Yearling, Rebecca Kate. Ben Jonson, John Marston and early modern drama : satire and the audience

Folger bibliographic ID: 345542
Folger call number: PR2697 .Y43 2016
Folger holdings ID: 496347

"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"--

General notes

Includes bibliographical references and index

Contents

Why does Marston Matter? -- The Problem of the Audience -- The Playwrights and the Audience -- Dramatic Satire and the Crisis of Authority -- John Marston: Provoking the Audience -- Jonson and Marston: 'I write just in thy vein, I'

Extended title: Ben Jonson, John Marston and early modern drama : satire and the audience / Rebecca Yearling, Lecturer in English, Keele University, UK

Marston, John, 1575?-1634 Jonson, Ben, 1573?-1637 Theater English drama Satire, English Theater audiences LITERARY CRITICISM PERFORMING ARTS

author: Yearling, Rebecca Kate, 1979-
subject: Marston, John, 1575?-1634
subject: Jonson, Ben, 1573?-1637