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ENG 378 Shakespeare on Stage for Summer 2003
Dr. Ron Strickland
Final Research Paper
August 8, 2003
Hyejin Cho
A Success as a Comedy
- Francis Beaumont’s The Knight of the Burning Pestle
There is a singer called Al Yankovic by the name of ‘Weird Al.’ He is a figure
who has been parodying thoroughly the song and music videos of some very popular
singers whose name values are worldwide, for example, Nirvana, Madonna, Michael
Jackson, etc. In fact, because I think that a deed of creation is making something from
nothing, I have looked down upon the method ‘parody’ a little, with an idea that it is a
‘secondary creature,’ not an original work. I have even given an unamiable gaze to it in
that parody works are amusing and entertaining to people, as it seems to me that it is
accepted in spite of its lack of creativity. It is because I have had a kind of prejudiced
idea that any entertaining activities to amuse people are just short life culture goods like
one time usable consumer goods. I do not know why I came to have such an idea, but it
was surely a kind of condescension. Moreover, this seems to have affected my attitude
about literary texts. A reason for this is that I had few opportunities to read comedies
during my coursework. The genre ‘comedy’ has become one that has grown hard to
discuss for me, one that I did not want to discuss, and one that I cannot talk about,
eventually. I realize that I should not be confused the conception ‘comedy as a literary
genre’ with the one ‘comedy such as gag, sitcom’ of the modern mass culture, as a
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literature major. My attitude like this, far from being changed, has fallen to a more
serious dilemma when reading Shakespeare’s As You Like It this summer. But I dare to
evaluate Francis Beaumont’s The Knight of the Burning Pestle as a comedy having many
virtues as a comedy. It even changes my opinion about parody.
According to “http://encyclopedia.com”, the justice of comedy is as following.
Literary work that aims primarily to provoke laughter. Unlike tragedy, which seeks to
engage profound emotions and sympathies, comedy strives to entertain chiefly through
criticism and ridicule of man's customs and institutions. Although usually used in
reference to the drama, in the Middle Ages comedy was associated with vernacular
language and a happy ending. Thus, the term was also applied to such non-dramatic
works as Dante's religious poem, The Divine Comedy.1
That is, comedy’s first mission is to cause laughter from audiences. Here, Beaumont’s
strongest weapon in this work is thorough parody.2 Although the word ‘parody’ sounds a
little awakward when it comes to the seventeenth-century British literature as a literary
mode, it is known that parody has had a long history with deep roots to an ancient Greek
poet Hipponax, who wrote satire poems. Easily speaking, it is ‘mocking mimic/imitation
of some other words or phrases to make others laugh.’ Though this has some weak points
which it lacks creativity and is sometimes ill intented, it can be said that the mind of
laughter parody leads is the very valuable and faithful basis of the existence of literature,
that is, enjoyment.
Then, what is being parodied here by Beaumont? The most conspicuous ones are
the lines which come out from some plays of his contemporary writers. In the case of
Rafe’s lines as a May Lord in Interlude IV, it is fairly funny when juxtaposed and
compared with those of the Ghost of Andrea in Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy.
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My name is Rafe, by due descent though not ignoble I,
Yet far inferior to the flock of gracious grocery; (Interlude IV. 30-31)3
My name was Don Andrea, my discent
Though not ignoble, yet inferiour far
To gratious fortunes of my tender youth: (Act I, Scene I. 5-7)4
Also, the idea that a character appears as a ghost and unties its story during his lifetime is
being imitated as it is by Rafe, who makes his funny appearance with an arrow penetrated
in his head, at his death scene (Act V, 278). And, in the context of the genre ‘revenge
tragedy,’ which is being parodied here, Venturewell’s line ‘I’ll be revenged, by heaven’
(Act II, 517) is also found easily in other revenge tragedies written in that period. In this
case, when thinking about the reason of his sudden vow of revenge, there are no other
clues we can think of other than his being insulted by Old Merrythought. But it is so
trivial and absurd to make the words and acts of his as a cause for revenge, and the line
being connected with Old Merrythought’s song that seems to deride Venturewell makes
audiences laugh a little contemptuously. And some lines of Jasper who, feigning a ghost,
visits and horrifies Venturewell, as Hattaway also indicates, remind us of the scene of
appearance of Banquo’s ghost in Macbeth: “And whisper such a sad tale in thine ear /
Shall make thee let the cup fall from thy hand, / And stand as mute and pale as Death
itself (Act V, 26-28).”
