도시희극 속 ‘정숙한 창녀’ 읽기: 근대초기 런던과 극장의 기표
Reading “Honest Whore“ in the City Comedy as a Sign of London and Theater in Early Modern England
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This paper aims to reveal how the ‘honest whore’ motif can be used as a useful sign of early modern London and its theater, thereby showing how the city comedy participated in the debate about the concept and definition of New London. In the years around 1600, the rapid expansion of London and its population explosion brought about many urban problems, expecially in the suburban areas. Many Londoners blamed the suburbs for the problems and called them as the sewage or diseases of London. However, it should be also noted that the suburbs were also an engine of its rapid growth. The theater, located in the suburbs and also called a ‘whore’ by puritanical Londoners, tried to define the New London by appropriating an ‘honest whore’ in its city comedies. An ‘honest whore’, who retired from their disreputable trade and became ‘honest’ after marriage, is an oxymoronic category which vacillates between the moral and the immoral, the fair and the foul, the legitimate and the illegitimate. As a sign of New London, which also experienced a geographical, conceptual, and ideological change from the old medieval town to a new metropolis, an ‘honest whore’ became a useful device in the theater’s self-representation and in its definition of London. In many ‘marry-a-punk’ plays like A Chaste Maid in Cheapside and A Trick to Catch the Old One, an ‘honest whore’ motif is a comic device to punish and mock the male characters. However, The Honest Whore, Parts I & II, especially Part II, explores the ‘honest whore’ motif more seriously. By scrutinizing how Bellafront, the ‘honest whore’, is treated and defined by the other characters and by proving that she is morally and intellectually superior to other characters, The Honest Whore, Part II shows that the ambiguous and oxymoronic category of an ‘honest whore’ indeed is a viable category, and suggests that London might be another ‘honest whore’ that waits for new reading and new definition. As Orlando’s theatricality endorses an ‘honest whore’ in the play, the theater might be the one who should do this job of reading London as an ‘honest whore.’
Abstract
This paper aims to reveal how the ‘honest whore’ motif can be used as a useful sign of early modern London and its theater, thereby showing how the city comedy participated in the debate about the concept and definition of New London. In the years around 1600, the rapid expansion of London and its population explosion brought about many urban problems, expecially in the suburban areas. Many Londoners blamed the suburbs for the problems and called them as the sewage or diseases of London. However, it should be also noted that the suburbs were also an engine of its rapid growth. The theater, located in the suburbs and also called a ‘whore’ by puritanical Londoners, tried to define the New London by appropriating an ‘honest whore’ in its city comedies. An ‘honest whore’, who retired from their disreputable trade and became ‘honest’ after marriage, is an oxymoronic category which vacillates between the moral and the immoral, the fair and the foul, the legitimate and the illegitimate. As a sign of New London, which also experienced a geographical, conceptual, and ideological change from the old medieval town to a new metropolis, an ‘honest whore’ became a useful device in the theater’s self-representation and in its definition of London. In many ‘marry-a-punk’ plays like A Chaste Maid in Cheapside and A Trick to Catch the Old One, an ‘honest whore’ motif is a comic device to punish and mock the male characters. However, The Honest Whore, Parts I & II, especially Part II, explores the ‘honest whore’ motif more seriously. By scrutinizing how Bellafront, the ‘honest whore’, is treated and defined by the other characters and by proving that she is morally and intellectually superior to other characters, The Honest Whore, Part II shows that the ambiguous and oxymoronic category of an ‘honest whore’ indeed is a viable category, and suggests that London might be another ‘honest whore’ that waits for new reading and new definition. As Orlando’s theatricality endorses an ‘honest whore’ in the play, the theater might be the one who should do this job of reading London as an ‘honest whore.’
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