Title of Dissertation: SPECTACLE IN EARLY MODERN ENGLISH DRAMA

ABSTRACT

Title of Dissertation:
SPECTACLE IN EARLY MODERN ENGLISH DRAMA

Meg F. Pearson, Doctor of Philosophy, 2006

Dissertation directed by:
Professor Theodore B. Leinwand, Department of English

The early modern English theater abounds with sights that were prepared,
designed, and built to be seen. Playwrights conjured evocative and terrifying spectacles
for their productions on the London stages between 1576 and the early 1640s, and
publishers preserved those moments in printed plays with stage directions. Early modern
play scripts call for flayed skins, arrows shot through hearts, tritons in flowing rivers,
Zeus's thunderbolts, fiery hellmouths, brazen heads that speak, vengeful ghosts, bridled
kings, cannibalistic feasts, enlivened statues, hungry bears, sea battles, naked puppets,
vomiting wives, cursing monsters, and the hand of God.
Determining how these spectacles operate is the purpose of this dissertation. I
argue that spectacle--the hypervisual shows demanded by playwrights in stage directions
and dialogue cues--is a fundamental tool of early modern dramatists. In the hands of
certain playwrights, spectacle defamiliarizes the known world, making it strange and
evocative in order to guide the audience to re-imagine their understanding of such objects
and events. Spectacles such as mythological figures, broken bodies, talking dogs, and

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military machines compel audiences to recognize but then reassess what those images
signify.
Each of the dissertation's four chapters focuses on a spectacle that is indicative of
a larger pattern in dramatic literature. Chapter One, “Herculean Efforts: Spectacle of
Rebellion," studies the liminal figure of Hercules in Thomas Heywood’s The Silver Age
(1611), Jasper Heywood’s 1561 translation of Seneca’s Hercules Furens; and Thomas
Heywood’s The Brazen Age (1613). Herculean spectacle suggests an unnerving
connection between spectacular control and rule. The second chapter, "Spectacular
Suffering: Edward II and Titus Andronicus," suggests that broken bodies on stage are
more compelling when they do not adhere to the decorum that accompanied punishments
on the scaffold. Chapter Three, "Bad Dog: Spectacle in The Witch of Edmonton,"
investigates the unsettling tension between morality and spectacularity that centers
around Dog, a devilish talking canine in Thomas Dekker, Thomas Rowley, and John
Ford’s 1621 true-crime drama. Finally, "Spectacular Collapse? Tamburlaine, Parts I
and II," argues that Tamburlaine’s shows demonstrate the instability of spectacular power
as they become increasingly illegible

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SPECTACLE IN EARLY MODERN ENGLISH DRAMA
by

Meg F. Pearson

Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the
University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
2006

Advisory Committee:

Professor Theodore Leinwand, Chair
Professor Kent Cartwright
Professor Theresa Coletti
Professor Maynard Mack, Jr.
Professor Frank Hildy (Dean's Representative)

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©Copyright by

Meg F. Pearson

2006

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many teachers have encouraged me over the years, and I owe them all thanks. I
would especially like to thank the members of my advisory committee at the University
of Maryland. Ted Leinwand, my director, has been unflagging in his support for this
topic and unfailingly generous with his time. He has done everything in his power to
make me a better writer and a stronger scholar. Kent Cartwright's propensity for difficult
questions and enthusiasm for dramatic literature have made him a valuable reader and a
wonderful counselor. I have enjoyed every conversation with him. Theresa Coletti
illuminated the rich world of medieval drama in her classes, but her subtle wit and
thoughtful advice lit the way for me throughout my graduate career at Maryland. I did
not have the pleasure of knowing Sandy Mack until I was his teaching assistant, but his
inspiring pedagogy and his insistence upon excellence quickly made him a cherished
mentor. I am also very grateful for Frank Hildy's curiosity and insights throughout this
project's development.

The University of Maryland has been very good to me. In addition to my
instructors, I have been supported, advised, and motivated by professors such as Gary
Hamilton, Jane Donawerth, Bob Levine, and Kandice Chuh, to name only a few. I also
owe great thanks to the Center for Renaissance & Baroque Studies, particularly to Adele
Seeff and Karen Nelson, who have supported me in more ways than I can count. Finally,
I would like to thank my excellent colleagues, especially Brandi Adams, Ray Bossert,
Allyson Fetterhoff, and Erin Sadlack for all of their help with this project and for their
friendship.
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My family's enthusiasm for my academic career has sustained me. My thanks to
the McRaes and to the Wilsons for always taking an interest in my work. I could not have
finished this dissertation at all without the indefatigable optimism of my aunt, Tina Sloan
McPherson. My father Billy Pearson and my brother Will have always supported me
unquestioningly. I dedicate this project and this degree to my family, especially to those
who did not live to see its completion.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
iv

INTRODUCTION
1

CHAPTER 1
26
Herculean Efforts: Spectacle as Rebellion
CHAPTER 2
74
Spectacular Suffering: Edward II and Titus Andronicus
CHAPTER 3
123
Bad Dog: Spectacle in The Witch of Edmonton
CHAPTER 4
166
Spectacular Collapse? Tamburlaine the Great, Parts I and II
BIBLIOGRAPHY 215
iv

