Fielding and Foucault: Lies and Power in The Grub-Street Opera.

Daniel S. Waldspurger

--You lie.

Two words taken from the "Introduction" to Henry Fielding's ballad opera, The Grub-Street Opera, suggest an act implicit within the simplest discourse: a desire to re-present history in a new context, a context which forces the past to conform to one's own will. In a text, these two words forewarn a reader to be en garde, not to esteem what is said to be veridical. Therefore, to be told by the character Scriblerus that the entire wit of The Grub-Street Opera "consists in these two little words -- you lie," compels the reader to stand alert and not accept any subsequent discourse to be a mimetic pronouncement on objective reality.

With only two words a hermeneutic struggle commences between the dramatic characters of a play and the words of that text. Who or what will champion the bout will depend on the stronger character's use of power and the credulity of the reader. Here, then, are the two hinges on which The Grub-Street Opera swivels: the use of power and the reader's willingness to accept that power.

The semiotic shift from the statement "you lie" connoting a mere falsehood to an understanding of the words asserting a power-struggle is most easily explained from the point of view of psychological intent or motivation. Whenever a lie is told, not only is a falsehood proposed as objective truth, but the speaker of the lie intends to press his or her will over established, absolute norms. In an attempt to relativize accepted truths, a liar attempts to assert a subjective power on either some individual or on some society that accepts universal truths, and the liar attempts to force that individual or society to submit to new definitions of what is or is not indubitable. It is for the receptor of the lie, either an individual or a society, ultimately to believe or to discount the new standard of truth proposed by the liar.

To take this line of thought one step farther is to become cognizant that whatsoever any individual or society accepts as truth is itself a reflection of some external standard which has managed, through its skillful employ of power, to assume dominance. In this regard, all truths are relativized to the society that believes in them, and all truth is itself a manifestation of an assertion of power.

Of course, these ideas are not at all new. They evolve from the writings of both Frederick Nietzsche and the French poststructuaralist, Michel Foucault.

Embracing Nietzsche's formulations concerning the understanding of the inter-relationships between power, struggle, and truth, Foucault summarizes his views on this matter as following:

-knowledge is an "invention" behind which lies something completely different from itself: the play of instincts, impulses, desires, fear, and the will to appropriate. Knowledge is produced on the stage where these elements struggle against each other;

-its production is not the effect of their harmony or joyful equilibrium, but of their hatred, of their questionable and provisional compromise, and of the fragile truce that they are always prepared to betray. It is not a permanent faculty, but an event or, at the very least, a series of events;

-knowledge is always in bondage, dependent and interested (not in itself, but to those things capable of involving an instinct or the instincts that dominate it);

-and if it gives itself as the knowledge of truth, it is because it produces truth through the play of a primary and always reconstituted fashion, which erects the distinction between truth and falsehood.

These ideas of Foucault will establish the critical stance that shall most effectively guide this analysis of Fielding's The Grub-Street Opera.

More than merely being, as some critics have labeled it, a political satire in which members of the royal household are lambasted to the delight of the eighteenth-century British audience, The Grub-Street Opera proves to be a profound treatise on social interaction on all levels of society. The opera speaks of human nature, and specifically of humankind's endless need to redefine power structures through the manipulation of truths, evidenced in the discourse of the text.

It is incumbent to note that "discourse", as it shall be used here, must refer to both verbal interaction as well as to personal, physical interaction. In drama, behaviors manifested as dramatic actions communicate as forcefully their intended truth statements as do the words scribed by an author and spoken by a character within a dramatic text. Again, Foucault elaborates upon this quality of discourse-in-practice with the following words:

Discursive practices are not purely and simply ways of producing discourse. They are embodied in technical processes, in institutions, in patterns for general behavior, in forms for transmission and diffusion, and in pedagogical forms which, at once, impose and maintain them.

The redefinition of power structures constructs a complex matrix on three axes. Not only is a vertical redefinition of power structures between competing social classes formulated by The Grub-Street Opera, but, secondly, there is a horizontal redefinition among members of the same cultural class as each individual tries to maintain his or her own unique identity; that is, to juxtapose one's own power and truth over others. Thirdly, there is a longitudinal reformulation of power which transmits accepted truths across time -- until those truths are thwarted by a new rebellion of some more vigorous power system. This longitudinal axis extends beyond the confines of the fiction The Grub-Street Opera and cuts a breach into actual history. The following analysis of The Grub-Street Opera shall attempt to examine this tripartite structural matrix implicit in the work.