A genre ‘chivalric romance’ is being parodied in a whole plot of Rafe. Here, it is
conspicuously contrasting that, in The Faerie Queene, the knight ‘On his brest a bloudie
Crosse he bore, ( Canto 2, Line 1)5’ compared with Rafe’s appearance: “... Hence my
blue apron ! Yet in remembrance of my former trade, upon my shield shall be portrayed a
burning pestle, and I will be called the Knight o’th’ Burning Pestle . (Act I, 262-265)’
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The “Bloudie Crosse” is “The deare remembrance of his dying Lord (Canto 2, Line 2),”
in other words, a symbol for Christ and religion. Easily, it can be inferred that the knight
is in fact St. George, a saint who plays a role as a kind of embodiment of human ideals in
himself. The hilarious nuance of the knight of the ‘burning pestle,’ and his many features
are a real parody of the traditional knight. Also, George’s (as a dwarf) description of a
castle of the ‘knight of the Bell’ in act II, 354-370, seems to me as another version of the
banquet scene of the King of Arthur in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The monster
in this play also, whom the hero in chivalric romance leaves for an exotic far land to
fight, is Barbaroso, a barber, actually. The host’s description of Barbaroso even reminded
me of Grendel in Beowulf at the first hearing, but finally, it turned out to be a bombast.
And after defeating Barbaroso, Rafe gives mercy and exonerates him, gracefully and
nobly. Rafe also has his lady, Susan, ‘the cobbler’s maid in Milk Street,’ whom he
admires and addresses sometimes, though she does not appear on the stage.
Some other conventions and decorums are also parodied here. The pompous and
elaborated, though actually so comic and vulgar, lines remind me of many elements of
the literary conventions. The most conspicuous one that occurred to me is the Petrarchan
conceit. I think Humphrey’s line courting Luce (Act I, 144-153) is obviously a parody of
it. As we know, Petrarchan conceit is a kind of literary tradition to describe one’s lady.
She is usually so beautiful, but so cold to her lover’s passion. The male lover just
continues to cry, appeal, and wish his lover’s mercy for his love. To this, Humphrey and
Luce’s situation is the same. And his description of the gloves as ‘the dog’s tooth nor the
dove’s / Are not so white as these’ or his asking Luce to ‘shoot from your eye / A beam
to this place’ shows me definitely the smell of the Petrarchan conceit.6 Another is
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Humphrey’s addressing to Muse nine(Act II, 45) which can be guessed is from the
decorum of epic.7
Thus, this work is displaying fully the comic effect that the method parody can
get, and here is another interesting point. Traditionally, it is said that there is a hierarchy
in literary genre, that is, epic/tragedy/romance/comedy/satire orderly.8 Here, comedy is in
a so called ‘low’ rank. It is as if sincere and heavy works are more valuable, and comedy
which, by delivering laughter, does a natural function of literature, is being neglected like
my attitude previously mentioned. But in this play, this comedy is parodying all of three
higher genres in position. Though, as above mentioned, comedy is a little defective in
terms of creativity, it retains its own difficulty that it cannot succeed when the task of
thorough comprehension and pertinacious dissection about the original works to parody
are not delivered well. Therefore, this play, achieving successful parody in work
everywhere, may be analyzed that the writer is dreaming quite a hilarious coup in the
hierarchy named literary genre.
