Cockpit, it was converted into a theatre in 1616. After being severely damaged in a riot in 1617, it was reconstructed and renamed the Phoenix.

Enclosed theatres were more costly than open-air ones like the Globe, thus attracting wealthier audiences. Open-air theatres drew a broader cross-section of London society, from artisans to the gentry. The genius of Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights lay in their ability to craft plays that appealed to both the serious, educated public and those seeking straightforward, engaging entertainment.

Treatment of Madness

In sixteenth and seventeenth century England, no effective treatments for mental illness existed. In London, the insane were confined to Bedlam Hospital, where visitors could pay a fee to observe the patients' behaviors, much like a modern person might visit a zoo. Thomas Dekker’s play The Honest Whore (1604) includes a scene where a duke and his companions visit Bedlam for amusement. This practice is the basis for Alibius’s concern in The Changeling that aristocratic visitors to his madhouse might take an interest in his young wife, Isabella.

Patients at Bedlam were sometimes kept naked and shackled. Discipline seemed to be severe, as depicted in The Changeling, where Lollio keeps a whip nearby to manage the patients. As a Londoner, Middleton might have witnessed such practices during a visit to Bedlam. This kind of treatment for the mentally ill was not uncommon, as evidenced in Shakespeare’s play As You Like It (1599 or 1600), where the heroine Rosalind humorously notes, “Love is merely a madness, and I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do.”

In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, when Malvolio is wrongly deemed insane, he is tied up and confined to a dark room, where he is tormented by the fool, Feste. For Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences, insanity seemed to be a subject from which they could derive considerable amusement.

Imagery

The play features numerous references to eyes and sight, often used with unintended irony by Beatrice. She highlights how sight can mislead us in making sound judgments about love and character. In Act 1, Scene 1, she tells Alsemero:

Our eyes are sentinels unto our judgements,

And should give certain judgement what they see;

But they are rash sometimes, and tell us wonders

Of common things, which when our judgments find,

They can then check the eyes, and call them blind.

Beatrice remarks on her fleeting affection for Alonzo, saying, “Sure, mine eyes were mistaken.” She contrasts the superficiality of physical sight with what she terms the “eye of judgment” and “intellectual eyesight.” The irony lies in the fact that Beatrice is most blinded when she believes she is seeing with the eyes of judgment.

Imagery of illness, poison, and blood further underscores the play's themes. In the opening scene, Alsemero dismisses any notion of being unwell, saying, “Unless there be some hidden malady / Within me that I understand not.” Unbeknownst to him, the love he has just developed for Beatrice will act as a sickness, a poison. Beatrice views De Flores as a “deadly poison” and calls him a “basilisk” (a mythical creature whose gaze was said to be lethal). After the poison introduced by Beatrice and De Flores has taken effect, Jasperino describes the situation as an “ulcer” that is “full of corruption.” De Flores also uses illness imagery, describing his lust for Beatrice as a “mad qualm” (a qualm being a form of sickness).

Balancing the imagery of sickness, there are references to healing. Beatrice offers to concoct a remedy for De Flores’s skin condition. Jasperino tells Diaphanta that he can be cured of his feigned madness through sexual intercourse with her. Alibius, a doctor, claims he can cure both madmen and fools. The irony here is that he cannot; the inmates are controlled with whips, not healed with medicine. No remedy exists for the affliction that plagues Beatrice and De Flores, which also contaminates those around them.

Images of blood evoke both desire and homicide. Jasperino claims he has the “maddest blood i’ th’ town,” meaning he possesses the most intense lust. De Flores uses the term similarly when, after devising a feasible plan to claim Beatrice's body, he exclaims: “O my blood! / Methinks I feel her in mine arms already.” However, De Flores's use of the word also hints at his understanding that he must spill blood (commit murder) to satisfy his own desires (his lust). After murdering Alonzo, he demands Beatrice fulfill his lustful cravings and uses the term blood to signify murder: “A woman dipped in blood, and talk of modesty?” The imagery of blood appears again when Alsemero advises his daughter that she should have traveled “a thousand leagues” to avoid “This dangerous bridge of blood!”

