Working Subjects in Early Modern English Drama

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“…For Clowes, among the most obvious signs that an individual has contracted syphilis, or the French disease, are the disfiguring sores and 'venemous pustules with a certayne hardnes sticking out in the head, forehead, browes, face, or beard, and in other partes of the bodye, especially about the secret partes, or lowest part of the bellye, or in the corners of the lippes, and that especially in infantes'. 4 This last detail about syphilis in infants points to the broad threat of the early modern disease. It could pass from infected nursemaids to infants at the breast.…”

“…Discouragingly, he says that Marston's plays 'have probably disappointed more readers than those of any other Elizabethan dramatist'. 4 He is also disarmingly frank about his own sense of falling short, informing the reader that although he recognizes that the texts frequently need correcting, he is reluctant to do it, and refrains from tinkering out of a consciousness of his own uncertainty. 'I have preferred the corruptions of 1602', he says, 'to original corruptions of my own'.…”

“…The trio of gallants common in city comedy all have French names in Marston, though Tisefew, which editors regularly gloss as a Frenchism for 'firebrand', could as easily be rendered in English as 'entice few'. 4 Sir Hubert Subboys, an English knight whose name is a French calque for the common English 'Underwood', has two daughters with Italianate names -Crispinella and Beatrice. The former name we will discuss later.…”

“…Copa Syrisca, caput Graeca redimita mitella, crispum sub crotalo docta movere latus, ebria fumosa saltat lasciva taberna ad cubitum raucos excutiens calamos. (1)(2)(3)(4) [The Syrian barmaid, hair bound up in a Greek bandana, adept at moving her shaking flank to the castanet, dances drunk and sexy in the smoky tavern, clashing the loud tambourine on her elbow.] 50…”

“…3 But while The Dutch Courtesan inhabits The Family of Love to an uncanny degree, this coexistence occurs not because Marston had a hand in the writing, but because Barry was a consummate 'sampler' of Elizabethan drama. 4 This essay explores the comedies' representation of Familism concentrated in their citizen women. It next considers women as commodities in both texts, comparing the varieties of female wit each playwright stages.…”