ENG 310A:

1
Francis Beaumont

• The Knight of the Burning Pestle

2
KBP Nuts Bolts, Contexts

• author - date - genre
• English Renaissance drama
• authors
• roots
• audiences
• locations

3
KBP Drama and Language

• blank verse
• pentameter couplets
• other poetic forms
• prose and its special functions
• other common dramatic devices

4
KBP broad goals

• critique of bourgeois tastes (class satire)
• parody of old-fashioned romances
• similar to Don Quixote
• literary in-jokes, allusions
• compare Shakespeare in Love

5
KBP Language and Themes

• much attention to form content of language
• (ad)venturing
• merchants, knights, young lovers
• money or mirth as life-goal???

6
KBP Stagecraft

• mock death, near suicide
• ghost scene
• tricks and disguises
• fight scenes
• play-within (next to)-a-play
• plot - subplot - counterplot

7
KBP Plays end

• comic reconciliation, forgiveness, betrothal
• takes place through mirth
• Rafes death -- no loose ends!!
• last words be merry, applaud