Another element that this play can be a purely ‘laughing’ comedy is some
characters, especially George and Nell, who intrude in the play as audiences, vulgarness
which, nevertheless, we shall never dislike. George and Nell have low and base tastes
certainly, and their mouths are foul, and they have no sophistication. They seem to have a
lot of knowledges, but there is nothing that they remember exactly. For example, the title
‘Rafe and Lucrece (Interlude II, 14)’ that comes out from George's mouth who is always
pretending to be learned is a brilliant malapropism. To those who know the story, which
was also alluded in T.S. Eliot's ‘The Waste Land,’ this scene is a real sidesplitting farce.9
Also, the main reason that this play even has a feature of slapstick comedy like a noisy
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uproar is George’s intrusion on stage at the very first moment of the play. As Janette
Dillon says, “they completely misunderstand its distinctive quality as stage space, a space
whose virtue is to be “Not there.””10 Onto the stage that a play is being performed as such
a perfect virtual reality that audiences usually do not dare to approach that imaginary
spaces, they intervene and “colonize the stage space.” The deed even passes over a level
of common sense. His wife Nell is much more than him. She thinks so liberally that
readers can hardly follow her flow of ideas, and her energy so overflows that she
becomes sometimes more violent than George. To the title ‘The Knight of the Burning
Pestle’ which is suggested by sarcastic Prologue, she decides to have it as a title for their
play in the very moment, and this is certainly a more excellent choice than George's title
‘The Grocer’s Honour. Like this, they are nearly the brawl group of the period who raised
a fuss in the theater when they did not like the play. But they have a charm that shall
never be hated. They are vulgar and extreme, but not evil-minded. Compared with the
present circumstance, they have a good petit bourgeois aspect, as if they are our
beighbors in this modern world. Their energy is, as Zitner mentioned, “comic verbal
energy”11 contrasting with The London Merchant’s more or less being stale and its
predictable happy ending, so they have been getting favors from many critics. Though
being characters in the play at the moment of intervention, they always betray characters’
expected role and never stay on the fixed frame in the play. They are inspiring vigor to
the play by showing the probable reaction of the frank, ordinary people.12
Besides George and Nell, Humphrey is a sheer comic character (though the
reason that he does not appear on the stage at the end is not clear). His usage of vulgar
metaphors and role as an always beaten clown can gain this play an aspect of slapstick
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comedy according to direction. Master Merrythought, also, though a little different, is a
type of comic character. He can be interpreted as a Jonsonian character, that is, a humour
character full of the sanguine.13 It is a little extreme case showing human nature, mainly
four types, and in this case, he is buoyant. But, in the middle of lots of fusses and rackets
in this play, he only carries his philosophy for life to the end with songs, with a little
exaggerated and bombastic action. And anyway, his positiveness plays a role of making
this play a bright phenomenon as ‘the symbol of uninhibited comedy.’14
Then, are these comic virtues and strong points of this play I have shown, on the
contrary, proving some critics’ expression for this play ‘hodgepodge’15 as a fact?
Actually, it is of much possibility that this play can be seen as a mess. But many critics
have paid their attention to the complex, but distinctive structure of this play. It has
definitely its own order in it. About it, Samuelson talks about ‘four plots’ making up The
Knight of the Burning Pestle, in his article above mentioned: ‘The London Merchant,’
‘George and Nell,’ ‘Rafe,’ and ‘Out of Order.’ Steinberg, being in similar context with
Samuelson but concentrating on The London Merchant, starts the article indicating The
London Merchant has been evaluated disapprovingly in many cases, having been
compared with George party's liveliness and powerfulness. According to this article, The
London Merchant ‘favors plot’ (Steinberg 211), being contrary to The Knight of the
Burning Pestle based on ‘improvisation.’16 And Steinberg shows Mrs. Merrythought and
Humphrey as good examples of characters who act and move without plot in their mind
in The London Merchant. It is interesting and worth noting. Here, I could find some
evidences for Beaumont’s intentions and devises for The London Merchant not to be
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totally intervened and messed up by Rafe’s plot. Scenes of Rafe’s being wholly involved
and taking an active (or, spoiling) part in The London Merchant can be seen just twice;
when he comes across Humphrey who was beaten soundly by Jasper and fell on the
ground and fights with Jasper, only to be ridiculed and defeated so fast; when he
encounters Mrs. Merrythought and Michael, runnning away from home and wandering,
and traveling together after that. These two characters are the very ‘plotless’ persons as
Steinberg insists. In the whole story of The London merchant, it does not actually happen
that Rafe, an agent for George and Nell’s inflated vanity, does change or affect the plot of
the inside play. This can also be realized in that the battle of Jasper and Rafe ends in so
short a time, and Jasper's language becomes full of vulgar expressions in direct
opposition with Rafe’s diffusely decorated, but just amusing language only in that
moment. The scene that Rafe splits open and enters in the inside play is just one brief
aberration, which should have disposed of from the viewpoint of The London Merchant.
