Kaethler, Mark. Thomas Middleton and the Plural Politics of Jacobean Drama
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Mark Kaethler'sThomas Middleton and the Plural Politics of Jacobean Drama is a re-examination of the Middleton canon that reveals a fluid vision of sovereignty that both acknowledges and subverts James's vision of himself as "sole decider" (196).Noting Middleton's persistent fascination with the limitations of monarchy, Kaethler's book focuses upon those of Middleton's plays that "engage in scandalous or provocative ways with topical subject matter concerning the sovereign and at times challenge his decisions or actions" (7).Kaethler's monograph is a timely exploration of the relationship between art and political power.Exploring the ways Thomas Middleton, as a Jacobean dramatist, creates space on the stage to critique and correct the would-be infallible English monarch, Kaethler theorizes Middleton is modelling a contractual relationship between the monarch and his subjects.Suggesting that Middleton's approach can best be described as a political poesis or "parrhēsiastic reminders of obligation and consent" (8), Kaethler argues that the playwright acknowledges sacred kingship while also challenging it.Responding to the ongoing scholarly conversation around the nature of Stuart Kingship, he argues that, since James I still acted within the limits of English law, he does not qualify as a true dictator, and that therefore scholars who argue for his absolutism are applying the term anachronistically.Thus, the commentaries on the current political situation in Middleton's plays are not without expectation of some reciprocity on the part of James.The first chapter focuses upon The Phoenix as a didactic "disguised duke narrative" play, figuring young Phoenix as an allegorical James-young in English experience-in need of a thorough understanding of his new kingdom and his contractual obligation to listen to his subjects.In this early instance, suggests Kaethler, "the polite parrhēsiastic contract" (90) modelled in The Phoenix is effective: the play is performed for James without causing offence and, he argues, evidence suggests the king was at least receptive to the play's suggestions.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.012 | 0.014 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.007 | 0.010 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.010 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".