Open AccessMythologizing the Middle Class: 'Tis Pity She's a Whore and the Urban Bourgeoisie
Author(s) -
Valerie L. Jephson,
Bruce Boehrer
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
renaissance and reformation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 5
eISSN - 2293-7374
pISSN - 0034-429X
DOI - 10.33137/rr.v30i3.11504
Subject(s) - elite , bourgeoisie , middle class , politics , pity , egalitarianism , value (mathematics) , sociology , petite bourgeoisie , class (philosophy) , surplus value , aesthetics , political economy , law , political science , art , literature , philosophy , epistemology , machine learning , computer science , capitalism
This paper examines the strategies through which John Ford's play validates an image of the rising urban middle class as constitutionally confused and therefore destructive to the social fabric of seventeenth-century London. The portrayal of the middle class as struggling to inhabit signifiers of gentility while simultaneously undermining their value as indicators of adherence to any particular social code constructs the urban bourgeois as an object deserving of enmity and punishment; such sentiments are in turn mobilized in the service of humorous entertainment for an implicitly elite audience via a set of historical discourses associating political egalitarianism with incest, and class mobility with a self-interested disregard for traditional cultural practices.