Abstract and Keywords
This article analyzes the mid-Tudor interlude, Nice Wanton. The play is about three children, two of whom, the daughter Dalila and a son Ismael, are spoiled by their mother, Xantippe, who indulges their youthful errors, despite the advice of a neighbour, Eulalia. As well as behaving abusively in the vicinity, they despise the good child, Barnabas, whose eagerness for education they mock and obstruct by their truancy. Without parental control, they abandon their schooling and descend into vice, which leads eventually to Dalila dying of syphilis and Ismael being hanged. Worldly Shame then aims to complete this disaster by prompting the culpable mother to suicide. Barnabas, who has given what comfort he could to Dalila in her final days, also now comforts his mother, and the action ends with his turning to give advice on bringing up children to the audience. Nice Wanton proves a useful catalyst for revealing the complex cultural forces at work in mid-sixteenth-century England.
Keywords: Tudor theatre, plays, Tudor interludes, cultural forces, sixteenth-century England
Access to the complete content on Oxford Handbooks Online requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.
Please subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.
For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us.
