Abstract
In English Renaissance drama, the male domestic servant or ‘servingman’ is a familiar type, albeit one whose presence is not always singled out for critical treatment. Among the many varieties of the type, Brainworm in Jonson’s Everyman in His Humour (1598) and De Flores in Middleton and Rowley’s The Changeling (1622) are well-known examples. Invariably dramatic texts associate the male domestic servant with a set of recurring features. Deflating lofty attitudes with bawdy and skilled in disguise, he often takes delight in declaring physical needs, hatching ingenious schemes and confounding magisterial authorities. The appeal of the type also reached beyond the stage, with moral treatises, satires and ballads all contributing to keep the male domestic servant at the forefront of the popular imagination.
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Notes
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© 1997 Mark Thornton Burnett
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Burnett, M.T. (1997). Carnival, the Trickster and the Male Domestic Servant. In: Masters and Servants in English Renaissance Drama and Culture. Early Modern Literature in History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230380141_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230380141_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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