In general terms, throughout any text the constant juxtaposition of old and accepted understandings of themes, truths, and knowledge--all products of discursive manifestations of power--with a new understanding of these same abstractions is exceedingly important. This juxtaposition obliges that the new interpretation take precedence over the former merely because of its novelty. Furthermore, the new formulation dictates that the former become "defamiliarized" and evaluated in a critical light by the reader-spectator. It is this "subtle" yet powerful and potentially violent juxtaposition which compels the audience-readers to become active participants in the dialectic as critical judges who evaluate those aesthetic and epistemological sensibilities which the author-lyricist intends to impose through his dramatic medium.

The multiple levels of juxtapositions within The Grub-Street Opera will prompt both evolution of thought and circumspect reflection. This ballad opera is ultimately a story of power conflicts. The audience/readers are implicated in the conflicts. They cannot remain passive.

I. The Vertical Redefinition of Power Within the Society:

Within the fictitious society created by The Grub-Street Opera, there are present two distinct social orders. The aristocratic personae include Sir Owen Apshinken, his wife Lady Apshinken, and the churchman Puzzletext. This hierarchal class is strictly delimitated from the servant class with includes John, William, Robin, Thomas, Margery, Susan, Sweetissa, and the tenant Mr. Apshones with his daughter Molly. Between these two groups of individuals there is little direct interaction. Left by themselves in the play, there would be no personal impetus compelling dramatic action.

There remains a final member of the cast list; this is Master Owen Apshinken who, because of his sexual appetite, seeks to bed each of the four maidens in the play. It is his liaison between the two social orders that provides the cause for vertical power struggles to be evident in the play, through dramatic discourse. Master Owen is the lynch-pin for conflict.

It is tautological that within any social hierarchy those at the apex of the hierarchic structure would wield the most patent power. In The Grub-Street Opera this ordering is evident. Sir Owen is a man title who maintains seven servants and who is landlord to a large estate and at least one tenant, Mr. Apshones. Yet the discourse of the lower classes demonstrate the forceful challenge and undermining of this presumed power. The text yields many examples.

In The Grub-Street Opera I.xi, we hear the butler Robin tell his former love, Sweetissa--whom he now believes to be pregnant with the child of the coachman--how strongly he feels betrayed by Sweetissa's alleged act: "It is equal to me with whom you play your pranks; and I'd as leave be my master's cuckold, as my fellow servant's. Nay, I had rather, for I could make him pay for it."

Clearly, the strength of Robin's power within the household is shown here. Among his social peers, with this instance at least, the ability to assume a dominant role is non-existent. Yet, Robin is confident that the hierarchic structure of the household is supported by the lower classes, and as the supporting element, Robin could pressure Sir Apshinken to accede to his wishes should he find cause.

The established social order, far from being admired, is ridiculed and despised throughout the play. In II.i, Mr. Apshones chides his daughter Molly, telling her to avoid the lascivious pretender to Apshinken's estate:

MR. APSHONES: Hath he [Master Owen] not made mischief between several men and their wives; and do you not know that he lust after every woman he sees, though the poor wretch does not look as if he was quite come from nurse yet.

MOLLY: Sure angels cannot have more sweetness in their looks than he.

MR. APSHONES: Angels! Baboons--these are the creatures that resemble our beaux the most. If they have any sweetness in them, 'tis from the same reason that an orange hath. Why have our women fresher complexions and more health in their countenances here than in London, but because we have fewer beaux among us; in that I will have you think no more of him, for I have no design upon him, and I will prevent his designs upon you. If he comes here anymore I will acquaint his mother.

MOLLY: Be first assured that his designs are not honorable, before you rashly ruin them.

MR. APSHONES: I will consent to no clandestine affair. Let the great rob one another, and us if they please; I will show them the poor can be honest. I desire only to preserve my daughter; let them preserve their son.

It seems evident that Mr. Apshones is not merely concerned with his daughter's being in love, but, more significantly, that she loves one of the "great." Apshones equates greatness with sub-humanity, with tartness, with infirmity, and with criminality. He topples the denotative meaning of "The Great" and replaces it with its antithesis.

