Thomas Middleton’s Prodigal Play

Thomas Middleton’s Prodigal Play Leanore Lieblein The prodigal play has long been viewed as an interesting hybrid in the historyof English drama, fascinating in its incorpo­ ration of Roman and native dramatic traditions in spite of the fact that, being tied to the biblical parable and its continental models for narrative shape and didactic message, it was an essentially sterile form which happily died by the 1580’s.l Recent criticism has demonstrated the vitality of the “paradigm,” as Ervin Beck has usefully called it, of the prodigal son,2but has not yet explored the evolution of the wastrel who must learn, repent or be punished into the engagingly witty center of intrigue of Jacobean city comedy. Shakespeare of course in Part One of Henry IV explores most fully the vitality of prodigality and its eventual contribution to the personal maturity of Prince Hal. In so doing he goes be­ yond more formal expressions of the paradigm since the play­ wright retains sympathy for his youthful hero while he is sowing his proverbial oats. In contrast, antecedent plays insist that an audience behold and judge the prodigal but, like the loving par­ ent and sternly caring society, withhold its acceptance and recon­ ciliation until penitence has been fully experienced and articu­ lated. At best, as in the Acolastus of Gnapheus (translated in 1540 by John Palsgrave) or in Misogonus (by Laurence John­ son? c. 1560-77), the hero repents. At worst, as in George Gas­ coigne’s The Glass of Government (1575) or the anonymous Nice Wanton (1547-53),3 the prodigal is severely punished (e.g., hanging for theft, whipping for fornication, death from venereal disease). The prodigals tend to be naive if not down­ right stupid, as in Thomas Ingelend’s The Disobedient Child (c. 1559-70), and self-centered and self-indulgent even when they are not frankly bullied like Misogonus or the siblings of Nice Wanton. Only R. Wever’s Lusty Juventus (1547-53), which is 54 Leanore Lieblein 55 ambiguous because as a Reformation play it identifies estab­ lished authority with popishness and senses that hope for the future lies with youth and change, retains some sympathy for its hero. But even Prince Hal’s experience accords with the general shape of the prodigal’s. He demonstrates his understanding of responsibility and his commitment to it, and is accordingly em­ braced byhis father. In contrast Witgood in Middleton’s A Trick to Catch the Old One (1604-07) and Follywit in A Mad World, My Masters (1604-07), though theytoohave “wasted [their] sub­ stance with riotous living” (Luke 15.13), do not repent. Neither can they be said to be seriously punished. Rather, they retrieve their lost fortunes though the exercise of wit and in doing so reveal the deficienciesof the parent generation. Wealth and the attitude toward it provide the central pivot on which the inversion of the paradigm turns. In the traditional plays the antithesis of husbandry and waste lies behind the cen­ tral moral judgments. Values are implied in the use and abuse of material resources. In Jacobean citizen comedy, money is frequently associated with blind cupidity and the rigidity of folly. Stinginess is judged as harshly as extravagance, especially since the latter’s associations with generosity are exploited.4 Prodigality, it is suggested, can be creative, and the prodigal hero is resourceful, having substituted wit for money as his primary resource. The intriguer of citizen comedy is a familiar figure to us.5 His relationship to the prodigal can best be seen by examining a citizen comedy which deliberately exploits and manipulates the conventional paradigm of the prodigal son. Thomas Middleton ’sA Mad World, My Masters is such a self-conscious develop­ ment of the dramatic tradition. The tone of Middleton’s treat­ ment of the parable in this play is suggested by the bed hanging described by Sir Bounteous Progress as he welcomes Lord Owemuch who is actually his own grandson Follywit in disguise: The curtains indeed were wrought in Venice, with the story of the prodigal child in silk and gold; only the swine are left out, my lord, for spoiling the curtains. (II.ii.5-7 )6...