1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910255232703321

Autore

Yearling Rebecca

Titolo

Ben Jonson, John Marston and Early Modern Drama [[electronic resource] ] : Satire and the Audience / / by Rebecca Yearling

Pubbl/distr/stampa

London : , : Palgrave Macmillan UK : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2016

ISBN

1-137-56399-0

Edizione

[1st ed. 2016.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (233 p.)

Classificazione

LIT004120LIT013000LIT019000PER011020

Disciplina

500

Soggetti

Literature, Modern

Theater—History

Literature

British literature

Literature—History and criticism

Early Modern/Renaissance Literature

Theatre History

Literature, general

British and Irish Literature

Literary History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Machine generated contents note: -- Acknowledgements -- A Note on Editions -- Introduction: Why does Marston Matter? -- Prologue: The Problem of the Audience -- 1. The Playwrights and the Audience -- 2. Dramatic Satire and the Crisis of Authority -- 3. John Marston: Provoking the Audience -- 4. Jonson and Marston: 'I write just in thy vein, I' -- Conclusion -- Appendix: The Boy Actors: The Question of Intent -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.

Sommario/riassunto

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.