthony Sherley and his brothers to have received
rich gifts during an embassy to Shah Abbas in 1599. In fact, the paradox of Fabian’s fictional
pension from the Shah of a very distant country, which he would never visit, speaks for
Fabian’s capacity of self-delusion.
Just as Malvolio imagines himself to be loved by the lady Olivia, Fabian frequents the
places of entertainment to enrich himself with illusions and stories of faraway countries and
people, such as Persia and the Persian shah. Fabian is unlikely to receive a pension for long-
term service from the Shah of Persia, but he is more likely to be rewarded by Olivia for
faithful assistance. However, it is not certain that Fabian is a reliable member of Olivia’s
household, as he is more inclined towards entertainment than doing real work. Just as Maria
does, Fabian enjoys sport and the theatre as forms of entertainment, so he is prone to illusion
and unreliability. Like many servants of rich households in Elizabethan London, Fabian
would attend the bloody spectacle of bear-baiting, and then pay a penny to go next door to the
theatre and stand among the groundling audience. Like all the servants in Twelfth Night,
Fabian is a go-between from the world of the play to the real world of spectatorship in the
theatre, thus highlighting meta-theatricality. This time, Fabian wants to attend a spectacle for

180
free, by watching Malvolio being gulled by Maria and Sir Toby, in a comedy performed as
the play-within-the-play.
Fabian is an intense commentator of Malvolio’s antics, thus showing that he is an
experienced spectator at the theatre. When Sir Toby (as a member of the eavesdropping
audience) grows increasingly angry on hearing the self-infatuated Malvolio imagine a
relationship with Olivia, Fabian is the one who tries to appease him, saying repeatedly, “O
peace, peace” (2.5.48; 2.5.54; 2.5.62). As a spectator to the cross-garter scene, Fabian says,
“If this were played upon the stage now, I would condemn it as an improbable fiction”
(3.4.123). The point is that this scene is being played upon the stage now, as part of the
comedy Twelfth Night, so the metatheatrical indication is evident. Fabian’s ironic
metatheatrical comment highlights the almost too perfect success of their plot, but also
authenticates the improbable scene as non-fiction. Fabian’s “now” (3.4.123) conflates
dramatic or fictional time and space to the “real” time and space of performance. As a
servant, Fabian is a typical actor, spectator, and a peacemaker, linking Olivia’s enclosed
household to the wider world of spectacle.
Valentine is a gentleman attending on Orsino, together with Curio. Technically, they
are not servants, but they are gentlemen attending on a person of higher rank. Valentine,
bearing the name of the patron saint of lovers, has become commonplace in romantic
comedy. Valentine knows about social hierarchy and advancement, as he explains to
Viola/Cesario that she/he is favoured by Orsino: “If the duke continue these favours towards
you, Cesario, you are like to be much advanced. He hath known you but three days, and
already you are no stranger” (1.4.1-4). If Duke Orsino’s court is a place for competition and
social mobility, one might detect a note of envy in Valentine’s remark concerning Cesario’s
rapid ascension in favours at the duke’s court. Indeed, the duke’s preference for page Cesario
is visible spatially, when Orsino enters and tells all the other servants and attendants
(including Curio and Valentine) to “Stand you awhile aloof” (1.4.12), as he is ready to
disclose his private feelings for Olivia to the recently-hired page. As Orsino tells
Viola/Cesario, “I have unclasped / To thee the book even of my secret soul” (1.4.13-14).
While Curio and Valentine are not privileged enough to benefit from the confidence of the
duke’s private feelings, page Cesario is privy to them. However, the other attendants and
servants are resonating amplifiers, who observe and record the duke’s behaviour towards the
newly-arrived page.
Antonio, the sea pirate who rescued Sebastian from drowning is not technically a
servant, but a friend and an admirer of the dejected young man. The duologue in which the
181
audience learns of the survival of Sebastian (alias Roderigo, an assumed name), befriended
by Antonio, parallels 1.2, where the shipwrecked Viola is helped by the captain. Even if
Antonio is not a servant, his friendship and love for Sebastian far surpasses that between two
casual acquaintances. As Antonio tells Sebastian, “If you will not murder me for my love, let
me be your servant” (2.2.32-33). This homosocial relationship between Antonio and
Sebastian does not replicate exactly the bond between master and servant, but rather a kind of
loyalty and generosity that can be found between friends. Despite the fact that Antonio has
“many enemies in Orsino’s court” (2.2.41), he prefers to face all dangers and help his friend
in Illyria. The somewhat mysterious enmity between Antonio and Orsino is referred to later
in the play, at a greater length—but still enigmatically—when Orsino says that he remembers
Antonio's face “As black as Vulcan” (5.1.49) during a naval battle. Vulcan was the Roman
god of the forge and his face was expected to be black because of the fire of the furnace,
while Antonio’s face was black because of the fire of the naval battle. The First Officer
explains that this is that Antonio who took a ship (The Phoenix) from Candy, 55 and who
boarded another ship (The Tiger), during which battle Orsino’s nephew (Titus) lost his leg.
This recollection of a naval battle off the coast of Illyria makes Orsino call Antonio “Notable
pirate, thou salt-water thief” (5.1.65). The conflict between Antonio and the Illyrian
authorities suggests public versus private space, and it relates notions of friendship, servitude
and honesty with issues of naval conflict and war. This reminds the audience that Illyria was
a commercial nation (similar to Venice in early modern times), but also that pirates raided the
coasts of this country.
Even if Antonio is not technically a servant in any household—but a free-wheeling
seaman and probably a pirate—his loyalty to Sebastian may be associated to the fidelity
which a servant owes to his master. Yet, the situation is reversed, as it is Antonio who gives
Sebastian money in order to help him. When Antonio himself is apprehended by the
authorities, and he tries to retrieve his purse from the one he thinks to be Sebastian (in fact,
Viola as Cesario), Antonio’s words become convincing to Viola, just because they are not
true. As Viola/Cesario says to herself, “Methinks his words do from such passion fly / That
he believes himself. So do not I” (3.4.370-371). Viola’s first line might as well describe an
actor’s interpretation of a role in the theatre, which springs from passion and is meant to
55
Candy is the early modern name of Crete, from Candia, a town on the island. According to Edward Sugden’s
A Topographical Dictionary to the Works of Shakespeare and His Fellow Dramatists, Candia was "[p]roperly
the capital of Crete, the island South of the Aegean Archipelago, but commonly applied to the whole island by
outsiders” (96). In early modern times, Candia had commercial traffic with Venice, and probably with the
commercial town ports of Illyria (such as Ragusa), so it cannot be surprising that pirates attacked the ships
loaded with goods (especially wines) from Candia.

182
persuade the audience, with herself as spectator. Yet, this spectator does not share the belief
that a common audience would have, because she knows that she is not the Sebastian to
whom Antonio had given his purse. As Viola continues, “Prove true, imagination, O prove
true, / That I, dear brother, be now ta’en for you” (3.4.372-373). Imagination is the mental
image or representation of reality and it is a central concept in Twelfth Night. Just as Malvolio
has enough imagination to represent himself as Olivia’s lover, Viola concludes—with the
help of imagination (because she has no proof)—that her brother Sebastian is alive. The
hardened seaman, Antonio, who is not expected to have too much imagination, gives such a
convincing interpretation of the facts of the borrowing of the purse (and his emotions for
Sebastian) that Viola is persuaded that her brother is alive. This is another meta-theatrical
comment about the actor’s interpretation of a role and the theatrical image of reality
constructed in the minds of the audience, which brings Antonio to the fore as an actor–
servant interpreting a role.
Twelfth Night is not so much about the two young couples (Olivia–Sebastian and
Viola–Orsino), as well as the older couple (Maria–Sir Toby), who would become families at
the end of the play, thus restoring social and emotional harmony. It is not even about the
family from Messaline56 (the twin brother and sister Sebastian and Viola), who have passed
through hardships and a shipwreck in order to reach marriage and final harmony in Illyria.
Family issues do not include the strained relationship between Olivia and her Uncle Toby,
nor her regret for her dead father and brother. Nor is Viola’s family too much present in this
comedy; apart from her brother (Sebastian), who appears on stage only to clarify
misunderstandings and set things right, her father (also Sebastian) died when Viola was
thirteen (5.1.240-241), and there is no mention of the identical twins’ mother. The comedy—
with its gender confusion and cross-dressing as traditional conventions of comedy—is about
the various servants as members of the family (in Olivia’s and Orsino’s households), and
about the theatre as the place of the family of actors. Even if they may be considered
vagabonds, or beggars, according to the traditional social stereotypes of the time, the family
of actors is able to distort reality, create illusions, and evoke metaphorical places (such as
Illyria), which are so different from the real life. In the illusionary world of the play,
aristocratic ladies may fall in love with young and female-looking pages, only to find marital
bliss in the arms of a suitable—but identical-looking male husband; drunken lords may find

56
Both Sebastian and Viola mention that they come from Messaline. Sebastian tells Antonio that “My father
was that Sebastian of Messaline whom I know you have heard of (2.1.16-17). Viola tells Sebastian that she is
“Of Messaline. Sebastian was my father” (5.1.228), thus asserting her true identity to her brother. Messaline
comes, perhaps, from Massilia, the Latin name for Marseille.

183
happiness by marrying a servant in his family (as in the Sir Toby–Maria couple). Yet, most of
all, this complicated world of Shakespearean comedy is inhabited by servants who can play
tricks on other servants (as in the Malvolio plot), or servants and clowns who are allowed to
transgress the boundaries of their social class and tell truths to their masters, which they
would not have been able to tell otherwise.
Especially illuminating from the point of view of the placing of families on the stage,
these families of theatrical servants are members of a larger histrionic group of actors, who
transgress the social hierarchy and are able to play roles. A noble lady (Viola) plays the role
of the page (Cesario); a wise jester (Feste) plays the role of the fool, and of the prelate, Sir
Topas; a witty lady in waiting (Maria) plays the role of playwright and director of a play-
within-the-play; a drunken lord and his friend (Sir Toby and Sir Andrew Aguecheek) play the
role of the audience in the carefully orchestrated performance of Malvolio’s stupidity.
Similarly, a member of the audience within the play, the servant Fabian is entertained by
Malvolio's antics. At the same time, the servant Malvolio plays the role of himself, as a
gullible steward, while he thinks that he plays the role of a noble and sophisticated lord with
whom his lady is in love. Master–servant relationships are distorted in Twelfth Night, and
then put back again, showing that the fictional roleplay can be both similar to, and different
from, the social reality of early modern England. Actors and servants—or actors as servants
—are middlemen, or go-betweens, travelling across the world of the play and the reality of
the audience attending the play, showing them who they really are, rather than who they
would like to be.