As Prologue makes remarks sarcastically without surrendering to George’s first
aggressive interruption and claim ‘something notably in honour of the commons of the
city (Induction 25-26),’ The London Merchant also does not allow aperture to the
citizens’ party. ‘Obstructors’ George and Nell themselves, too, dare not to intervene
when The London Merchant is in progress. We remember scenes that George gives Rafe
money, on Nell’s request, easily intervening the stage when Rafe falls in trouble being
seized by the Host of the Inn of Bell for the unpaid lodging charges in act III, 176-178,
and when Rafe meets Pompiona in act V, 104-105. However, while The London
Merchant is being progressed, though they yell and swear to Jasper, ask to beat him for
his evil(?) conducts, and Nell even asks George to “raise the watch at Ludgate, and bring
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a mittimus from the justice for this desperate villain (Act III, 92-93),’ being confused
between reality and play, George and Nell do not (or, cannot) invade another invisible
border of the stage this time as when George does with Rafe’s cases. Their reaction and
action is done just outside the stage, in the end.
Here, to Rafe's intervention, what is happening at the outside of ‘The London
Merchant’? It is very interesting that there is an intense impediment, the struggling of
other players. The lines of boy, who enter the stage whenever George and Nell desire to
let Rafe appear and show what they want to see, can be understood as a set of evidence
for desperate gestures of other members of the players’ company. The Boy is constantly
trying to keep them doing as they want by giving negative comments for their inclination;
“and ’twill hazard the spoiling of our play (Act II, 265)”; “You’ll utterly spoil our play,
and make it to be hissed, and it cost money (Act III, 293-294)”. He is conversing with
them (reluctantly), but actually, preventing vigorously. Especially, as Samuelson also
refers in his small chapter ‘Out of Order’ in the article, it is revealed that Rafe’s fighting
scene with Barbaroso, the climax of his so-called ‘chivalric adventure’ course, is a kind
of fabrification which was designed by the other players, through the Host’s line; “[to
Tapster] Sirrah, go to Nick the barber, and bid him prepare himself as I told you before,
quickly (Act III, 212-213).”17 In addition, through the setting that the monster Barbaroso
is a barber in fact, and the ‘fair’ knights and ladies whom Barbaroso has caught are
actually syphilic patients, the other members are mocking Rafe (including George and
Nell) to the full, with the obscene nuance the ‘burning pestle’ has, as already presented
by many critics. That is, though pretending to comply with the requests of the libertines,
the other players of the company are always recognizing that the Citizen party is
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offensive, and that they are the objectives of caution and satire. Therefore, there is being
created another plot under the surface by other players, not to break the poise. As
Samuelson says, they are ‘coping with fragmentation.’ By these points, it is quite
unreasonable to describe this play simply a ‘hodgepodge.’
Let us consider much more about The London Merchant, the inside play. As
Steinberg makes it clear in his article, and as I read and felt, this play is not amusing or
entertaining, certainly speaking.18 But it cannot be said that the play has entirely no
advantages when it is not amusing. In addition to Steinberg’s comment that this play
“favors plot,” Samuelson says The London merchant is “an impressive little fable,
following the mold of New Comedy” in his small chapter ‘The London Merchant’ in his
article, and talks about some features of this play as New Comedy.19 John Doebler is also
talking about The London Merchat in his article. He discusses about how this play
reflects and transforms the Prodigal Son, a famous biblical fable, and how this play is
different with other Prodigal Son plays of those days, especially The London Prodigal,
thought as a play affecting The London Merchant.20 In terms of the storyline, too, I think
this play abides by the laws of four steps in composition – introduction, development,
turn, and conclusion – , smartly. The event that can be called a turning point in this play
is the love-test scene devised by Jasper from his temporary whim, and it is so
conventional and artificial in terms of the period’s trend, being skeptical about the
spiritual and pure love. Although the deed lacks persuasiveness in its cause, and, as
Steinberg indicates, it is ‘improvisation’ not in harmony with the play’s ordered world
which is based plots, the play meets here a reversal and comes to get a sudden intense
feeling by this outbreak action. And, finally, all characters get to return to London, the
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starting point of this play, by this happening, and greet a typical happy ending of
romantic comedy, that is, the recovery of harmony by marriage.21 Though The London
Merchant seems to be losing its leading role being pushed by George and Nell’s power,
being compared by the funny play of Rafe, and being surely stale in its storyline, this play
is nevertheless the very ‘original side’ play having its own virtues.
