Chapter 7 considers the interrelation of hunger, appetite and armed resistance to the state. It explores how the initial causes of revolt are represented in these plays, stressing the interrelation of the hunger of the poor with the appetites of the rich. But it also emphasises the degree to which these onstage revolts are represented as processes, which move from depictions of an initial grievance to representation of the appetites which can be unleashed by the act of rebellion. Lastly, it stresses the utopian possibilities of presenting these rebel appetites onstage, arguing that discernible in the most radical of these texts is a proto-communist emphasis on the potential creation of a society in which all are equal. The depiction of hunger, appetite and revolt emerges as the subject of a pronounced interpretative instability, rooted in the legitimation of the contemporary status quo, but permeated, nevertheless, by insurrectionary possibilities.

Chapter 1 considers the material and discursive factors which defined the representation of hunger and appetite in the Renaissance theatre. It explores the lived experience of hunger and appetite in early modern England, situating these issues in the context of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. It engages with early modern dietaries, religious texts and popular cultural forms such as ballads in order to define the precise nature of early modern attitudes to hunger and appetite. The chapter concludes by considering the practical and theoretical implications of staging hunger and appetite on the Renaissance stage. It focusses on the theatres as places devoted to the sale of both plays and food, and considers the complex and multifaceted relationships of the period’s various audiences with the lived experience of hunger and appetite.

This chapter deals with the processes of exclusion and inclusion that defined community. It deals with popular hostility to religious change, especially the ‘disciplinary revolution’ that Puritans attempted to impose. It discusses witches as the reverse of neighbourly ideals, and hostility to perceived antisocial practices such as informing. The place of the established poor is scrutinized, as are measures against the mobile poor. Dearth, famine and disease are assessed as acid tests of communal solidarities, and it is shown that in many communities the poor were excluded from ideas of neighbourhood during times of food scarcity or the circulation of infectious disease. The role of wealthier villagers and townsmen in the government of small communities receives attention. The focus of the chapter is on the hard edge of neighbourhood.