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In its tale of witchcraft, murder, and bigamy, Thomas Dekker, John Ford and William Rowley's The Witch of Edmonton (1621) powerfully dramatizes both social and demonic forces operating within a small rural community. Although a number of recent studies have discussed the play's depiction of the social causes of crime and of the witchcraft phenomenon, there has been less interest in its representation of supernatural causation, which is personified by a devil who appears throughout the play in the shape of a dog and brings about its tragic events. The Dog is often dismissed as a disappointing retreat by the playwrights into superstition, or else is rationalized away as an hallucination or as a purely symbolic figure. This essay contends that to downplay the importance of the Dog is to misunderstand the ways in which skepticism about witchcraft was typically articulated in the period. Reading the play as a demonological study--that is, as a text that attempts to define the boundary between social and demonic causation--reveals the intellectual sophistication of The Witch of Edmonton while acknowledging its roots in the belief systems of early modern England.
My reading of the play is inspired by Stuart Clark's important study of demonology, Thinking with Demons, which argues that studies of early modern witchcraft belief have tended to construct a simplistic opposition between demonology and rationalism by assuming that any early modern writer who discusses the role of demons in the material world must be credulous and retrograde. (1) Clark finds that modern historians tend to overemphasize the importance of the few early modern writers who appear to pre-empt post-Enlightenment thought on magic and devils. He argues that when discussing a period in which almost every thinker believed in the existence of demons that could influence human thoughts and actions, demonological writings must be taken seriously and cannot be disregarded as intellectually unimportant. The problems Clark finds in modern historical scholarship are also discussed in John D. Cox's recent study of stage devils in medieval and early modern drama. Cox contests the influential argument of E. K. Chambers that the presence of devils on the stage marks the introduction of secular elements to the drama--in other words, that stage devils are symptoms of skepticism about the supernatural. Cox instead makes a powerful case for reading stage devils as dramatizations of sincerely held beliefs about the presence of spirits in the material world that are the enemies of positive values, such as charity and communality. (2)
Although his discussion of The Witch of Edmonton is brief, Cox's arguments are highly applicable to the play, which features a splendidly frightening and entertaining devil in the shape of a black dog. Despite the Dog's important role in the play's events, criticism of the play has tended to focus on those elements of it that seem skeptical about supernatural causation, while leaving comparatively unexamined those elements that emphasize the Dog's agency in bringing about the play's events. It is certainly true that the play's depiction of Elizabeth Sawyer, an old woman scapegoated as a witch by her neighbors, is one of the most sober and skeptical accounts of the witch craze in the drama of the period. (3) Similarly, the depiction of Frank Thorney's slide into bigamy and murder emphasizes its origin in his fear of poverty and social scandal. (4) Yet, as Jonathan Dollimore notes, while the play places " [an] emphasis upon identity as socially coerced" it also depicts Sawyer actually becoming a witch after making a pact with the Devil, (5) and the same Devil apparently provokes Frank's murder of his second wife. For modern readers, these interventions by the Dog may indicate a retreat into superstition, sensationalism, or even silliness, (6) and the importance of the Dog's power in the play's intellectual framework may be overlooked.
This essay argues that focusing on the social causes of crime at the expense of the demonic obscures the intellectual complexity of The Witch of Edmonton. The dramatists deliberately highlight the two forms of causation in order to stage a debate about the location of the boundary between them. In so doing, they draw on two demonological texts, adapting them to draw their own distinctive conclusions. Furthermore, they use the clown plot, which is usually dismissed as naive comedy, to deliver the play's conclusions clearly and inventively. The play is thus carefully constructed to draw a specific conclusion: it is not, as has sometimes been claimed, ideologically or structurally incoherent. (7) While its conclusions do not always agree with post-Enlightenment thought, The Witch of Edmonton remains the most serious and intelligent exploration of witchcraft and devils in the drama of the period.
I. Social Pressure vs. Demonic Pressure
The Witch of Edmonton has long been described as a play that is unusually skeptical about the witchcraft phenomenon, and it is easy to see why. Despite the presence of a devil in the play, the playwrights place considerable emphasis on the coercive power of rural poverty and the scapegoating of marginal figures by small communities. One aspect of this depiction of social pressure is that the play attacks conventional beliefs about the dangers of witches by dramatizing the creation of a "witch" by a community that needs someone to blame for its misfortunes.
In the plotline concerned with Mother Sawyer, doubt is continually introduced about the veracity of witchcraft beliefs. The dramatists show that the label "witch" has been applied to Sawyer long before she decides to become one; she is initially depicted as a pitifully poor and weak old woman, who complains in soliloquy that the villagers of Edmonton use her as a scapegoat for their crop and livestock failures (2.1.1-13). (8) She says that although she has a "bad tongue," it has been made so by their "bad usage" of her (2.1.11). And she insists that she is not a witch, as the villagers claim, although they are so persistent that she almost believes it herself (2.1.8-10, 14-15). The truth of what she is saying is immediately demonstrated by the entrance of Old Banks, a farmer, who accuses her of witchcraft and beats her (2.1.17-30). In this disturbing sequence, the process by which outcasts are made responsible for the suffering of the community is laid bare.
Having evoked pity for Mother Sawyer, the dramatists then use comedy to mock rural beliefs about witchcraft. When the down, Cuddy Banks, and his troupe of morris dancers encounter Mother Sawyer, they are terrified and react with comic fear. Each has his own method of repelling the witch:
Second Dancer: Bless us, Cuddy, and let her curse her tother eye out. What dost now? Young Banks: Ungirt, unblessed, says the proverb; but my girdle shall serve a riding knot, and a fig for all the witches in Christendom! What wouldst thou? First Dancer: The devil cannot abide to be crossed. Second Dancer. And scorns to come at any man's whistle. Third Dancer: Away-- Fourth Dancer: With the witch! All: Away with the Witch of Edmonton! Ex[eunt] in strange postur[es] (2.1.96-105)
The dancers back away, whistling and making the sign of the cross, (9) while Cuddy removes his belt to make a noose, and waves it in a threatening manner. The "postur[es]" referred to in the stage direction indicate these actions, which may include other gestures, such as the "evil eye" which the dancers believe will protect them; the specification "strange" may indicate that they are to be exaggerated for comic effect. (l0) The audience is thus encouraged to associate beliefs about magical protection with credulous clowns.
The existence of witchcraft is questioned again in scene 4.1, in which the villagers test Sawyer. Following a tradition, they burn thatch from her roof, for "they say, when 'tis burning, if she be a witch she'll come running in" (II. 22-23). Sure enough, Sawyer runs in and thus "proves" that she is a witch (11. 31-32). However,...
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