I would take a look at Rafe’s play this time. There seems no flowing of a kind of
fixed storyline in his play. From the first, it is hard to anticipate from George party a
blueprint for a play because they jumped onto the theatrical world from an extremely
improvised reason triggered by emotion that George just does not like The London
Merchant. 22 To use Steinberg’s expression, Rafe's play is composed of ‘a romance, an
inn scene, a giant-slaying, a foreign-court scene, a May-Day celebration, a war scene, and
a death scene, (217)’ that is, a succession of scenes. As Doebler says, “All Beaumont’s
citizens want is a review of favorite scenes, not a play.” But, though these critics seem to
suggest a negative attitude about this, I evaluate Rafe’s play in another way. His play,
composed of ‘episodes,’ not ‘scenes,’ is actually “a pretty fiction i’faith, (Act V, 314)’ as
George says, considering his paying desperate struggles alone in difficult circumstances
of being hampered by other members of the players as discussed above. Of course, as
Rafe, an apprentice, is forced to act as an agent to satisfy George and Nell’s artistic
vanity, we can think cynically that George’s praise is natural. But I think audiences can
agree with him, realizing that Rafe’s good acting is a real surprise, never expected. Here,
I suggest that we can think of Rafe’s episodes as another set of interludes. Originally,
‘interlude’ is a tradition that started from the morality play, and it is usually a short satire
or farce performed between acts and acts in long plays, just for entertainment and
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relaxing. It was developed by John Heywood and others, blended with that of Latin
classic comedy, eventually producing the great Elizabethan comedy, which reached its
highest expression in the plays of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Of course, there exist real
interludes in the play at the surface, and George and Nell's evaluation and comments of
the play are given during the interludes as reposes. But it can also be thought that Rafe’s
episodes, indeed, real interludes to them in that the episodes show them what they want
to see, in other words, the entertainments they really want, as above mentioned about the
definition of interlude. If so, Rafe’s play is not just a mess spoiling and ruining the
stage.23 Rafe’s play, seemingly orderless and incoherent, has its own valuable feature and
proper function.
In this way, The Knight of the Burning Pestle is, though it seems a ‘much ado
about nothing’ mess full of dizzy parodies and the sudden intrusion of three audiences at
first glance, in fact a play made up of two plays, one The London Merchant the inside
play, and the other The Knight of the Burning Pestle the outside play, which maintains its
exquisite balance between the line of ‘plot’ and ‘improvisation,’ thoroughly.
Here is the last question for this play: then, only if making audiences laugh with
the ordered form, is the play qualified as a good comedy? My answer is ‘No.’ The role of
literature is to instruct people with pleasure to read, we usually learn it in our primary
schools. At this point, let me try to consider the conception ‘satire’ which appears
whenever this play is discussed. Here is another quotation from the encyclopedia site.
A term applied to any work of literature or art whose objective is ridicule. It is more
easily recognized than defined. From ancient times satirists have shared a common aim:
to expose foolishness in all its guises vanity, hypocrisy, pedantry, idolatry, bigotry,
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sentimentality and to effect reform through such exposure. The many diverse forms their
statements have taken reflect the origin of the word satire, which is derived from the
Latin satura, meaning “dish of mixed fruits,” hence a medley.
