“Welcome to the Heart of the City”: Mappings of London in Early City Comedies

Abstract

This essay looks at the ways in which the evolving early modern urban space of London was re-presented to early modern Londoners. It focuses on aspects of how the sprawling city was culturally and literally mapped out in theatrical and other performances. It discusses in particular Thomas Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside and Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist as plays that commented respectively on the Cheapside as a luxury market and on Blackfriars as an up-and-coming quarter boasting a new and successful theatrical venue. The area between the city and Westminster is also discussed, as is the spatial particularity of Windsor described and performed in Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor and in contemporary chorography.