A Chaste Maid in Cheapside
1613
First Published
3.26
Average Rating
115
Number of Pages
Written for the adult players at the open-air Swan theatre in 1613,this master-piece of Jacobean city comedy signals its ironic natureeven in the title: chaste maids, like most other goods and people in London's busiest commercial area, are likely to be fake. Money is moreimportant than either happiness or honour; and the most coveted commodities to be bought with it are sex and social prestige. Middleton interweaves the fortunes of four families, who either seek to marry their children off as profitably as possible, to stop having any more for fear of poverty, or to acquire some in order to keep their property in the family. Most prosperous is the husband who pimps his wife to a rich knight and lets him support the household with his alimony. Like many early modern critics of London's enormous growth, this play warned: the city is a monster that lives off the money the country produces.
Avg Rating
3.26
Number of Ratings
793
5 STARS
11%
4 STARS
29%
3 STARS
39%
2 STARS
17%
1 STARS
4%
goodreads
Author
Thomas Middleton
Author · 17 books
Thomas Middleton (1580 – 1627) was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. Middleton stands with John Fletcher and Ben Jonson as among the most successful and prolific of playwrights who wrote their best plays during the Jacobean period. He was one of the few Renaissance dramatists to achieve equal success in comedy and tragedy. Also a prolific writer of masques and pageants, he remains one of the most noteworthy and distinctive of Jacobean dramatists.
