Name: Ranjan Velari
Class:
M.A. Sem.:1
Roll
No. -25
Paper
No. – 1
Email
Id: ranajnvelari@gmail.com
Topic:
Ben Jonson’s Chief Plays
Submitted
to: Smt.S.B. Gardi
Department of English
Department of English
M.K.
Bhavnagar University
Question:
What
are Ben Jonson’s chief plays? In what important respects did they differ from
those of Shakespeare? Tell the story of The Alchemist and The
silent Woman. Name other contemporaries and successors of
Shakespeare. What causes led to decline of the drama?
·
Ben Jonson’s chief Plays:
Jonson’s is the most commanding literary
figure among the Elizabethans. For 25 years he was the literary dictator of
London, the chief of all the wits that gathered nightly at the old Devil
Tavern. With his great learning, his ability and his commanding position as
poet Laureate, he set himself squarely against his contemporaries and the
romantic tendency of the age.
His
works:
A. Satires
1. Every Man in His Humor
2. Cynthia’s Revels
3. The Poetaster
B. Comedies
1. Volpone or the Fox
2. The Alchemist
3. Epicoene or the Silent
Woman
C. Tragedies
1. Sejanus
2. Catiline
D. Travelope
1. Foot Pilgrimage
E. Unfinished Work
1. Sad Shepherd
So, let’s have a look on
one by one his famous work.
Every Man in His Humor
·
Jonson’s first comedy Every Man in His Humor, is a
key to all his dramas. The word “humor” in his age stood for some
characteristic whim or quality of society. Jonson gives to his leading
character, some prominent humor, exaggerates it, as the cartoonist enlarges the
most characteristic feature of a face and so holds it before our attention that
all other qualities are lost sight of; which is the method that Dickens used
later in many of his novels.
·
Every Man in His Humor was the first of three satires. Its
special aim was to ridicule the humors of the city.
Cynthia’s Revels
·
The second Cynthia’s Revels, satirizes
the humors of the city.
The Poetaster
·
While the third, The Poetaster, the result of a quarrel with
his contemporaries was leveled at the false standards of the poets of the age.
The three best known of Jonson’s comedies
are Volpone
or the Fox, The Alchemist,
or The Silent Woman. Volpone
is a keen and merciless analysis of a man governed by an overwhelming love
of money for its own sake. Volpone’s method of increasing his wealth is to play
upon the avarice of men. He pretends to be at the point of death and his
“suitors” who know his love of gain and that he has no heirs, Endeavour
hypocritically to sweeten his last moment by giving him rich presents, so that
he will leave them all his wealth. The intrigues of these suitors furnish the
story of the play, and show to what infamous depths avarice will lead a man.
The Alchemist
·
The Alchemist is a study of quackery on one side
and of gullibility on the other, founded on the medieval idea of the
philosopher’s stone, and applies as well to the patent medicines and
get-rich-quick schemes of his day as to the peculiar forms of quackery with
which Jonson was more familiar.
·
In plot and artistic construction The Alchemist in an almost
perfect specimen of the best English drama. It has some remarkably good
passages, and in the most readable of Jonson’s plays.
·
Epicoene or The Silent Woman is a prose exceedingly well
constructed, full of life, abounding in fun and unexpected situations. Here is
a brief outline materials Jonson made up his comedies.
The Silent Woman
·
The chief character is Morose, a rich old codger whose humor
is a horror of noise. He lives in a street so narrow that it will admit no
carriages; he pads the doors; plugs the keyhole; puts mattresses on the stairs.
He dismisses a servant who wears squeaky boots; make all the rest go about in
thick stockings; and they must answer to him by signs, since he can not bear to
hear anybody but himself talk. He disinherits his poor nephew Euginie, and , to
make sure that the latter will not get any money out of him, resolves marry.
His confident in this delicate matter is Cutbeard the barbar, who unlike his
kind, never speaks unless spoken to, and does not even knick his scissors as he
works. Cutbeard tells him of Epicoene, a rare, silent woman, and Morose is so
delighted with her on the spot. Cutbeard produces a parson with a bad cold, who
can speak only a whisper, to marry them; and when the parson coughs after the
ceremony Morose demands back five shillings of the fee. To save it the parson
coughs more, and is hurriedly bundled out if the house.
·
The silent woman finds her voice immediately after the
marriage, begins to talk loudly and to make reforms in the household, driving
Morose to distraction. A noisy dinner party from a neighboring house, with
drums and trumpets and a quarreling man and wife, is skillfully guided in at
this moment to celebrate the wedding. Morose flees for his life, and is found
perched like a monkey on a crossbeam in the attic, with all his nightcaps tied
over his ears. He seeks a divorce, but is driven frantic by the loud arguments
of a lawyer and a divine, who are no other than Cutberad and a sea captain
disguised. When Morose is past all hope the nephew offer to release him from
his wife and her noisy friends if ha will allow him five hundred pounds a year.
