JD,
Eliot did write a bit in his essay on Middleton, which is
excerpted in Selected Prose (ed. Kermode), and I believe included entirely in
Selected Essays. On page 189 of SP you can find these remarks:
"In The Roaring Girl we read with toil through a mass of cheap conventional
intrigue, and suddenly we realize that we are, and have been for some time
without knowing it, observing a real and unique human being."
He continues, after a few pages:
"The Roaring Girl has no apparent relation to Middleton's tragedies, yet it
is agreed to be primarily the work of Middleton. It is typical of the comedies
of Middleton, and it is the best" (192).
"The Roaring Girl is as artificial as any comedy of the time; its plot
creaks loudly; yet the Girl herself is always real. She may rant, she may behave
preposterously, but she remains a type of the sort of woman who has renounced
all happiness for herself and who lives only for a principle. Nowhere more
clearly than in The Roaring Girl can the hand of Middleton be distinguished from
the hand of Dekker. Dekker is all sentiment; and indeed, in the so admired
passages of A Fair Quarrel, applauded by Lamb, the mood if not the hand of
Dekker seems to the unexpert critic to be more present than Middleton's. A Fair
Quarrel seems as much, if not more, Dekker's than Middleton's. Similarly with
The Spanish Gypsy, which can with difficulty be attributed to Middleton. But the
feeling about Moll Cut-Purse of The Roaring Girl is Middleton's rather than
anybody's. In Middleton's tragedy there is a strain of realism underneath, which
is one with the poetry; and in his comedy we find the same thing" (193).
"That Middleton's comedy was 'photographic', that it introduces us to the
low life of the time far better than anything in the comedy of Shakespeare of
the comedy of Jonson, better than anything except the pamphlets of Dekker and
Greene and Nashe, there is little doubt. But it produced one great play -- The
Roaring Girl -- a great play in spite of the tedious long speeches of some of
the principal characters, in spite of the clumsy machinery of the plot: for the
reason that Middleton was a great observer of human nature, without fear,
without sentiment, without prejudice" (194).
Other than this one essay, I am unaware of any references to Middleton's
play in Eliot's work. I do hope this helps toward an answer of your
question.
Best wishes,
Will Gray
>>>
[log in to unmask] 02/03/04 04:33PM
>>>
Did Eliot write about "The Roaring Girl"?