Alimentary Address and the Management of Appetite and Hunger in Jacob and Esau

Summary

The anonymous mid-Tudor biblical interlude The History of Jacob and Esau presents a set of uncertainties for its commentators. While the interlude's composition has been dated broadly to the period between 1547 and 1558, narrowing that range decisively has proven difficult. The interlude's commitment to a Calvinist-influenced doctrine of election and reprobation might suggest a composition date in Edward VI's reign, but opinion remains divided. As it was first entered in the Stationers’ Register between June 1557 and June 1558 by Henry Sutton, it must have been composed by that date. Unfortunately, only a single fragment of the 1557/8 printing remains extant. However, the complete text survives in seven copies of a 1568 edition ‘newely imprinted’ by Henry Bynneman. In addition, given that no direct evidence of the interlude's performance is known, ascertaining its provenance has been challenging. Its sophisticated Terentian comic structure along with its requirement for several singing parts have led to the now widely accepted view that the interlude was written for performance by children of the Chapel. Commentators have identified two main candidates for Jacob and Esau's author: Nicholas Udall and William Hunnis, both of whom had Protestant leanings, worked with child performers, and wrote and produced plays at court in the relevant period.

Taking these probabilities and uncertainties of time, place, and context into account, this essay explores the implications of the interlude's striking interest in food and its preparation and consumption. The serving of meals is central to the biblical story on which it is based, but the playwright develops the treatment of food into a complex mode of social interaction. Food becomes an ‘alimentary address’: a means by which one character addresses another, referring to or using food as a means of persuasion. Its provision and withholding are used to manage appetite and shape social hierarchies and relations.

The action of Jacob and Esau's first two acts is based on the account, found at the end of Genesis 25, of Esau's selling of his birthright to Jacob in exchange for pottage; the action of the final three acts is based on Genesis 27's account of Rebecca and Jacob's deception of the blind Isaac in order to win for Jacob the paternal blessing Isaac intended for his first-born son, Esau. The interlude elaborates on these events, inventing several characters, mostly servants, not found in its biblical sources.