Other examples of the inversion of social hierarchal standing, as evidenced by discourse, include the interplay between Master Owen and the upper society and between Master Owen and the lower society. The power-role of Master Owen is itself relative to the contrasting society with which he is engaged. He is a dualistic character. He intermediary standing serves well to illustrate the fluctuation of truth definitions of society within the play.

In I.iv we hear the parson Puzzletext, an individual who represents the established, bourgeois order, warn Master Owen not to marry below his social class:

PUZZLETEXT: Mr. Owen, I have been searching you. I am come, child, to give you some good instructions. I am sorry to hear you have an intention to disgrace your family, by a marriage inferior to your birth.

OWEN: Do not trouble your head with my marriage, good Mr. Parson. When I marry, 'twill be to please myself, not you.

PUZZLETEXT: But let it not be such a marriage as may reflect upon your understanding. Consider, sir, consider who you are.

AIR IV, March in Scipio

Think, mighty sir, ere you are undone,

Think who you are, Apshinken's only son;

At Oxford you have been, at London eke also;

You're almost half a man, and more than half a beau:

Oh do not then disgrace the great actions of your life!

Nor let Apshinken's son be buried in his wife.

You must govern your passions, Master Owen.

OWEN: You may preach Mr. Parson, but I shall very little regard you.

Master Owen rejects the formulation of the accepted societal strictures and conventions of his elders. Rather than continue to accept the orthodox "lie" that privilege is tantamount to happiness and happiness is tantamount to the already established power, Master Owen "very little regard(s)" the truths preached to him.

Another salient proof of Master Owen's rejection of bourgeois conventions of power is his statement concerning the church pronounced in II.ii:

You judge too severely. Nature never prompts us to a real crime. It is the imposition of a priest, not nature's voice, which bars us from a pleasure allowed to every beast but man. But why do I this to convince thee by arguments of what thou art sufficiently certain? Why should I refute your tongue, when your fond eyes refute it?

Master Owen's relative position between the social classes of the opera is illustrated frequently. He is himself a reification of the upper class when viewed from below. As such, his own value formulations are challenged by the servant class.

Nowhere is this rejection of upper-class values, actions, and appearances more evident than in Susan's rejection of Master Owen in III.xi:

Give you a kiss! Give you a slap in the face, or a rod for your backside. When I am kissed, it shall be by another guise sort of a spark than you. 'Sbud! Your head looks like the scrag end of a neck of mutton, just floured for basting. A kiss! A fart!

In studying the vertical juxtaposition of social orders and the imposition of new sensibilities over the old, the political absolutes of early eighteenth century English society become blurred. The relativization of power and the values associated with those powers is straightforwardly proposed by Master Owen at the end of the opera, III.xv:

SIR OWEN: My son married to the daughter of a tenant!

OWEN: Oh sir, she is your tenant's daughter, but worthy of a crown;

and again, in the same scene:

. . . Love makes a clown a squire,

Would make a squire a king.

Two final citations must be offered before examining the horizontal juxtaposition of power structures in The Grub-Street Opera. The contemptuous disregard of the bourgeois for the servants is presented by the author as matter-of-fact. Self-righteous Lady Apshinken wishes that her servants were as noble as she. In response to her desire Puzzletext and she have the following duet:

LADY APSHINKEN: Ah, Doctor, I long much as misers for pelf,

To see the whole parish as good as myself.

PUZZLETEXT: Ah, madam, your ladyship need not to doubt,

But that my sermons will be soon brought about.

LADY APSHINKEN: Ah, man, can your sermons put 'em in the right way,

When not one in ten e'er hears what you say?

PUZZLETEXT: Ah, madam, your ladyship need not to fear; If you make them pay, but I'll make them hear.

The imposition of power, through economic coercion upon the poor, is here offered as the means to lead the scurrilous rabble to hear and to accept the "good." In this bourgeois view, looking from above, money is power and power is truth.

Again in III.xi, Susan, who is herself without adequate food to prepare, refuses to cut the side of beef as she was ordered by Lady Apshinken:

"Why, I am going to find Madam out. If she will have no victuals, she shall have no cook for Susan. If I cut the sirloin of beef, may the devil cut me."

