No 13 — July 1979 Edited by Michael Walters
ELSIE MAYNARD ONCE AGAIN
Why does everyone think Fairfax is such an extreme cad? Surely the point about 'Is Life a boon?' is that he really is not afraid to die. He has learned a sort of military stoicism through long contact with death and slaughter on the battlefield. In any case, if one is to be 'historical' about it, with the expectation of life so limited in early Tudor times, is it not to be expected that a war?worn soldier, who is in any case not in the first flush of youth, should be ready to accept inevitable end? The Tower itself seems to breathe an atmosphere of fatalism over its inhabitants and it is entirely appropriate that what Fairfax should most resent is not death itself as much as the treachery by which he has been doomed to suffer it. The ignominious death of a dealer in the black arts must be a great blow to the honour of so gallant a gentleman. Fairfax's "Trying" of Elsie in Act 2 does, of course, strike us today as the reverse of chivalrous. But, after all, she is only a strolling player and hence might be expected to be of dubious morality, especially as, for reasons he does not know, she was willing to sell herself in marriage for quick profit. If they are ever to live together as man and wife (as they eventually do) it will be no ordinary union. Gentleman?officers did not normally mate with girls not far removed from the position of gypsies and he needs to be assured of her intrinsic worth, loyalty, and in a more general sense ? grace to carry off her new position. As for the big final scene, surely what Gilbert was aiming at was a dramatic coup de theatre. In a sense Fairfax here ceases to matter as a person and becomes a means of providing strong dramatic situation and a serious climax, after the (very enjoyable) frivolity of 'Rapture rapture'. If we are to take a psychological explanation of the whole thing, then surely poor old Lambton's version at least deserves serious consideration (rather than complete denigration a la Davis). But my own view is that the psychology here is not of the foremost importance. RICHARD MOORE
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