Understanding Puppet Plays in the Renaissance and Bartholomew Fair

Critic Jonas A. Barish said that "if the Fair is, in this play, a microcosm of the world, and the puppet show, in its turn, a microcosm of the Fair, then the squalid bickering of the puppets, their pettiness and emptiness, merely reproduce in concentrated form the same qualities distributed among the live inhabitants of Smithfield, and in the world at large" (Barish 3). Narrowed down further, Barish tells us of "the folly of trying to correct folly," with which I somewhat agree, but not entirely, taking a look at Bartholomew Fair from a standpoint within today's notions of Renaissance theater.

I agree with Barish's notion that plays like Bartholomew Fair are, in a sense, attempting to make right those ideas of the nature of theater that many, specifically those tied to the Church, had concerning what theater tries to do in the Renaissance period. But, what I do find troubling is the notion by some that how I see Bartholomew Fair functioning to create more of an intellectualizing theater experience is in some way misguided, and often wrong. I argue that those in the Church who didn't appreciate what I believe Jonson was trying to do aren't giving him enough due credit, especially considering that Jonson wrote Bartholomew Fair during the Renaissance, a period universally considered one teeming with ideas, and the inherent freedom many had in creating and pursuing those ideas.

I think that Bartholomew Fair is perhaps not solely commenting upon the Fair as a microcosm of the world and the puppet show a microcosm of the Fair, but rather that the two work together to simultaneously comment upon the Fair itself, the whole scope of it (puppet show included) as a microcosm of theater, using the puppet show not as a separate lens examining the Fair, but to uncover the subtleties of how the society of the time felt about theater, which I feel is an overall negative opinion, given that even after the Renaissance, theater still doesn't seem to have evolved into taking many more chances than it did in Jonson's time. It is true that there are limitations to what a stage play can do, but I think that the issue lies not in the production itself, but in the current definition that stage drama has come to adopt. I think that the notions we have about what drama does or can do to the mind of an audience member or members have been somewhat cast aside, making room for what the stage does to the drama.

Barish continues, saying of the Fair (or theater, as I interpret it) that amongst what is present on stage, "the mind becomes something one might measure with a spoon" (Barish 4) which seems to me to be commenting upon the idea that the current values and intuition begot from theater as it stands in Jonson's time are rather insignificant, compared to what it could have done in his time, which is mostly what I think Bartholomew Fair is talking about. With the function of the puppets, then, I think that when Barish says that when "mankind becomes as implacably material as the puppets" (Barish 4), he is furthering this idea that if new ideas are not tried upon the stage (as I feel he is attempting), the theater of the time, or what he calls "The Idea of Theater" (Barish 14) (on which he doesn't elaborate, thus opening the door for interpretation) will surely become stale, thus losing whatever, if any, intellectualism that has been achieved within the audience(s), a quality I feel only enhances the theater-going experience. Certainly, the purpose of theater as pure entertainment is all well and good, but I think that, as I do with any form of creative expression, theater has just as much potential, ability, and perhaps even inherent obligation, to at least attempt to engage its audience beyond the superficiality of pure entertainment, and challenge them to consider their own beliefs about the function of theater, and whether or not their could be more than entertainment at stake.

The puppet show in Bartholomew Fair has been looked at many a time, and discussions of its supposed commentary upon religion and women's roles and the like have gone on for several years. But what else could there be? If indeed we accept that Jonson's play in some way represents the hopeful mind of the future of theater juxtaposed against the harsh and ridiculous reality that the Fair scenes imply about the minds in the present, doesn't that in some way allow for further conversation? Clifford Davidson offers that "the playwright was...acting as the inventor of a drama that, in its intent, remains relatively 'high and aloof'" (Davidson 350). It seems to me that Davidson is at this moment trying to convey the idea that what Jonson was doing in Bartholomew Fair, as he admits in his own Ode To Himself, is still widely unknown and not yet accepted, but at least, I think, Jonson knew enough to try and create something different, sensing that the current form of drama, the one largely without audience intellectualism, can be molded into something more effective. Jonson knew this, but knew that things were not going to change as rapidly as he had hoped, so nevertheless, as Barish notes, he felt that his work "must be defended even in its vilest and rowdiest manifestations, even when the appeal is exclusively to the senses and not at all to the understanding" (Barish 14). Although I agree that Jonson must and should defend his work, I don't exactly agree with Barish in that Bartholomew Fair is attempting to go only for our carnal urges (which I argue substitutes for realism in Jonson's play), but rather uses those implications to allow us as readers and viewers to see that our most basic instincts are so powerful that they can often overshadow reason, and that if we do not recognize the fine line between reasonable human behavior (intellectualism in a play) and carnal urges (the opposite of realism on stage) in a play, then how are we to have the necessary knowledge to differentiate between the two in real life? That is why I think that this play is more of a microcosm of theater than its commenting upon what goes on in the real world of London.

