School Book: The Changeling

Today I read The Changeling by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley. It's the final play that was included in Three Revenge Tragedies. I don't normally like to do this, but I am going to talk about some very specific points in the plot (particularly the ending), so *Spoiler Alert* for anyone who plans on reading it.

I thought The Changeling was a really great read. Like The White Devil, it is about a strong female character, in this case Beatrice-Joanna. Beatrice is due to marry Alonzo by her father's orders within a few days, but she meets and falls in love with Alsemero. Deciding that she would rather marry Alsemero, she enlists the help of De Flores, her father's servant who is in love with her, to off Alonzo so she can be with the man she loves. But De Flores will not be bought off, but instead insists that she pay him with her virginity.

The most surprising thing about this play was the ending. The sub-plot involves two gentlemen who are respecitively feigning being mad and being a fool to gain the love of Isabella, the wife of the Doctor. They are found out, and the Doctor's man, Lollio sets them on a collision course to kill one another. At the same time, because they are both missing from court, they are blamed for Alonzo's death. Alonzo's brother seems ready to go after them in revenge. But none of that happens. Alsemero finds out that Beatrice was unfaithful to him, and he discovers with whom. The two confess to Beatrice's father and Alonzo's brother, but kill themselves before anyone else can make a move. And so they die, but bring everyone else back together.

While I did really like The White Devil, I thought the ending of The Changeling really put it apart from pretty much all of the revenge tragedies I have read so far. There wasn't a big pile of bodies at the end. Instead only the two who deserved death were dead at the end. And by dying by their own hands, no one had to be punished for seeking their own revenge. The Changeling was a fantastic play, which was well-worth reading. It was definitely one of the best out of this class!

School Book: A Chaste Maid in Cheapside

A Chaste Maid in Cheapside is one of the other plays included in Women Beware Women. I didn't have to read A Chaste Maid in Cheapside yet, but it was rather short so I decided to read ahead a bit so I can concentrate on my second class this week.

I have to say that I really enjoyed A Chaste Maid. There's a lot going on in this play, and once you understand just how bad most of the characters are, it's really funny. Moll, the daughter of a goldsmith, is being courted by two men. One of them, Sir Walter Whorehound, is an adulterer, and happens to be the man her parents approve of. The other one, Touchwood Jr., is the man she loves, but her parents want nothing to do with him. Moll and Touchwood Jr. try multiple times to get married in secret, but every time they are thwarted by her parents. Sir Walter has many kept women, including the wife of Master Allwit, by whom he has three children. Master Allwit knows he is being cuckolded, but could care less - he gets to coast through life without having to pay for anything. So the subplots tend to revolve around adulterous affairs with the other women in the play.

I have to say, I love the irony with Moll's name. As I learned from The Roaring Girl, "Moll" was a common name for a whore. And the Moll of this play happens to be the only chaste maid in Cheapside (which is another irony - the joke is that there are no chaste maids in Cheapside).

I admit, right near the end I wasn't quite sure if this was going to be a tragedy or a comedy. The very end was unexpectedly surprising. All in all, I really enjoyed reading this. It was short and good fun.

School Book: Women Beware Women

This book has four of Thomas Middleton's Plays: A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, Women Beware Women, The Changeling, and A Game at Chess. I won't be reading all four of these plays for this class, so I decided to write about each play as I finish it. So far from this book I have only read Women Beware Women.

Women Beware Women is a strange tragedy. It takes you on a crazy adventure through lies, lust and more lust. It starts out with a man who has just married a gentlewoman; he tries to hide her in his mother's house while he is away for a few days. But by chance the Duke sees her sitting in a window and desires her. At the same time, an uncle desires his neice, so his sister spins a false tale to make her brother's dreams come true.

Women Beware Women is largely a tale of deceit. But the treachery goes so many ways, it will keep you reading out of curiosity to see the story through to the end!

School Book: The Roaring Girl

I'm really sad that I had to start the year off on this blog with a school book. I was in a reading mood this holiday season and really wanted to read one of my Mercedes Lackey books that are backed up. But on the plus side this is my final term before I am free to read whatever I want, so here's to plowing through these last few books.

The Roaring Girl sounded to me like it would be a lot of fun to read. I mean, the title character is a woman from the 1600's who dresses like a man and generally stirs up trouble. The basic idea of the story is that Sebastian Wengrave wants to marry someone whom his father thinks isn't rich enough. So Sebastian tries to shock his father into letting him marry her by pretending to be madly in love with the Roaring Girl. From the back of the book, the play sounded hilarious and I couldn't wait to read it.

Unfortunately, the summary was a lot better than the actual play. The Roaring Girl doesn't make an appearance until quite a ways into Act 2. And Act 2 is full of random people who aren't really interesting in the whole scheme of things. (It's a bunch of women and men who run some shops. Gentlemen show up and try to cuckold the shopmen). Quite generally, everything that happened seemed rather boring. I honestly had a hard time reading this and I'm glad it's over. I'm also really glad that I did finish it rather than letting it linger on. I'm sure we'll have some interesting things to say in the class about it, but if you're just interested in the play on its own, you're better off giving it a pass for something by Shakespeare or Marlowe.