The use of a character in disguise has played a major role in the thematic development in many plays in Renaissance Drama. In Thomas Dekker’s The Shoemaker’s Holiday the reader is introduced to Rowland Lacy, who takes the disguise of a lower class shoemaker, so that he can be with Rose. In the play Epicene Ben Johnson uses a young boy disguised as a woman to help Dauphine receive his rightful inheritance. The Shoemaker’s Holiday and Epicene both use the tool of disguise, however each play uses disguise to address different social topics. The Shoemaker’s Holiday uses the idea of disguise to address the topics of trade among other countries, peace instead of war, and lower social status for love while Epicene uses the vehicle of disguise to look at isolation and community, marriage ceremony, and the wife’s role in a marriage.

In Dekker’s The Shoemaker’s Holiday the character Lacy goes in disguise has Hans, a shoemaker from Germany. Hans in hired to work with Eyre, the main shoemaker. Dekker uses this hire of Hans to explore two ideas of trade among different countries. The first idea of trade is in the hire of Hans. In scene four, Fi

Each play The Shoemaker’s Holiday and Epicene deal with major topics of their day. Though both use disguise they use it in different ways; one play deals more with trade, war, and true love, while the other play focuses on community, ceremonies, and the woman’s role is marriage. One could wonder how the crowds that watched the humorous plays would have responded to what they were watching. As a reader of these old plays one can see is that the topics of old are also the topics of the present and how we are searching for how they should be addressed.

Not only does Dekker use Hans to look at the ideas of trade he also uses him to explores the idea of peace instead of war. In earlier scenes Lacy has bought his way out of war and gone under the disguise of Hans a foreign shoemaker. When Eyre hires Hans Dekker is showing that different types of people can do more than go to war with one another. Eyre is expanding his community to a different culture and by doing this he is building a positive relationship, one that brings about progress and profit instead of death and destruction. The third topic the Dekker addresses by using disguise is the blocked love between Lacy and Rose. Lacy and Rose’s uncles have their own reasons why they don’t want them together, but mainly the problem centers around their social status. By Lacy, being disguised as Hans, lowering his social status and becoming a shoemaker he is allowing Rose to see his true feelings for her. One lowering their social status was unheard of during this time period and one could believe that Dekker is showing how unimportant social class is when it comes to love and marriage. In scene seventeen Eyre, now rich because of Hans’ trade deal, tells the undisguised Lacy and Rose that, “none but the King shall wrong thee. Come, fear nothing” (6-7). Here a common craftsman, although very wealthy, makes a decision that goes against the social norm of the time.

Like Dekker, Johnson uses the art of disguise to address certain key topics of his time in his play Epicene. Epicene i

Some topics in this essay:
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