Theater at this time was already thought of by many as incredibly dichotomous, hence the facts that all the theaters in London in the Renaissance were located outside the city limits, and often open only to certain groups, and the known disagreeable attitudes that the Church had toward its goings-on. If theater wasn't somehow thought about and looked upon as "different" (in a negative way) than what was accepted, how much of a step from that interpretation is it then, preventing such innovative plays as Jonson's from permeating the minds of theater-goers?

Bakhtin says that "Carnival is the place for working out a new mode of interrelationship between individuals...People who in life are separated by impenetrable hierarchical barriers enter into free and familiar contact on the carnival square" (Bakhtin 123) and it is also perhaps the one place where this new mode exists which "lies beyond existing social forms." (Bakhtin 280). Foucault adds that carnival makes it possible to "extend our participation in the present system" (Foucault 230). So what better way for Jonson to attempt to bring together those who are only hearing that one voice and that are stuck behind that barrier of communication, than incorporating the idea of carnival into a play already caught within a bout between those wanting theater to stay as it is, versus those like Jonson who seem to want to create an opportunity for those in the Renaissance era to have a dialogue with the group(s) that disagree with his efforts? The very existence of our unfamiliarity with the goings-on of Bartholomew Fair, the apparent wild activity, things being not what they should, characters venturing far beyond our expectations of them, begs for questions to be asked, a dialogue to be taken up about its meaning, and therein lies the thing which has seemed, to me, to elude drama of this age, at least between those who distance themselves from theater becoming more realistic, which of course inherently makes it more accessible, and in turn more popular, which I would think would make those concerned with keeping the stage limited within four walls content. Scott McLemee wrote, "without the carnivalizing impulse, literature freezes into mere elegance" (www.mclemee.com). That's exactly what I think Jonson was attempting to prevent from happening when he wrote Bartholomew Fair. The carnival atmosphere has also been described by Bakhtin as "temporary liberation from the prevailing truth and from the established order" (Bakhtin 10). I think that this particular comment is interesting in that it really helps to emphasize the importance of the notion that everything in the Fair is only going to be there for a short time, and for a society so encumbered by laws and cultural rules, especially when Lent is on the horizon, the carnivalesque is their only outlet amongst such oppressive forces.

Outside of commenting upon the Fair, could this comment be interpreted further? I think that perhaps Jonson, in using the Fair as his main setting and, in a way, his plot, was attempting to have audiences think about another possibility: that it isn't just the Fair that is temporary, but theater as well; specifically the type of unabashed, wild-happenings kind of theater like Bartholomew Fair. The Fair, then, perhaps serves to magnify the briefness of free thinking and liberated action that is inherently present within stage drama, regardless of the type. By using such a crazed plotline and setting, I think that the audience has more of an opportunity to realize this particular presentation. Actors, playwrights, and audiences are, I think, caught in this strange suppression of expression; actors because they can only express ideas to a point (that point limited by what playwrights, who are limited themselves by authority figures, compose within scripts), and audiences, who are seemingly at a disadvantage doubled-over because they are ultimately the last ones in the equation, and are thus influenced by the editing that authority figures (who affect culture very much so) impose upon playwrights, who then don't have much choice except to further leave out ideas to their actors, who complicate things even more because they see only what is written in the script. The script is then expressed to the audience, who is basically only going to interpret the plot within the limited ideas of the current culture.