What is significant here is Susan's stubborn rebellion against the assumed dominant power of her employer. Susan is a cook, and she works her power rebellion from her kitchen. In the words of Foucault:

if the fight is directed against power, then all those on whom power is exercised to their detriment, all who find it intolerable, can begin to struggle on their own terrain and on the basis of their proper activity (or passivity). In engaging in a struggle that concerns their own interests, whose objectives they clearly understand and whose methods only they can determine they enter into a revolutionary process. . . . Such struggles are actually involved in the revolutionary movement to the degree that they are radical, uncompromising and nonreformist, and refuse any attempt at arriving at a new disposition of the same power with, at best, a change of masters.

In the final analysis, there can be little wonder that in The Grub-Street Opera the lower class, the victims of the injustices of bourgeois politics, intend to reformulate their world's truths according to their particular perspective of the world.

II. The Horizontal Redefinition of Power Within the Society.

More than merely attempting to assert a redefinition of power between class strata, The Grub-Street Opera shows sure evidence that within the same social class individuals vie to assume dominance and redefine the power that establishes Truth according to his or her own will. This struggle is fundamentally self-alienating; it attempts to differentiate oneself from the rest of the same society. In I.v Margery and Sweetissa bicker:

MARGERY: I rather think that a prejudice of yours against William.

SWEETISSA: Oh Margery, Margery, an upper servant's honesty is never so conspicuous as when he is abused by he under servants. They must rail at someone. . . .

A second means to assert one's own will within the same societal class in the opera is by a sort of verbal competition to establish truth. Although on the surface this dramatic technique may be comical, its purpose is psychologically profound. Through a continual "one-upping" of the facts, a willful, discursive battle is inherent.

Many examples of this practice are contained within the text. Two specific antithetical instances involving Robin and Sweetissa serve to illustrate the point.

In I.vi, in rather ambiguous terms, the two servants attempt to better each other in describing his or her love:

ROBIN: . . . it is easier to fathom the depth of the bottomless sea than my love.

SWEETISSA: Or to fathom the depth of a woman's bottomless conscience than to tell thee mine.

ROBIN: Mine is as deep as the knowledge of physicians.

SWEETISSA: Mine as the projects of statesmen.

ROBIN: Mine as the virtue of whores.

SWEETISSA: Mine as the honesty of lawyers.

ROBIN: Mine as the piety of priests.

SWEETISSA: Mine as--I know not what.

ROBIN: Mine as--as--as--I'gad I don't know what.

Later, in I.xi, the same couple engage in stinging repartee:

ROBIN: . . . Since you can be so base, I shall tell you what I never did intend to tell you: when I was in London, I might have had an affair with a lady, and slighted her for you.

SWEETISSA: A lady! I might have had three lords in one afternoon; nay, more than that, I refused a man with a thing over his shoulder like a scarf, at a burying, for you; and these men, they say, are the greatest men in the kingdom.

ROBIN: Oh Sweetissa, the very hand-irons thou didst rub before thou wast preferred to wait on thy lady, have not more brass in them than thy forehead.

SWEETISSA: Oh Robin, Robin, the great silver candlesticks in thy custody are not more hollow than thou art.

ROBIN: Oh Sweetissa, the paint, nay, the eyebrows that thou puttest on thy mistress are not more false than thou.

SWEETISSA: Thou hast as many mistresses as there are glasses on thy sideboard.

ROBIN: And thou lovers, as thy mistress has patches.

SWEETISSA: If I have, you will have but a small share.

ROBIN: The better my fortune.

In each of these and the other examples of this caustic bantering within the opera, individuals of equal social rank wrestle to fracture their status of equality in order to assert his or her own dominance of the truth upon the other. Equality in this opera is tantamount to bondage--a bondage under whose force both action and verbal discourse is restrained. Thus, when speaking to Sir Owen in III.ii, Lady Apshinken is able to declare: "It is very hard, my dear, that I must be an eternal slave to my family. . . ." Personal responsibility for the welfare of others within the same social order prohibits that an individual rebel against that order and assert, through the personal wielding of power, his or her own redefinition of truth formulations.

