“Welcome to the Heart of the City”: Mappings of London in Early City Comedies

Authors

  • Joachim Frenk Universität des Saarlandes

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12797/SH.60.2017.02.02

Keywords:

London, Early Modern, theatre, stage, Thomas Middleton, Ben Jonson, Cheapside, Blackfriars, mapping, cartography

Abstract

This essay looks at the ways in which the evolving early modern urban space of London was re-presented to early modern Londoners. It focuses on aspects of how the sprawling city was culturally and literally mapped out in theatrical and other performances. It discusses in particular Thomas Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside and Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist as plays that 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. The area between the city and Westminster is also discussed, as is the spatial particularity of Windsor described and performed in Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor and in contemporary chorography.

References

Bowsher, J. (2012). Shakespeare’s London Theatreland: Archaeology, History and Drama. London: Museum of London Archaeology.

Donaldson, I. (2011). Ben Jonson: A Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Dustagheer, S. (2011). ‘Our Scene is London’: The Alchemist and Urban Underworlds at the Blackfriars Playhouse. Shakespeare Jahrbuch, vol. 147, pp. 94-104.

Finlay, R. & Shearer, B. (1986). Population Growth and Suburban Expansion. In A.L. Beier & R. Finlay (eds.), London 1500-1700: The Making of the Metropolis, (pp. 37-59). Harlow: Longman, Harlow.

Fortescue, J. (1917). Sir John Fortescue’s Commendation of the Laws of England. Trans. F. Grigor. London: Sweet and Maxwell.

Gordon, A. (2011). Performing London: The Map and the City in Ceremony. In A. Gordon & B. Klein, B. (eds.), Literature, Mapping and the Politics of Space in Early Modern Britain (pp. 69-88). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Grantley, D. (2008). London in Early Modern English Drama: Representing the Built Environment, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230583764

Gurr, A. (2009). The Shakespearean Stage 1574-1642 (4th ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511819520. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511819520

Gurr, A. (2006). London’s Blackfriars Playhouse and the Chamberlain’s Men. In P. Menzer (ed.) Inside Shakespeare: Essays on the Blackfriars Stage (pp. 17-34). Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press.

Harding, V. (1990). The Population of London, 1550-1700: A Review of the Published Evidence. London Journal, vol. 15, pp. 111-128. https://dx.doi.org/10.1179/ldn.1990.15.2.111. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1179/ldn.1990.15.2.111

Howard, J. (2007). Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy, 1598-1642. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Jonson, B. (2012). Eastward Ho!. Ed. S. Gossett & K.D. Kay. In D. Bevington, M. Butler & I. Donaldson (eds.), The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson, vol. 2: 1601-1606 (pp. 534-640). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jonson, B. (2012). The Alchemist. Eds. P. Holland & W. Sherman. In D. Bevington, M. Butler & I. Donaldson (eds.), The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson, vol. 3: 1606-1611 (pp. 555-710). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mahler, A. (2011). Urbane Raumpraxis und kulturelle Explosion – Netzwerkkonstellationen im frühneuzeitlichen London. Shakespeare Jahrbuch, vol. 147, pp. 11-33.

Middleton, T. (2007). A Chaste Maid in Cheapside. Ed. L. Woodbridge. In G. Taylor & J. Lavagnino (eds.), Thomas Middleton: The Complete Works (pp. 907-958). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Middleton, T. (1995), A Chaste Maid in Cheapside. Retrieved from http://www.tech.org/~cleary/chast.html [accessed: 22.02.2017].

Nelson, A.H. & Winston J. (2010). Drama of the Inns of Court. In M. Hattaway (ed.), A New Companion to English Renaissance Literature and Culture (pp. 94-104). London: Blackwell Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444319019.ch46. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444319019.ch46

Norden, J. (1607). A Description of the Honour of Windesor, [map]. Retrieved from https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/description-of-the-honor-of-windesor.

Norden, J. (1593-1604). Speculum Britanniae, London.

Shakespeare, W. (1602). A Most Pleaſaunt and Excellent Conceited Comedie, of Syr Iohn Falstaffe, and the Merrie Wiues of Windsor, London.

Shakespeare, W. (2016). The Merry Wives of Windsor. In S. Greenblatt (ed.), The Norton Shakespeare (3rd ed.) (pp. 1474-1531). New York: Norton.

Smith, I. (1964). Shakespeare’s Blackfriars Playhouse: Its History and Its Design. London: Peter Owen.

Stow, J. (1971). A Survey of London (1603). Ed. C.L. Kingsford. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Weinreb, B. et al. (2008). The London Encyclopaedia (3rd ed.). London: Macmillan.

Wood, D. (2010). Rethinking the Power of Maps. New York: Guilford Publications.

Downloads

Published

2017-06-30

How to Cite

Frenk, J. (2017). “Welcome to the Heart of the City”: Mappings of London in Early City Comedies. Studia Historyczne, 60(2 (238), 17–30. https://doi.org/10.12797/SH.60.2017.02.02

Issue

Section

Articles and Dissertations