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INTRODUCTION

"See heere my shew, look on this spectacle"
Thomas Kyd, Spanish Tragedy (~1585-89)

The early modern English theater abounds with sights that were prepared,
designed, and built to be seen. Playwrights conjured evocative and terrifying spectacles
for their productions on the London stages between 1576 and the early 1640s, and
publishers preserved those moments in printed plays with stage directions. Their
ubiquity indicates how significant spectacle was to the construction of plays. Early
modern play scripts call for flayed skins, arrows shot through hearts, tritons in flowing
rivers, Zeus's thunderbolts, fiery hellmouths, brazen heads that speak, vengeful ghosts,
kings bridled to chariots, cannibalistic feasts, enlivened statues, hungry bears, sea battles,
naked puppets, vomiting wives, cursing monsters, and the hand of God.
Determining how these spectacles operate is the purpose of my dissertation. Over
the course of four chapters, I will argue that spectacle--the hypervisual shows demanded
by playwrights in stage directions and dialogue cues--is a fundamental tool of early
modern dramatists. Playwrights employed spectacle to dazzle and move their spectators,
but also to challenge them. In the hands of certain playwrights, spectacle defamiliarizes
the known world, making it strange and evocative in order to guide the audience to re-
imagine their understanding of objects and events. Spectacles such as mythological
figures, broken bodies, talking dogs, and military machines compel audiences to
recognize but then reassess what those images signify. In doing so, spectacle argues for a
more theatrical understanding of these events.
1

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In spite of its abundance, few critics have interpreted or analyzed theatrical
spectacle from this period. Yet once we attend to spectacle, we may contextualize it
within a theatrical and cultural tradition. First, the word "spectacle" itself--from the Latin
specto, meaning 'to look at'--was a familiar one in the period.1 Renaissance poets,
playwrights, and essayists used the word to describe objects worthy of admiration or
contempt. Popular devotional literature of the period presented the "weighty spectacle"
of the crucified Christ to encourage doleful contemplation. Poetry celebrated the
inspirational power of spectacle, as when Ben Jonson reveled over the firing of
armaments in "An Epigram. To William Earle of Newcastle": "This were a spectacle! A
sight to draw / Wonder to Valour!" Plays, of course, were self-conscious about the term.
When Hieronimo finds his son's body hung upon an arbor in The Spanish Tragedy, he
asks, "But stay, what murdrous spectacle is this?" Marlowe's Tamburlaine barrages his
enemies with one "bloody spectacle" after another until they submit.
Spectacle infuses new life into a staged object or event by obliging the spectator
to renegotiate his or her relationship with what is being seen. Drawing from
"representational and rhetorical codes," codes that are literary, historical, or folkloric,
playwrights can present the figure of Zeus, for example, and assume that the image is
intelligible.2 What makes a moment spectacular is when a recognizable image--a
classical character, regal pomp and splendor, a figure of myth or legend--appears on the
boards of the early modern stage, and audiences are asked to negotiate the recognizable
along with the unforeseen. The result, a show both familiar and strange, is a spectacle

1 Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., s.v. "spectacle."

2 Karen-Edis Barzman, "Early Modern Spectacle and the Performance of Images," Perspectives on Early
Modern and Modern Intellectual History: Essays in Honor of Nancy S. Struever, ed. Joseph Marino and
Melinda W. Schlitt (Rochester, NY: U of Rochester P, 2000) 289.
2

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that can be read multiple ways. Spectacle challenges the familiar, the normal, and
indeed, the normalizing, by staging and changing events and objects. In the process,
spectacle can redefine for the audience what they see before them.
Consider as an example the decapitated heads found in so many plays. The heads
of convicted criminals could be seen all over London, whether at the execution of a
nobleman or atop the London Bridge. Those heads represent capital punishment; they are
displayed as reminders that treason equals death. In the playhouses, heads function as a
memento mori--The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyatt and Thomas, Lord Cromwell
both feature severed heads as evidence of execution3--but they can also suggest an uneasy
triumph by representing the frightening other; or they may destabilize the meaning of
decapitation altogether. In Macbeth, Macduff enters the final scene "with Macbeth's
head" and uses the head to establish that Scotland's troubled times have ended. He
declares to Malcolm, "Behold where stands / Th'usurper's cursed head: the time is free"
(5.9.20-21).4 His simple message is misleading, however. Although the play began with
the decapitation of the previous Thane of Cawdor, that head's effect was apparently
negligible. In The Battle of Alcazar, Muly Mahomet's banquet features a bowl of human
heads--likely to emphasize the man's dehumanizing barbarism--but the scene's gratuitous
bloodiness makes it the most interesting part of the play.5 Finally, under the weak hand
of Henry VI in The Second Part of King Henry VI, human heads become tools of rebels.
Jack Cade declares in 4.7 that "the proudest peer in the realm shall not wear a head on his

3 See Act Five, Thomas Dekker and John Webster, The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyatt (London,
1607), and the opening scenes in W.S., Thomas, Lord Cromwell (London, 1602), which was included in the
Third Folio of Shakespeare's works in 1664.

4 Quotations from Shakespeare taken from The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1974).

5 George Peele, The Battle of Alcazar (London, 1597). See Act Four's "bloudie banket."
3

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