The puritan dialectic of law and grace in Bartholomew Fair

Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Spring, 2006 by Ian McAdam

A delicate balance: the words have often been used to describe Ben Jonson's artistic achievement in Bartholomew Fair (1614), as in W. David Kay's argument that the playwright achieves a "delicate balance between sympathy and judgment" similar to Erasmus's In Praise of Folly (1509). (1) Yet what is so intriguing and problematic about the "balance" in question is precisely its delicacy, and Eugene M. Waith, also observing the play's "delicate balance of forces," asserts that "[n]ot only is none of the main characters truly sympathetic, but the attitudes satirized seem, in a sense, to cancel each other out." (2) It might be more correct to assert that Bartholomew Fair evokes a remarkably broad range of sympathy, especially when compared with Jonson's other plays, and that what this great satirist here achieves is a kind of satire on satire itself, in conjunction, as has sometimes been suggested, with a version of self-parody on the part of the artist. (3) The play suggests the need, in human social life, for a balance between too much law and too little law, and, moreover, between too much discrimination and too little discrimination, since the judgments within the play vary between the strictly legal or theological and the more personal or purely aesthetic.

While the critical literature on the play has perhaps not quite exhausted the potential for even thematic readings treating these issues, the need to historicize the dichotomies remains. Kay's suggestion in the seventies of an Erasmian influence was subsequently explored by Douglas Duncan, who argues that "Bartholomew Fair is a work of Christian humanism in being built on a conflict between Christian and classical values: between Christ's injunction not to judge and the Graeco-Roman cult of krisis/judicium. But instead of attempting to synthesize the two, it works by indirection, elevating the former, depressing the latter, and implying (from the chaos that will surely ensue) that a synthesis is needed." (4) While the process of elevation and depression may not be as straightforward as Duncan suggests, the critic clearly describes a dialectical structure to the play, although in his opinion the "synthesis" is "implied" rather than fully achieved. I wish to explore these dialectical tensions further with respect to a historical context that may seem surprising in light of Jonson's known "hatred of Puritan inspirationalism." (5) The dialectical spectrum of too much versus too little law can best be understood in light of, or having its historical roots in, the Puritan ideological dilemma of the early modern period, which must be considered central, rather than (satirically) marginal, to the play's conception of social behavior. Such a consideration leads, in fact, to the recognition of a third binary in the play in addition to too much and too little law and too much and too little discrimination: too much and too little idealization. This third dialectical interaction ultimately suggests, I contend, that Bartholomew Fair is more closely concerned with issues of gendered identity and social control of sexuality than has yet been recognized.

Let me first borrow some key terms of debate regarding attitudes toward Puritanism from a related context in early modern literary studies. In her important article "Saints Alive! Falstaff, Martin Marprelate, and the Staging of Puritanism," Kristen Poole argues that Shakespeare's portrayal in the Henry IV plays of the character of Falstaff (originally named Oldcastle) "is perfectly in keeping with the tenor of the antipuritan literature of the late sixteenth century, especially the anti-Marprelate tracts and the burlesque stage performances of the Marprelate controversy (1588-90), which frequently depicted puritans as grotesque individuals living in carnivalesque communities. Indeed, this lively portrayal of the puritan seems to have been much more popular than the lean, mean Malvolio image that post-Restoration readers and audiences ... would exclusively associate with the term puritan." (6) In response to this assertion, Grace Tiffany observes that it is indeed "difficult to replace the sober Malvolio--called 'a kind of puritan' by Maria, though she then retracts the charge ... with the Falstaffian Toby Belch as our vision of the Shakespearean Puritan. After all, Malvolio, who condemns festive celebration, is a stereotype justified (if any are justified) by radical Elizabethan and Jacobean Puritans' published diatribes against 'cursed mirth,' 'New-yeares-gifts,' 'Christmas-keeping,' and 'May-games.'" (7) While Zeal-of-the-Land Busy in Jonson's play would seem to combine these two images of Puritanism--he pretends to censor and attack the sins of the flesh but is in fact comically and grotesquely indulgent himself--this simple hypocrisy does not adequately account for the significance of the Puritan contexts of the play. I suggest that historically we ought not to resolve the ambiguity of the carnivalesque, grotesque Puritan and the killjoy, repressive Puritan, regarding one as more prominent or popular in early modern culture than the other, since both images speak to a key ideological paradox in Puritan self-construction. Puritan theology is characterized by nothing so much as a radical insistence on the power of God's grace alone to redeem the individual. As Edward Hindson points out, "The Reformation of the sixteenth century involved the rediscovery of divine grace and Scriptural authority, and ... a rediscovery of God's sovereignty and Christ's all-sufficiency ... At the core of Puritan sentiment was an intense disgust for the Roman Catholic emphasis on man's ability to merit his own salvation." (8) This emphasis on the need for divine grace and on sola Scriptura might presumably lead to a strong Puritan preference for New Testament over Old Testament text--"For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (9)--yet Puritanism forcefully insisted on the discipline of devotion: "The Puritans' interest in the Word of God included an emphasis on the law of God. The moral law retains its authority over disciples--disciplined believers--and it is useful in convicting men of their sin and showing them that their only hope is the grace and mercy of God." (10) Thus "Puritans were often accused of Judaism because they relied so heavily on Old Testament scripture and thought," (11) and John Littlewit, assisting Busy's attempt to rationalize the desire to feast on roast pork, must comically distance himself from Jews as "that stiffnecked generation" at the end of act I. (12) There arises a further, less comic, irony in this association of Puritans and Jews as "chosen people" since, as Christopher Hill points out, such "'Judaizing' meant ... looking back to the customs and traditions of a tribal society, still relatively egalitarian and democratic; its standards and myths could be used for destructive criticism of the institutions that had been built up in mediaeval society." (13) This paradox of all law/no law is accompanied by the other familiar paradox of Puritanism--all responsibility/no responsibility--since "the release of the Word of God from the clerical chain" meant that the individual could rely totally on God for salvation but was also completely responsible for maintaining such a spiritual relationship, as well as a disciplined membership within the Protestant church. (14) In fact, this "release," ideologically, meant that Puritanism historically would have to struggle against antinomian tendencies within its own rank and file, since the freedom of grace would lead some to assume they could become in a sense a law unto themselves, much in the manner of Busy.