Douglas W. Hayes
Backbiter and the Rhetoric of Detraction
Volume 34.1, Spring 2000

This essay will look at the development of one proto-Vice figure, Backbiter, as he appears in two East Anglian playtexts from the fifteenth century. The Castle of Perseverance and the N-Town “Trial of Joseph and Mary” share this character, and although his roles in the two plays are not the same, his functions derive from the same potentialities—potentialities enlivened by rhetoric. This examination will begin by discussing the earlier Castle of Perseverance and follow with a discussion of the N-Town “Trial” play in an effort to show the impact of the dissident quality of Backbiter’s rhetoric—indeed, Backbiter as rhetoric—upon the operations of the plays.

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