Therapeutic Travel in Richard Brome’s The Antipodes

Abstract

The matters explored in the preceding chapters — the concept of mind-travelling at the theatre and the staging of voyage drama — are addressed most explicitly in Richard Brome’s Caroline comedy The Antipodes (1636–38). The play revolves around the ironically named Peregrine, who unlike his Jonsonian namesake (the veteran traveller of Volpone) has yet to undertake any peregrinations, but has since ‘tender years’ always ‘loved to read / Reports of travels and of voyages’ and been consumed with ‘travelling thoughts’ (1.1.131–2 and 124). Peregrine’s monomaniac obsession with travel writing (his ‘humour’) leads to antisocial behaviour and complete estrangement from his wife. With Peregrine’s wanderlust diagnosed as mental illness, the characters Letoy and Doctor Hughball devise a proto-psychotherapeutic plan to ‘soothe him into’s wits’ through the elaborate charade of staging an imaginary voyage to the Antipodes (4.401). Peregrine, whose life is focused exclusively on his desire to travel, is explicitly identified as an armchair traveller; he thus forms a contrast with Faustus, who enjoyed actual travel as one of many indulgences made possible by his infernal pact. Benevolently duped by players who exploit his desire to travel, Brome’s character can be taken as representative of the members of the audience.