3.3. Page Moth in Love’s Labour’s Lost

Within the landscape of Shakespearean comedy, Love’s Labour’s Lost fulfils a
marginal role, as the earliest play has been considered as “a beginner’s clumsy effort” (David
xiii). Indeed, the play is full of sophisticated rhyming couplets and elaborate puns, as well as
stock characters. What is of interest to me from this perspective is the similarity with the
Italian commedia dell’arte57 and its characters, similar to Twelfth Night. Costard is modelled
according to the rustic character figure of zanni, and there is also page Moth, a page to Don
Armado. These characters configure a world of servants as go-between, who link their
57
In the Introduction to the Arden edition of Love’s Labour’s Lost, R. W. David observes the indebtedness of
Shakespeare’s comedy to the commedia dell’arte characters: “Shakespeare’s play lacks this stylization
altogether, but it does owe something to the Commedia dell’Arte” (David xxxi). R. W. David mentions the
troupe of professional Italian actors led by Francesco Andreini, which visited France and, possibly, England, in
the last quarter of the sixteenth century, and which featured such figures as “Costard, of the rustic servant
Zanni” and the figure of the Miles gloriosus, in the character of Don Armado (David xxxi).

184
masters and their would-be lovers—within the world of the play—to the noble characters (the
four couples of lords and ladies). Another interesting fact that needs mentioning about this
play is its intense interiority, hidden behind a mass of superficial comedy and language. As
Louis Montrose observes in “‘Folly in wisdom hatch’d’: The Exemplary Comedy of Love’s
Labour’s Lost” (1977), “Love’s Labour’s Lost explores the dynamics existing between the
fundamental movements into and out of the self: private and public, contemplative and
active, withdrawn and engaged. Each movement may be either positively or negatively
realized—inwardness as self-discovery or narcissism; sociability as communion or a mob—
and may thus exist in either antithetical or complementary relationship to the other”
(Montrose 147). In continuation to this argument, I claim that the figures of the clowns and
servants in the comedy (Costard and Moth) represent a kind of intermediate family that glues
the action together and gives it the necessary aura of interiority. Moreover, the spaces in
which these servant characters evolve are both rural and courtly, private and public, which
associates them with the theatre family of actors.
Even the space of action in Love’s Labour’s Lost (the court of Navarre and the
Princess’s camp in the park outside the city) is marked by topicality, as Linda Shenk
rightfully notes: “In the mid-1590s, William Shakespeare fashioned his insistently topical
Love’s Labour’s Lost out of rather unlikely material, turbulence in contemporary France” 58
(Shenk 193). Against this intense background of confrontation and civil war in France, there
comes a comedy that is about the resistance and defiance between the sexes and love. There
is a large amount of love letters exchanged between the lords and their ladies, as well as
characters such as Don Armado and Jaquenetta. There are also servants as middlemen, who
deliver these letters, and even to the wrong people. The sense of loss that the plot furthers is
manifested from the title. As John K. Hale observes about the comedy’s title, “Love begins
the title proudly. Labours qualifies it, but as yet the outcome could be either way. Lost,
delayed to the end as climax, defeats the comic expectation, but amusingly” (Hale 12).
Therefore, the title is about the lost labours of love between the lords and ladies, as well as
the deferred but promised happiness and marriage at the end. Yet none of this would have
happened if the servants had not acted as go-betweens, linking their respective masters’ world
to that of the ladies or the country women (Jaquenetta).
Women are endowed with agency in Love’s Labour’s Lost, and they are powerful
characters that outshine most of the men of the play. In an ecofeminist study about the ways
58
The turbulence that Shenk speaks of is the confrontation between the military forces of the Protestant King
Henri IV (formerly King of Navarre) and the Catholic League, whose members refused to accept Henri as king
(Shenk 193).

