Book contents
- Frontmatter
- 1 True relation
- 2 Jonson's London and its theatres
- 3 Jonson and the court
- 4 Ben Jonson and learning
- 5 Jonson's satiric styles
- 6 The major comedies
- 7 Jonson's late plays
- 8 Jonson and Shakespeare and the rhythm of verse
- 9 Jonson's poetry
- 10 Jonson and the arts
- 11 Ben Jonson's Folio of 1616
- 12 Jonson's classicism
- 13 Jonson's criticism
- 14 Jonson's critical heritage
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - Jonson's satiric styles
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
- Frontmatter
- 1 True relation
- 2 Jonson's London and its theatres
- 3 Jonson and the court
- 4 Ben Jonson and learning
- 5 Jonson's satiric styles
- 6 The major comedies
- 7 Jonson's late plays
- 8 Jonson and Shakespeare and the rhythm of verse
- 9 Jonson's poetry
- 10 Jonson and the arts
- 11 Ben Jonson's Folio of 1616
- 12 Jonson's classicism
- 13 Jonson's criticism
- 14 Jonson's critical heritage
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
'Well I will scourge those apes;
And to these courteous eyes oppose a mirror,
As large as is the stage whereon we act:
Where they shall see the time's deformity
Anatomized in every nerve, and sinew,
With constant courage and contempt of fear.
'(Every Man out of bis Humour, Grex after the Second Sounding, 117-22)On June 1, 1599 Archbishop Whitgift and Bishop Bancroft denounced and proscribed a range of recent works by, among others, Thomas Nashe, Gabriel Harvey, John Marston, Joseph Hall and Thomas Middleton. Many of these described themselves as “snarling” or “biting” satires, and the Bishops ban specifically required “That no Satires or Epigrams be printed hereafter.” Yet later that year Ben Jonson produced Every Man out of his Humour and called it a “comicall satyre”: the label figures prominently in the entry of the play in the Stationers' Register (April 8, 1600) and on the title page of the quarto printed shortly afterwards, the first of his plays in print. It is a gesture typical of the young Jonson, who seems to challenge authority by openly writing in a mode that had been proscribed.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Ben Jonson , pp. 58 - 71Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000
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