Beatrice, meanwhile, adopts the imagery of blood but connects it not to desire or murder, but to the medical practice of blood-letting for healing purposes. This ties the image of blood to the play’s themes of healing. In Act 5, Scene 3, Beatrice addresses her father:

I am that of your blood was taken from you

For your better health. Look no more upon’t,

But cast it to the ground regardlessly;

Let the common sewer take it from distinction.

Jacobean Age: In 1623, the first folio edition of Shakespeare's works is published. It includes thirty-six plays, half of which are being published for the first time. The folio is sold for £1, and over 1,000 copies are produced.

Today: There are 228 remaining copies of Shakespeare's first folio, with more than a third owned by the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. In 2003, Oxford University's Oriel College sells its copy of the first folio to philanthropist Sir Paul Getty for £3.5 million.

Jacobean Age: During the reign of James I, Great Britain is emerging as a significant European power. Predominantly Protestant, its major rival is Catholic Spain, leading to mutual distrust between the two countries.

Today: Religion no longer causes division among European nations. Both Spain and Britain are democratic countries and members of the European Union.

Jacobean Age: In 1605, a group of Catholics smuggle thirty-six barrels of gunpowder into the parliament's vault. King James is addressing parliament when Guy Fawkes is caught just before lighting the fuse. This attempt to destroy the entire British government is known as the Gunpowder Plot. Fawkes is executed in 1606.

Today: Every year on November 5, England marks the prevention of the Gunpowder Plot. The celebration is known as Guy Fawkes Night or Bonfire Night. Large bonfires are lit, fireworks are launched, and effigies of Guy Fawkes are burned on the bonfire.

The Changeling was transformed into a film in the United Kingdom in 1998. The movie was helmed by director Marcus Thompson and featured performances by Ian Dury, Billy Connolly, and Colm O’Maonlai.

Sources

Eliot, T. S., “Thomas Middleton,” in Selected Essays, Faber, 1958, pp. 161–70.

Ellis-Fermor, Una, Jacobean Drama: An Interpretation, 4th ed., Vintage Books, 1961, pp. 144–49.

Farley-Hills, David, Jacobean Drama: A Critical Study of the Professional Drama, 1600–1625, Macmillan Press, 1988, p. 1.

Middleton, Thomas, and William Rowley, The Changeling, edited by Joost Daalder, A. C. Black/W. W. Norton, 1990.

Mulrayne, J. R., Thomas Middleton, Longman, 1979, pp. 36–45.

Ricks, Christopher, “The Moral and Poetic Structure of The Changeling,” in Essays in Criticism, Vol. X, No. 3, July 1960, pp. 290–306.

Schoenbaum, Samuel, Middleton’s Tragedies: A Critical Study, Columbia University Press, 1955, pp. 132–49.

Shakespeare, William, As You Like It, edited by Agnes Latham, Methuen, 1975, p. 78.

Williams, George Walton, “Introduction,” in The Changeling, University of Nebraska Press, 1966, pp. ix–xxiv.

Further Reading

Bromham, A. A., and Zara Bruzzi, “The Changeling” and the Years of Crisis, 1619–1624: A Hieroglyph of Britain, Pinter Publishers, 1990.

This work explores the connection between The Changeling and early seventeenth-century politics. The authors interpret the play as a cautionary tale for England regarding marital and political alliances with Spain.

Chakravorty, Swapan, Society and Politics in the Plays of Thomas Middleton, Clarendon Press, 1996, pp. 145–65.

This chapter delves into themes of sex, desire, power, and politics within The Changeling. It highlights how De Flores manipulates the principles of chivalry and courtly love to undermine authority.

Farr, Dorothy M., Thomas Middleton and the Drama of Realism: A Study of Some Representative Plays, Oliver & Boyd, 1973, pp. 50–71.

Farr examines Middleton’s keen psychological insights, portraying the characters as victims of their tendencies for evasion and self-deception. She also addresses the use of imagery, irony, and the interplay between the main plot and subplot.

Holmes, David M., The Art of Thomas Middleton: A Critical Study, Clarendon Press, 1970, pp. 172–84.

Holmes discusses the character dynamics and relationships within the play. He notes that Beatrice and Alsemero are infatuated with each other, and that Beatrice’s tragic misunderstanding of true love leaves her vulnerable.