As referred above, satire can be understood in terms of teleology that it is one of
the aims literature should pursue, being different from parody, in terms of methodology
as a mocking imitation just to make people laugh. Then, what is this play satirizing? The
answer is simple, it is middle-class ideology, represented by merchants. As Doebler
refers, “Beaumont satirizes easy middle-class morality through a ridicule of the Citizen
and his wife. (343-344)” For a further question ‘why middle-class?’, Laura C. Stevenson
is interestingly explaining the social and historical background of the sixteenth century of
England about the emergence of new merchants and the aspects of social change as the
result of it in chaper 1 of her book.24 The discussion about ‘merchant heroes’ of chapter 6
is also giving a lot of hints about historical contexts on which this mock-merchant play of
Beaumont was written. According to her, members of the new merchant class, so-called
growing power which appeared in front of the stage of history as industrial structure was
altered from the start of the sixteenth-century, are hopes and dreams for those who
suffered of poverty and diseases, and finally came up to London for a better life, as an
example of suceess.
By creating and perpetuating tales of London’s most prestigious citizens, the popular
authors could attract audiences by expressing in exaggerated fashions the small man’s
hopes of becoming so rich he would never have to face want again, or by assuring the
moderately prosperous man that money, properly spent, was a symbol of patriotism,
charity, and civic pride, not just of hard-earned personal success. (30-31)
And an interesting terminology coming out is, according to Stevenson, “the vogue of
merchant heroes. (109)”25 But, as it can be caught from the nuance of word ‘vogue,’ the
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mode did not continue for such a long time. Most of writers, following former cases of
Stow, and for the sake of merchant class as primary consumer of their works, did
describe and depict merchant heroes on the basis of aristocrocy ideology, though the
‘heroes’ are not aristocratic. For example, their anecdotes are something like doing civic
service to loyalty on knighthood, or showing their generosity by giving big banquets. But,
in a period before a social ideology for a new merchant class was not now established,
though its purpose was just praising citizens, the writers began to be skeptical at the great
gap between the works they wrote and the reality, and gradually ceased to write about
‘merchant heroes’ since the Jacobean period. Ironically however, it is said that novels of
Deloney were still popular in the year Beaumont’s The Knight of the Burning Pestle
failed. It means that the merchant class, as a main consumer class of mass culture in that
period, anyway was still wishing to be paid attention to. It is also a hard fact that, in the
process of changing dynasty during the late sixteenth-century and early seventeenthcentury, potential anxieties and worries of people existing from Elizabethan period began
to swell out, and the atmosphere as such made writers have cynical attitudes about
everything, therefore satire and tragedy were prevalent.
It is said that The Knight of the Burning Pestle of Beaumont, with the
backgrounds like this, was first performed in a private theater by the Blackfriars which
can tell us about the economy level of audiences due to a little expensive admission fee,
and failed. I think this is somewhat predictable because this play is ridiculing overtly the
cheap taste and blind pursuing, based on ignorance, of the aristocritic literary world of the
merchant class both in the inside play and the outside play, who are the very possible
audiences, that is, payer for the play. But I guess that is rather counterevidencing the low
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level of audiences enough to be mocked at that time. Actually, as many critics indicate,
Beaumont’s satire is never harsh. As examined before, it is true that George and Nell
surely have a vulgar taste, but their sound power and candidness attracts attention of
audiences and critics. The London Merchant, the inside play, too, though Venturewell is
described as a typical miser merchant who cannot comprehend an ideal love of young
lovers’, is ended as a romantic comedy. This play is following the romantic comedy’s
convention that everything in the world accomplishes harmony by the marriage of lovers,
and Venturewell himself, too, joining the concord, regrets his acts and takes together
lovers’ two hands (though it is delivered somewhat ridiculously). In doing satire like this,
I evaluate Beaumont as a writer who had a very good sense and knew the level of
‘adequacy.’ Here, the words of Yankovic from an interview occurs to me. He says like
this about getting permission from the artists of the original songs: “If you just say ‘No
(without any particular reason),’ that just says to me that you don’t have much of a sense
of humor.” This speech should have been told to the audiences of Beaumont.
Beaumont’s excellence can be found in many a literary satires being done all over
the play, in addition to the social satire above discussed. As examined, a lot of literary
genres, conventions, conceits, and plays of his contemporaries are parodied in this play,
and there is no malice as well. In addition, it is fairly impressive that audiences’ custom
in the theater at that time is being ridiculed. Audiences of the period are said to have
occupied the very front of the seat, appreciated the performance, and sometimes even
complained of the play excessively by brawling when they did not like it. Beaumont,
maybe calculating this, drew audiences’ possible reaction to the theatrical world and
displayed his ability by satiring even it. By making George and Nell, audiences as well as
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actors, offer annotations and react for the play incessantly, the playwright makes a kind
of breakthrough between the theatrical world and the real world. It functions as a way of
dissolving audiences’ probable complaints. Also, the preoccupation about Nell's sex and
blood reflects the inclination of audiences at that time as it is. As Samuelson analyzes, “in
Nell's reactions Beaumont epitomizes what has been the perennial popular and impure
expectation from dramatic art: spectacle featuring substitute sex and surrogate violence.
