I. Concluding Paradise Lost

A. Eve’s complex, ambiguous and calculated approach to Adam

B. Adam’s Fall—choice to disobey God in favor of love for her; contrasting her choice in favor of knowledge and power

1. His rationalizations and enjoyments

C. Aftermath 1

1. Their marriage rites no longer sacred but lustful

2. followed by shame about their desire and their bodies

3. followed by recrimination and argument:    ..they in mutual accusation spent/the fruitless hours, but neither self-condemning,/and of their vain contest appeard no end" 1189

D. Aftermath 2

1. Eve tries to comfort and he lashes out at her 867 "Out of my sight thou Serpent" Repudiates her creation with misogynistic curses

2. Eve cries and begs his forgiveness; takes greater guilt upon herself

3. Adam relents and raises her up--saying he'd try to spare her before God, and reasserts her "frailty and infirmer Sex" 956

E. Outcome: negative

1. The world of murder and betrayal: Cain and Abel, etc.

2. The story of Jesus and the last judgement

F. Ending: Felix Culpa

1. Maturity; freedom; limitations; repentance and foregiveness; political quietism, but piety. More hope than end of King Lear.

2. Does this justify the ways of God to Man—

a) in the large view, probably only if you already believe the Doctrine;

b) in the small view, does it make growing up and accepting the facts that life is hard and that much of what happens to us is the consequence of our free choices as individuals a positive realization? Maybe.

II. The Beggars Opera

III. Style

A. Relation to PL

1. Opposite of Puritan seriousness and idealism

a) Exemplifies Milton’s comments about Bacchus, proem to Book VII; the Restoration; evil times; fallen hopes

(1) theatres reopened; Aristocracy reinstated; King’s mistress is an actress—Nell Gwynn

2. Beginning of profoundly secular period called the Enlightenment;

a) Church and State separated; —no more religious wars, only wars for money and power;

b) Growth of capitalism, industry, British Imperial Influence; on the way to becoming most powerful state on Earth

c) rise of science—optimism about human goodness and possibility to create a paradise on earth—Benevolence—people are good; Shaftesbury

d) On the other side, profound cynicism about the pursuit of money and power: Hobbes—Age of Satire—exemplified by Gay and Swift

e) Hobbes vs. Shaftesbury

(1) the "Hobbesian" tradition that man is motivated by self- interest alone; his nature is animal and society can only exist if enforced by repressive authority of the state—

(a) that goodness, evil, truth and falsehood are "attributes of speech, not of things,"—Baconian and Lockian scepticism

(2) Shaftesbury argued that man is naturally good; natural benevolence, innocence and kindness

(3) Polly alone stands for Shaftesbury; all other characters are Hobbesian

B. IRONY and cynicism in Beggar’s Opera

1. sophistication; everything is in quotation marks; camp, performative/theatrical

a) laugh at everything; nothing is serious—like Satan and the devils

2. Juxtaposition of Operatic/Heroic/Romantic surface with sordid reality

a) Opera associated with wealthy established high class audience

b) Sarcasm toward the rich; the author presented as impoverished; a Beggar—the arts having to prostitute themselves for money, just like the thieves and whores

3. Juxtaposition of lyrical beauty of music with cynicism of lyrics

a) Like Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Marriage of Figaro

C. symmetry; control; ornamental

1. epigrammatic, comic, elegant, “witty”

2. 18^th c. baroque music—decorative, artificial, elegant—wigs and shoes and coats--wigs

D. tale of lowlife rogues, sex, drunkenness, and quitting,/ requiting/revenge

Falstaff and gang—4 Shakespeare plays
Chaucerian/Medieval fabliau:

IV. Plot line—stories of betrayal—seduction by Satan—corrupted beauty

A. Act 1:

1. Start with an innocent betryal: Polly Peachum betrays her parents to protect Macheath, whom they want to betray, because he’s married Polly – her betrayal is an innocent one

