| To fully appreciate and understand Thomas Middleton's superb comedy A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (1613) and its titular character Moll, it is helpful to have background knowledge of fasting and ascetic practices of medieval and Renaissance women and of post-Reformation or state-managed fasting, enforced by harsh acts and proclamations.;From this information, we get a picture of how green sickness, or anorexia as we would call it today, followed the sensational behavior of miraculous fasting girls. Rather than being regarded as evidence of Satanism or madness, green sickness or anorexia was classified as a psycho-physiological ailment.;We can respect Middleton's transformation of his chaste maid from a silent, obedient young woman into one with a self-discourse---the projection of her voice. Rather than being analogous to other contemporary literary works, the closest parallel to this multi-faceted comedy's Moll is an historical, aristocratic personage, Lady Arbella Stuart, cousin to James I. |