(311)” I think it functions fully as a way of taming audiences to show them this tastes of
themselves baldly from the first at the stage, because George and Nell’s reaction is so
worldly and realistic, and the theatrical world acts as a kind of mirror for us. Smiling and
mocking light the audiences’ not so good a taste, Beaumont may have been a man of a
real wholesome mind.
If borrowing Samuelson’s expression, The Knight of the Burning Pestle is a play
“intermingling of sophisticated literary and social satire.” The satire in this play is being
delivered so elaborately and intellectually in many ways. And, in that literature cannot be
entirely understood if being seperated with its social background, I prefer this play, full of
smells of Beaumont’s contemporaries, than Shakespeare’s plays which are charismatic,
but filled with heaviness lacking intimacy. At the end, this play is, though it is so sorry
that the “privy mark of irony”26 in it could not be caught and accepted by the
playwright’s audiences, a versatile masterpiece like a kaleidoscope, full of the writer’s
merry and pleasant critical comments from his sharp but warm insight.
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1
It is needed for me to examine thoroughly the defenition of comedy spending much
time, but I hope to have another chance to study about it deeply, sometime.
2
I think it is correcter to use a terminology ‘parody’ here, although, in this case, a lot of
people may think the concept ‘satire’ to be mentioned here. A topic about satire and
parody is going to be discussed hereafter again.
Story about satire and parody is going to be discussed hereafter again.
3
All quotatopns about The Knight of the Burning Pestle is from the New Mermaids
edition introduced and edited by Michael Hattaway (1998). From this, all lines are going
to be written down with just the number of act and lines.
4
This line is from The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd, introduced and edited by
Thomas W. Ross (1968). One interesting thing here is the editor’s mention about the
“preposterous(ness)” of this play. He says that this play is “a fair target for modern
ridicule; it was also parodied, sometimes mercilessly, sometimes affectionately, in its
own time” at page one of this book. It is definitely alluding and including The Knight of
the Burning Pestle, though I am not sure about how he feels if Beaumont’s parody is
“merciless” side or “affectionate” side.
5
All lines of The Faerie Queene are from the Norton Anthology of English Literature.
6
For this, I think it will be helpful to read Shakespeare’s so famous Sonnet 130 about the
Dark Lady: My mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun; / Coral is far more red than her
lips’ red; / If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; / If hairs be wires, black wires
grow on her head (1-4). (It is from the Norton Anthology.)
7
It is called 'invocation' of goddesses of poetry, to ask them to give the poet inspiration.
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8
I learned it during my undergraduate from one of my professors, but I am not sure about
the source. I hope to know.
9
Here, it can be thought that Beaumont may have had this occasion in his heart when he
had given name of George’s apprentice by Rafe. It it is not a conjecture, I think
Beaumont is scintillating.
10
Janette Dillon. ‘‘Is Not All the World Mile End, Mother?’: The Blackfriars Theater, the
City of London, and The Knight of the Burning Pestle.’ Medievl & Renaissance Drama
in England 9 (1997). 130.
11
This is from the Revels Plyas edition of The Knight of the Burning Pestle, introduced
and edited by Sheldon P. Zitner, page 37.