B. Act 2:

1. Macheath betrays Polly with a whole raft of other women in the brothel

2. He’s imprisoned because he’s betrayed by Jenny and Sukey who turn him over the Peachum and Lockit

3. Peachum and Lockit try to betray each other

4. Macheath betrays Lucy, whom he’s impregnated, who betrays her father, Lockit, to help him escape prison

C. Act 3:

1. Macheath is betrayed by Mrs. Trapes who gives his location with Mrs. Coaxer to Peachum and Locket

2. He’s returned to Jail and is confronted by both women he’s promised marriage, who rage at him and at one another

3. Lucy tries to poison Polly out of jealousy

4. Macheath vacillates but finally accepts his death sentence after confronted by four other women he’s fathered children with

5. Macheath pardoned and selects Polly his wife to join in the New World, because the theatre manager says the audience wants a happy ending and the Poet betrays his aesthetic and moral principles

V. Screen Act 1 Scene 13

A. Polly’s idealism; Macheath’s love—their first encounter; lyricism—Marlowe’s Invitation: come live with me

B. What happens afterward?

VI. Themes

A. Professions and institutions

1. peachum’s song

a) all the employments of life—Raleghan satire; all profession be-rogue one another

(1) THROUGH all the Employments of Life
Each Neighbour abuses his Brother;
Whore and Rogue they call Husband and Wife:
All Professions be-rogue one another:
The Priest calls the Lawyer a Cheat,
The Lawyer be-knaves the Divine:
And the Statesman, because he's so great,
Thinks his Trade as honest as mine.

b) lawyers and fence/snitch are the same—double capacity—for and against rogues

c) he winks

d) Lockit and Peachum: the prison-industrial complex

B. Marriage

1. Peachums not married

2. Marriage is financial institution—woman is property; husbands better dead

a) “ The comfortable estate of widowhood is the only hope that keeps up a wife’s spirits

3. Men better to whores than wives

a) Gamesters and highwaymen good to their whores but devils to their wives

b) “All men are thieves in love and like a woman better for being another’s property.” Confidential with audience

4. Not Polly

C. Parents and children; innocence and experience

1. Peachums and Lockit corrupting daughters

a) Daughter’s financial value in various ways endangered by marriage. 1.4

2. Whores having children to stay out of jail

3. Polly lies to her father saying she’s mercenary to put him off track

4. Lucy’s education to be whore; parents exploiting kids [children forced into prostitution; she gets addicted]

a) [3.1] LUCY. Dear Sir, mention not my Education--for 'twas to that I owe my Ruin.

b) Air XLI.--If Love's a sweet Passion, &c.

c) When young at the Bar you first taught me to score,
And bid me be free of my Lips and no more;
I was kissed by the Parson, the Squire, and the Sot
When the guest was departed the Kiss was forgot.
But his Kiss was so sweet, and so closely he prest,
That I languish'd and pin'd till I granted the rest.

D. Money and Greed vs. morality and loyalty—cf. Utopia; Chaucer

1. Money cleans up all sins (1.9)

a) But Money, Wife, is the true Fuller's-Earth {36} for Reputations, there is not a Spot or a Stain but what it can take out. A rich Rogue now-a-days is fit Company for any Gentleman; and the World, my Dear, hath not such a contempt for Roguery as you imagine.

b) “we must comply with the customs of the world and make gratitude give way to interest.”

2. money for different shackles [drinking hard with the prisoners]

3. suits of love like law are won by pay

a) King Lear: 4.6 Which is the justice, which is the thief; a dog’s obeyed in office

b) Money makes the world go around—Cabaret

c) Erst commt das fressen dann kommt die Morale Three Penny Opera

E. Class structure

1. the Beggar's last remark, "That the lower People have their Vices in a Degree as well as the Rich, and are punished for them,----innuendo, that rich People never are" (89)

2. Mrs. P: thou wilt be as ill-used and as much neglected as if thou hadst married a lord. 1.8

F. 10 *Low-life; cynicism of criminals; “honor among thieves’

1. Screen Act 2 Scene 1

2. *2.1 Tavern—second setting

a) Thieves:

(1) Criminals justifying themselves: law of arms and right of conquest(!)

