Genres of toleration in comic literature of the English Renaissance

Acutely aware of the social implications of genres and steeped in the dialogic thinking of humanist rhetoric, Renaissance writers created literary works that embody, through the dialogic interplay of multiple genres, the social and aesthetic dynamics of toleration. Comic literature is, for many reasons, especially conducive to exploring issues of toleration, particularly concerning matters of class and gender. This dissertation examines three comic works in which dialogues among various genres offer insight into developing forms of toleration during the English Renaissance. In The Adventures of Master F. J. (1573), George Gascoigne struggles to accept the empowerment of educated individuals from a class lower than his own and of women at Elizabeth's court. Ultimately, however, Gascoigne promotes toleration and skepticism in spite of his uneasiness, and he does so by orchestrating a dialogue between the subversive social and aesthetic tendencies of Menippean satire and Chaucerian fabliau, on the one hand, and the more conservative impulses of Horatian satire and Petrarchan sonnet, on the other. William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (c. 1596) explores the transformative power of toleration through dialogues among Petrarchan sonnet, Ovidian epyllion, epigram, and ballad. These genres reflect conflicting Elizabethan perspectives grounded in class and gender, and their interaction embodies the tensions produced by the asymmetries and inequities of such social divisions. The play emphasizes the role of toleration in leveling hierarchies and fostering social concord, and its obsessive concern with metamorphoses suggests both anxiety and hope about the potential of toleration to transform identity. In The Knight of the Burning Pestle (c. 1607), Francis Beaumont combines conventional dramatic comedy with Menippean satire, and romantic city comedy with satiric city comedy, in order to question social and aesthetic boundaries, especially in connection with class and gender. Through his treatment of George and Nell, Beaumont satirizes middle-class values and the increasing importance of money, but he does so with a congenial humor that ultimately encourages toleration of these values, including the idea of money as a democratizing social force. Although Old Merrythought embodies festive license and toleration, he also pushes the audience to consider the difficulties and limits of toleration.