The Absence of America: The London Stage, 1576-1642 (Early Modern Literary Geographies)

The Absence of America: the London Stage 1576-1642 examines why early modern drama's response to English settlement in the New World was muted, even though the so-called golden age of Shakespeare coincided with the so-called golden age of exploration: no play is set in the Americas; few plays treat colonization as central to the plot; a handful features Native American characters (most of whom are Europeans in disguise). However, advocates of colonialism in the seventeenth century denounced playing companies as enemies on a par with the Pope and the Devil. Instead of writing off these accusers as paranoid cranks, this book takes as its starting point the possibility that they were astute playgoers. By so doing we can begin to see the emergence of a 'picture of America', and of the Virginia colony in particular, across a number of plays performed for London audiences: Jonson's Bartholomew Fair , The Staple of News , and his collaboration with Marston and Chapman, Eastward Ho! ; Robert Greene's Orlando Furioso ; Massinger's The City Madam ; Massinger and Fletcher's The Sea Voyage ; Middleton and Dekker's The Roaring Girl ; Shakespeare's The Tempest and Fletcher and Shakespeare's Henry VIII . We can glean the significance of this picture, not only for the troubled Virginia Company, but also for London theatre audiences. And we can see that the picture that was beginning to form was, as the anti-theatricalists surmised, often slanderous, condemnatory, and, as it were, anti-American. Cover The Absence of America: The London Stage, 1576–1642 Copyright Acknowledgements Contents List of Illustrations Introduction: “Where America, the Indies?” London Theater and the New World NEW HISTORICISM AND THE NEW WORLD “WITH THESE AND MANY MORE AMUSEMENTS”: LONDON’S NETWORKS, NEW WORLD KNOWLEDGE “A REFORMATION IN ALL THEIR OTHER PLAYES”: PLAYING COMPANIES, “FOREIGN MATTERS,” STAGE CENSORSHIP VIRGINIA AND THE LONDON CITY COMEDY THE WALLS OF NEHEMIAH THE WORK AHEAD PART I: ADVENTURERS AND CANNIBALS 1: The Devil, the Papist, the Player: The Virginia Company’s Anti-Theatricalism “SO GREAT AN UNDERTAKING”: PROMOTING VIRGINIA “THEY PLAY . . . WITH GOD AND RELIGION, AND ALL HOLY THINGS”: DENOUNCING THE PLAYERS “WE SEND OF ALL TRADES TO VIRGINIA, BUT WILL SEND NO PLAYERS”: LABORING COLONISTS, IDLE PLAYERS TRANSFORMING “PESTILENCE AND PENURY” TO “HONEST, WISE AND PAINEFULL MEN”? THE THEATERMEME ADVENTURER “THAN ALL THE INDIES”: THE ADVENTURER AND THE CONQUISTADOR “WILDE VIRGINIA”: THE ADVENTURER, LAW, AND CONSCIENCE “LIKE SOME CHEATING BANKROUT”: THE ADVENTURER AND THE PLAYER “YOU WOULD E’EN AS GOOD GO TO VIRGINIA”: THE ADVENTURER AND THE PLAYGOER IN BARTHOLOMEW FAIR “TOBACCONING IS BUT A SMOAKIE PLAY”: THE SMOKING STAGE 2: Plantation and “the Powdered Wife”: The Roaring Girl, Eastward Ho!, and The Sea Voyage THE CANNIBAL HUSBAND, THE POWDERED WIFE VIRGINIA IS FOR LOVERS THE “TRAGICALL HISTORIE” IN PRINT AND ON STAGE “SACRIFICE FOR A PROSPEROUS VOYAGE”: CARNAL DESIRE AND GLOBAL COMPASSING IN EASTWARD HO! “NEVER CHOOSE A WIFE AS IF YOU WERE GOING TO VIRGINIA”: THE ROARING GIRL “WHY DID YE NOT . . . SPARE THE WOMAN TO BEGET MORE FOOD ON?”: CONSUMING THE COLONY IN THE SEA VOYAGE “WE HAVE SHARES, AND DEEP ONES”: ANATOMIZING THE COLONIAL BODY POLITIC AMAZONS, CANNIBALS, AMAZON-CANNIBALS THE INDIAN CANNIBAL, THE COLONIAL HUSBAND “CANNIBAL-CHRISTIANS” PART II: INDIANS AND LONDONERS 3: The Dead Indian: Virginians in The Memorable Masque, “The Triumph of Time,” Henry VIII, and The Tempest of 1613 VIRGINIA ON DISPLAY “OUR BRITON PHOEBUS”: VIRGINIA AND THE MEMORABLE MASQUE “ANTICKE SUITES,” “ALTOGETHER ESTRANGEFUL AND INDIAN-LIKE”: MISREMEMBERING THE MEMORABLE MASQUE “INNOCENT PEOPLE / NOT KNOWING YET”: THE INDIANS OF “THE TRIUMPH OF TIME” “AND TOMORROW THEY MADE BRITAIN / INDIA”: HENRY VIII, THE CLOTH OF GOLD, “THE STRANGE INDIAN” “AND MAKE NEW NATIONS”: MASQUE, ANTI-MASQUE, BRITAIN’S VIRGINIAN FUTURE REMEMBERING THE DEAD INDIAN, FORGETTING THE MEMORABLE MASQUE 4: “He would not goe naked like the Indians, but cloathed just as one of our selves”: Indian Disguise in The Historie of Orlando Furioso, The Fatal Marriage, and The City Madam “IN BASE OR INDIAN SHAPE” “THE PROSTHESES OF RACE,” ALTERITY AS DISGUISE, “PRESENTED NAKEDNESS” ORLANDO’S FURIOSO IN L’ABITO ARABESCO “THOSE MOST AFFLICTED INDIANS”: ORLANDO AS INSURGENT “TRANSPORTED BY THE WESTERNE BOUNDS”: ORLANDO’S NEW WORLD ORDER “THE TAWNY THAT SOILED OVER HIS FACE”: IASPERO, “VIRGINIA STRAUNGER” “TURNING HEATHEN”: IASPERO AS “WHITE INDIAN” “MORE NAKED IS THEN NAKED INDIAN”: LONDON’S IDOLATORS “APPARELL & HOUSEHOULDESTUFE”: CLOTHING AND CONVERTING THE NAKED INDIAN “THE SURPRISE OF THOSE NAKED PEOPLE”: INDIAN DISGUISE, MARCH 22, 1622 “THIS WASHED OFF”: VIRGINIA CLEANSED Afterword: “Scene: Virginia”: America and Heroic Drama on the Restoration Stage Bibliography Index "The Absence of America: the London Stage 1576a1642 examines why early modern drama's response to English settlement in the New World was muted, even though the so-called golden age of Shakespeare coincided with the so-called golden age of exploration: no play is set in the Americas; few plays treat