Heywood's Four Prentices and the Emergence of a Rhetorical Counterpublic

What is it about?

The article explores the competing depictions of apprenticeship that are put on the stage in this early Thomas Heywood play (1592) about four crusading brothers. In The Four Prentices, the three elder titular apprentices are modeled after prevailing ideas about the purpose of the guild training system in Renaissance London, but the character of Eustace offers a new and compelling voice - that of the frustrated but ambitious young men pursuing the respect and economic mobility promised in a guild indenture. In the competing claims offered by these gallant merchants, Heywood produced a popular play that staged, for the first time, the marginalized voice of London's young apprentices.

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Why is it important?

This article offers a new perspective on early modern apprenticeship as an agential and vocal cohort in Elizabethan London and contributes to our understanding of the trouble of the 1590s. Furthermore, it incorporates work on rhetorical publics in early modern England and offers a means to look at marginalized groups in the period through this lens.