“The place I speak of has been kept with thunder”: Spatiality, navigation and runaway in the drama Anything For a Quiet Life (1621)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.1984-1124.i43p165-182Keywords:
Middleton, Webster, Urban Comedy, Spatial Studies, English renaissance dramaAbstract
This article investigates Thomas Middleton and John Webster’s comedy Anything for a Quiet Life (1621) through the lens of spatial studies, arguing that spatiality is fundamental to understanding cultural dynamics in English Renaissance drama. Building on the so-called “spatial turn” in the humanities, scholars such as the French philosopher Henri Lefebvre and the Chinese-American geographer Yi-Fu Tuan have conceived of space as an active agent in the social and cultural production of a given locality. Within this framework, two recurrent tensions emerge in the play: first, urban navigation, exemplified by characters such as Young Franklin, who cross social and geographical boundaries using skills honed as a pirate at sea; and second, domestic conflict, in which households – those of the Cressinghams, Camlet, and Knavesbe – become sites of instability, reflecting on a micro scale the dynamics of mobility and the desire to escape London. By portraying the city not as a mere backdrop but as a central agent, the play dramatizes London as both a source of crisis and a space of possibility, with the stage enacting urban experiences shared by playwrights, audiences, and the city itself.
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