'Poor Senseless Bess, Clothed in her Rags and Folly': Early Modern Women, Madness, and Song in Seventeenth-Century England

'Poor Senseless Bess, Clothed in her Rags and Folly': Early Modern Women, Madness, and Song in Seventeenth-Century England' Dolly MacKinnon INTRODUCTION Much has been written on the state of early modem women's lives. Much has been written about 'madness', and much has been written about English music. But rarely are these three elements considered together. This article discusses the intersection of these three areas in the social context of seventeenth-century London, by focusing on a song by Henry Purcell (1659-1695) entitled 'Bess of Bedlam', and also known as 'From silent shades', published in 1683. 'Bess' was thefirstmad song composed by Purcell, and was not written for a specific I Henry Purcell, 'Bess of Bedlam', Choice Ayres, Songs, and Dialogues Books and V (London: Stainer & Bell, 1989), facsimile vol. 4, pp. 45-47. This article is based on a paper presented at the Australian and New Zealand Association of Medieval and Early Modem Studies Conference (February 2000), and I am grateful to the participants for their questions, comments, and suggestions. Many thanks also to Professor Patricia Crawford and Associate Professor Chris Wortham, as well as the anonymous readers. 2 Facsimile edition of John Playford's Choice Ayres, Songs, and Dialogues Books III, IV, and V (London: Stainer & Bell, 1989), vol. 4, pp. 45^17. 120 Dolly MacKinnon theatre work, as was the case with his later commissioned songs. M y aim is to show h o w this particular song, as well as the ballad/poem 'Mad Maudlin' from which it drew its inspiration, reflects contemporary societal attitudes, which readily linked w o m e n and madness. By adopting an interdisciplinary approach, it is possible to place Purcell's 'Bess' back into the complex world from whence she came, and rediscover what audiences made of the visual and sonic elements of such a work as this. The social and experiential attractions for early modem London audiences in witnessing a performance of this work were coloured by contemporary assumptions about lunatics and the law, medical as well as magical diagnoses and cures, and the physical and mental inferiority of women, which contributed to their lustfulness, and inevitably made them more prone to lascivious manifestations of madness. Rebecca Crow-Lister observed in her study of female mad songs in seventeenth-century English drama that 'far more mad songs were composed for female roles than for male roles' in Restoration London. The question then arises as to why, as well as what predisposed London's audiences to portrayals of mad w o m e n in song? The answers lie in a combination of contributing factors: the increasing secularisation of madness and the rise of medical diagnosis and treatment of madness; the proliferation in popular culture of medical perceptions that women, when they did suffer mental illness, were more likely to experience 3 Timothy Roberts, 'The Restoration Mad Song', C D notes for Mad Songs: Purcell, Eccles, Blow (L'Oiseau-Lyre, CD, 1993), p. 8, states that '"Bess of Bedlam" is cle not a theatre song, since the sections sung by Bess alternate with passages ofnarration', Roberts adds that 'Tom D'Urfey planned to introduce parts of the song in his comedy A Fool's Preferment (1688), but in the event had Purcell compose a series of new mad songs.' 4 'Mad Maudlin' appeared in Wit and Drollery. Jovial Poems. Corrected andAmende with New Additions (London, 1682), pp. 147—49. While the anonymous seventeenthcentury ballad 'Mad Maudlin' published in Thomas D'Urfey's Wit and Mirth; or Pil to Purge Melancholy (London, 1719-20), iv, has commonly been connected with the mad song genre, due to their great similarities, I consider the popular verse 'Mad Maudlin' published in 1682 as the probable inspiration for the lyric content of Purcell's 'Bess of Bedlam'. 5 Rebecca Crow-Lister, '"Wild thro' the woods I'le fly": Female Mad Songs in Seventeenth-Century English Drama' (unpublished PhD dissertation, Florida State University, 1997), p. 5. Early Modern Women, Madness, and Song in 17th-Century England 121 more violent bouts, and that these bouts may involve a sexual manifestation; th representation of m a d w o m e n from 1660 onwards by female actors...