"The Changeling" and the Carnivalesque

Abstract

One of the features of Jacobean Drama generally, and the play The Changeling specifically, is its polysemous nature. There are multiple and complex strands in the composition of the play, which can render multiple interpretations. Critics, though, in making their arguments, sometimes ignore those elements which are not conducive to their position. The Changeling has been the genesis of such criticism in which obvious elements of the drama are omitted, for they don't support the argument being made. The very complexity of this play, which richly absorbs the issues of the times in which it was written, can make it simultaneously fecund and unwieldy for critical interpretations.