EN3012 Witchcraft and Drama, 2004

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Answer two questions

The young Helen Fairfax was tempted by the devil in the shape of a handsome and courtly young man, who ‘said he was a prince, and would make her queen of England and all the world, if she would go with him’ (1621). What temptations are offered by the devil in the plays studied?
‘Willing or not, witchcraft trials are one context in which women ‘speak’ at greater length and attract more attention than perhaps any other’ (Lyndall Roper). Do the witchcraft plays reflect this phenomenon?
‘Some people were worried about witchcraft to the point of obsession and mental unbalance’ (James Sharpe, citing the case books of the 17th century doctor, Richard Napier). Where do the witchcraft plays stand in relation to such high contemporary anxiety?
James Sharpe contrasts the Lancashire witch trials and executions of 1612 with the inconclusive trials in 1633, adding that ‘there is a related indicator of cultural change: a distanced and semi-farcical treatment of witchcraft in Heywood and Brome’s The Late Lancashire Witches.’

EITHER: If we compare that play with earlier witchcraft texts, do we see similar signs of a ‘cultural change’ in attitudes to witchcraft within the theatre itself?

OR: Could, in fact, the witchcraft plays in general be adequately described ‘distanced’ and ‘semi-farcical’?

5.‘When they came to suck they fight like pigs on a sow’ (Margaret Wyard, confessing to suckling her seven imps at her five teats, 1645)

Discuss how the witchcraft plays represent the witch’s body.

6.Women were fifteen times more likely to give evidence in witchcraft cases than they were in other felony cases. James Sharpe comments that: ‘The simplistic connection between witchcraft accusations and male oppression collapses (while) the impression that witchcraft accusations were somehow generated by disputes between women gains support.’

Do the witchcraft plays correspond to that opinion that witchcraft accusations were all instruments of male oppression of women, or do they in any aspects complicate such a view?

7.‘Those called white or good witches … almost generally they be men’

(James Stearne, a witchfinder, in 1648)

Discuss the way ‘cunning folk’ and/or good magicians are depicted in the texts

you have studied in the light of this remark.

8.‘There are two spiritual kingdomes in this world which have continual hatred and bloody wars, without hope of truce for ever. The lord and king of one is our lord Jesus, the tyrannical usurper of the other, is Satan’ (Henry Holland, 1590).

Do any of the witchcraft plays try to depict both of these ‘spiritual kingdoms’, and, if not, why not?

9.‘Monstrously transformed … much like the picture of the devil in the play, with a horrible roaring voice’ (a contemporary description of a demoniac, 1573). In the light of this quotation, write an essay on the way possession is handled in the theatre of Ben Jonson.

10. ‘There are some witches have gold rings on their fingers’ (the devil to Margaret Wyard, in 1645). In the light of this quotation, discuss how far class animus appears in the witchcraft plays.

11. Write an essay on any TWO of the following in the plays studied: food and feasting; song and dance; use of stage machinery and special effects; the coven.

12. Do you think that one element in the witchcraft plays in performance was that of inhabitants of the metropolis having fun at the expense of rustics?

13. Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft

(1 Samuel 15:23, Authorised Version)

How far is a political reading of any of these witchcraft plays possible?

14. ‘Scepticism becomes as questionable as credulity’ (Nicholas Brooke, on

Macbeth). Write an essay on the way scepticism is presented in any of the texts

studied.

15. Discuss the following extract:

Enter Mr. Generous, and Mrs. Generous, he with a Bridle.

Generous.

My blood is turn’d to ice, and my all vitals

Have ceas’d their working! dull stupidity

Surpriseth me at once, and hath arrested

That vigorous agitation; which till now

Exprest a life within me: I me thinks 5

Am a mere marble statue, and no man;

Unweave my age O Time, to my first thread,

Let me loose fifty years in ignorance spent,

That being made an infant once again,

I may begin to know, what or where am I 10

To be thus lost in wonder?

Mrs. Generous.

Sir.

Generous.

Amazement still pursues me, how am I chang’d

Or brought ere I can understand my self,

Into this new world.

Robin.

You will believe no witches? 15

Generous.

This makes me believe all, aye, any thing;

And that my self am nothing: prithee Robin

Lay me to my self open, what art thou,

Or this new transform’d creature?

Robin.

I am Robin, and this your wife, my Mistress. 20

Generous.

Tell me the Earth

Shall leave its seat, and mount to kiss the moon;

Or that the moon enamour’d of the earth,

Shall leave her sphere, to stoop to us thus low.

What? What’s this in my hand, that at an instant 25

Can from a four legg’d creature, make a thing

So like a wife?

Robin.

A bridle, a juggling bridle Sir.

Generous.

A bridle, hence inchantment,

A viper were more safe within my hand 30

Casts it away. Robin takes it up.

Then this charm’d engine

Robin.

Take heed Sir what you do, if you cast it hence, and she catch it up, we that are here now, may be rid as far as the Indies within these few hours, Mistress down of your Mare’s bones, or your Mary-bones whether you please, and confess your self to be what you are; and that’s in plain English a Witch, a grand notorious Witch. 36

Generous.

A Witch! my wife a Witch!

Robin.

So it appears by the story.

Generous.

The more I strive to unwind

Myself from this Meander, I the more 40

Therein am intricated; prithee woman

Art thou a Witch?

Mrs. Generous.

It cannot be deny’d, I am such a curst creature.

Generous.

Keep aloof, and doe not come too near me, O my trust;

Have I since first I understood my self, 45

Been of my soul so chary, still to study

What best was for its health, to renounce all

The works of that black Fiend with my best force

And hath that Serpent twin’d me so about,

That I must lye so often and so long 50

With a Divel in my bosom!

Mrs. Generous.

Pardon sir.

Generous.

Pardon! Can such a thing as that be hop’d?

Lift up thine eyes (lost woman) to yon hills;

It must be thence expected: look not down 55

Unto that horrid dwelling, which thou hast sought

At such dear rate to purchase, prithee tell me,

(For now I can believe) art thou a Witch?

Mrs. Generous.

I am.

Generous.

With that word I am thunderstrook, 60

And know not what to answer, yet resolve me

Hast thou made any contract with that Fiend

The Enemy of Mankind?

Mrs. Generous.

O I have.

Generous.

What? and how far? 65

Mrs. Generous.

I have promis’d him my soul.

Generous.

Ten thousand times better thy Body had

Bin promis’d to the stake, aye and mine too,

To have suffer’d with thee in a hedge of flames

Then such a compact ever had been made. Oh--- 70