185
in which women move into and through different types of space (those that have been marked
by culture and those that have not), Miriam Kammer argues, “Acting as agents, though
perceived by their male counterparts as objects, the Princess and ladies of Love’s Labour’s
Lost transform “passive nature space into a staging ground for action, undoing constructions
of the natural world as exploitable material and re-casting nature as agential, feminist space”
(467). When referring to the 2009 production of Love’s Labour’s Lost directed by Dominic
Dromgoole, Kammer speaks about “the empowerment of female characters who had been
cast into nature space” (468), but she refers mostly to the production’s representation of the
Princess and the ladies, rather than the country wench (or dairy maid) Jaquenetta. Even if she
is not a proper court servant—in the sense of the member of a contract between master and
servant—Jaquenetta moves throughout the outer spaces of the play—in the park of the court
of Navarre—like a princess in her own world. Moreover, none of the confusions of the
comedy would have happened unless she had been there to provide a rustic counterpart to the
noble ladies’ femininity.
Jaquenetta is seduced by Costard and she becomes pregnant, while Don Armado
writes ardent love letters to her. Don Armado is in love with Jaquenetta and he sends a letter
of complaint to the King (via Constable Dull), claiming that Costard had been spied making
love to the girl in the park, thus infringing upon the law of non-entertainment with women
that the King had enforced. In trying to persuade the lords that he is close to Jaquenetta—and
therefore entitled to have Don Armado’s letter read to him—Costard mentions the spaces in
which he was seen with the girl. As Costard says, “I was seen in the manor-house, sitting
with her upon the form, and taken following her into the park” (I.i.203-205). The letter says
that Jaquenetta was viewed “north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy curious-
knotted garden” (I.i.241-242). Even if she is not a lady—therefore not a mistress of the
manor-house—Jaquenetta’s presence haunts the domestic spaces of femininity, the home
(probably as she delivers milk), but also the more sophisticated space of the royal park, where
the Princess and her ladies evolve as central characters. Even more so, Don Armado
expresses the exact location of Jaquenetta’s transgression in nautical language showing
direction, “north-north-east and by east” (I.i.241). Even more so, the “curious-knotted
garden” (I.i.242) describes a specific garden of Renaissance formal design, consisting of a
variety of plants and herbs. However, the term associates the formality of nature with the
sophistication of language. Just as a knotted garden is expected to tame nature into formal
patterns of knots and squares, the language Don Armado uses in his letter is formed of
synonymic series and formal expressions, which are difficult to follow.
186
 In Don Armado’s elaborate and wordy letter of complaint to the King, Jaquenetta is
called “a child of our grandmother Eve” (I.i.257), “a female” (I.i.257), “a woman” (I.i.258)
and “the weaker vessel” (I.i.265). The biblical term of the weaker vessel was applied to a
wife, in the sense that women were considered the weaker vessel in the family, prone to
emotion, and therefore more easily breakable. Don Armado’s description of Jaquenetta uses
biblical metaphors and common terms to refer to the same person, a woman, who is supposed
to be weak and easily seduced by insistent male suitors. After reading Don Armado’s letter of
complaint, the King explains that the proclamation that he issued “proclaimed a year’s
imprisonment to be taken with a wench” (I.i.280-281). The King uses a different word to
refer to Jaquenetta (a country wench), which was habitually associated with prostitutes.
Jaquenetta’s final punishment for having lain with Costard—as expressed by Constable Dull
—is to continue to be a servant, therefore to keep her previous position. As Dull says, “For
this damsel, I must keep her at the park; she is allowed for the day-woman” (I.ii.122-123).
Therefore, the servant woman continues in her service, even if she is called a “damsel”
(I.ii.122), a young unmarried woman, which might be interpreted as a derogatory term
because it derives from the French demoiselle, a maid or a wench, with slight connotations of
a prostitute.
Jaquenetta is allowed to live at the royal park—similar to other tame animals kept for
fun in the park, such as deer and stags. The space of the sophisticated royal park—with its
knotted garden and ladies flirting with gentlemen—represents the convoluted meanders of
courtly life, of which the maid Jaquenetta and Costard are no part. The fact that Jaquenetta is
a dairy maid does not change her unmanageable status as an unmarried woman, who is
pregnant before marriage. When Don Armado confesses his love to her and promises to visit
her “at the lodge” (I.ii.126), or at her home, Jaquenetta responds, “That’s hereby” (I.ii.128).
By showing spatially that her home is quite near, Jaquenetta shows her social availability, but
not the emotional one. She responds curtly and ironically to Don Armado’s declarations of
love, showing that she resents the man’s written complaint against her. Yet without
Jaquenetta’s illicit involvement with Costard and Don Armado’s envy and spying on them,
the comedic plot would not have moved forward. Jaquenetta is one of those chemical agents
fermenting the comedic plot, even if she is just a marginal servant of low social status.
Costard is considered “Costard the swain” (I.i.177) by Lord Longaville, who intends
to make fun of the countryman and turn him into “our sport” (I.i.177) during the three dull
years in which the King and the three lords pledge to retire from the world and study
philosophy. While the self-sufficient lords think that they make fun of the country bumpkin,
187
however, it is Costard who gets the upper-hand. As the King reads the letter of complaint sent
by Don Armado (because Costard is illiterate), Costard’s sophisticated comments reveal that
he is more intelligent than the self-important lords would admit. In his letter of complaint,
Don Armado calls Costard contemptuously a “low spirited swain” (I.i.243), “that base
minnow of thy mirth” (I.i.244), “that unlettered small-knowing soul” (I.i.246), and “that
shallow vassal” (I.i.247). The swain was a metaphor for base enjoyment of the pleasures of
life, therefore the basest of animals, and, by extension, of people. Costard is also called a
contemptible little person, because “minnow” refers to a number of species of small
freshwater fish. Implicitly, however, as Costard provokes mirth to the King, he is regarded as
a clown. In this way, Costard is aligned with the family troupe of actors, who are used to
entertain the nobility in their manors. The description of “shallow vassal” (I.i.247) ascribed to
Costard refers to his state of servitude, as he is a country bumpkin and a clown, but it also
shows his superficiality. According to Don Armado’s malicious description of Costard, the
clown is also illiterate; this is shown in the play by the fact that Costard asks the king to read
Don Armado’s letter of complaint. This would not have been possible if the King and his
lords had not been present incognito in the park.
From the perspective of the sophisticated and ridiculous Don Armado, Costard is not
only a superficial and easy-going person, but also an illiterate country fellow and an
insignificant servant. However, Costard’s sophistry is no less than that employed by Don
Armado, as the servant is able to extricate himself from the responsibility involved in having
made love to Jaquenetta (while being spied on by Don Armado) by using equally
sophisticated synonymic series when referring to Jaquenetta. Costard calls her “a wench”
(I.i.280), “a demsel” (I.i.283), “a virgin” (I.i.285) and “a maid” (I.i.287). While setting
Jaquenetta’s virginity under the sign of doubt, Costard’s quibbling language proves to be at
least as refined as Don Armado’s, demonstrating the incapacity of language to express the
truth properly. As the King sentences Costard to the penance of fasting for a week with bran
and water, it would be reasonable to say that the clown is turned into a kind of martyr for this
faith in women and love. Yet Costard does not accept the King’s sentence and says, “I had
rather pray a month with mutton and porridge” (I.i.293-294). While playing on paradoxical
language, Costard’s comment on the King’s command shows that the whole conversation is
just a complicated game or words and wit. While Don Armado is set as Costard’s keeper, the
King’s sentence reinforces the scene’s meta-theatricality. By using complex language, like in
a play-within-the-play, the unreality of the conversation between the King and Costard is
emphasized.
188
 Costard is referred to by Don Armado as “the rational hind Costard” (I.ii.111), which
means an intelligent clown, a person who can use rational language. Page Moth calls him “a
transgressing slave” (I.ii.145), thus highlighting his status as a servant and his disobedience
(for having contravened against the laws enforced by the King). In exchange, Costard sees
himself as a martyr for truth and love, as he concludes at the end of this meta-theatrical scene:
“I suffer for the truth, sir: for true it is I was taken with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true
girl; and, therefore, welcome the sour cup of prosperity! Affliction may one day smile again;
and till then, sit thee down, sorrow!” (I.i.302-306). By using paradoxical language, such as
“the sour cup of prosperity” (I.i.304) and “Affliction may one day smile again” (I.i.304-305),
Costard shows that this is all a language game. Difficulties can never smile at people, just as
drinking from the cup of prosperity can never leave a rancid aftertaste (or maybe they can).
At the same time, by affirming that Jaquenetta is an honest girl, Costard implicitly distorts
and reverses his statement, because the audience knows that she is with child. When he is
taken to prison by the page Moth to fulfil his sentence, Costard is left speechless, as he says,
“I will say nothing” (I.ii.154). The verbose servant is apparently left speechless, but this is
not for too long.
Costard is a pragmatic philosopher who muses at the complicated word
“Remuneration” (III.i.135), which he considers “the Latin word for three farthings”
(III.i.133). For the simple-minded Costard, the abstract word “remuneration” has no
immediate significance, whereas three farthings that he keeps in his hand (as payment from
Don Armado to deliver the love letter to Jaquenetta) are real and palpable. He also creates a
metaphor of “the French crown” (III.i.137), which is a double-meaning word; it is a pun on
the French coin, or écu, a gold coin minted in France, and the bald crown produced by
syphilis, called the French disease. Alternatively, it alludes to the French crown that King of
Navarre, Henri IV, would take eventually. In Costard’s home-spun philosophical concept,
however, the mysterious word “remuneration” may include any value, emotional or material.
Just as Don Armado wants to employ Costard as a messenger for his love letter to Jaquenetta,
Berowne intends to commission the clown to deliver his love letter to his lady, Rosaline. As
Berowne says, “O stay slave! I must employ thee” (III.i.146), he expresses not only his
contempt and disregard for Costard’s low social status as a slave, but also the clown’s
position as messenger or go-between, employed to deliver love messages. Only that Costard
delivers the wrong message to the wrong girl, and so Jaquenetta receives the letter scattered
with Berowne’s flowery language (which she cannot read, nor understand), while Rosaline
reads Don Armado’s love letter meant for Jaquenetta. Even if Costard’s confusion is
189
unintentional—as he is illiterate and cannot read the addressee for each letter—his position as
a go-between is central in the development of the play’s plot.
Costard is described as “a member of the Commonwealth” (IV.i.41) by the French
courtier Boyet, which might refer to his lowly status as a servant, or one of the lower orders.
Yet, from his side, when he leaves the party of nobility, after having delivered the wrong
letter to the wrong woman, Costard exclaims, “Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors
stay” (IV.i.209). From his perspective, Costard and his woman, Jaquenetta, are the “true folk”
(IV.i.209), no-nonsense members of society who take life for what it is, with no rhetorical
embellishment. On the other hand, the lords are “traitors” (IV.i.209), but not in the common
sense of persons who betray principles, but traitors of words, who distort meanings for their
own ends. Although Costard delivers the wrong letters out of ignorance, he does not consider
himself a traitor, but an honest person who takes life seriously and who, finally, gets the girl.
Unlike the king and the three lords, who are made to wait for a year before they can envisage
the prospect of marrying their respective ladies, Costard is allowed to form a family instantly,
as Jaquenetta is already with child.
Despite his illiteracy and his original kind of home-spun philosophy, Costard is given
the longest word ever in Shakespeare, the Latin “honorificabilitudinitatibus” (V.i.39), which
shows that the two servants, Costard and Moth, are mocking the Latin exchange between the
clergyman Sir Nathaniel and the schoolmaster Holofernes, as well as Don Armado. Moth
tells Costard about the conversation (mostly in Latin) between the two pedants, and he
describes it as follows: “They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps”
(V.i.35-36). A feast means eating in excess, and a feast of languages refers to using words in
excess. However, Sir Nathaniel and Holofernes are not seen as having participated in that
feast as entitled guests, but as ignominious beggars, who have stolen the food remains. This
means that their erudition is spurious and their Latin words are incompetently used.
Assenting to this view, Costard continues Moth’s assessment of Sir Nathaniel and Holofernes
with “they have lived long on the alms-basket of words” (V.i.37). In Shakespeare’s time, the
refuse of the table at a feast was collected by the attendants and put into a large basket, which
was called the alms-basket; the contents of this basket were used for the poor. Costard derides
the two scholars’ erudition, by implying that they use the refuse of other people’s words. In
this particular context, Costard uses this strangely-sounding and rare Latin word, not to mock
erudition in general, but to ridicule badly used academic language. At the two ends of the
