Article: The secular morality of Middleton's city comedies.(Thomas Middleton)

In a book published in 2000, Herbert Jack Heller declared that "the debate on whether Middleton's works are immoral, amoral, or moral" is "now exhausted" (1) The announcement of the debate's demise, however, was decidedly premature. (2) It is difficult, in fact, to imagine how such a debate could ever end, given the provocations Middleton introduced into his plays, especially his city comedies. The most notorious scenes--the appearance of the succubus in A Mad World, My Masters, the Dampit scenes in A Trick to Catch the Old One, and Walter Whorehound's repentance in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside--are almost universally cited by scholars troubled by Middleton's inconsistent ...

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