colonization as central to the plot; a handful features Native American characters (most of whom are Europeans in disguise). However, advocates of colonialism in the seventeenth century denounced playing companies as enemies on a par with the Pope and the Devil. Instead of writing off these accusers as paranoid cranks, this book takes as its starting point the possibility that they were astute playgoers. By so doing we can begin to see the emergence of a "picture of America," and of the Virginia colony in particular, across a number of plays performed for London audiences: Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, The Staple of News, and his collaboration with Marston and Chapman, Eastward Ho!; Robert Greene's Orlando Furioso; Massinger's The City Madam; Massinger and Fletcher's The Sea Voyage; Middleton and Dekker's The Roaring Girl; Shakespeare's The Tempest, and Fletcher and Shakespeare's Henry VIII. We can glean the significance of this picture, not only for the troubled Virginia Company, but also for London theater audiences. And we can see that the picture that was beginning to form was, as the anti-theatricalists surmised, often slanderous, condemnatory, and, as it were, anti-American"_Contracub The absence of America: the London stage 1576-1642' examines why early modern drama's response to English settlement in the New World was muted, even though the so-called golden age of Shakespeare coincided with the so-called golden age of exploration: no play is set in the Americas; few plays treat colonization as central to the plot; a handful features Native American characters (most of whom are Europeans in disguise). However, advocates of colonialism in the seventeenth century denounced playing companies as enemies on a par with the Pope and the Devil. Instead of writing off these accusers as paranoid cranks, this book takes as its starting point the possibility that they were astute playgoers. By so doing we can begin to see the emergence of a 'picture of America', and of the Virginia colony in particular, across a number of plays performed for London audiences: Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, The Staple of News, and his collaboration with Marston and Chapman, Eastward Ho!; Robert Greene's Orlando Furioso; Massinger's The City Madam; Massinger and Fletcher's The Sea Voyage; Middleton and Dekker's The Roaring Girl; Shakespeare's The Tempest and Fletcher and Shakespeare's Henry VIII.0We can glean the significance of this picture, not only for the troubled Virginia Company, but also for London theatre audiences. And we can see that the picture that was beginning to form was, as the anti-theatricalists surmised, often slanderous, condemnatory, and, as it were, anti-American The Absence of America: the London Stage 1576â1642 examines why early modern drama's response to English settlement in the New World was muted, even though the so-called golden age of Shakespeare coincided with the so-called golden age of exploration: no play is set in the Americas; few plays treat colonization as central to the plot; a handful features Native American characters (most of whom are Europeans in disguise). However, advocates of colonialism in the seventeenth century denounced playing companies as enemies on a par with the Pope and the Devil. Instead of writing off these accusers as paranoid cranks, this book takes as its starting point the possibility that they were astute playgoers. By so doing we can begin to see the emergence of a'picture of America,'and of the Virginia colony in particular, across a number of plays performed for London audiences: Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, The Staple of News, and his collaboration with Marston and Chapman, Eastward Ho!; Robert Greene's Orlando Furioso; Massinger's The City Madam; Massinger and Fletcher's The Sea Voyage; Middleton and Dekker's The Roaring Girl; Shakespeare's The Tempest, and Fletcher and Shakespeare's Henry VIII. We can glean the significance of this picture, not only for the troubled Virginia Company, but also for London theater audiences. And we can see that the picture that was beginning to form was, as the anti-theatricalists surmised, often slanderous, condemnatory, and, as it were, anti-American. 'the Absence Of America' Looks At London Theatre At The Time Of Shakespeare And How It Represented The New World, Considering Whether Early Modern Drama Was Anti-american, As Some Contemporaries Suggested. Introduction: Where America, The Indies? : London Theater And The New World -- I. Adventurers And Cannibals. -- 1. The Devil, The Papist, The Player : The Virginia Company's Anti-theatricalism -- 2. Plantation And The Powdered Wife : The Roaring Girl, Eastward Ho!, And The Sea Voyage -- Ii. Indians And Londoners. -- 3. The Dead Indian : Virginians In The Memorable Masque, The Triumph Of Time, Henry Viii, And The Tempest Of 1613 -- He Would Not Goe Naked Like The Indians, But Cloathed Just As One Of Our Selves : Indian Disguise In The Historie Of Orlando Furioso, The Fatal Marriage, And The City Madam -- Afterword: Scene, Virginia : America And Heroic Drama On The Restoration Stage. Gavin Hollis. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [227]-248) And Index.