servants’ world in Love’s Labour’s Lost lie Costard (the illiterate but judgemental country
clown) and Moth (the young but sophisticated rhetorician, page to Don Armado). Both
190
servants are not part of the worlds of their masters (neither the world of the young lords nor
that of the erudite scholars), but they have the capacity to interpret correctly the signals
coming from these environments.
In the pageant of the Nine Worthies represented before the Princess and her ladies—
which is a play-within-the-play—Costard interprets the role of Pompey the Great. Even if
Holofernes derides his tendency to enjoy the pleasures of life and considers him a “swine”
(V.i.119), Costard is deemed fit to “pass for Pompey the Great” (V.i.120) because of his large
stature, or “because of his great limb or joint” (V.i.120). This shows that Costard and Moth
are set in contrast physically—as one is of large stature and the other is short. The allusion
may be to the actors embodying these characters in Shakespeare’s time. However, regardless
of their stature, there is a contrast here between the physical aspect of the actor interpreting a
role and the moral stature of the character being interpreted. As Pompey the Great was a great
general in the time of Julius Caesar, the formal characters assume that the Roman hero should
be interpreted by a large actor. Yet Costard is also a messenger (or a go-between) in the
theatre world, as he asks the lords “whether the three Worthies shall come in or no”
(V.ii.486). As if in recognition of his wit, Berowne welcomes him with, “Welcome, pure
wit!” (V.ii.484). Costard is wise enough to correct Berowne when matters of the theatre are
involved, as he says, “You cannot beg us, sir, I can assure you, sir; we know what we now”
(V.ii.489-490). As a member of the family of actors, Costard points to the contrast between
the actors as beggars for applause (which was the commonly-held notion of the time) and the
self-contained troupe of actors, who know the rules of casting and interpretation, as shown in
the previous conversation.
Costard continues his meta-theatrical conversation with the lords, saying that he will
interpret the role of Pompey the Great: “It pleased them to think me worthy of Pompey the
Great: for mine own part, I know not the degree of the Worthy, but I am to stand for him”
(V.ii.502-504). The question of the actor’s interpreting the role of a great and noble character
is raised here, as Costard does not know who Pompey the Great was (since he was
uneducated), but he could interpret the role because he was deemed “worthy” (V.ii.502) by
the casting team. Yet the actor’s worthiness was based on appearance, as Costard only looked
large in size, not great in action. Thus, it is implied that the value of the actor does not lie in
the importance of the role he is interpreting, but in the manner of his rendition of the
character. As a promise before the play begins, when Berowne tells him, “Go bid them
prepare” (V.ii.505), Costard answers, “We will turn it off finely off, sir; we will take some
care” (V.ii.506). As a messenger between the family of the actors’ troupe and the noblemen
191
patronizing them, Costard does not make vain promises, but he tries to highlight the actors’
professionalism. Therefore, Costard is not only the messenger who carries letters to the lords
and ladies in the play, but he is also the messenger in the theatre, carrying vital information to
and from the playwright/director to the audience.
During the play-within-the-play, Costard keeps his ground, despite Berowne’s
attempts to deride him. After the first statement of identity, “I Pompey am” (V.ii.541),
Berowne replies from the audience, “You lie, you are not he” (V.ii.542). The audience is
actively involved in the spectacle, as Berowne is trying to undermine the actor’s
interpretation, just as it might have occurred during the performance of the play. Keeping his
ground, Costard/Pompey repeats, “I Pompey am” (V.ii.542; 545), stating his identity as a
character interpreting a role. The actor engages in conversation with the audience concerning
his interpretation; when the Princess says, “Great thanks, great Pompey” (V.ii.553),
Costard/Pompey replies, “’Tis not so much worth; but I hope I was perfect” (V.ii.554). The
pun is on the role Costard is interpreting (the “worthy” Pompey the Great) and the worth or
value of the actor interpreting it. These meta-theatrical issues raised during the performance
show once again that Costard is a theatrical servant/clown involved in the world of the
theatre, including playwrights/directors, actors interpreting characters, and audience reacting
to the actors’ play.
Costard is not only a dutiful actor meditating on the roles he is playing and on the
actor’s position in relation to patron and audience, but he is also a fellow-actor in
conversation with other actors concerning their interpretation. After Sir Nathaniel delivers his
rendition of Alexander the Great in front of the audience, Costard comments on the former’s
acting. Trying to highlight his own role—out of justifiable vanity, as any actor would—
Costard interrupts the performance of Nathaniel/Alexander to remind the audience of his own
role (Pompey the Great) and who he really is, “Your servant, and Costard” (V.ii.567). This is
again an allusion to the servants as actors, members of a larger family of interpreters of roles
in the theatre, but also a statement for the identity of an actor interpreting a role. Is the actor’s
identity that of himself (or herself) as a person, or is it the assumed individuality of the
character he/she is interpreting? This question has preoccupied theatrical historians long
before Shakespeare’s time, and the clown Costard only voices it during the performance of
the play-within-the-play. Costard’s hair-splitting language and pedantry—as well as his wise
comments regarding the theatre and the actors’ identity—align this character with
Shakespeare’s meta-theatrical clowns, such as Feste in Twelfth Night, Bottom in A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing, Touchstone in As You
192
Like It, and King Lear’s unnamed Fool. These marginal characters—or go-betweens—draw
attention to the meta-theatricality of the play’s performance and the fact that characters are
playing roles, as part of the family of actors-servants.
Don Armado is another comic character whom the king and the three lords intend to
deride during the three long years of retirement from the world. The audience first get a
sample of his verbosity through his sophisticated letter of complaint to the King, and then
Don Armado appears on stage in all his ridiculous splendour. During his conversation with
his page, Moth, it is evident that the one being ridiculed is the master (Don Armado), while
the page is among those who use sophisticated language to express the volatility of truth and
the incapacity of language to express it properly. When Don Armado asks, “Boy, what sign is
it when a man of great spirit grows melancholy?” (I.ii.1-2), page Moth responds sarcastically,
“A great sign, sir, that he will look sad” (I.ii.3). While Don Armado elicits a semiotic answer
suggesting the metaphoric significance of sadness, the pragmatic page turns the question on
its head and says the same thing, using different, more accessible words. To Don Armado,
page Moth is “dear imp” (I.ii.4) and “my tender juvenal” (I.ii.8), which denotes not only the
character’s youth but also his lack of experience. While “imp” is a young novice, a child, or
inexperienced person, “juvenal” also refers to youth, but it is a term derived from Latin. It is
also possible that the term is a pun on the Roman satirist Decimus Junius Juvenalis (known in
English as Juvenal), who was active in the early second century AD. The point is not really
about who Juvenal was, but about the fact that Don Armado’s reference to page Moth is in
Latin, which the servant was not expected to understand.
As if replying in the same aggressive and sophisticated language, Moth calls Don
Armado “my tough Signior” (I.ii.10), thus showing that he knows a form of address in
Italian, even if he may not know the Latin reference. The decoding of the language follows,
as Don Armado explains to Moth that he called him “tender juvenal” “as a congruent
epitheton appertaining to thy young days, which we may nominate tender” (I.ii.13-15). Don
Armado’s disambiguation is far from clarifying, as the master thinks he is using a suitable
epithet for Moth’s young age. In fact, the master’s erudite language is counterpoised to the
page’s blunt answer: “And I, tough Signor, as an appertinent title to your old time, which we
may name tough” (I.ii.16-17). Not only is the page scoffing at his master’s abstruse language,
but he is also parading his knowledge of Italian (as opposed to Latin), as a modern language,
in opposition to a dead one. Page Moth is able to deride his master’s sophisticated language
and he does not give in an inch in self-respect. Even if the clown in this scene is Don Armado
—who uses language inappropriately and in a distorted manner—page Moth is like the
193
audience in the theatre, responding to the clown’s retorts. The linguistic exchange between
master and servant shows a high degree of sophistry, leading to the conclusion that both of
them are playing roles in the theatre.
Synonymic series are a sign that the language used between servant and master is
highly theatrical and it is meant to be understood with a grain of salt. “Pretty, because little”
(I.ii.21) and “apt, because quick” (I.ii.23) are not necessarily descriptions of page Moth’s
appearance and quick wit, but they are expressions of the different ways in which language
can be used. A comparison follows, in which Moth’s ingenuity is compared to an “eel”
(I.ii.26), but the dialogue is so quick and slippery that the audience listening to it can clearly
visualize an eel slipping from their hands, just as the meanings of the words being used are
slippery. As if to highlight the many possibilities of language expression, page Moth asks
rhetorically, “How many is one thrice told?” (I.ii.37), suggesting the replicability of language
and the infinite possibilities of saying the same thing in different ways. At this point, Armado
gives up, implicitly admitting that page Moth can beat him at sophistry, when he says, “I am
ill at reckoning” (I.ii.38), as if considering he is an ignorant person. Yet Moth perceives this
answer as a language game, as he says, “You are a gentleman and a gamester, sir” (I.ii.39). In
fact, both Don Armado and his page are gamesters, gambling on language and its words, as if
they were coins in a roulette game.
The language exchange between Moth and Don Armado becomes so sophisticated
that it may be considered a “cipher” (I.ii.52), a nothing, a nonentity, thus showing that when
the signifying words exceed their limit of expression, the capacity of language to express
reality becomes null. This is exactly what the audience feels when trying to understand the
quibbling language between master and page. Both Don Armado and his page Moth (named
after the nocturnal butterfly that flies invariably to the flame) are gamesters in the language
games, but the page outwits his master. Moth proves his education as he answers his master’s
questions, like in a mock game of catechism. Giving examples of great men in love, Moth
responds with Hercules (I.ii.62) and Samson (I.ii.66), and another series of quibbling
sentences follows. Just as in a conversation between schoolmaster and student, Don Armado
invites Moth to “Define, define, well-educated infant” (I.ii.88). As if being able to elicit
truthful answers through a series of well-chosen questions—in imitation of the Socratic and
Platonic dialogues—page Moth and his master are actively engaging in a game of language
that has no end. This game shows that they are aware of being actors interpreting a role in the
theatre. In this acting game, the page is the mediator who makes his master’s sophisticated
language intelligible for the common spectators.
194
 Page Moth can recite poetry (I.ii.92-99) and sing the song “Concolinel” (III.i.2), thus
showing he is also an entertainer, as a player in the theatre. Moth refers to the popular ballad
of the King and the Beggar (I.ii.102-103), in which “King Cophetua” (IV.i.66) fell in love
with a beggar maid. He continues to recite the moral of a fable started by his master to mock
Costard’s stupidity.59 Moth also suggests to Don Armado that he can win Jaquenetta “with a
French brawl” (III.i.6); this is a French dance (the bransle), which became popular in
England during the second half of the sixteenth century. Pages are expected to entertain their
masters with songs and dances, and Moth’s skills in this respect are quite impressive. Moth
can even describe his entertainment talents as follows: “to jig off a tune at the tongue’s end,
canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your eyelids, sigh a note and sing a
note, sometime through the throat as if you swallowed love with singing love, sometime
through the throat, as if you snuffed up love by smelling love” (III.i.9-14). Moth’s multi-
sensory description of his skills in offering entertainment—similar to the song of the canary
bird—is the description of acting emotions. As he advises Don Armado to do all these things
while confessing his love to Jaquenetta, Moth actually describes his profession as an actor.
Moreover, the boy actor interpreting page Moth must have shown full awareness of the
actors’ profession as servants of a noble house. When Don Armado asks Moth “How hast
thou purchased this experience?” (III.i.24), the answer is, “By my penny of observation”
(III.i.25). This is another metatheatrical allusion, as the groundlings—the audiences standing
around the apron stage at Elizabethan performances—would pay a penny for the theatre
entrance. Even more so, the actor interpreting page Moth would have had enough time during
the performance to peek to the members of the audience and observe their reactions. Page
Moth, therefore, like the clown Costard, are theatrical embodiments of actors on stage.
Page Moth is a servant who shoots his master’s sophistry back at him like a cannon
shooting fire. The “pretty ingenious” (III.i.55) page tells Don Armado that he will be “as
swift as lead” (III.i.54) in delivering the love letter to Jaquenetta, and when the master
counterattacks by saying that “lead is slow” (III.i.58), Moth replies with the rhetorical
question, “Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun?” (III.i.59). Even the sophisticated Don
Armado must give up in front of his student’s rhetorical and sophistry skills, as he exclaims,
“Sweet smoke of rhetoric!” (III.i.60). As he intends to use Moth’s conversational skills

