Ben Jonson, John Marston and early modern drama

By Rebecca Kate Yearling

Subjects: Theater, great britain, history, European, LITERARY CRITICISM / Drama, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, LITERARY CRITICISM / Renaissance, Satire, english, history and criticism, English drama, Criticism and interpretation, Marston, john, 1575-1634, Early modern and Elizabethan, Theater, PERFORMING ARTS, LITERARY CRITICISM, Jonson, ben, 1573-1637, Renaissance, English drama, history and criticism, early modern and elizabethan, 1500-1600, Drama, PERFORMING ARTS / Theater / History & Criticism, History and criticism, Theater audiences, LITERARY CRITICISM / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, History, History & Criticism, English drama, history and criticism, 17th century, English Satire

Description: "This book examines the influence of John Marston, typically seen as a minor figure among early modern dramatists, on his colleague Ben Jonson. While Marston is usually famed more for his very public rivalry with Jonson than for the quality of his plays, this book argues that such a view of Marston seriously underestimates his importance to the theatre of his time. In it, the author contends that Marston's plays represent an experiment in a new kind of satiric drama, with origins in the humanist tradition of serio ludere. His works--deliberately unpredictable, inconsistent and metatheatrical--subvert theatrical conventions and provide confusingly multiple perspectives on the action, forcing their spectators to engage actively with the drama and the moral dilemmas that it presents. The book argues that Marston's work thus anticipates and perhaps influenced the mid-period work of Ben Jonson, in plays such as Sejanus, Volpone and The Alchemist"--