Abstract: 'Seductive Performance and Cosmopolitan Desire in The Dutch Courtesan' (Fox)
Dublin Core
Title
Abstract: 'Seductive Performance and Cosmopolitan Desire in The Dutch Courtesan' (Fox)
Subject
The Dutch Courtesan, "Marston, John", Dutch Courtesan 2019, Toronto Dutch Courtesan, conference abstract, early modern drama, non-Shakespearean drama, mercantilism, commodity, consumerism
Description
Abstract for Elizabeth Fox's 'Seductive Performance and Cosmopolitan Desire in The Dutch Courtesan'. Includes biography for Fox.
Creator
"Fox, Elizabeth"
Date
2019-03-22, 1605, 17th century
Contributor
Dutch Courtesan 2019 project team
Relation
The Dutch Courtesan
Format
.pdf (116KB)
Language
en-CA
Type
Text Object
Identifier
DC2019-0006
Coverage
Toronto (CA), London (UK), 2019-03-22-23, 1605, 17th century
Date Available
2019-06-30
Date Created
2019-03
References
The Dutch Courtesan
Extent
116KB
Medium
Digital PDF
Bibliographic Citation
Fox, Elizabeth. 'Seductive Performance and Cosmopolitan Desire in The Dutch Courtesan'. Abstract. 'Strangers and Aliens in London and Toronto: Sex, Religion, and Xenophobia in John Marston's The Dutch Courtesan'. DC2019-0006. Dutch Courtesan 2019. Toronto, March 2019. https://dutchcourtesan2019.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/29
Spatial Coverage
Toronto (CA), London (UK)
Temporal Coverage
2019-03-22, 1605, 17th century
Accrual Method
Materials solicited by the Dutch Courtesan project team.
Accrual Periodicity
Infrequently updated after 2019.
Audience
researchers, researchers of early modern drama, university instructors, undergraduate students, graduate students
Audience Education Level
Post-Secondary, Graduate, Post-Graduate
Instructional Method
large-group instruction, small-group instruction, independent research
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
‘Seductive Performance and Cosmopolitan Desire in The Dutch Courtesan’ (Panel 3:
Sexual World’s of Marston’s Theatre – 11:15AM-1:00PM, 23 March 2019)
Liz Fox (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
As targeted ads and phishing scams exploit our desires in the information age, The Dutch Courtesan offers twenty-first century audiences, as it did seventeenth-century audiences, a reflection on the uses of seduction and desire in commercial culture. Although some early modern economists
narrowly viewed the global marketplace in binary terms of native and foreign markets, The Dutch Courtesan offers a more nuanced encounter with the expanding web of demands, performances, goods, services, and values that defined the early modern world as London transformed into a centre of mercantilism. First and foremost, Marston’s play displays a range of cosmopolitan types and performances: the eponymous courtesan, Franceschina, circulates among a variety of foreign clientele, performing suggestively on her lute; the native conman, Cockledemoy, obscures his national identity with a range of foreign accents and costumes, accumulating wealth through his tricks. Their hybrid appeal to a diverse set of consumers shows us the dangers of excessive desire as the fashion for foreign commodities intensified in the period. But at the same time, the play is
itself a commodity in London’s emerging marketplace. First on stage and then in print, Marston and his collaborators capitalize on similar fascinations of their audience members. Franceschina’s and Cockledemoy’s explicitly theatrical performances, then, invite us to consider the ways in which salesmanship – seduction and trickery – preys on consumer interests to fuel industry in a global market. The play thus both displays and satirizes the precise desires that structure the cultural marketplace in which it first emerged.
Liz Fox earned her PhD in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2019, specializing in early modern drama and culture. Her current research project, Theater of Exchange: The Cosmopolitan Stage of Jacobean London, examines how theatre shaped and reflected London’s
global interactions. Organized around popular goods, including coins, art objects, and plays themselves, as well as commercial services such as the sex trade, this project argues that Jacobean drama engaged its audiences in processes of re-evaluation across economic and cultural networks
in ways that promoted cosmopolitan attitudes. Liz’s essay, “‘These Very Pictures Will Surmount My Wealth’: Aesthetic and Economic Competitions in Thomas Heywood’s If You Know Not Me, II” is forthcoming in Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England. She currently serves as the Editorial Assistant for English Literary Renaissance.
Sexual World’s of Marston’s Theatre – 11:15AM-1:00PM, 23 March 2019)
Liz Fox (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
As targeted ads and phishing scams exploit our desires in the information age, The Dutch Courtesan offers twenty-first century audiences, as it did seventeenth-century audiences, a reflection on the uses of seduction and desire in commercial culture. Although some early modern economists
narrowly viewed the global marketplace in binary terms of native and foreign markets, The Dutch Courtesan offers a more nuanced encounter with the expanding web of demands, performances, goods, services, and values that defined the early modern world as London transformed into a centre of mercantilism. First and foremost, Marston’s play displays a range of cosmopolitan types and performances: the eponymous courtesan, Franceschina, circulates among a variety of foreign clientele, performing suggestively on her lute; the native conman, Cockledemoy, obscures his national identity with a range of foreign accents and costumes, accumulating wealth through his tricks. Their hybrid appeal to a diverse set of consumers shows us the dangers of excessive desire as the fashion for foreign commodities intensified in the period. But at the same time, the play is
itself a commodity in London’s emerging marketplace. First on stage and then in print, Marston and his collaborators capitalize on similar fascinations of their audience members. Franceschina’s and Cockledemoy’s explicitly theatrical performances, then, invite us to consider the ways in which salesmanship – seduction and trickery – preys on consumer interests to fuel industry in a global market. The play thus both displays and satirizes the precise desires that structure the cultural marketplace in which it first emerged.
Liz Fox earned her PhD in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2019, specializing in early modern drama and culture. Her current research project, Theater of Exchange: The Cosmopolitan Stage of Jacobean London, examines how theatre shaped and reflected London’s
global interactions. Organized around popular goods, including coins, art objects, and plays themselves, as well as commercial services such as the sex trade, this project argues that Jacobean drama engaged its audiences in processes of re-evaluation across economic and cultural networks
in ways that promoted cosmopolitan attitudes. Liz’s essay, “‘These Very Pictures Will Surmount My Wealth’: Aesthetic and Economic Competitions in Thomas Heywood’s If You Know Not Me, II” is forthcoming in Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England. She currently serves as the Editorial Assistant for English Literary Renaissance.
Original Format
PDF
Files
Citation
"Fox, Elizabeth", “Abstract: 'Seductive Performance and Cosmopolitan Desire in The Dutch Courtesan' (Fox),” Dutch Courtesan 2019, accessed April 25, 2025, https://dutchcourtesan2019.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/29.
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