(2) We retrench the superfluities of mankind (Lear—shake the superflux)

(3) Air 19 fill every glass

b) all whores and thieves

c) Evil cleverness is admirable: Machiavelli

d) Double crossing

(1) Peachum fences for criminals and also turns them in

(2) Lawyers make money from crime

e) Despite claim in 2.1, they’re always betraying one another

g) They’re always screaming and hitting and betraying

(1) Things always go wrong and the only way they think to fix them is to do something worse and more stupid

(2) And then making up; shifting political alliances unrestrained by any principle or constraint

h) Air 28 more wronged woman [all are self-righteous and blame others, including society, for their misfortunes]

G. Alcohol

1. Lockit’s corruption; money for different shackles [drinking hard with the prisoners]

2. Mrs Trapes in 3.6 I can tell by your kiss your gin is excellent

3. Air 48 and 51 in 3.6

4. 3.13 Macheath in prison; several songs

5. Illusion of health and vitality

H. Animal imagery

1. 3.2-3.4

2. Of all animals of prey, man is the only sociable one; drinking [the animal theme coming forward] Air 43

3. macheath as stud 3.3 replaced by Filch who gets exhausted

4. cockfight as gaming house 3.4

I. *Sex

1. bawdiness; everyone pawing everyone;

a) Filch and Mrs. P 1.6

b) Macheath and Polly 1.13

2. libertinism; libertine Utopia; Don Giovanni; John Donne

a) “Rock-star”—Mick Jagger; Roger Daltrey

3. Screen 2.3 *Macheath soliloquy—he’s depressive; loves many women; Don Giovanni. I must have women. Sex addict.—Women exploiting men; men exploiting women

4. Air 9: lovely duet…”By keeping men off, you keep them on.”(1.*)

5. Sex as exploitation—Macheath, Mrs. P, the prostitutes

6. Macheath and Lucy 2.12—smootchy

J. Jealousy and revenge

1. 2.9 Lucy enters pregnant and enraged—wants to see him tortured

2. Air 27—revenge song—fierce

3. and rage—more powerful than sadness or love or any other passion

4. Lucy tries to poison Polly and never reneges

5. Promise elicited to take down Lockit and Peachum 3.14

K. *Credulousness and self-deception

1. People believe each other because they want to: Polly, Lucy, believe Macheath; Macheath believes Sukey and Jenny, the Peachums believe Polly

2. Screen Act 2. Scene 4—the betrayer betrayed—cf. Fabliaux; quitting; revenge plots—do what’s done to you

L. The Poet and the market

1. Poor poet in same situation as the low-life; does what the actor and audience demand, not true to his satiric intention

2. The poet

a) poet’s humility; producer’s arrogance

b) contrasting dialects, clothing and manner

c) gay, who started as an orphan, was adopted, schooled and became a nobleman’s secretary, got rich on this script

d) The Poet as a beggar; Beggar’s Opera

e) Gay cleared over six hundred pounds,

M. The uses of the Colonies

1. Transportation of criminals

2. New starts for those with no hope

VII. Conclusion: Hogarth’s Painting of 3.11

A. Hogarth picture

1. http://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/N/N02/N02437_10.jpg

B. Hogarth made parallels between the actors on stage and their audience in each of the 1728 paintings

C. the actress and singer Lavinia Fenton (1708–60), who starred as the heroine Polly Peachum in the original and wildly successful 1728 production of The Beggar's Opera. After it closed, Miss Fenton left the stage to become the mistress of Charles Paulet, 3rd Duke of Bolton (1685–1754). In this role she is said to have been a delightful and accomplished companion, and a model of discretion. She bore the Duke three illegitimate sons, all of whom did well in the army, navy and the church.