59
As Don Armado starts with “The fox, the ape and the humble-bee / Were still at odds, being but three”
(III.i.82-83), Moth continues with the moral “Until the goose came out of door / And stay’d the odds by adding
four” (III.i.84-85). This ballad has some key in the controversies of Shakespeare’s time, but when looked at
from the perspective of page Moth’s intelligence, it adds substance to the point that Moth is an embodiment of
the Elizabethan player on stage.

195
against his rival Costard, Don Armado exclaims in admiration of his page, “A most acute
juvenal; voluble and free of grace!” (III.i.63). The epithet refers not only to Moth’s use, but
also to his “acute” intellect, which can turn every word into its opposite meaning. When
Costard appears, Don Armado invites page Moth to show his skills in eloquence and to say
“Some enigma, some riddle: come, thy l’envoy; begin” (III.i.68). An enigma may be a jest,
while “l’envoy” (III.i.68), from the French envoy, is an address or send-off, usually placed at
the end of a prose or poetical composition; this may often take the form of a concise
commendation to the readers. By inviting Moth to show his poetical talent—as if he were a
playwright in the theatre—Don Armado shows total confidence in the page’s rhetorical skills.
In reply, the pragmatic Costard refuses a confrontation in poetry, as he says, “No enigma, no
riddle, no l’envoy” (III.i.69). Rather than accepting a war of words in useless poetic
language, the clown Costard prefers to retreat wisely because he knows he already has the
girl.
In the pageant of the Nine Worthies, page Moth interprets the role of Hercules, which
is in total contrast with his diminutive size and young age. Don Armado objects, saying this is
an “error” (V.i.122), because his page “is not quantity enough for that Worthy’s thumb: he is
not as big as the end of his club” (V.i.122-124). By contrasting Moth’s diminutive size with
that of the strong character he is about to interpret (the hero Hercules, who is supposed to be
large) during this comic moment of casting, the play elicits questions regarding roles in
theatrical performance. Holofernes (like an impromptu director) thinks he has found the
solution, by having Moth “present Hercules in minority” (V.i.125-126), when strangling a
snake. This means that Hercules as a child (when in minority), according to legend, was so
strong that he strangled a snake. Moth agrees, adding “so if any of the audience hiss, you may
cry ‘Well done, Hercules! Now thou crushest the snake!” (V.i.129-130). The audience’s
reaction is alluded to here; the hissing of the snake strangled by baby Hercules is associated
with the hissing of the audience, when they are not satisfied with the performance. This scene
dramatizes the conversation that would have taken place among the actors and the
playwright/director during the casting of a theatrical performance and it points to the play’s
meta-theatrical component. During the performance of the Nine Worthies, Moth’s role as
Hercules is a dumb show, probably because his small voice is not suitable for the powerful
mythological hero. This also points to Moth (as well as Costard) being not only page and
clown, but servants in the theatrical family of actors patronized by members of the nobility.
The four families expected to be formed at the end of Love’s Labour’s Lost —through
the four marriages as symbols of harmony in the couple—are placed in a deferred manner, as
196
their happiness is incomplete. The Princess’ royal family is marked by sadness, as the
messenger Marcade (another servant) announces the death of the French King, the Princess’s
father, in very few words. Marcade starts with “I am sorry, madam; for the news I bring / Is
heavy on my tongue. The king your father—” (V.ii.710). When the Princess guesses the
wordless message and exclaims, “Dead, for my life!” (V.ii.712), Marcade responds, “Even
so: my tale is told” (V.ii.713). After so much rhetoric has been spread like a smoke
throughout the comedy, the sad news of death in the family is delivered by a servant
messenger in few words, but with intense emotion. Berowne delivers another speech about
friendship and family, in his sophisticated manner: “to wail friends lost / Is not by much so
wholesome-profitable / As to rejoice at friends but newly found” (V.ii.741-743). While
Berowne may refer to the lost friend (the king of France) and the new friends (the Princess
and her ladies), his callous remark makes the Princess exclaim, “I understand you not: my
griefs are double” (V.ii.744). Apart from the grief provoked by her father’s death, the
Princess is appalled by the fact that Berowne and the other lords (including the King of
Navarre, who declared his love to her) are so insensitive to her silent grief and spend their
time in useless rhetorical speeches.
This is why the four young families in the play are placed in rather unfavourable
circumstances, and their marital happiness is deferred to future time. As the Princess decrees,
the four men should retire “To some forlorn and naked hermitage / Remote from all the
pleasures of the world” (V.ii.787-788) for a year. This is exactly the kind of home that the
king and his lords envisaged at the beginning of the play, only that their retreat in Navarre
lacked empathy. The Princess implies that until the lords learn the value of compassion, they
should not try to form families. The families of servants, on the other hand—Costard and
Moth, together with Jaquenetta—are allowed to find relative happiness because they live in a
no-nonsense world and take things as they are. Even if page Moth may seem to exceed his
master (Don Armado) in rhetorical skills, this is used just as a contrast to show to his master
who he really is. Both Costard and Moth are members of the family of actors, whose
performance on stage helps them acquire a new identity. The placing of servants on stage in
Love’s Labour’s Lost is closely associated with their role as messengers or go-betweens, not
only between the world of the nobility and that of the common people (through the confusing
exchange of letters and wise statements) but also between the world of the theatre and the real
world, as actors interpreting a role.
While Costard as Pompey the Great and Moth as young Hercules interact with their
fellow actors and the members of the audience during the pageant of the Nine Worthies, the
197
life of the theatre in Shakespeare’s time is performed live on stage. Each time the
Shakespearean play Love’s Labour’s Lost is being performed in front of a live audience, the
conditions of the theatrical performance in Shakespeare’s time are replicated. Modern-day
audiences are able to learn about the actors’ value in interpreting roles, their interaction with
their noble patrons and the members of the audience, as well as questions concerning the
actor’s assumed identity when playing a role, in contrast with the person’s real-life
personality. Other marginal issues of the theatre are tackled, such as the actors’ vanity, their
identification with the role they are playing, and the transition from the space of the play to
the space of the theatrical performance in the theatre hall, and finally, to the space of the real
world beyond the theatre. All these aspects are debated through the play’s servant characters
(Costard and Moth), who are transitional figures linking the world of the play, the play-
within-the-play, and the audience viewing the spectacle.

Conclusions
Whether they are servants in the household of Venice and Belmont (Launcelot Gobbo,
Balthazar and Stephano) in The Merchant of Venice; servants in Olivia and Orsino’s
households in Illyria (Feste, Fabian, Malvolio) in Twelfth Night; or servants in the French
lords’ and ladies’ train in Navarre (Moth, Jaquenetta and Costard) in Love’s Labour’s Lost,
household service was regarded as a contract among members of the family. Not only were
the servants considered as members of the extended family (as was the custom in
Shakespeare’s time), but they also acted as agents of destiny, as dynamic go-betweens linking
the contrasting spatial environments of each comedy. Moreover, their mediating presence and
the roles they play within the comedy associate these figures of servants with the company of
actors in Shakespeare’s time, who were considered servants patronized by a noble lord.
Launcelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice is a trickster and a clown who links the
household of the rich Shylock in Venice and Portia’s house in Belmont, but he also effects
the transition from the world of the play to that of the actors interpreting roles, playfully
received by the theatre audience. Balthasar and Stephano are servants in Portia’s household in
Belmont and they are faithful to their mistress, prepared even to lie for her if necessary. Feste
in Twelfth Night is the clown figure whose presence enhances the play’s meta-theatricality,
while Malvolio plays the lonely figure of the servant who aspires to social ascension and is,
therefore, derided by the other characters, both masters and servants. The clown in Love’s
Labour’s Lost is Costard, who is not technically a servant, but who acts as a messenger
between the lords and their ladies and is responsible for much of the confusion raised by the
198
mismanaged exchange of letters. Page Moth is highly skilled in rhetoric, music and poetry,
and he sets a dramatic contrast with his pompous master. Both characters play roles in the
pageant of the Nine Worthies, next to their masters, at the bidding of the noble lords, who
attend in the audience and comment upon their acting.
In the three Shakespearean comedies discussed, servants are not only members of
their respective masters’ households, but also mediators, as actors, associated with the world
of the theatre. They are clowns, jesters, creators/casting directors of fictional stage plays, and
actors or audience in these plays-within-the-play, which are dramatized in each comedy. In
The Merchant of Venice, Launcelot Gobbo enacts a fictional morality play, with the devil and
his conscience as main characters. Portia’s Belmont is populated by loyal servants and
musicians as entertainers, who provide an atmosphere of harmony. In Twelfth Night, Feste
participates in the play’s comic enactments and Fabian is a member of the audience in the
play-within-the-play created by Maria in order to ridicule Malvolio. Malvolio himself is an
actor in his own play-within-the-play, as he is unaware that he is the object of ridicule and he
is being watched and mocked by the others in the cross-garter scene. In Love’s Labour’s Lost,
both clown Costard and page Moth are actors in the pageant represented in front of an
audience formed of the noble lords and ladies—as if they were members of Shakespeare’s
company of actors (or servants) performing at court, in front of Queen Elizabeth and her
noble lords and ladies. These meta-theatrical allusions, as well as the similarities with the
real-life social world of the theatre in Elizabethan England, send to the idea that servants are
transitional figures, and characters interpreting them are actors interpreting a character in a
play. They are never what they pretend to be, but are always interpreting a role, in accordance
with the part scripted for them by the playwright/master.
As they link the world of the Shakespearean comedy with the theatre world, servants
also mediate between the contrastive spaces within the play. In The Merchant of Venice,
Launcelot Gobbo is a go-between linking commercial Venice with Portia’s seemingly idyllic
Belmont, but his presence is always disruptive and thought-provoking. As a servant in
Portia’s household, Balthasar also connects Belmont and Venice—but in a reversed manner
—as he travels between Padua and Belmont, and Portia assumes his name when she is
disguised as the young lawyer in Venice. In Twelfth Night, Feste mediates between Olivia’s
and Orsino’s households in Illyria, as he sings and delivers witty jokes for both noble houses.
Similarly, Viola/Cesario delivers private messages between the two households, while being
constantly aware that she/he is interpreting a role. As the steward (the head of the servants),
Malvolio only thinks he mediates between the world of his mistress and her servants (the
199
upstairs and downstairs area) but, in fact, he is the object of ridicule for others. In Love’s
Labour’s Lost, Costard and Moth interact with masters and servants alike. While Costard is
illiterate and uneducated, his practical philosophy helps him deliver witty remarks, and he
links the world of the servants to the two spaces of the masters, the castle of the King of
Navarre and his park, where the Princess and her ladies are hosted. Page Moth is also a
mediator and an entertainer; he argues rhetorically with his master (Don Armado), but he also
acts as a bringer of peace and a reminder of human compassion.
As for the placing of families in the three comedies, they are arranged spatially in
accordance to (1) the space of action; (2) the other characters involved in the action; and (3)
the conventions of comedy. In The Merchant of Venice, Shylock’s single-parent family in
Venice (Shylock and his daughter, Jessica) is set in contrast with the orphan Portia’s ghost-
like family in Belmont. In addition, the three young families being formed in Belmont (Portia
and Bassanio, Nerissa and Gratiano and Jessica and Lorenzo) are not the seemingly idyllic
couples one might expect from the classical conventions of comedy, according to which
marriage and happy couples are symbols of a harmonious ending of comedy. On the contrary,
women in these couples are much wittier than men are, while mutual trust is not necessarily a
characteristic of the Belmont families. Rather, they evolve according to the rules of general
mistrust and ruthlessness characterizing the space of Venice. Similarly, in Twelfth Night,
Olivia is an orphan, and her grief for her missing family (her dead father and brother) is
paralleled with Viola’s grief for the apparent death of her brother, Sebastian. Both Viola and
Olivia are orphaned noble ladies (and heiresses, like Portia), who are in a position to oppose
the prejudices of their society against women, and ultimately defeat them. The men who form
young families at the end of the play, however, are rather weak and unreliable, hardly suitable
to their respective resilient and intelligent ladies. Count Orsino’s and Sebastian’s presence in
the play is rather artificial and it is meant to set a counterpart to the strong female characters.
In Love’s Labour’s Lost, the happy familial reunion at the end of the play is deferred, and the
superficial lords will not get their ladies, after all, unless they wait for a year and learn about
compassion. Instead, it is understood that the servant family (Costard and the already
pregnant Jaquenetta) may find some sort of fulfilment, thus showing that high social class is
not necessarily the guarantee of family happiness.