In each of the above citations from The Grub-Street Opera the characters chose from a universe of objects those few which were best able to serve to the purpose of defining personal dominance. It is through this individual and purposeful selectivity of evidence that the relativity of truths owes its validity and that the restructuring of power systems gains its force. Foucault addresses this selection process:

Discursive practices are characterized by the delimitation of a field of objects, the definition of a legitimate perspective for the agent of knowledge, and the fixing of norms for the elaboration of concepts and theories. Thus, each discursive practice implies a play of prescriptions that designate its exclusions and choices.

This delimitation of objects and the subsequent fixing of norms for the elaboration of truth pronouncements is, in Foucault's view, totally relative to the generating agent of the discourse. In The Grub-Street Opera this personal relativity is expounded, ironically, by the supposed symbol of Universal Truths, the Parson Puzzletext:

PUZZLETEXT: I ask your ladyship's pardon. I profess I have scarce drank your health this morning. And wine, while it contributeth only to the cheering of the spirits, is not forbidden us. I am an enemy to excess, but as far ad the second bottle--nay, to some constitutions, a third--it is, no doubt, allowable. And I do remember to have preached with much perspicuity even after a fourth.

LADY APSHINKEN: Oh intolerable! Do you call four bottles no excess?

PUZZLETEXT: To some it may, to others it may not. Excess dependeth not on the quantity that is drank, but on the quality of him who drinketh.

LADY APSHINKEN: I do not understand this sophistry. . . .

As was the case with the vertical axis of the society drawn in The Grub-Street Opera, it is through the relavitization of external absolutes, made explicit by individual discourse, that the horizontal societal axis also undertakes to impose its power. There yet remains a longitudinal axis to be considered. Again, the assertion of power to affect and control knowledge--and truth--will prove the key to most effectively examine the dynamics of this axis.

III. The Longitudinal Redefinition of Power within the Society:

In order for Foucault's basic premises of discourse and power to have demonstrated merit, new discursive formulations must unwittingly affect and change a society's horizon of understanding. Through the developmental revelations made possible by way of satiric discourse, the truths of past horizons, like all truths, must be exposed as a mere epochal construction. Therefore, having examined what kind of struggles occur within The Grub-Street Opera, there remain the questions of the actual effect of ballad-opera in early eighteenth-century English society and whether or not Fielding's particular discursive rebellion had any impact on that society's contemporaneous, historical archive.

To begin, a brief historical background on this dramatic form will prove for this section of the analysis. It is of not insignificant that The Grub-Street Opera, itself a re-working of Fielding's own The Welsh Opera and his The Original Grub-Street Opera, was completed by Fielding in 1731 but was never publicly performed. A published edition of the work by the author did not appeared in London until as late as 1755.

Further note of chronology is important. As a dramatic form, ballad opera's life-span was surprisingly brief. John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728) is considered the first of its kind. And not only had Gay's play enjoyed tremendous popularity, but during the next eighteen years nearly sixty ballad-operas took to the boards on London stages. It then seems surprising that suddenly, by the mid-eighteenth century, the production of the form will have all but perished from London stages; indeed, in his A Register of First Performances. . . ., Eric Walter White cites only three ballad operas written in England after 1746. If Foucault's theories continue to be valid, ballad opera must have evolved historically, and theatrically, as a discursive tool to undermine some established power(s), and the demise of ballad opera must have resulted from a stronger incarnation of power in British society around the mid-1700's.

Few persons symbolize the established power in early eighteenth-century England better than Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole. He must serve as a fulcrum for analysis.

In The Beggar's Opera John Gay embraced the "Tory view" of eighteenth century literary history. This perspective had the narrow purpose of "execrating Walpole's corruption and paying homage to the patriotic idealism of Walpole's enemies". Although he is frequently credited with this "Tory view," it would be too facile to accept that Fielding wrote all of his works solely to ridicule Walpole. No. Fielding's use of satire hugged a wider assemblage of concerns. According to Cleary, in the years 1728-1735 Fielding is characterized by: "(1) sharp satire on the opposition and eulogy of Walpole; (2) satire on Walpole, the ministry, and even the royal family; (3) a careful, even ostentatious of avoidance of political questions." Of course, these three discursive behaviors cannot coexist seamlessly within one literary text. The Grub-Street Opera will show the second attitude most strongly prevalent.

