Epicene, or the Silent Woman Essay Questions

Who is the hero in Epicene? Who is the villain?

A cursory interpretation of the play would lead one to believe that the hero of Epicene is Dauphine, who triumphs over his persnickety uncle Morose by the conclusion of the final act. However, as the play unfolds, audiences might notice that none of the characters are portrayed as either wholly virtuous or wholly villainous. Instead, Jonson crafts characters that audiences might both love and pity, detest and delight in. Indeed, one of the most intriguing but challenging aspects of the play is that readers might not know with whom to align themselves, reflecting the play's fundamental ambivalence about the nature of good and evil.

Is Epicene a misogynistic play?

The simplest way to answer the question of misogyny in Epicene is to acknowledge that it does indeed rely on a number of misogynistic ideas and tropes, but that it also places these ideas in the mouths of particularly foolish or undesirable characters. By having the more detestable characters (like Morose) espouse most of the misogynistic rhetoric throughout the play, Jonson avoids the criticism that the play itself is an example of woman-hating while at the same time avoiding a truly feminist production (though this particular term would not have been used at the time the play was performed). Critics return to Epicene again and again precisely because of this ambivalent dynamic, which makes it difficult to discern the ultimate goals of Jonson or the play.

Why is the revelation that Epicene is a boy in disguise such a notable element of the play?

In the first half of the play, audiences become privy to Dauphine's plan to entrap his uncle in a miserable marriage by having Epicene pretend to be a silent woman. However, he withholds the truth from his friends and the audience that Epicene is actually a boy, which renders the marriage between Epicene and Morose illegitimate. This revelation is especially significant given that, at the time, female characters were portrayed by young male actors. By "shocking" the audience with this revelation, Jonson draws attention to the artifice of the early modern stage itself, where audiences were expected to suspend their disbelief every time a female character appeared on stage.

What elements of Epicene render it a city comedy?

While readers might easily recognize Epicene as a comedy due to the fact that nobody dies by its conclusion, it also represents a more specific genre for which Jonson is quite famous: city comedy. City comedies were often set in modern-day London rather than pre-sixteenth-century European cities, and they tended to focus on the experiences of urban life rather than royal or political events. Epicene is both set in London and interested in the relationships among members of the English upper class who, though not entirely average in terms of socioeconomic status, engage in the same jests and schemes associated with the working class in early modern comedy.

Why do you think the play fell out of fashion by the eighteenth century?

Epicene was met with mixed reviews when it was first performed in 1609. It was revived with fervor during the restoration after Charles II assumed the crown, but its popularity waned by the end of the seventeenth century. Most critics agree that the play's diminished performance coincided with the introduction of female actresses to the stage, thereby rendering the "revelation" that Epicene is a boy relatively undramatic and unconvincing.