Chaste Maid in Cheapside (New Mermaid Series)

By Thomas Middleton

Book Overview

Written for the adult players at the open-air Swan theatre in 1613, this master-piece of Jacobean city comedy signals its ironic nature even in the title: chaste maids, like most other goods and people in London's busiest commercial area, are likely to be fake. Money is more important than either happiness or honour; and the most coveted commodities to be bought with it are sex and social prestige. Middleton interweaves the fortunes of four families, who either seek to marry their children off as profitably as possible, to stop having any more for fear of poverty, or to acquire some in order to keep their property in the family. Most prosperous is the husband who pimps his wife to a rich knight and lets him support the household with his alimony. Like many early modern critics of London's enormous growth, this play warned: the city is a monster that lives off the money the country produces.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393900231
• ISBN13: 9780393900231
• Release Date: January 1976
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Length: 102 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.8" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

makes you wonder about nature vs nurture

This work of Thomas Middleton wonder about the nature vs nurture issue. Are we preprogrammed to be who we are or does our upbringing shape who we are? In this play, we are given several examples of love and marriage and how these things can be corrupted. What Middleton asks is: Are marriage and love corrupted by people themselves or is it a corrupted institution from the start? He also pays close attention to the value of money and commodities. Marriage was a money-making venture during the Renaissance and in some places, it still is. You have to keep asking yourself while reading this play if, in Middleton's society, true love is possible and, if so, how can it or will it eventually overcome a society based on material possessions and monetary value?