Sinister hospitality: Representations of dysfunction and the decay of hospitality in early modern English drama

In her foundational historical examination of hospitality in early modern England, Felicity Heal introduces the idea that the phrase “decay of” implicitly precedes all discussion of hospitality in the period, as writers in this time are consistently focused on how the English have failed to uphold the high moral standard of hospitality which previously characterized the nation. In this dissertation, I draw together early modern texts spanning royal proclamations, domestic guidebooks, ballads, and dramatic texts, in order to question: if hospitality is held to be decayed or fallen in the dominant early modern English perspective, what has it decayed or fallen into? Within this I direct focus primarily to dramatic texts (both canonical and critically overlooked, both commercial and private elite genres) from the rise of commercial theatre in the 1580’s through to the early 1640’s, when the onset of the Civil War indelibly shifted English perspectives on both theatre and hospitality. Central to my work is the idea that hospitality and theatricality are mutually imbricated, with hospitality functioning as a kind of theatrical performance, and theatre a hospitable event. What results from the intertwining of theatre and hospitality is the idea that hospitality, as a performance, always has the capacity to be false: that the props and lines and stage of hospitality can be used to invoke a security and stability that is in fact cover for a more threatening reality. The dysfunctions persistently attached to hospitality and performance in the early modern English imagination pull into relevance issues of gender and domesticity, politics and court, appetite and violence, and the barriers between the self and the Other. While I look at these specific strains and dysfunctions from one chapter or one play to the next, I identify sinister hospitality as the overarching trend across the literary texts examined over the course of this dissertation, a decayed inverse of the lost ideal of hospitality.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2024

Author dc:creator

• Brakke, Carson J

Contributors dc:contributor

• Stevens , Andrea
• Gray, Catharine
• Cole , Lucinda
• Newcomb , Lori

• Hospitality
• Early Modern
• Drama

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2024 Carson Brakke

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/127175

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F127175