Taverns, Theaters, Publics: The Intertheatrical Politics of Caroline Drama

Abstract

n James Shirley’s Love’s Cruelty (first performed 1631), Sebastian asks the courtier Bovaldo, “shall we to a tavern”? As he explains, the “court’s too open.” Only by leaving the court can the men “speak . . . what [they] think” and “not fear to talk” (3.1, 224; 3.1, 225). Since what they plan to discuss is the Duke’s unwanted, unrelenting pursuit of Sebastian’s daughter, they have good reason to fear being overheard. “[When] we give our thoughts / Articulate sound,” another courtier warns Sebastian, “wemust distinguish hearers” (1.2, 202). The question is, how and where to do this best? That the public space of a commercial tavern might offer greater protection than the court or the home is an assumption that fits with recent work on the history of privacy. It is not that the tavern is assumed to be a more democratic space than the court, allowing for greater freedom of speech and association (like Mistress Quickly’s Eastcheap establishment), but