Thomas Middleton Criticism
Thomas Middleton's oeuvre, encompassing tragedies, comedies, and civic pageants, displays a remarkable breadth that engages with the moral and societal undercurrents of early modern England. His tragedies, including The Revenger's Tragedy, Women Beware Women, and The Changeling, explore themes of societal corruption and moral ambiguity. J.R. Mulryne identifies The Changeling as one of the most powerful tragedies of the era, highlighting Middleton's psychological depth and societal critiques. Critics such as T.S. Eliot have praised his realistic portrayals, especially of women, further cementing his role as a keen observer of human nature.
Middleton's career was also marked by collaboration and innovation. He was involved with children's theater companies and civic pageants, and his tenure as Chronologer to the City of London reflects his integration within the cultural fabric of his time. His work A Game At Chess exemplifies his daring political commentary, achieving both commercial success and political notoriety for satirizing Anglo-Spanish relations, as detailed by Paul Yachnin. This play's suppression by King James I underscores Middleton's engagement with contemporary political issues.
After a period of obscurity following the Restoration, Middleton's reputation has resurged, particularly in the 20th century, as scholars have revisited his work with an eye toward its political and social commentary. The examination of gender and class tensions, as discussed by Lorraine Helms, demonstrates the enduring relevance of his themes. Middleton's complex portrayals of morally ambiguous societies continue to resonate with audiences today.
In his comedies, Middleton's "citizen comedy" style adeptly captures middle-class life in London through narratives of money and marriage. Samuel Schoenbaum notes that A Chaste Maid in Cheapside exemplifies Middleton's mature poetic and dramatic skills. Meanwhile, his tragedies, such as The Revenger's Tragedy, continue to intrigue scholars, with A.L. and M.K. Kistner examining the play’s portrayal of societal decay through characters like Vindice.
Initially perceived as a craftsman due to his varied and collaborative approach, Middleton has been reassessed as one of the great dramatists of English literature. T.S. Eliot was among the first to elevate his status, and subsequent studies have emphasized his sophisticated plotting, pacing, and character development, alongside his ironic tone and vivid settings. Despite ongoing debates over authorship, Middleton's significant contributions to the dramatic canon are now well recognized, ensuring his enduring legacy.
Contents
- Principal Works
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Middleton, Thomas (Drama Criticism)
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Overviews And General Studies
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Thomas Middleton
(summary)
Eliot, a celebrated Americanborn English poet, essayist, and critic, stressed in his commentary the importance of tradition, religion, and morality in literature. His emphasis on imagery, symbolism, and meaning helped to establish the theories of New Criticism. Eliot's concept of the 'objective correlative' is considered a major contribution to literary analysis. In his Selected Essays (1932), he defines the objective correlative as 'a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of [a] particular emotion' and which has the ability to evoke that emotion in the reader. Here, in a very influential and oftencited survey of Middleton and his works, Eliot extols the playwright as one of the greatest writers of the Elizabethan period.
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Middleton and the New Social Classes
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A renowned English Shakespearean and Elizabethan scholar, Knights followed the precepts of I. A. Richards and F. R. Leavis as he attempted to identify an underlying pattern in all of Shakespeare's work. His How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth? (1933)—a milestone study in the twentieth-century reaction to the Shakespearean criticism of the previous century—disparages the traditional emphasis on 'character' as an approach which inhibits the reader's total response to Shakespeare's plays. The following discussion of Middleton is taken from his highly regarded study Drama & Society in the Age of Jonson, which was first published in 1937. Knights examines Middleton's comedies and finds the writer overrated, particularly in respect to his often-admired 'realism.'
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Middleton's Nameless Art
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In the following essay, Huebert examines Middleton's depiction of sexuality and the desire for power in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, Women Beware Women, and The Changeling. "Middleton's work as a whole," he claims, "is a statement of what happens when you make self-interest (including sexual self-interest) the measure of all things."
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Thomas Middleton
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The Revenger's Tragedy
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The Revenger's Tragedy and the Morality Tradition
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In the essay below, Salingar argues that much of the special quality of The Revenger's Tragedy is attributable to its grounding in medieval dramatic modes. He stresses that in this play, much as in morality plays, "the physical world is treated, in a peculiarly direct and consistent manner, as emblematic of the moral order, man in relation to divine will." In this essay, Salingar ascribes The Revenger's Tragedy to Cyril Tourneur.
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The Revenger's Tragedy
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In the following excerpt from his influential work, Schoenbaum provides a far-ranging survey of issues related to The Revenger's Tragedy, including possible historical influences on the play, Middleton's use of various literary conventions and techniques, and his style of versification.
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The Revenger's Tragedy
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In the following excerpt, the critics trace Vindice's moral degradation in the course of The Revenger's Tragedy, finding his decline representative of the spiritual decay of the entire society depicted in the play.