200
 CONCLUSIONS

The placing of families on the early modern stage—as on any stage, at any time—is a
complex business involving people interpreting roles, and is, therefore, similar to and also
different from the social environment in real life. Whether actors interpret fathers and sons
(as in Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton’s The Roaring Girl), mothers and daughters
(as in Thomas Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside), or the complex relations between
family and race (as in William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus), these are actors interpreting
roles. Similarly, Shakespeare’s dysfunctional families in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, the
emotionally confused families in The Winter’s Tale, and the mentally distraught families in
The Tempest are theatrical imitations of real-life families—from Shakespeare’s time and
place, or from elsewhere, according to the director’s and actors’ interpretation during the
performance. The families of servants as actors are placed in the metatheatrical context as
well. The clown Launcelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice, the clown Feste and the
steward Malvolio in Twelfth Night, as well as the clown Costard and page Moth in Love’s
Labour’s Lost are just as many examples of actors interpreting roles, both in relation to their
respective masters and in relation to the theatrical world in which they evolve. The placing of
families on Shakespeare’s stage responds to a spatial configuration related to the play’s
setting and geographic allusions, but it also reconfigures the spatial environment
dynamically, by means of meta-theatrical allusions, through the actor’s identity and
interpretation.
Early modern families are judiciously organised and synchronised social units
reflecting the dominant social mores of the time. However, the dramatic parental families
represented in the Elizabethan and Jacobean plays discussed in this dissertation are fashioned
in incongruous ways—both similar to and different from the real-life families existing in
early modern society. This is because the theatre is not an exact replica of social relations, but
a deforming mirror that augments certain negative features and distorts systems of values and
practices. For this reason, the placing of families on the early modern stage is a complex
affair, involving issues of meta-theatricality. Whenever the dramatic parental family seems to
be identical to a normal family—in London or elsewhere—there is always an element of
doubt, manifested through intense questioning. Fathers, sons and daughters may seem united
in the city comedies discussed (The Roaring Girl and A Chaste Maid in Cheapside), but they
are also divisive, as each one interprets a role, scripted by the social rules and their own
opinions and frustrations. Fathers and mothers in Rome, in Shakespeare’s tragedy Titus
201
Andronicus, place their own ambitions and greed for power above their responsibilities as
parents, and this mutilates the relations between parents and children, just as Lavinia’s body
is mutilated by her rapists. In Shakespeare’s romances (Pericles, The Winter’s Tale and The
Tempest), there is a concern with family reunion—as suitable to the genre of tragicomedy—
but families are unbalanced, ruled by weak or corrupted fathers, and often deprived of the
mother’s benevolent action. Moreover, servants of these dramatic families (in The Merchant
of Venice, Twelfth Night and Love’s Labour’s Lost) act as mediators between the world of the
play and the theatre world, as they interpret roles and highlight issues of meta-theatricality.
As concerns parenthood—an essential component of family life—parents are never
what they are expected to be in the plays under discussion in this dissertation. Parental
authority is divided and fathers do not seem to rise to the expectations of benevolent
parenthood. Sir Alexander Wengrave in The Roaring Girl refuses his son’s suitable marriage
with a noble lady of his son’s choice for formal reasons, while his son interprets a role before
his father, so that he might gain acceptance for his choice of wife. The Yellowhammer
parents in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside are under the illusion that they are in control of their
children’s marital choices, but their daughter and son play roles and hide their true intentions
from their parents, thus distorting traditional familial relationships. Family relations in Titus
Andronicus are loosely connected with racial issues and the notion of blood, as they expose
the imperfection of beliefs related to barbarity and the other in relation to family and social
mores. While Titus Andronicus' Roman family is expected to be civilized and benevolent, it
is far from being so, and the father pays the price of his ambition and intransigence by losing
almost all his children. Conversely, the Goth family (Tamora and her sons) are supposed to
be barbaric, but they are able to devise complex plots, which lead to the destruction of their
enemies’ families. All the families in this tragedy—including Aaron’s single-parent family
(as he protects his newly-born illegitimate baby)—are larger-than-life images of parental
relations expected to exist in a normal family. This dramatic hyperbole suggests meta-
theatricality.
The dramatic parental family is placed in relation to the specific place of theatrical
experience, which may be the setting of each play, but also imaginary locations with
symbolic meanings. The dramatic embodiment of the actor playing a role on stage is also
involved in this spatial equation, as there is a reciprocal relationship between characters and
their spatial surroundings. Actors use disguise and meta-theatrical dialogue to suggest that
they are interpreting social roles. For example, the streets of the city of London and
Wengrave’s house and gallery of paintings in The Roaring Girl are sites of transition, in
202
which the transgressive families in the play evolve and play roles. So are London’s shops in
this comedy (the apothecary’s shop, the seamster’s shop and the featherer’s shop), which are
spaces of transition where male clients interact with available customers and women. The
Yellowhammers’ goldsmith shop in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside is also a space of transition,
where the father is being cheated by his future son-in-law and is deprived of his daughter,
who marries against her parents’ will. By contrast, the Yellowhammers’ home in Cheapside
(probably placed above the shop) is supposed to be a place of parental authority and stability,
but it is only a space of illusion, in which both parents believe they are in control of their
children’s lives, but it is not so. Allwit’s home in Cheapside, on the other hand, is a space of
illegitimacy, because Sir Walter Whorehound behaves as the lord of the house, being the
illicit father of Allwit’s family. When Allwit decides to leave Cheapside and move to Strand,
he departs from illegitimacy and becomes a true father to his family.
The places of theatrical experience in Shakespeare’s tragedy Titus Andronicus, by
contrast, are dramatized to represent ambition, cruelty, political manipulation, revenge and
murder within the family. The symbolic function of blood is interrelated with family and race
in this revenge tragedy. Whereas Saturninus’ palace in militarised Rome is supposed to
suggest stability and legitimacy, it is exactly the opposite, as the king is a surrogate father to
his baby and he is cuckolded by his empress for political reasons. In exchange, the symbolic
places for Titus and his sons in Rome are the tombs and his house. While Titus’ courtyard at
home is supposed to suggest familial stability and children’s education (as represented in the
scene evoking Lavinia reading from Tully to young Lucius), it is also the place where
revenge is enacted, as Tamora eats her sons’ flesh in a pie at a banquet in Titus’ home.
Similarly, the graves where Titus’ sons are buried are not necessarily symbols of respect for
the dead, but places of murder, where Titus and his son sacrifice Tamora’s son in a barbaric
manner. The wild space of the woods—in which Lavinia is raped and mutilated—is set in
contrast to the refined portico in Titus’ home, where Lavinia reveals the scene of her rape by
pointing to the book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses with her stumps. Home and forest, royal
palace and the Capitol, as well as the Goths’ imaginary wasteland suggesting barbarity and
conquest are just as many spaces in which the Roman, Goth and Moor families develop their
emotions and desire for revenge.
In Shakespeare’s romances, the places of theatrical experience are also strongly
delineated, as the families’ identities are shaped by the spaces they transit. The
tragicomedies’ dysfunctional families transform geographic space into socially and
individually circumscribed place. Geographic space and distance divide families, but they are
203
reunited through the mothers, by traversing physical and mental space. For this reason,
Pericles’ unstable identity in Pericles, Prince of Tyre is spatially delineated through the six
locations he traverses throughout the play. The incestuous place of Antioch is opposed to
Pericles’ home in the kingdom of Tyre, while the corrupted brothel space in Mytilene, on the
island of Lesbos, is opposed to the harmonious palace of Pentapolis, where a virtuous king-
father protects his princess-daughter. Finally, the famine-ridden city of Tarsus is opposed to
the sanctity of Ephesus, the place of Diana’s temple, where a respectable doctor saves
Thaisa’s life. Thus, the places dramatized in the first part of Pericles (Antioch, Tarsus, Tyre)
represent corruption and loss, whereas the places hosting the families in the play’s final part
(Pentapolis, Ephesus, Mytilene) suggest hope, redemption, and psychological recovery.
Similarly, the conflicting locations of fiery Sicilia and pastoral Bohemia in The Winter’s Tale
enclose allusions to atypical families. Leontes’ Sicilia is marred by the king’s irrational
jealousy—just as it is marked, geographically, by the fiery volcano of Etna. Conversely, the
geographically land-locked Bohemia is represented as having a deserted sea-coast, suggesting
despair and separation of families. The royal and ducal families in The Tempest traverse both
physical space (from Milan to Tunis and Naples) and the mental space of the magic island’s
territory.
The places of the servants’ experience and action in the three Shakespearean
comedies discussed in this dissertation are sites of transition, inhabited by both masters and
servants, who interact socially as members of the same family. Venice and Belmont in The
Merchant of Venice are not only traditional locations of prosperous commerce (Venice) and
of honourable wealth and beauty (Belmont), but also thresholds, or spaces marking the
transition between various frustrations and positive emotions. Servants in this comedy (such
as Launcelot Gobbo, Balthazar and Stephano) are mediators between these spaces of
emotional contact. The two household spaces in Twelfth Night (Olivia’s and Orsino’s houses
in Illyria) are transited by the clown (Feste), the disguised page (Viola as Cesario) and the
incompatible steward Malvolio. Page Moth in Love’s Labour’s Lost is a servant go-between
linking the palace of the lords in Navarre to the park where the ladies are hosted. Costard is
also a character of transition, whose clownish personality reminds of the theatre world. As
masters, schoolmasters and servants perform in a play-within-the-play in Love’s Labour’s
Lost, all characters suggest that they are members of the dramatic family of actors. In all
these three Shakespearean comedies, clowning, disguise and playacting are signs of the
metatheatrical component related to the performance of comedy. Theatrical place, therefore,

204
is directly connected with actors interpreting roles. The servants in these comedies are
members of the patriarchal family and also social actors, interpreting roles on stage.
The placing of families on the early modern stage, in the plays analysed in this
dissertation, is both a convention and a device through which playwrights represent, highlight
and alter the social realities of their times related to family issues. The placing of the dramatic
parental family shows a spatial arrangement in accordance to (1) the space of action; (2) the
other characters involved in the action; and (3) the conventions of comedy or tragedy. The
space of action is contrastive and suggests multiple meanings at the same time; characters
demonstrate that they are interpreting roles, through the use of multiple disguises and the
figures of clowns and intermediating servants; whereas the conventions of comedy allow for
the placing of the dramatic families in incongruous contexts, thus provoking confusion; in
Shakespeare’s revenge tragedy, families are placed in environments related to social and
racial conflict. However, in neither comedy nor tragedy does the placing of families suggest a
single meaning. Like an intricate network of social conventions and practices, each play
represents families differently, and never in an identical manner with real life. Whether they
are dramatic families of the city of London in Jacobean city comedies; or multi-racial
families of ancient Rome in Titus Andronicus; or the dysfunctional families in the romances,
striving to reach a sense of identity and compatibility; or the comic families of theatrical
servants in Shakespeare’s romantic comedies, all characters performing these dramatic
families show that they are interpreting roles. As the theatre destabilizes traditional family
relations and hyperbolizes certain features, marginalized figures of servants become
empowered and central in the hierarchical ordering of family relations.