Morose offer him anything, everything, to escape his torment, and signs a deed
to that effect. Then comes the surprise of the play when Euginie whips the wig
from Epicoene and shows a boy in disguise.
·
It will be seen that The Silent Woman, with its rapid action
and its unexpected situations, offers an excellent opportunity for the actors;
but the reading of the play, as of most Jonson’s comedies, is marred by low
intrigues showing a sad state of morals among the upper classes.
In what important respects did they differ from those of
Shakespeare?
·
In disagree with the Lord Admiral’s Men for the murder of one
their players, Jonson offered his services to the rival Lord Chamberlain’s Men
and in 1598 Every Man in His Humor was accepted by them and
performed with Shakespeare taking a part. This play made Jonson’s reputation.
Apart from writing for public stage Jonson made a career for himself in the
writing of court masques in collaboration with the architect Inigo Jones. For a
contemporary account of a court masque see ‘Shakespearean Stage’. These elaborate
entertainments became highly developed under king James and Jonson was by far
the most successful and prolific exponent of the art form.
·
This set of oppositions is one which Jonson himself was
interested in fostering. In referring to Shakespeare’s lack of classical
learning is commendatory verse he was deliberately distinguishing Shakespeare’s
practice from his own. There are many valuable contrasts to be made between the
two writers, but it is important to recognize that the writers themselves knew
each other and that their careers intersected. The competition between the two
men is one of the reasons why they have been , and still are two same extent,
viewed as appropriates other reasons for this oppositional view include the
history of literary criticism since the mid 17th century, and are
beyond the scope of this subjective introduction. The differences between the
two dramatists which are relevant to this unit can all be explored through the
text on the syllabus, and no special biographical knowledge is necessary.
·
Shakespeare’s
Contemporaries:
1.
Christopher Marlowe:
The brilliant,
young playwright Christopher Marlowe was killed on a Tavern Brawl on 30th
May,1593, known as Shakespeare’s only literary peer until his untimely death,
Marlowe is responsible for some of the finest lyrical poetry of any age and
possibly add and in writing for of Shakespeare’s early dramas. Marlowe is
supposed to have penned all the works attributed to Shakespeare and had then
smuggled back to England.
2.
King James I:
After the death
of Elizabeth I, James the VI of Scotland became the new ruler known an England
as King James I. His fascination with the occults prompted him to write on
treaties on witchcraft, their menology and many believe that James vehement
belief in the divine right of kings influenced Shakespeare playwriting
methodology. James I is probably best known for his translation of the Bible
into English with became known as the authorized King James Version.
3.
Sir Walter Raleigh:
Certainly Sir
Walter Raleigh the explorer, poet, philosopher, soldier, statesman and
political pundit, had the busiest life of any Elizabethan subject. As one of
Queen Elizabeth’s favorite courtiers, the charming Raleigh enjoyed a life of
fame, and riches. However, Raleigh’s arrogance and bravado made him unpopular
with many and ha was eventually executed for treason against the new monarch,
James I.
4.
Dr. Simon Forman:
The mysterious
Dr. Forman, an English astrologer and doctor whose many scandals riveted
Elizabethan England, wrote scores of papers on the subjects of medicine and
astrology. He saved countless lives during the plague of 1592 and 1594, yet was
imprisoned by the Royal College of Physicians in London for use of “magical
potions” to the patients.
5.
Richard Burbage:
The famed
Elizabethan actor, artist and theatrical entrepreneur unprecedented acclaim by
playing many of the major Shakespearean characters, including Othello, Hamlet,
King Lear and Richard III. In 1599, Richard with the help of his brother, built
what is now the most recognizable playhouse in the Western world- the Globe
Theatre.
·
Shakespeare’s Successors
in the Drama:
1.
Beaumont and Fletcher:
·
The work of these two men is so closely interwoven that,
though Fletcher outlived Beaumont by nine years and the latter had no band in
40 of the plays that bear their joint names, we still class them together, and
only scholars attempt to separate their works so as to give writer his due
share. Unlike most of the Elizabethan dramatists, they both came from noble and
cultured families and were University trained. Their work, in strong contrast
with Jonson’s is, intensely romantic, and in at all, however course or brutal
the scene, there is still, as Emerson pointed out, the subtle “recognition of
gentility”.
·
Beaumont (1584-1616) was the brother of Sir John Beaumont of
Leicestershire. From Oxford he came to London to study law, but soon gave it up
to write for the stage.
