Elizabeth Currer: religious non-conformity in John Dryden’s The Kind-Keeper and Aphra Behn’s The Widdow Ranter

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn many ways, Elizabeth Currer’s career typifies modern assumptions about Restoration actresses. In her mistress roles, we might recognise the ‘lusty young wench’ of John Harold Wilson’s 1958 study.Footnote11 Wilson, All the King’s Ladies, 2. In her provocative prologues, we can read the uneasy voyeurism Elizabeth Howe describes when she writes of how an actress’s ‘rapport with spectators’ could lead to ‘gratuitous titillation’.Footnote22 Howe, First English Actresses, 171. In her trapped wives, we can understand how the libertine ideals of Charles’s court uses and abuses its women. However, beyond her depiction of sexually explicit comic characters, the comedian, Currer, came to represent a specifically eroticised threat of religious dissent during periods of political crisis. By exploring the development of this line from John Dryden’s The Kind-Keeper (1680) to Aphra Behn’s The Widdow Ranter (1690), this paper demonstrates how Currer’s career both contributed to and challenged a theatrical dialogue surrounding the national anxieties of political unrest and ideological non-conformity.KEYWORDS: Restoration TheatreAphra BehnJohn DrydenThe Kind-KeeperThe Widdow Ranter Disclosure StatementThe author reports there are no competing interests to declare.Notes1 Wilson, All the King’s Ladies, 2.2 Howe, First English Actresses, 171.3 Todd, A Secret Life, 215.4 Howe, First English Actresses, 78.5 Bush-Bailey, Treading the Bawds, 39.6 Todd, A Secret Life, 237.7 Howe, First English Actresses, 78; Highfill, Biographical Dictionary. Vol. 4 of A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, 99; Bush-Bailey, Treading the Bawds, 39.8 Crowne, The Countrey Wit, sig. A4r.9 Behn, The Town-Fopp, 49.10 Howe, First English Actresses, 79.11 Rev, 17:5.12 Collecting data from EEBO and LION, I have found the term ‘Whore of Babylon’ or synonyms thereof used twenty-one times in eighteen plays during the period 1660 to 1700. Of the twenty-one references, seven are said either to, about, or by one of Currer’s characters. Of the other references, six are directly describing the influence of Rome and Popery, six are used to describe other characters, both male and female, and two are general oaths.13 Rev, 17:2.14 Dolan, Whores of Babylon, 6.15 Ibid., 85.16 Ibid., 27.17 Stevens, ‘Healing a Whorish Heart’, 71.18 Behn, Sir Patient Fancy, 13.19 Behn, Sir Patient Fancy, 89.20 Ibid., 72.21 Kenyon, Popish Plot; Harris, Restoration, 139–146.22 Kenyon, Popish Plot, 14.23 Ibid., 1.24 Van Lennep, The London Stage. Vol.1 of The London Stage, 276; Harris, Restoration, 176.25 Behn, The Feign’d Curtizans, sig. A4r.26 Ibid.27 Ibid.28 Ibid.29 Ibid.30 Ibid.31 Ibid.32 Ibid.33 Behn, The Feign’d Curtizans, sig. A4v.34 Ibid.35 Dryden, The Kind-Keeper, 16.36 Howe, First English Actresses, 79.37 Ibid.38 Ward, The Letters of John Dryden, 148.39 Dearing and Roper, Works of John Dryden, 375; Thompson, Coyness and Crime, 50.40 Dryden, The Kind-Keeper, 16.41 Ray, Andrew Marvell Companion, 95.42 Thompson, Coyness and Crime, 50.43 Rev, 17:4.44 Dryden, The Kind-Keeper, 60.45 Ibid., 61.46 Dryden, The Kind-Keeper, sig. A3v; ‘Keeping’ being the act of financially maintaining a sexual partner in a usually lavish lifestyle. This term is most often, but not always, used to refer to men of means supporting their mistresses.47 Van Lennep, The London Stage, Vol. 1 of The London Stage, 269.48 Dryden, The Kind-Keeper, sig. A4v.49 Ibid.50 Thompson, Coyness and Crime, 45; 48.51 Dryden, The Kind-Keeper, 8.52 Ibid., 9.53 Ibid., 12, 11.54 Ibid., 6.55 Ibid., 15–16.56 Ibid., 17.57 Philpot Curran, Collection of Speeches, 243.58 Dryden, The Kind-Keeper, 56.59 Hutner, Colonial Women, 104.60 Golinelli, ‘Women’s Contribution’, 373; 380–381.61 Lowenthal, Performing Identities, 71-72; Musselwhite, ‘What Town’s this Boy?’, 279.62 Behn. The Widdow Ranter, 14.63 Hughes, The Theatre of Aphra Behn, 188. 64 Tuite, Theatre of Crisis, 64.65 Hendricks, ‘Civility, Barbarism, and Aphra Behn’s the Widow Ranter’, 225–239.66 Behn, The Widdow Ranter, 3.67 Dolan, Whores of Babylon, 27.68 John Crowne, The Countrey Wit, 51.69 Behn, The City Heiress, 17.70 Behn, The Widdow Ranter, 12.71 Ibid.72 Oldfield, Sincerity, 215-216; Whitehead, A Christian Epistle, 6.73 Davis, Fear, Myth and History, 14.74 Behn, The Widdow Ranter, 17.75 Ibid., 13, 10.76 Ibid., 3.77 Ibid., 45.78 Ibid., 27.79 Ibid., 45.80 Ibid.,18.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the University of Sheffield and the Arts and Humanities Research Council through the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities under Grant AH/L503848/1