Marlowe's Soldiers: Rhetorics of Masculinity in the Age of the Armada by Alan Shepard

Author:Alan Shepard [Shepard, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780754602293
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 936953
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2002-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

2.2.52–6

In spite of Bosco’s tutelage, however, the Knights are allowed to be seen as only belligerent, not brave. In Act 3 a defiant Ferneze rallies the troops by encouraging them to ‘profitably take up arms’ (3.5.32), a little joke on what motivates them, and then they virtually disappear until Act 5. In other words, no opportunity to recuperate their honor comes their way, as Marlowe shifts our attention to domestic matters, tracing militarism’s impact upon the affective life of Malta’s other inhabitants.

* * *

Marlowe is careful to suggest that the language of war has penetrated all of Maltese culture, as civilians construct images of themselves by imitating the Knights of Malta at their peak; they do so, sometimes unwittingly, as a way of joining the dominant group, in this case, soldiers. As even Ferneze grasps, transmitting war fever to the demoralized or the young depends upon simple acts of imitating those who worship arms, as the governor advises the rejuvenated ‘warlike’ Bosco (2.2.45). Barabas, for example, despite his occupation as a merchant adventurer, persists in representing himself as a soldier instead. After his goods are seized he borrows the vocabulary of war, specifically the vocabulary of the vanquished, to characterize his emotional state, asking his compatriot Jews for the ‘liberty at least to mourn / That in a field amidst his enemies / Doth see his soldiers slain, himself disarmed, / And knows no means of his recovery’ (1.2.203–6), and later speaking of his ‘former richs’ as being ‘like a soldier’s scar, / That has no further comfort for his maim’ (2.1.9–11). While some of this talk may simply be a Machiavellian attempt to position himself inside the charmed circle of warriors, from whence revenge would be more accessible, there is too much material in the play suggesting that Barabas takes the confiscation as he does because – like Bosco – he is still invested in a zero-sum vision of the world, in which a man can only win or lose. As Stephen Greenblatt once observed, ‘Barabas is brought into being by the Christian society.’29

Other than Barabas, martial law’s deleterious effects are principally suffered upon Abigail and, to a lesser extent, Bellamira. The female bodies function as focal points in the struggle between chivalry and protocapitalism. Upon these bodies, the civilian men in Malta strive to replicate at least figuratively the absolutism that equates masculine strength with the lack of all human compassion, what Barabas says is the Knights’ ability to have their ‘unrelenting flinty hearts / Suppress all pity in [their] stony breasts’ (1.2.142–3), an image repeated in his advice to Ithamore about how to succeed in Malta (2.3.171–2).

Throughout the play, Abigail and particularly the representation of her body are treated with grave disrespect. In a series of what might easily be considered figurative sexual assaults, her priest confessor; her suitors, including her ‘love,’ Don Mathias (2.3.240); and her father fantasize about the pleasures of disfiguring, penetrating, and defiling her body. While their fantasies are regularly couched in the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.