205
 WORKS CITED
Primary Sources
Erasmus, Desiderius. The ciuilitie of childehode with the discipline and institucion of
children. Translated by Thomas Paynell. London: John Tisdale, 1560. STC 10470.3.
Greene, Robert. Pandosto: The Triumph of Time. London: I. B. dwelling at the signe of the
Bible, 1592.
Middleton, Thomas and Thomas Dekker. The Roaring Girl or Moll Cutpurse (1611). The
Works of Thomas Middleton. 8 vols. Vol. 4. Edited by A. H. Bullen. London: John C.
Nimmo, 1885, pp. 9-152.
Middleton, Thomas. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (1613). The Works of Thomas Middleton. 8
vols. Vol. 5. Edited by A. H. Bullen. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1885, pp.
1-115.
Nicols, Thomas. Lapidary: History of pretious stones. Cambridge: Printed by Thomas Buck,
1652. Early English Books Online.
Ortelius, Abraham. Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. Antwerpiae: Apud Aegid Coppenium Diesth,
1570.
———. An epitome of Ortelius his Theater of the world. London: H. Swingenij for Iohn
Norton, 1601. STC 18857.
Ovid. Ovid’s Metamorphoses Translated by Various Authors. Edited by Samuel Garth.
London: English Classics, 1826.
Perkins, William. Of Christian Oeconomie, or, A short survey of the right manner of erecting
and ordering a familie. London: Felix Kyngston, 1609. STC 19677.3.
Rankins, William. A Mirrour of Monsters. London: I[ohn] C[harlewood] for T[homas]
H[acket], 1587. STC 20699. Early English Books Online.
Shakespeare, William. Oxford Shakespeare: Titus Andronicus. Edited by Eugene M. Waith.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.
———. Love’s Labour’s Lost. Edited by R. W. David. The Arden Shakespeare. London and
New York: Routledge, 1990.
———. The Merchant of Venice. Edited by John Russell Brown. The Arden Edition of the
Works of William Shakespeare. 5th ed. 1955. London and New York: Routledge, 1988.
———. Othello. Edited by M. R. Ridley. The Arden Edition of the Works of William
Shakespeare. 5th ed. 1958. London and New York: Methuen, 1986.
———. The Tempest. Edited by Frank Kermode. The Arden Shakespeare. 3 rd ed. London:
Routledge, 1988.
206
———. Twelfth Night or What You Will. Edited by Keir Elam. The Arden Shakespeare.
London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2008.
———. The Winter's Tale. Edited by J. H. P. Pafford. 3rd ed. London: Methuen, 1991.
Shakespeare, William and George Wilkins. Pericles. Edited by Suzanne Gossett. The Arden
Shakespeare. 5th ed. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018.
Stubbes, Philip. The Anatomie of Abuses. Part 1. London: John Kingston for Richard Iones,
1583. STC 23377. Early English Books Online.

Secondary Sources
Adelman, Janet. “Masculine Authority and the Maternal Body: The return to Origins in
Cymbeline.” Shakespeare: The Last Plays. Edited and introduced by Kiernan Ryan.
London and New York: Routledge, 1999, pp. 107-133.
Anderson, Linda. A Place in the Story: Servants and Service in Shakespeare’s Plays.
Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2005.
Anglin, Sally. “Subject Formation in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside.” Rocky Mountain Review,
vol. 66, no. 1, 2012, pp. 11-31.
Augé, Marc. Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. Translated by
John Howe. London and New York: Verso, 1995.
Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Translated by Maria Jolas. Boston: Beacon Press,
1994.
Bahr, Stephanie M. “Titus Andronicus and the Interpretive Violence of the Reformation.”
Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 68, no. 3, 2017, pp. 241-270.
Barbagli, Marzio and David I. Kertzer. “Introduction.” Family Life in Early Modern Times:
1500-1789. Edited by David I. Kertzer and Marzio Barbagli. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2001, pp. ix-xxxii.
Bergeron, David. Shakespeare’s Romances and the Royal Family. Kansas: University Press
of Kansas, 1985.
Bovilsky, Lara. Barbarous Play: Race on the English Renaissance Stage. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2008.
Bozio, Andrew. Thinking through Place on the Early Modern English Stage. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2020.
Bromley, James M. “‘Quilted with Mighty Words to Lean Purpose’: Clothing and Queer
Style in The Roaring Girl.” Renaissance Drama, vol. 43, no. 2, 2015, pp. 143-172.

207
Brown, Thomas F. “Passing.” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Edited by
William A. Darity, Jr. Vol. 6. 2nd ed. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference, 2008, pp. 165-
166.
Carter, Matt. “‘Untruss a Point’—Interiority, Sword Combat, and Gender in The Roaring
Girl.” Early Theatre, vol. 21, no. 1, 2018, pp. 87-106.
de Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven Rendall. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2011.
Cowen-Orlin, Lena. Private Matters and Public Culture in Post-Reformation England.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994.
Crawford, Patricia. Blood, Bodies and Family in Early Modern England. New York: Pearson
Education, 2004.
Cressy, David. Birth, Marriage and Death: Ritual, Religion and the Life Cycle in Tudor and
Stuart England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Cunningham, Hugh. Children and Childhood in Western Society Since 1500. 2nd ed. London:
Routledge, 2005.
David, R. W. “Introduction.” Love’s Labour’s Lost. The Arden Edition of the Works of
William Shakespeare. Edited by R. W. David. The Arden Shakespeare. London and New
York: Routledge, 1990, pp. xiii-xlix.
Dawkins, Claire. “Gendered Narratives of Marital Dissolution in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s
Tale.” Women’s Studies, vol. 46, no. 2, 2017, pp. 95-112.
Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.
Translated by Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987.
Dessen, Alan C. Elizabethan Stage Conventions and Modern Interpreters. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1984.
Digangi, Mario. “Sexual Slander and Working Women in The Roaring Girl.” Renaissance
Drama, vol. 32, no 1, 2003, 147-76.
Dillon, Janette. Theatre, Court and City, 1595-1610: Drama and Social Space in London.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Dolan, Frances E. Dangerous Familiars: Representations of Domestic Crime in England,
1550-1700. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994.
Dubrow, Heather. Shakespeare and Domestic Loss: Forms of Deprivation, Mourning, and
Recuperation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Elam, Keir. “Introduction.” Twelfth Night or What You Will. Edited by Keir Elam. The Arden
Shakespeare. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2008, pp. 1-142.
208
Emmerichs, Sharon. “‘Thou map of woe’: Mapping the Feminine in Titus Andronicus and
King Lear.” English Studies, vol 97, no. 5, 2016, pp. 546-567.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. New York: Pantheon
Books, 1978.
Frenk, Joachim. “‘Welcome to the Heart of the City’: Mappings of London in Early City
Comedies.” Studia Historyczne, vol. 60, no. 2, 2017, pp. 17-30.
Gillies, John. Shakespeare and the Geography of Difference. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1994.
Goffman, Erving. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. 2nd ed. 1974.
Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1986.
Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1980.
———. “The Tempest: Martial Law in the Land of Cockaigne.” Shakespeare: The Last
Plays. Edited and introduced by Kiernan Ryan. London and New York: Routledge, 1999,
pp. 206-244.
Griffin Andrew, Untimely Deaths in Renaissance Drama: Biography, History, Catastrophe.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020.
Grogan, Jane. “Headless Rome and Hungry Goths: Herodotus and Titus Andronicus.”
English Literary Renaissance, vol. 43, no. 1, 2013, pp. 30-61.
Gurr, Andrew. "The Bear, the Statue, and Hysteria in The Winter's Tale." Shakespeare
Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 4 Winter, 1983, pp. 420-425.
Hale, John K. “Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost.” The Explicator, vol. 56, no. 1, Fall
1997, pp. 9-12.
Hall, Kim F. Things of Darkness: Economies of Race and Gender in Early Modern England.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995.
Harries, Brian J. “The Fall of Mediterranean Rome in Titus Andronicus.” Mediterranean
Studies, vol. 2, no. 2, 2018, pp. 194-212.
Healy, Margaret. “Pericles and the Pox.” Shakespeare’s Romances. Edited by Alison Thorne.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. 53-70.
Hendricks, Mathew. “Imagetext in The Winter’s Tale.” Textual Practice, vol. 29, no. 4, 2015,
pp. 697-716.
Hiscock, Andrew. The Uses of this World: Thinking Space in Shakespeare, Marlowe, Cary
and Jonson. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2004.

