Katelin Gephart
Bellarmine University Armuthaz's text The Coffee-Mans Grenado Discharged Upon the Maidens Complaint Against Coffee is an unusual piece when compared to the rest of the texts that we have read in class so far. The rest of the texts made their points in scholarly essay type writings whereas Armuthaz presents his argument in the form of a spoken dialogue. This change in structure indicates that the consumption of chocolate is no longer a scholarly debate over whether it is healthy to drink or not because it is now being talked about and is common amongst most of the populace in England. This is further reinforced by how the milkmaids, who would generally be considered peasants in 17th century England, are also consuming it. This is a big change from the early days of chocolate consumption in Europe when it would only be drunk by the richest individuals and was regarded as an indulgent drink because of this. Another indication of chocolate's spread to be a commodity of the people is that in the way this piece is written it feels almost advertisement-like. Throughout the beginning of the piece the coffee shop owner, …show more content…
One of the key players in The Coffee-Mans Grenado Discharged Upon the Maidens Complaint Against Coffee is a writer called Democritus. During the 1600s there was an author named John Crouch who used the pseudonym Mercurius Democritus to write under and just a short time prior to the publishing of The Coffee-Mans Grenado wrote a piece titled The Maidens Complaint. (Ellis, 2006) Considering this and the fact the dialogue's Democritus also had just published a book under the same name they this Democritus probably represents John Crouch. Since Armuthaz inserted a character that represents Crouch in this dialogue this piece could represent coffee shop owners of the times reactions to Crouch's The Maidens