Gay, John. The Beggar's Opera.

Historical Background

(by Bryan Loughrey and T. O. Treadwell)

Slums: At Gay's time London society was radically divided between the extremes of poverty and wealth. In the early part of the eighteenth century London was largely expanding from its medieval centre within the city walls. The rich moved to the newly built suburbs and the vacated parts of London became progressively disreputable. The poor quarters of London were warrens of filthy alleys and narrow, dark courtyards bordered by ramshackle tenements known as rookeries.

Gin Shops: The readiest relief from life in place like these was through alcohol. Between about 1720 and 1751 an epidemic of spirit drinking swept through the slums of London. The situation was exacerbated by the official policy to encourage the newly developed distilling industry. Finally by 1750 in the slum quarter of St Giles more than one house in every four was a gin shop. Most of the gin shops were also cheap brothels and places where stolen goods were received.

Criminality: The brutalizing combination of poverty, filthy living conditions, and widespread alcoholism contributed to acceleration of criminality, which was not effectively managed by the chaotic system for policing the city. The system was not only ineffective, but also hopelessly corrupt. This was because virtually every permanent official involved in the administration of London had to buy his place and then naturally felt entitled to compensate himself for the sum he paid.

Thief Takers: In 1706 an act was passed which made the receiving of stolen goods a capital offence and encouraged criminals to inform on their accomplices. If the evidence led to conviction, the informer received a free pardon and a reward of forty pounds. The original purpose was to break up the gangs of thieves by making them betray one another, but the actual effect was to bring into being a class of professional informers, called thief-takers.

Jonathan Wild: The most famous criminal of the period was Jonathan Wild, the self-styled Thief-Taker General of Great Britain and Ireland, who took the twin trades of thief-taker and receiver of stolen goods and made himself the master of the London underworld. Jonathan Wild appears frequently in the writing of the time, most memorably in Henry Fielding's Jonathan Wild, the Great (1743).

Critical Introduction

(by Bryan Loughrey and T. O. Treadwell)

Success: The Beggar's Opera was first performed in 1728 and, with its witty combination of political and social satire, traditional songs and parody of Italian opera, was an immediate theatrical triumph. Its sequel Polly (1729) was banned by Walpole for the stage, but consequently also became a financial success. The reason for the play's popularity with its first audiences was its originality, implied by the very title which to the audience must have seemed a striking contradiction in terms. The audience must have also enjoyed the music, which, especially after the arrival of Handel in London in 1710, was superior to anything that had been heard on the London stage.

Italian Opera: In 1720s the term opera was applied to the Italian opera which first appeared in London in 1705 and had been in vogue ever since. The Italian operas were remarkable for imported singers, sumptuous costumes, and sophisticated stage machinery. The opera eliminated spoken dialogue, the passages between the various arias were carried on in recitative. Though the form was criticized for its triviality and absurdity, it enjoyed high popularity with audience.

Opera Plots: The opera plots were inspired by themes from myths, legends, or ancient history. The characters were high-born, though frequently required by circumstance to disguise themselves as slaves, and usually suffered heroically for love. Attention was paid to the spectacle rather than to the details of the plot, which was always remote from the concerns of the everyday and sometimes manifestly absurd. Out of the confusion of the plot a happy ending was always somehow wrenched out and goodness was allowed to triumph at last.

Anti-Opera: There was fear that the popularity of the affected foreign music would drive the true English drama off stage. Among others, as was for instance the essayist Joseph Addison, John Gay regarded the Italian opera vogue with a sardonic eye. The Beggar's opera is more than a parody of the conventions of opera, it is an inversion of them. It is anti-opera offering English and Irish folk songs instead of the floridly baroque arias of Handel, the alehouse and the prison instead of the royal palace or the enchanted island, and thieves and prostitutes instead of heroes and goddesses. Compared to the airy confections of the Italian opera, the world of Gay's opera is grittily real.

Characters: The names of most of the characters are expressive of their respective occupations. Peachum means "peach 'em", peaching here means to inform against a fellow criminal. Macheath means "son of the heath", Macheath is a highwayman, and the heathlands around London were notorious for the frequent highway robberies that took place there. Also other members of Macheath's gang are called after haunts of highwaymen, sites where gallows were located, or for different words for stealing. The prostitutes and female beggars and thieves are named for their respective occupations.

Parallels: The character of Peachum is based on Jonathan Wild, the above mentioned actual thief-taker and receiver. Peachum's partnerships with the jailer Lockit reflects the collaboration between Wild and the corrupt forces of authority. The highwayman Robin Bagshot, alias Bob Booty, was taken by the contemporary audiences to refer to the Prime Minister Robert Walpole, whose opponents claimed he was enriching himself at his country's expense, and who, like Bagshot, was allegedly of amorous disposition.

Summary and Analysis

(by Bryan Loughrey and T. O. Treadwell + my own reading)

"Introduction"

Beggar Author: Beggar, the fictional author of the play, introduces his piece. He explains he has employed "the similes that are in all your celebrated operas: the swallow, the moth, the bee, the ship, the flower, etc." (41). These stock similes occur successively in the songs and airs which are interspersed throughout the play. There is also "a prison scene which the ladies always reckon charmingly pathetic" (41). Beggar's beginning mocks the conventions of the Italian form, the "Simile Aria" was a characteristic feature of heroic opera in the Italian style. The "pathetic" prison scene pokes fun at the cult of the sentiment. The Beggar also apologizes that he has not made his opera "throughout unnatural, like those in vogue" (42). It is again a satiric bite at the remote and high-flown world of the Italian opera.

Topical Allusion: The Beggar continues that he has "observed such a nice impartiality to our two ladies, that it is impossible for either of them to take offence" (41). The original audiences would have recognized this as a hint at the actual rivalry of two famous opera divas of the time, Cuzzoni and Faustina, who eventually came to fight on the stage during one performance which featured them both.