But, Bartholomew Fair seems to play around with these limitations, one of the most basic ways in which it does so being through the element of humor, which in itself is a very short step away from satire, a genre which I feel is where the real comedy begins, because it uses more subtle ideas to creatively slip "forbidden" ideas into the audiences' minds, thereby allowing them some free reign within their own minds to consider the implications of such creativity. The Fair itself is a place and state of mind where humor turns oppressed feelings and ideas into reality. Barish writes that "the puppet play...shrinks literature as well as life into the tiny compass of a peep show and decomposes it into the grossness of its baser elements" (Barish 12). While I do agree, I would actually broaden it a little, and say that it is the larger theme of the Fair, which obviously includes the puppet play, that shows audiences the "baser elements" of their own stark reality outside of the play, Instead, I think that it is the puppet play which seems to pinpoint, in a "peep-show"manner, specifically the ridiculous nature of the authority figures' minds themselves that singularly oppress these kinds of forms of expression.

In attempting to make sense of the idea(s) surrounding a notion of the fair scene itself in conjunction with the puppet show, I thought it was interesting what the critic Chris Humphrey proposed: that perhaps if we think of the carnival atmosphere present in England and in Jonson's Bartholomew Fair as what he believes is a more general term of "misrule," which he attributes as "a wide range of festive practices," (Humphrey 3) then maybe we can understand better what went on during those times. While I still feel that the idea of "carnival" holds in my argument promoting Bartholomew Fair as a pivotal and positive work of art, I found Humphrey's term to be somewhat useful in my attempt to iron out the wrinkles in my understanding of the play.

Since Humphrey uses the term "misrule" rather than "Carnival" or even "carnival," I felt that this new term allowed me to begin to rid myself of the constraints that terms like "Carnival" and its relative "carnival" create. Humphrey illustrates those inherent constraints I see by saying that "Carnival" is "the holiday before Lent," (3) and "carnival" refers to the term he says is "used by other scholars to denote general medieval festivities" (3). But, as I believe he points out rather clearly, using the term "misrule" doesn't seem to have the etymologic problems associated with it. It seems, although I cannot ignore that Humphrey did give it a definition, that his term, because it seems to be less structured (in that it isn't limited to as strict a definition) than the singular terms Carnival or carnival. If limited to any degree, the term "misrule" falls closer to "carnival," but still is able to be better understood and interpreted. Perhaps, in delineating between the two more generalized terms of "carnival" and "misrule," I tend to be more comfortable with "misrule" because I see a difference in "festivities" versus "practices," like there is still perhaps a sense of order in the former term, or maybe even expectation, and I don't feel that I quite get that when I think of the implications "misrule" proposes.

As I see it, one of the most prevalent implications which the simple term "misrule" has with it is that it allows readers to interpret Humphrey's argument more easily, because they, like I was, are not caught up in the denser terms like Carnival and carnival. Because the term "misrule" is free from limitations of more precise interpretation, so too can the argument be at least thought of as more liberated from narrowed viewpoints, and to think of the argument differently is a first step in changing it for the future.

Critic Richard Levin argues that "Shakespeare and his fellow dramatists had to write down to the level of the most ignorant part of their audience" (Levin 251). Part of me would like to agree with what Levin proposes here, but part of me also hesitates to do so. In knowing what fellow scholar Douglas Duncan has said Ben Jonson himself proposed-that there was to be "a separation of Spectators from Understanders" (Duncan 52-53) in drama audiences, he didn't feel Jonson was saying that Understanders were "better interpreters...than the rest of the audience, but were better judges" (Levin 262) because they recognized the importance of interpreting that drama within the "general nature of art" (262). I thought it was an interesting speculation because it felt to me like Jonson (if he did believe what Duncan argues) was getting to the point of interpreting drama as art, and not exactly life.

