Prostitution and projection: Moral architectural commentary in Richard Brome’s ‘Convent Garden Weeded.’

Sik, Daniel [UCL]

This paper examines the 1634 comedic play by Richard Brome titled ‘The weeding of Convent Garden’ as an example of moral architectural commentary. The building process generally leaves behind many marks and traces; manifold drawings, contracts, reports, and indeed the building itself, often remain at the disposal of the architectural historian. However, the general public reception of the building is rarely documented, and thus we are often more of aware of how architecture appeared; rather than how it was perceived- and similarly- how it was intended, rather than how it was understood. The discourse surrounding the vices opposed to Magnificence was incredibly varied in Caroline England, and words such as pettiness and niggardliness - or on the other extreme - vulgarity, penuriousness, luxury and libidionosity, were common English translations for the original Greek vices. However, Brome hardly uses any of these words, preferring instead to demonstrate these vices through the actions of his characters. In spite of this, he is successful in remaining incredibly close to the terminology used in Greek and Latin discourse, which was being widely circulated at the time. The Latin moral treatise, ‘Epitome doctrinæ moralis, ex decem libris Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum collecta,’ published in Cambridge the same year as the play, uses the term ‘mikaloprepeia’ to describe the vice of deficiency, and ‘apeirokalia’ or ‘banausia’ for the vices of excess. These are terms directly transliterated from the original Greek and reflect a scholarly trend that advocated the re-examination of Greek texts. This paper focuses on the latter two terms, apeirokalia and banausia, and how they are performed in Brome’s play. More specifically, it looks at the sexual connotations of the vice aperiokalia, and explains how they are demonstrated through the association of architecture with prostitution in Brome’s play. Similarly, it looks at the socio-economical connotation of the vice of banausia, and how it is demonstrated though the association of architecture (especially speculative development) with the ascent of a nouveau riche working class: the so-called ‘projectors.’ In doing so, I hope to demonstrate how Aristotelian discourse in 17th Century England had an impact on the reception of architecture amongst the general public.