In his introduction to The Grub-Street Opera, Edgar V. Roberts establishes direct parallels between the dramatis personae and actual individuals in the contemporary English society. From this correspondence evidence attesting to Fielding's wide circle of satiric personages is obvious. It was not merely one man, Walpole, that Fielding was focusing upon with his indictment of power; rather, Fielding shed a critical light on a much wider spectrum of the society: the entire ruling class.

Here again is a viable demonstration of Foucault's social analysis. The discursive, rebellious element--The Grub-Street Opera--is an instrument of power, having been generated from within a new horizon of English society. This and other new critical movements of the age foment a desire to undermine the bedrock power of the established hierarchal superstructure. With the upper hierarchy satirized and ridiculed, reformulations of "the way things should be" are made possible. The society accepts the new alternatives as new knowledge, and with this knowledge new truths are espoused. As a final step in the process, the new truths themselves generate new power, enabling the wheel to spiral once again. That Gay's bitingly satiric The Beggar's Opera inspired Fielding in his writing of ballad opera is indubitable. And through this satire possible, and even expected, in ballad opera, the English society was transformed, unwittingly perhaps; nevertheless, ballad opera allowed the society to unfold in its self-revelation and self-definition.

What then occurred to bring the sudden death of ballad opera around the mid-point of the eighteenth century? The answer surfaces with the next revolve of the wheel of power.

Although satirized through the discourse of ballad opera, the power of the Whig upper-hierarchy was not wholly undermined nor displaced by the rebellious voices of the under-society. Albeit social commentary--such as the famous air in The Grub-Street Opera, III.iii, "The Roast Beef of England"--openly exposes the festering corruption of English society, the former horizons of the ruling class were only affected, not replaced by the satiric impact of Fielding and his contemporaries in the Scriblerian camp which included Gay. Walpole still wielded impressive power, and through his influence both houses of Parliament and the King assented to passing the Licensing Act in June of 1737. As a result of the censorious power of this one Act, Fielding totally abandoned his career at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket. There remains today considerable speculation that prime minister Walpole himself had paid Fielding to abandon his craft quickly and quietly. In any case, by the strict enforcement of the Licensing Act, by 1747 the flowering of the theatrical activity of the preceding twenty-five years completely halted, and with this enforcement, all authorship of ballad opera expired.

New power again replaced old power. Through the discursive rite of a legal Act, Parliament legislated a new standard for theatrical enterprises and the truths that they attempted to elucidate. Henry Fielding, like John Gay, had lost his moment for exposing the corruptions of the superstructure, and he was subsumed into the nascent relativism of the subsequent horizon.

Surely these words by Sven M. Armens, spoken of Gay, hold equal dignity when applied to Fielding's opus:

he did feel it his duty to live up to the satirist's calling by pointing out those vices that debase man and his society and to imply, whether through the direct portrayals of examples of nobler and simpler lives or through the negative assertion of moral values by the use of ironic contrasts, the existence of a moral code and a way of live much preferable to the one operative in his own day.

As a dramatist and theatre manager, Fielding attempted to yell out his experiences of the gross exploitation of power in society. His personal experiences of this exploitation affected him a priori to any rationally constructed "knowledge" of their existence. To this extent, Fielding exposed truths and lies as he perceived them. Nor were his assertions solely nationalistic; the appropriation of power to achieve one's own will was ubiquitous. As shown in The Grub-Street Opera the universal sway of personal or class power is the manifestation of the:

selfish interest [which] is radically posed as coming before knowledge, which it subordinates to its needs as a simple instrument; a knowledge, which is dissociated from pleasure and happiness, is linked to the struggle, the hate, and the spitefulness: its original connection to truth is undone once truth becomes merely an effect --the effect of a falsification that we call the opposition of truth and falsehood.

The capricious relativization of truth and falsehood is ostensible wheresoever there are men and women engaged in political discourse; and all discourse is politic to achieve one's own desire, deceiving others so as to make oneself surface on top. Prophetically, at the end of The Grub-Street Opera III.xiv, Robin sings:

In this little family plainly we find,

A little epitome of humankind,

Where down from the beggar, up to the great man,

Each gentleman cheats you no more than he can

Sing tantarara[ra], rogues all, (rogues all,

Sing tantararara, rogues all).