·
Fletcher (1579-1625) was the son of bishop of London, and
shows in all his work of the influence of his high social position and of his
Cambridge education. The two dramatist met at the under Ben Jonson’s leadership
and soon became inseparable friends, living and working together. Tradition has
it that Beaumont supplied the judgment and the solid work of the play, while
Fletcher furnished the high-colored sentiment and the lyric poetry, without
which an Elizabethan play would have been incomplete. Of their joint plays, the
two best known are Philaster, whose old theme, like that of Cymbeline
and Griselda, is the jealously of a lover and the faithfulness of a
girl, and The Maid’s Tragedy.
·
Concerning Fletcher’s work the most interesting literary
question is how much did he write of Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, and
how much did Shakespeare help him in The Two Noble Kinsmen.
2.
John Webster:
·
Of Webster’s personal history we know as a dramatist under
James I. His extraordinary rank him talent seems to have been largely devoted
to the blood-and –thunder play begun by Marlowe.
·
His two best known plays are The White Devil,
and The
Duchees of Malfi. The latter, spite of its horror, ranks him as
one of the greatest masters of English tragedy. All the so-called blood
tragedies of the Elizabethan period, from Thomas Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy down,
however much they may condemn the brutal taste of English audiences, are still
only so many search lights thrown upon a history of horrible darkness.
3.
Thomas Middleton:
·
Middleton is the best known by two great plays, The
Changeling and Women Beware Women. In poetry
and diction they are almost worthy at times to rank with Shakespeare’s plays;
otherwise; in their sensationalism and unnaturalness they do violence to the
moral sense and are repulsive to the modern reader.
·
Two earlier plays, A Trick to catch the old One,
his best comedy, and A Fair Quarrel, his earliest
tragedy, are less mature-in thought and expression, but more readable, because
they seem to express Middleton’s own idea of the drama rather than that of the
corrupt court and playwrights of his later age.
4.
Thomas Heywood:
·
Heywood’s life, of which we know little in detail, covers the
whole period of the Elizabethan drama. To the glory of that drama he
contributed, according to his own statement, the greater part, at least, of
nearly two hundred and twenty plays.
·
Heywood’s undoubted
ability, are A Woman Killed with Kindness, a pathetic story of
domestic life, and The Fair Maid of the West, a melodrama with plenty of
fighting of popular kind.
5.
Thomas Dekker:
·
Dekker is in pleasing contrast with most of the dramatists of
the time. Dekker’s personality and erratic genius in The Shoemaker’s Holiday, a
humorous study of plain working people, and Old Fortunatus, a fairy drama of
the wishing had and no end of money.
What causes led to decline of the
drama?
· It was inevitable that the
drama should after Shakespeare, for the simple reason that there was no other
great enough to fill his place. Aside from this, over causes were at work, and
the chief of these was at the very source of the Elizabethan dramas. It must be
remembered that our first playwrights wrote to please their audiences; that the
drama rose in England because of the desire of a patriotic people to see
something of the stirring life of the times reflected on the stage. For there
were no papers and magazines in those days, and people came to the theaters not
only to be amused but to be informed.
· Like children, they wanted
to know what is meant. Shakespeare fulfilled their desire. He gave them their
story, and his genius was great to enough to show in every play not only their
own life and passions but something of the meaning of all life, and of that
eternal justice which uses the war of human passions for its own great ends.
Thus good and evil is mingling freely in his dramas; but the evil is never
attractive, and the good triumphs as inevitably as fate. Though his language is
sometimes coarse, we are to remember that it was the custom of his age to speak
somewhat coarsely, and that in language, as in thought and feeling, Shakespeare
is far above most of his contemporaries.
· With his successors all
this was changed. The audience itself had gradually changed, and in place of
plain people eager for a story and for information, we see a larger and larger
proportion of those who went to the play because they had nothing else to do.
They wanted amusement only, and since they had blunted by idleness the desire
for simple and wholesome amusement, they called for something more sensational.
· Shakespeare’s successors
catered to the depraved tastes of this new audience. They lacked not only
Shakespeare’s genius, but his broad charity, his moral insight into life. With
the exception of Ben Jonson, they neglected the simple fact that man in his
deepest nature is a moral being, and that only a play which satisfied the whole
nature of man by showing the triumph of the moral law can ever wholly satisfy
an audience or a people.
· Beaumont and Fletcher,
forgetting the deep meaning of life, strove for effect by increasing the
sensationalism of their plays; Webster reveled in tragedies of blood and
thunder; Massinger and Ford made another step downward, producing evil and
licentious scenes for their own sake, making characters, and situation more
immortal till, notwithstanding these dramatist’s ability, the stage had become
insincere, frivolous, and bad.
· Ben Jonson’s Ode, “Come
Leave the Loathed Stage”, is the judgment of a large and honest nature grown
weary of the plays and the players of the time. We read with a sense of relief
that in 1642, only twenty-six years after Shakespeare’s death both houses of
Parliament of lies and immortality.
