SOURCE: Aercke, Kristiaan P. “An Orange Stuff'd with Cloves: Bayesian Baroque Rehearsed.” English Language Notes 25, no. 4 (June 1988): 33-45.

In the following essay, Aercke maintains that Bayes, the playwright in The Rehearsal, is a Baroque artist, not a modernist as has been claimed by some critics.

Buckingham's playwright Bayes summarizes a scene of his own unnamed play in The Rehearsal (1671) as “an orange stuff'd with cloves” (III.i.24-5).¹ A more Baroque image can hardly be found. Oranges are of course associated with the theater of the seventeenth century through the “orange wenches,” but more relevant still is the synaesthetic unity represented by the fruit. A harmonious blend of voluptuous sweetnesses, the reddish-golden globe displays not only the favorite colors of the Baroque, but also the almost shocking boldness of invention associated with this artistic style and period. For who but a Baroque artist would stuff an orange with...