From Prof. Billings The Knight of the Burning Pestle is a very silly
play with a great deal of verbal wit and situational humor
that is, of course, four hundred years out of date, but
which you can still appreciate if you are attentive to the
situation and the characterizations. (To give you an idea of
just how silly the play is, consider that the pronunciation
of "pestle" in Shakespeare's day was identical to "pizzle" -
so that what we have is an on-going joke something like, as
we would say now: "The Knight of the Burning Pecker."
Outrageous, no?) Crucial to understanding the play is that
you keep in mind that a limited number of audience members
were allowed to take seats on the stage along with the
actors at The Blackfriars Theatre, where it was first
performed; this play is designed around that lost
convention. (See the reconstruction on page xiii.) This play belongs to a genre very popular at the time
(though Shakespeare did not write in it) usually called
"city comedy" or "citizen comedy" since it deals not with
kings and heroes, but with ordinary London citizens of the
day. The play-within-the-play that the "Citizen" and "Wife"
have come to see, The London Merchant, is
identifiable from the title as just such a citizen comedy.
The title of The Knight of the Burning Pestle,
however, clearly indicates a "romance" play of spectacular
adventure, magic, and bizarre events in sprawling storylines
(which plays Shakespeare did write: think of The Tempest,
The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, etc.). As you read, try to
identify the elements of these two genres and the comic
struggle between them. Ultimately, shouldn't this play be
called The London Merchant? Or perhaps The London
Grocer's Apprentice? (Rafe, by the way, is not to be
mistaken for the son of the Citizen and Wife; he is their
"man," the young apprentice learning the Citizen's
trade.) Many plays of this period of all kinds are structured to
include a plot and a sub-plot that are often conceptually
interrelated in some way and which converge at various
points. (In A Midsummer Night's Dream, for example,
there are at least three separate plots that intertwine: the
four lovers scampering around the forest, Oberon and Titania
fighting over a child, and Bottom and his pals rehearsing a
play.) In this play, we can distinguish at least two plots
so tightly and ingeniously interwoven for comic effect that
it is often difficult to know which plot or which
"character" we are watching at a given moment. Try to
identify precisely and keep track of the plots or storylines
as the play progresses. Since this is a play about actors
putting on a play, what is meant to be "real" and what is
"only" fictional? Remember to visualize the action as you
read. Keep track of who is where doing what. Remember that
that there are no female actors at this time. There is a great deal of mockery in the play, even
satire. Who, exactly, is the object of this satire and why?
In other words, who is mocked by whom and for what within
the play; and who seems to be mocked beyond the confines of
the play? Do you think that the Wife, for example, is mocked
more strongly than the Citizen? Do you think that the
audience would have felt implicated? Would there have been
some nervous laughter? As you read, keep in mind that Merrythought's songs would
all have been sung to the pop tunes of the day.
For an overview of
the play and to help you visualize the action, you might
like to take a look at the following two reviews of a
performance at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre in Washington
by the Shenandoah Shakespeare Expresss company which took
the play on tour in the spring of last year.