Speech

In this chapter Anderson considers a range of theological, rhetorical, medical and legal contexts to determine what might have constituted non-normative speech patterns in the Renaissance, and the ways in which certain forms of language and speech were privileged over others. These sources demonstrate how particular modes of speech were effectively linked to understandings of personhood, and reveal some of the underlying assumptions about speaking that provided a basis for the legal disqualification and disenfranchisement of certain groups of people in the period. In the last part of the chapter, Anderson considers dramatic representations of non-normative speech, focusing mainly on early modern English drama, including an extended discussion of Marston’s What You Will. The chapter concludes that drama is a key source for understanding the relationship between speech and identity in the cultural imagination of the Renaissance.