Chapter 9 Power, Peril and Maritime-Trade Wish Fulfillment in Thomas Dekker’s The Pleasant Comedy of Old Fortunatus
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Abstract
This chapter explores Thomas Dekker’s The Pleasant Comedy of Old Fortunatus (1600) in an attempt to establish a relation between the magical items (the cap and purse) featured in the play and reflections derived not only from the folkloric tradition but also that early modern simulacrum that Daniel Vitkus called the “multicultural Mediterranean.” In the author’s opinion, Vitkus’ construct identifies, at least in part, the early modern aggrandizement of an eastern Mediterranean inhabited by militant orders; Genoese syndicates like the Guistiani; Italo-Frankish fiefdoms; Byzantines, Ottomans and other Turkic kingdoms; Armenians; Jews; Mamluks, etc. By the early 16th century, the multicultural Mediterranean in this form was largely defunct, since for the most part, the complex fabric of medieval polities and principalities had given way to proto-modern empires and nation-states defined in this region primarily by the Ottoman Empire and, to a lesser extent, the Holy Roman Empire. Within this image, English writers, such as Shakespeare and Dekker, create a world inhabited by an aristocratic Italo-Frankish and/or classically-inspired elite who inhabit realms of wealth and privilege far more reminiscent of the evocative images of Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean created by Bocaccio and Chaucer than the contemporary state of affairs in the region. With this in mind, the author intends to establish a relationship between magical items in Old Fortunatus and memories of the rich trade in the region before political and technological changes ended the Mediterranean stranglehold on the flow of Eastern goods to the West.