I do, however, agree more with what Levin quotes from another critic, Harold Goddard, later; that "the public does not want the truth. It wants confirmation of its prejudices" (Goddard 82-83). I appreciated this insight because I felt that it seemed to speak toward those ideas about the puppet shows of early modern English drama that I feel many critics who support those shows feel-that puppet shows of this time are part of an early learning environment. Within that idea, I think Goddard's statement could perhaps support a notion that because audience members want to know how they really feel about stage drama, they may then actually want to carry out a discourse of those prejudices, in hopes that some mutual conclusions are reached, rather than simple declarations; and I think of that process as a part of the early learning environment discussed by another important critic amongst my viewpoints.

Frances K. Barasch says that puppet shows were "historically associated with wandering minstrels and traditionally identified with the popular voice as a theater largely designed for and enjoyed by the lesser classes of society" (Barasch 157). He also points out that these lesser classes did not, as the upper classes, have direct access to those ideas in print which were popular, nor those which were shown on stage. What the lower classes did have, however, was a way to further their otherwise illiterate minds: learning through a "wide circulation of informative pictorial prints, as well as through the oral culture of church, pageants, street plays, and puppet shows" (Barasch 157).

An important distinction that I feel must be made here is that Barasch has made an effort to emphasize this idea of early learning. Within that learning, as I have argued elsewhere, I believe comes an opportunity for advancement in mind and that kind of understanding that Levin had talked about; that which recognizes the value of this kind of art, a belief that I think obviously has some merit, considering that critics are thinking in ways that allow them to specifically mention "learning," and more importantly a true understanding like that which Levin said was true of Jonson's own beliefs; which stems from art such as puppet shows and theater in general.

Perhaps, then, what is happening in Act 5 during the puppet show in Bartholomew Fair, when the Puritan character, Busy, stands and argues with Leatherhead and Puppet Dionysius, saying that Leatherhead's players "have walked hand in hand in contempt of the brethren and the cause, and been borne out [supported] by instruments of no mean countenance
I think that actually the first of these connections I believe I can make starts with what Barasch notes about the validity of puppet plays, which he backs up with a couple of lines from Act 5, Scene 1, before the puppet play gets going.

Barasch remarks, simply, that "not all puppet plays were inferior plays" (Barasch 174). Actually, he continues, stating, "when Ben Jonson's puppet master declares a preference for 'home-borne' projects over those with 'too much' learning (Jonson 5.1 12-15) he implies that competing puppeteers brought foreign learning to their plays, which threatened to draw away from simpler English themes" (174).

When I look at that statement in relation to what Jonson wrote, I can't overly dispute how Barasch interprets the puppet master's declaration, because it seems valid, although I wonder if perhaps Barasch is being too critical by saying that the "foreign learning" threatens audience perception to the degree he believes it does. Earlier, Barasch acknowledges "puppet showmen, like their counterparts in live theater, drew from a wide range of topical sources-from medieval romance and Scripture, Italian texts and theater, to English history and contemporary events" (Barasch 157). In wonder, then, what it is about this notion of learning and understanding that makes these critics seem not to want to accept them? Perhaps it is connected to the idea that maybe we as an audience today still have difficulty in accepting that learning back then may not be as troublesome as they believed.

Clearly, Barasch and others illustrate the value of this cultural literacy in the Renaissance, within which lies the notion of early learning, and most importantly that kind of "Understanding" that Jonson himself recognized, and which I still believe is important in today's examination of these plays.

Works Cited

Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Trans. Hélène Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1984.

Barasch, Frances K. "Shakespeare and the Puppet Sphere." English Literary Renaissance (2004): 157-175.

Barish, Jonas A. "Bartholomew Fair and its Puppets." Modern Language Quarterly (March 1959): 3-17.

Carnival. 25 Oct 2002. University of Georgia English Department. 27 May 2007 .

Humphrey, Chris. The Politics of Carnival: Festive Misrule in Medieval England. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001.

Jonson, Ben. "Bartholomew Fair." English Renaissance Drama: A Norton Anthology. Ed. David Bevington. New York: W.W Norton & Company, 2002. 970-1064.

Levin, Richard. "The Two-Audience Theory of English Renaissance Drama." Shakespeare Studies 18 (1986): 251-273.

McLemee, Scott. Home Page. Bakhtin. 29 December 2007. Updated 14 May 2007. Visited 27 May 2007. .