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The Revenger's Tragedy and the Morality Tradition
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A Chaste Maid In Cheapside
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"A Chaste Maid in Cheapside" and Middleton's City Comedy
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In this essay, which was first published in 1959, Schoenbaum compares A Chaste Maid in Cheapside to Middleton's other comedies of urban life and judges this work far superior. A Chaste Maid, he declares, "testifies to the sudden advent of maturity, poetic and dramatic, in a major writer."
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The Four Plots of A Chaste Maid in Cheapside
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Levin uncovers numerous interrelationships among the various plots of A Chaste Maid, finding contrasts or correspondences in their actions, themes, tones, and genres.
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Lust and Avarice in the Comedies: A Chaste Maid in Cheapside
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Baines analyzes the characters' "habitual exploitation of sex for financial gain" in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside.
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"A Chaste Maid in Cheapside" and Middleton's City Comedy
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Women Beware Women
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Realism and Morality in 'Women Beware Women'
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In this essay, Ewbank assesses Women Beware Women, paying particular attention to the unity underlying what initially seems to be a loosely constructed mixture of realistic and moralistic elements. She stresses that the highly theatrical nature of Middleton's conception and execution, rather than heightening the unreality of the allegorical masque, actually integrates it into the realistically depicted intrigues of the play.
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Parent and Child: The Pattern of Love in Women Beware Women
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Wigler investigates the three love affairs in Women Beware Women—between Bianca and the Duke, Isabella and Hippolito, and Leantio and Livia—in support of his contention that "the pattern of love" in the play "is ultimately something very close to incest."
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Men and Women Beware: Social, Political, and Sexual Anarchy in Women Beware Women
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Bromley maintains that the corruption and immorality in Women Beware Women are caused by the collapse of the social structures of family, class, and church.
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Realism and Morality in 'Women Beware Women'
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The Changeling
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Double Plots
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Empson analyzes how the comic subplot of The Changeling relates to and amplifies the main plot, presenting the first modern critical argument that the play is thematically unified.
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Thomas Middleton
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Bradbrook is an English scholar noted especially for her commentary on the development of Elizabethan drama and poetry. In her criticism, she combines both biographical and historical research, paying particular attention to the stage conventions of Elizabethan and earlier periods. In the following excerpt from her influential essay on Middleton, she evaluates the naturalistic treatment of character in The Changeling and provides an elaboration of William Empson's contention that the tragedy is well unified.
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A Cangoun in Zombieland: Middleton's Teratological Changeling
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Morrison disputes those critical interpretations that regard The Changeling as unified around the concept of change or mutability, countering that "if The Changeling is unified at all… it is certainly not so by virtue of abstract concept or formal structure but by such things as symbol, image, mood."
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Double Plots
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Overviews And General Studies
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Middleton, Thomas (Literary Criticism (1400-1800))
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Thomas Middleton
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In the following excerpt, the well-known nineteenth-century poet Swinburne surveys Middleton's dramatic works in an effort to establish him as a central Renaissance playwright.
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Thomas Middleton
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In this influential survey of Middleton's works, Eliot considers Middleton one of the age's great playwrights, praises his realism, and particularly extols the dramatist's portrayals of women.
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Middleton and the New Social Classes
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In the following essay, Knights examines Middleton's comedies and finds the writer overrated, particularly in respect to the 'realism' Eliot and others had praised so highly.
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Thomas Middleton
(summary)
The following survey of Middleton's works attributes to the dramatist a wide range of skills from comedic to tragic, as well as psychological penetration and clarity of vision.
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Ventures in Verse and Prose and Comedies for the Boys' Companies
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Charting the early development of Middleton's dramatic range, the following extracts focus on Middleton's innovation and experimentation.
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The Tragedies
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In the following excerpt, Mulryne considers The Changeling to be one of the most powerful tragic works of its era.
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Money and Morals in Middleton's City Comedies
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In this excerpt from her highly influential treatment of Middleton's plays, Heinemann argues that the playwright's 'city comedies' satirize both city-dwellers and landed gentry.
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Women Beware Women and the Economy of Rape
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The following essay asserts that Women Beware Women presents its audience with a purposeful incoherence, generating contradictory interpretations of power relations and sexual violation.
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A Game At Chess: Thomas Middleton's 'Praise of Folly
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In response to critical disagreement about the political situation of A Game at Chess, Yachnin views the play as both an idealization and a satire of English-Spanish relations.
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Roaring Girls and Silent Women: The Politics of Androgyny on the Jacobean Stage
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In the following excerpt, Helms argues that, in the context of public concern about gender roles, the cross-dressing Moll in The Roaring Girl challenges gender hierarchy.
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The Middle of Middleton
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The following essay addresses the critically neglected tragicomedies of Middleton's middle period, including The Witch, A Fair Quarrel, and More Dissemblers Besides Women, finding that Middleton's skepticism toward human nature is the source of these plays' theatrical energy.
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Thomas Middleton
(summary)
- Further Reading