209
Howard, Jean E. The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England. London and New
York: Routledge, 1994.
———. Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy, 1598-1642. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007.
Hutchings, Mark. “Mary Frith at the Fortune.” Early Theatre, vol. 10, no. 1, 2007, pp. 89-
108.
Jardine, Lisa. “Twins and Transvestites: Gender, Dependency and Sexual Availability in
Twelfth Night.” Erotic Politics: Desire on the Renaissance Stage. Edited by Susan
Zimmerman. New York: Routledge, 1992, pp. 21-30.
Jones-Davies, Margaret. “Suspension of Disbelief in The Winter’s Tale.” Études anglaises,
vol. 63, no. 3, July-September 2010, pp. 259-273.
Kammer, Miriam. “Breaking the Bounds of Domesticity: Ecofeminism and Nature Space in
Love’s Labour’s Lost.” Shakespeare Bulletin, vol. 36, no. 3, Fall 2018, pp. 467-483.
Katz, David A. “Theatrum Mundi: Rhetoric, Romance, and Legitimation in The Tempest and
The Winter's Tale.” Studies in Philology, vol. 115, no. 4, Fall 2018, pp. 719-741.
Kermode, Lloyd Edward. “Experiencing the Space and Place of Early Modern Theater.”
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, vol. 4, no. 1, Winter 2013, pp. 1-24.
Kietzman, Mary Jo. “Will Personified: Viola as Actor-Author in Twelfth Night.” Criticism,
vol. 54, no. 2, Spring 2012, pp. 257-289.
Kinney, Arthur F. “Revisiting The Tempest.” Modern Philology: Critical and Historical
Studies in Literature, Medieval Through Contemporary, vol. 93, no. 2, November 1995,
pp. 161-77.
Kolin, Philip C. “Titus Andronicus and the Critical Legacy.” Titus Andronicus: Critical
Essays. Edited by Philip C. Kolin. 2nd ed. 1995; London and New York: Routledge,
2015, pp. 3-55.
Korda, Natasha. Shakespeare’s Domestic Economies: Gender and Property in Early Modern
England. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002.
Laite, Julia. “A Global History of Prostitution: London.” Selling Sex in the City: A Global
History of Prostitution, 1600s-2000s. Edited by Rodríguez García Magaly, Lex Heerma
van Voss, and Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2017, pp. 111-
137.
Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. Oxford:
Blackwell, 2000.

210
Leimberg, Inge. 'What May Words Say?': A Reading of The Merchant of Venice. Madison,
Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2011.
Lin, Erika T. Shakespeare and the Materiality of Performance. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2012.
Lopez, Jeremy. Theatrical Convention and Audience Response in Early Modern Drama. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Low, Jennifer A. “Door number Three: Time, Space, and Audience Experience in The
Menaechmi and The Comedy of Errors.” Imagining the Audience in Early Modern
Drama, 1558–1642. Edited by Jennifer A. Low and Nova Myhill. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2011, pp. 71-92.
Malpas, J. E. Place and Experience: A Philosophical Topography. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1999.
Mansky, Joseph. “‘Unlawfully published’: Libels and the Public Sphere in Titus Andronicus.”
Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 67, no. 3, Fall 2016, pp. 293-318.
Marciano, Lisa. “The Serious Comedy of Twelfth Night: Dark Didacticism in Illyria.”
Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature, vol. 56, no. 1, Fall 2003, pp. 3-19.
Marcus, Leah S. “Cymbeline and the Unease of Topicality.” Shakespeare: The Last Plays.
Edited and introduced by Kiernan Ryan. London and New York: Routledge, 1999, pp.
134-168.
Marzola, Alessandro. “Pity Silenced: Economies of Mercy in The Merchant of Venice.”
Critical Survey, vol. 30, no. 3, Autumn 2018, pp. 26-35.
Maus, Katherine Eisaman. Inwardness and Theater in the English Renaissance. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1995.
McNeill, Fiona. “Gynocentric London Spaces: (Re)Locating Masterless Women in Early
Stuart Drama.” Renaissance Drama, vol. 28, no. 1, 1997, pp. 195-244.
Michalachki, Jodi. “Gender, Cant, and Cross-Talking in The Roaring Girl.” Renaissance
Drama, vol, 25, no. 1, 1994, pp. 119-143.
Miller, Christopher W. T. “Interpreted Statues: Collapse of Femininity and Psychotic Denial
in The Winter’s Tale.” The Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review, vol. 41, no. 2, 2018, pp.
100-107.
Mullaney, Steven. The Place of the Stage: License, Play, and Power in Renaissance England.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
Meldrum, Tim. Domestic Service and Gender 1660-1750: Life and Work in the London
Household. London: Pearson Education Limited, 2000.
211
Mohrlock-Bunker, Nancy. Marriage and Land Law in Shakespeare and Middleton. Madison
Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2014.
Montrose, Louis Adrian. “‘Folly in wisdom hatch’d’: The Exemplary Comedy of Love’s
Labour’s Lost.” Comparative Drama, vol. 11, no. 2, Summer 1977, pp. 147-170.
Ndiaye, Noémie. “Aaron’s Roots: Spaniards, Englishmen and Blackamoors in Titus
Andronicus.” Early Theatre: A Journal Associated with the Records of Early English
Drama, vol. 19, no. 2, 2016, pp. 59-80.
Newman, Karen. “‘Goldsmith’s ware:’ Equivalence in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside.” The
Huntington Library Quarterly, vol. 71, no. 1, 2008, pp. 97-113.
O'Callaghan, Michelle. Thomas Middleton: Renaissance Dramatist. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2009.
Orgel, Stephen. “Prospero’s Wife.” Representations, no. 8, Autumn 1984, pp. 1-13.
The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Edited by M. Cary et al. 3 rd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1953.
Pollock, Linda. “Parent-Child Relations.” Family Life in Early Modern Times: 1500-1789.
Edited by David I. Kertzer and Marzio Barbagli. New Haven: Yale University Press,
2001, pp. 191-220.
Rackin, Phyllis. “Misogyny is Everywhere.” A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare. Edited
by Dympna Callaghan. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000, pp. 42-56.
Relihan, Constance. “Liminal Geography: Pericles and the Politics of Place.” Shakespeare’s
Romances. Edited by Alison Thorne. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. 71-90.
Rose, Mary Beth. “Where Are the Mothers in Shakespeare? Options for Gender
Representation in the English Renaissance.” Shakespeare Quarterly vol. 42, no.3,
Autumn 1991, pp. 291-314.
Rustici, Craig. “The Smoking Girl: Tobacco and the Representation of Mary Frith.” Studies
in Philology, vol. 96, no. 2, 1999, pp. 159-179.
Rutter, Tom. “Shakespeare, Serlio and Giulio Romano.” English Literary Renaissance, vol.
49, no. 2, Spring 2019, pp. 248-272.
Ryan, Kiernan. “Introduction.” Shakespeare: The Last Plays. Edited and introduced by
Kiernan Ryan. London and New York: Routledge, 1999, pp. 1-20.
Sanders, Julie. The Cultural Geography of Early Modern Drama, 1620-1650. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Schechner, Richard. Performed Imaginaries. London: Routledge, 2015.

212
Sharpe, Pamela. “Gender in the Economy: Female Merchants and Family Businesses in the
British Isles, 1600-1850.” Women in Early Modern England. Edited by Sara Mendelson
and Patricia Crawford, 1550-1720. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998, pp. 313-326.
Schmidgall, Gary. Shakespeare and the Courtly Aesthetic. Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1981.
Sheeha, Iman. Household Servants in Early Modern Domestic Tragedy. New York:
Routledge, 2020.
Shenk, Linda. “Shakespeare’s Comic Topicality in Love’s Labour’s Lost.” English Literary
Renaissance, vol. 47, no. 2, 2017, pp. 193-217.
Shin, Hiewon. “Fatherly Violence, Motherly Absence, Servants’ Resistance.” Renaissance
Studies, vol. 25, no. 5, November 2011, pp. 666-683.
Smith, Ian. Race and Rhetoric in the Renaissance: Barbarian Errors. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2009.
Soja, Edward. Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory.
London: Verso, 1989.
Stanivukovic, Goran V. “Between Men in Early Modern England.” Queer Masculinities,
1550-1800: Siting Same-Sex Desire in the Early Modern World. Edited by K. O’Donnel
and M. O’Rourke. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp. 232-251.
Stegner, Paul D. “Masculine and Feminine Penitence in The Winter’s Tale.” Renascence, vol.
66, no. 3, Summer 2014, pp. 189-201.
Stone, Lawrence. The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800. New York: Harper
and Row, 1979.
Sugden, Edward H. A Topographical Dictionary to the Works of Shakespeare and His
Fellow Dramatists. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1925.
Süner, Ahmet. “‘Be not afeared’: Sycorax and the Rhetoric of Fear in The Tempest.”
Renascence, vol. 71, no. 3, Summer 2019, pp. 187-206.
Tambling, Jeremy. “The Winter’s Tale: Three Recognitions.” Essays in Criticism, vol. 5, no.
1, 2015, pp. 30-52.
Tannenhouse, Leonard. “Family Rites: Patriarchal Strategies in Shakespearean Romance.”
Shakespeare: The Last Plays. Edited and introduced by Kiernan Ryan. London and New
York: Routledge, 1999, pp. 43-60.
Tarbin, Stephanie. “Raising Girls and Boys: Fear, Awe, and Dread in the Early Modern
Household.” Authority, Gender and Emotions in Late Medieval and Early Modern

213
 England. Edited by Susan Broomhall. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, pp. 106-
130.
Tassi, Marguerite. “Sportful Malice: Or What Maria Wills: Revenge Comedy in Twelfth
Night.” The Upstart Crow, vol. 27, no. 1, 2007/2008, pp. 32-50.
Thompson, Peter. Shakespeare’s Theatre. 3rd ed. London: Routledge, 1997.
Tribble, Evelyn. “‘The Dark Backward and Abysm of Time’: The Tempest and Memory.”
College Literature: A Journal of Critical Literary Studies, vol. 33, no. 1, Winter 2006, pp.
151-68.
Tuan, Yi-Fu. Space and Place. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977.
Videbaek, Bente A. The Stage Clowns in Shakespeare’s Theatre. Westport, Connecticut:
Greenwood Press, 1996.
Votava, Jennie. “‘The Voice that Will Drown All the City’: Un-Gendering Noise in The
Roaring Girl.” Renaissance Drama, vol. 39, 2011, pp. 69-95.
Weber, William W. “‘Worse than Philomel’: Violence, Revenge, and Meta-allusion in Titus
Andronicus,” Studies in Philology, vol. 112, no. 4, Fall 2015, pp. 698-717.
Weil, Judith. Service and Dependency in Shakespeare’s Plays. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2005.
Wynne-Davies, Marion. “Orange Women, Female Spectators, and Roaring Girls: Women
and Theater in Early Modern England.” Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England,
vol. 22, 2009, pp. 19-26.
Young, Bruce W. Family Life in the Age of Shakespeare. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,
2009.

214