Ben Jonson And Theatre

Looks at the Jonson canon from the point of view of the theatre practitioner. It bridges the theory/practice divide by debating how his drama operates in performance and includes discussion with and between practitioners.

This timely book challenges conventional critical wisdom about the work of Ben Jonson. Looking in particular at his Jacobean and Caroline plays, it explores his engagement with concepts of republicanism. Julie Sanders investigates notions of community in Jonson's stage worlds - his 'theatrical republics' - and reveals a Jonson to contrast with the traditional image of the writer as conservative, absolutist, misogynist, and essentially 'anti-theatrical'. The Jonson presented here is a positive celebrant of the social and political possibilities of theatre.

A detailed literary historical argument about the sources and consequences of Jonson's realism.

This new guide to the English renaissance's most erudite and yet most street-wise dramatist strongly asserts the theatrical brilliance of his greatest plays in performance, then and now.The book integrates all of Jonson's major plays into the milieu of the turbulent years which produced them, and analyses the way each work examines the issues and challenges of those years: money, power, sex, crime, identity, gender, the theatre itself. It offers a lucid guide to the competing critical views of a playwright who is far more than the obverse of his friend and rival William Shakespeare, and it explains in detail how the undoubted power and energy of these plays in modern performance should be the touchstone of their quality to both critic and reader. The plays discussed include the early Comedies, the Roman Tragedies (Sejanus and Catiline), Volpone, Epicoene, The Alchemist, Bartholomew Fair and The Devil is an Ass.

The five plays in this collection are Everyman in his Humour, the tragedy Sejanus, Volpone, The Alchemist and Bartholomew Fair. They represent the full range and complexity of Jonson's art as a playwright. The text is a modernized version with full annotation.

This edition of Ben Jonson's four middle comedies places the works in the popular history and culture of the times, 1605-1614, and surveys the influences, both classical and contemporary, on Jonson as a playwright. On-the-page annotations recreate the audiences perception of the plays as performances by commenting on the stage-directions, the self-conscious theatricality of characters and scenes, and the vivid colloquialisms of early modern London that give the dialogue a heightened dimension of realism. Brief introductions to each play discuss the local settings, sources, theatre history and further readings. The general introduction includes a biography of Jonson, a chronology of the plays and masques, and separate essays on each play, dealing particularly with Jonson's satirical treatments of trends and shams of the day, whether political, social, commercial, or spiritual.

Bringing together four of the most popular and widely studied of Ben Jonson's plays, this anthology focuses on the city comedies for which Jonson is best known today: The Alchemist (edited by Elizabeth Cook), Volpone (edited by Robert N. Watson), Bartholmew Fair (edited by G.R. Hibbard) and Epicoene or The Silent Woman (edited by Roger Holdsworth). Today Jonson's works are widely considered to be amongst the best produced in his period. The new introduction by Robert N. Watson explores the plays in the context of early modern theatre, culture and politics, as well as providing a guide to the language, characters and themes. On-page commentary notes gloss the text in greater detail, making this the ideal edition for study and classroom use.

This collection highlights exciting new areas of research related to Ben Jonson, including book history, social history and cultural geography.