Act I

Song: The play opens with an air which acknowledges the same respectability for all professions, from priests, lawyers, and statesmen to thieves. It even claims more honesty for those who are frankly criminal, like highwaymen, and do not hypocritically claim to be the opposite, like statesmen. This idea recurs several times throughout the play.

Peachum's Accounts: Peachum, a thief-taker, is busy with his accounts. He considers the usefulness of the thieves who are his customers, deciding who is skilful enough to earn him more by stealing and who would be better to be peached against for more profit. He also takes into account that a female thief may plead her belly (pregnant women were not executed) and a male thief may plead the benefit of clergy (those who could read Latin received milder punishments or were pardoned). His carefully led records and the cool, matter-of-fact tone by which he decides about life or death give him an air of a serious judge sitting at a court of law.

Polly's Marriage: Mrs and Mr Peachum are shocked to find out that their daughter Polly has married Captain Macheath, a highwayman, and worse, that she married him for no other purpose that her affection solely. Polly's parents effectively undermine the current cult of sentiment, especially in love, when they do not object as much against the character of Polly's husband as against the loss of profit incurred by her marriage. Polly was supposed to flirt with men, receive presents as tokens of their attention, but to deny them the one thing the seducers wanted so as to prevent herself from being ruined (meaning unmarried with a child, for such women were often forced to resort to prostitution).

Parents' Solution: Despite Polly's desperate protests, her parents intend to peach against Macheath, have him hanged, and so make Polly a widow and a heiress. They cynically observe that any other woman would be extremely thankful for such an occasion and that the prospect of being a widow is the only hope that generally helps a wife survive. Polly herself turns the vogue for sentiment on its head when she imagines Macheath carried in the cart to gallows, female spectators pining for Macheath the hero, and even males being moved, the executioner giving up his fee rather than to perform his duty.

Act II

Macheath's Betrayal: Macheath is found in a tavern where he together with his highwayman mates indulges in his favourite activities of drinking, gambling, and women chasing. He calls for a company of prostitutes, female beggars and thieves, and proves to be highly jovial and generous in their society. The women take him about the neck and kiss him, but at this moment they call at Peachum who arrives with constables to arrest him. It is observed that the female sex has always been the cause of fall of many a great man.

Macheath in Newgate: Macheath is introduced into Newgate, gives tips required from a new prisoner to be paid to guards and older prisoners, and also bribes the guards to be given a lighter pair of manacles. The scene suggests that this is a common practice, a part of the prison life system, and both the guards and the prisoners accept it as a commonplace. Being imprisoned in Newgate was expensive, paradoxically, for Newgate was also a debtors prison.

Lucy and Macheath: Locked up in a cell, Macheath cannot escape from the reproaches of Lucy, daughter of jailer Lockit, whom Macheath seduced but failed to marry. The young woman is expecting Macheath's child and presses him to marry her in order to save her reputation. Lucy echoes the sentiments of Polly in that the both women act in love on their affection rather than reason and both seek to preserve their beloved one from gallows. The view of Lucy's father on her relationship with Macheath reflects the views of Polly's parents. Lockit too prefers to put Macheath to death rather than to have him alive for the sake of his daughter.

Peachum and Lockit: Similarly as in the opening scene of the play, Peachum is found with an account-book, settling his business matters with Lockit. Peachum provokes a quarrel, complaining that Lockit fails to pay him his reward for peaching on fellow criminals in proper time and in the proper sum, but they eventually agree and reconcile. Both men are dependent on each other, as they both have evidence enough to have the other convicted and hanged. Their dealing bears strong resemblance to Parliamentary debates and political intrigues, after all they compare themselves to "great statesmen" who too "encourage those who betray their friends" (85). The quarrel scene between Peachum is Lockit was taken by contemporary audiences as a topical satiric allusion referring to the deteriorating relationship between minister Walpole and his political ally Lord Townshend which reportedly culminated in a similar quarrel.

Act III

Polly and Lucy: Macheath escapes from Newgate with Lucy's assistance and plans to hide himself for some time and then to return to his highwayman gang. Lucy plans revenge on her competitor in love, Polly. Lucy acts like her best friend but offers her gin with rat poison. Polly accidentally escapes from poisoning; she drops the glass when she learns that Macheath has been taken to custody again. On learning the same, Lucy realizes that after all Polly is not much happier in love than herself and does not pity that her design for Polly's death failed. The confrontation of Polly and Lucy has a marked operatic quality which reflects the Cuzzoni-Faustina rivalry hinted at in the Introduction. The rat poison in gin parodies the device of the poisoned cup which makes a frequent appearance in Italian opera plots.

Macheath's Trial: Macheath as a run-away prisoner is to have his trial immediately. He sings a series of airs. His fellow highwaymen come to take leave from him. So do Polly and Lucy. There are four more women with children waiting, but Macheath chooses not to see them and instead goes to face the trial immediately. He has already earlier expressed his preference to be executed rather than married. The scene ends with Macheath being led away to the court by guards.

Beggar and Player: Beggar and Player appear on the stage. The Player wonders whether the author really means to have Macheath executed. The Beggar says so and claims Macheath's death to be absolutely necessary "for doing strict poetical justice", that is to show wickedness punished and virtue rewarded in order to reflect the just nature of God's universe (120). The Player objects that "an opera must end happily" and the Beggar admits that his play must "comply with the taste of the town", so he decides to bring Macheath "back to his wives in triumph" (121).

Happy Ending: In the last scene Macheath is forced to choose between Polly and Lucy, on which he confirms Polly to be his legal wife, and concludes with a dance and a song hoping for a better future.