Perhaps humankind is "rogues all." Perhaps terms such as "truth," "knowledge," "absolutes," and "lies" need to suffer deconstruction of their unquestioned semiotic grounding. Perhaps discourse is always an instrument of self-interested rebellion. And perhaps power is the generative substructure of all society.

If, as Michel Foucault believes:

Power is employed and exercised through a net-like organization. And not only do individuals circulate between its threads; they are always in the position of simultaneously undergoing and exercising this power. They are not only its inert or consenting target; they are always the elements of its articulation.

--then The Grub-Street Opera exposes its fictitious world to the reader in a three-dimensional network so that the reader, as a curious voyeur, may see his or her own wrinkles and imperfections and understand one's own role in the never-ending experience and expression of power. This must be the only real truth and knowledge.

"--You lie."

--Two words do set a hermeneutic process in motion. Still spiraling outward in a futile attempt to gain absolute knowledge, one discovers that ultimately all established truths are reduced to subjective lies, and all lies are exulted as the manifestation of power through discourse.

Appendix 1

Some Notes on Dramatic Form and The Grub-Street Opera

In defining essential structure of ballad-opera, W. J. Lawrence in The Musical Quarterly writes: "Broadly speaking, 'ballad opera' . . . signified a play of humorous, satirical or pastoral order intermixed with simple song, the music for which was for the most part derived from popular ditties of the street-ballad type. . . .

In thematic treatment and formal content, the great corpus of ballad opera is both realistic and satiric, though in few operas concessions are made to pastoral, romantic, and sentimental themes. Furthermore, these songs were native in their national sensibilities, as opposed to the "effeminate sing-song" of operatic Italian music, popular in England since two Italian operas, Arsinoe in 1705 and Camilla in 1706, had captivated the aristocratic audiences of London. From this perspective, ballad opera was patriotic and presumably masculine; its music was designed to counteract and ridicule the popularity of Italian opera.

Having stated that one of the fundamental distinguishing elements of ballad opera was its music familiar to the audience, the words of Allardyce Nicoll now further explain the essential form of ballad opera; he states: "Part of the worth of a ballad-opera, therefore, comes from the subtle juxtaposition in the mind of the auditor of the original tune and words and of the new words written to the music." Hence, for the hearer of the music, each lyrical air established, by its very nature, a power-play or a dialectic between an established and familiar construct and a new and often stingingly satiric reinterpretation of that musical construct.

Appendix 2

Representation of Characters as Compiled by Edgar V. Roberts

Sir Owen Apshinken George II

Master Owen Apshinken Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales

Lady Apshinken Queen Caroline

Parson Puzzletext The exact person is not clear. Perhaps Puzzletext represents Dr. Samuel Clarke, who had served as Caroline's spiritual adviser until his death in 1729. Other possibilities are Bishop Hoadly, who was in particular favor with Caroline; Bishop Butler, Caroline's Clerk of the Closet, who discoursed frequently with her on religious subjects; and Francis Hare, Dean of St. Paul's, a controversialist also in Caroline's favor. Whether Puzzletext represents a person or not, however, he is clearly intended to mock Caroline's religious interests.

Robin Sir Robert Walpole

John John, Lord Hervey

Thomas Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle, Secretary of State for the Southern Department and later Prime Minister. Newcastle was a staunch Whig who threw his weight and fortune behind Walpole, and organized a vast machinery of political persuasion and bribery. Because Thomas is pictured as an opponent and not as a friend of Robin, Fielding's allegory is here inconsistent.

Sweetissa Maria or Molly Skerrit, Walpole's mistress.

The only symbol of the Opposition is William, who stands for William Pulteney, the Opposition leader. There is no reason to assume that either Susan or Margery is an allegorical figure. The same is true of Mr. Apshones and Molly, although Molly may be intended as a general figure representing the many ladies pursued by Prince Frederick. The name Molly also suggest Molly Skerrit. Though Mr. Apshones does not represent any person, he may be a literary burlesque of the tenant Welford in Lillo's ballad opera Silvia; or, The Country Burial (1730).

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Fielding, Henry. The Grub-Street Opera. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1968.

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Scouten, Arthur H. The London Stage 1729-1747: A Critical Introduction. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1968.

White, Eric Walter, compiler. A Register of First Performances of English Operas and Semi-Operas from the 16th Century to 1980. London: The Society for Theatre Research, 1983.