12
About these two people, there is fairly interesting article doing detailed analysis: ‘The
Order in Beaumont's Knight of the Burning Pestle’ (1979) of Samuelson, and ‘“Plot mee
no plots”: The Life of Drama and the Drama of Life in The Knight of the Burning Pestle’
(1984) of Lee Bliss. Of this, the former one is analyzing these two characters from
psychological point of view in a small chapter ‘George and Nell’ in it. But this article has,
I think, quite as many biased comments about Nell as I suspect if the writer is
androcentric. About this, in her article ‘Female Audiences and Female Authority in The
Knight of the Burning Pestle,’ one feminism criticism that is not common for this play,
Laurie E . Osborne quotes the above referred criticisms and refutes them in many ways,
but it was so impressive to me that she does not treat male characters absurdly in the
same context that Samuelson treats Nell, though it can be easily done as a kind of
counterpresentation. And, here, though I also think it is important to determine my
opinion about one topic ‘Are George and Nell audiences, or charanters?’ to say like
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19
“Though being characters in the play at the moment of intervention,” it is quite
complicated to me, and I am not sure about it at this point.
13
According to ancient theory, any of four bodily fluids that determined man's health and
temperament. Hippocrates postulated that an imbalance among the humors (blood,
phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) resulted in pain and disease, and that good health
was achieved through a balance of the four humors; he suggested that the glands had a
controlling effect on this balance. For many centuries this idea was held as the basis of
medicine and was much elaborated. Galen introduced a new aspect, that of four basic
temperaments reflecting the humors: the sanguine, buoyant type; the phlegmatic, sluggish
type; the choleric, quick-tempered type; and the melancholic, dejected type. In time any
personality aberration or eccentricity was referred to as a humor. In literature, a humor
character was one in whom a single passion predominated; this interpretation was
especially popular in Elizabethan and other Renaissance literature. One of the most
comprehensive treatments of the subject was the Anatomy of Melancholy, by Robert
Burton. The theory found its strongest advocates among the comedy writers, notably Ben
Jonson and his followers, who used humor characters to illustrate various modes of
irrational and immoral behavior. (from http://encyclopedia.com)
14
Glenn A. SteinBerg. ‘“You Know the Plot / We Both Agreed On?”: Plot, Self-
Consciousness, and The London Merchant in Beaumont’s The Knight of the Burning
Pestle.’ Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England V (1991). 223.
15
Thomas Marc Parrott and Robert Hamilton Ball. A Short View of Elizabethan Drama.
New York: 1958. 187. (re-cited from Samuelson.)
16
This word is also seen many times in Samuelson’s article.
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17
At this scene, the direction for the performance of the Shakespeare Festival this
summer, letting the same actor play two roles of the Prologue and the Host, was so
coherent and persuasive.
18
According to Steinberg, many critics have criticized The London Merchant in some
words such as “drab,” “weak,” and “trivial.”
19
First, he presents the two parents figure at its extreme each other, describing them “the
rich never smile; the laughters have empty pockets, (308)” and says ““Parents and
children” is the overt thematic topos of this version of New Comedy.” The romantic love
of Jasper and Luce, though presented as a ‘burlesque’ here, is also suggested another
convention of New Comedy by Samuelson.
20
According to his article, ‘Beaumont’s The Knight of the Burning Pestle and the
Prodigal Son Plays,’ The London Merchant is overturning many elements of the Prodigal
Son fable in certain forms, which contains traditionally an economical discussion of
‘proper use of money.’ And he discusses about how The London Merchant is satirizing
the material and vulgar mercantile idea of the middle-class in that period, by doing it.
21
In this context, Dillon’s article is quite interesting in that it is analyzing this play in
terms of transgression between spaces, space named London, and conflict relationship of
the city London and its suburbs.
22
But Lee Bliss is supporting George that he is a man of some knowledges still, saying
that George “displays at least a rudimentary sense of the existence of theatrical decorum,
even if its finer points elude him,” in his article.
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21
23
As Steinberg says, some critics suggest “the themes of ritual and carnival unify at least
the final scenes proposed by the Citizens. (223)” with the Rafe's play, and Dillon is also
talking about the carnival and festive tradition of the period (Dillon, 134).
24
Laura C. Stevenson. Praise and Paradox: Merchants and Craftsmen in Elizabethan
Popular Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1984.
25
As Stevenson talks about, “champions of principal citizens,” who were introduced in
John Stow’s some chronicles, were chosen by some prose writers and playwrights at that
time, for example, Thomas Heywood, Thomas Deloney, and Thomas Dekker, and they
adapted the anecdotes and depicted many ‘merchant heroes’ through their works.
26
This is a comment of this play’s first publisher.
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