Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Jonson, Ben, Humanism in literature'

This thesis discusses Ben Jonson's innovative concept of character as an effect of interactions in dramatic, political and literary spheres. The Introduction observes how the early modern understanding of ‘character' was built on classical rhetorical theory, and argues its relevance to Jonson's rhetorical and performative representations of characters. Chapter 1 looks into the bridge between epigrams and character writing, and examines the rhetorical influence of the grammar-school exercises of Progymnasmata on Jonson's representation of characters in his Epigrams. Chapter 2 examines character as legal ethos in Catiline, analysing the discourse of law that constitutes Cicero's struggle to issue senatus consultum ultimum and examining the way Catiline represents character and mischief to address the problematic issues of power and authority in King James' monarchical republic. Chapter 3 explores Jonson's challenge in his integration of the emblematic characters of Opinion and Truth in Hymenaei, and argues that the underlining contemporary medico-legal discourses help the masque to accommodate conflicting characters. Chapter 4 discusses the problematic characterization of news and rumours in Volpone, The Staple of News and the later masques, and considers the way Jonsonian characters strive to find trustworthy and legible signs of others in their exchanges of information. In Conclusion, the thesis confirms the need to re-acknowledge Jonson's writings in terms of character as rhetorical effect of these imagined interactions.

This thesis examines the various operations of notions of republicanism in the Jonsonian canon, in particular within his dramatic compositions. Taking "republicanism" as a term to refer to groups of often contrasting and conflicting ideologies, it examines the direct influence of Renaissance Humanism's interest in republican history and constitutions upon Ben Jonson's work, looking at the role of Ancient Rome (in its incarnation both as Empire and Republic) and early modern Venice and Florence in a number of his plays. It also considers the influence of republicanism as a linguistic programme, deriving often from a number of European conflicts against the dominant authorities, and disseminated through the potentially democratizing print culture that was emerging in the early seventeenth century. Republicanism is seen to shade into notions of community and the communal, and also to disperse and displace comfortable concepts of the same. This is seen to carry a special valency in Jonson's later plays, although it is an issue that also figures in the texts that precede them. In placing a particular focus on Jonson's less-discussed drama, the thesis seeks to reassess his canon, avoiding any simplistic developmental reading of his career and, in subverting a strictly chronological approach, reclaiming individual texts for more precise and contextualized understandings - on a political, sociological, and gendered level. The interest In the local in Jonsonian drama requests a Similarly localized reading of the play-texts. By concentrating upon Jonson's plays, the thesis also uncovers a registration within them of the inherent republicanism of the dramatic genre. Jonson recognizes this in his continued interest in the role of audiences in the production of meanings. He examines both the operations and the breakdowns of contractual agreements in society at large and in the theatrical situation, confirming that the authority of the author or monarch can never be absolute.

The thesis explores the relationships between language, power and identity in the drama of Ben Jonson. The approach is primarily through linguistic analyses of the plays, but frequent reference is made to other texts which illuminate the social, and cultural conditions out of which the drama emerges. The first three chapters deal, respectively, with Jonson's Humour plays, Poetaster, and both tragedies. Four subsequent chapters deal individually with Volpone, Epicoene, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair. Two final chapters deal with Jonson's late plays. The thesis analyses the way in which characters reflect on each other's' uses of language and make artificial use of language themselves in order to acquire power over others, raise their social status, and confirm, deny or alter their identities. This involves the analysis of the numerous discourses which are contained in the plays (e.g. those characterized by origins in the Classics, in English Morality plays, or in contemporary sources such as the literature of duelling, or the idiom of the Court). The playwright's self-conscious use of language games, plays-within-plays, disguises, and deceptions is studied with close attention to the self-reflexive effects of these dramatic techniques. Jonson's plays, by using mixed modes of drama, set off dramatic conventions against one another in ways which often undermine the artifice. The moral views in the plays, inconsequence, fail to find any single basis and are also set in conflict with one another. Thus, it is argued, the plays, contrary to certain orthodox views, do not offer simple moral positions for the audience, but demand of the spectators a re-examination of their own frames of moral reference. It is suggested that the view of the world implicit in the earlier plays is one where language seems to offer the possibility of access to an ultimate truth, whereas in the later plays, language increasingly constructs its own truths.

While it is widely held that Ben Jonson uses emblem tradition in the development of imagery in his court masques and entertainments, how or why Jonson employs this genre of word-image combinations is rarely addressed. This thesis offers an explanation for what is often assumed in studies of Jonson’s masques and entertainments. Rather than identifying particularly emblematic scenes or characters and analysing their construction, however, this investigation of the emblematic in Jonson begins with analysis of his theory of masque creation. The evidence he leaves in the introductions to masque publications and his notes in Discoveries (1641) points to a conscious decision to incorporate not emblems themselves but an emblematic method in his new literary masque form, especially between 1605 and 1618. Once Jonson’s familiarity with emblematic methods is realized, what is considered ‘emblematic’ in his imagery can be reassessed. The reason why Jonson’s masques appear to retain emblematic qualities but contain few true emblems can thus be explained. In order to explicate Jonson’s use of emblem tradition in his creation of masque imagery, this thesis is divided into three parts. The first part outlines Jonson’s theory of masque writing within three contexts. It initially looks at how Jonson’s literary methods compare to contemporary emblem and symbol theories, and thus works out a methodology for analysing the emblematic in his masques. Then, it considers the awareness of emblems in the early modern British court, both in material and intellectual culture. In so doing, these two sections on emblems in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century British culture highlight the prevalence of the emblematic mindset in Jonson and his aristocratic audience. This argues for the relevance of Jonson’s emblematic development of imagery for performances in the Stuart court. The second and third parts of this thesis then turn to the masques and entertainments themselves. Part II looks at how Jonson uses emblematic techniques to design characters. Recognizing Jonson’s different approaches to abstract personifications and mythological figures, it is split into two sections. The first section looks at key personifications in The Masque of Beautie (1608) and The Masque of Queenes (1609). It considers how Jonson changes the characters Januarius and Fama bona from personifications in Ripa’s Iconologia to emblematically-rendered figures. The second section then analyses Jonson’s reinvention of stock characters Cupid and Hercules. Discussion covers Cupid’s appearance in many of Jonson’s entertainments, and then concentrates on his appearance with Anteros in A Challenge at Tilt (1613) and Loves Welcome at Bolsover (1634). Hercules’ pointedly emblematic role in Pleasure reconcild to Vertue (1618) finally crowns study of Jonson’s characters. Part III extends investigation into Jonson’s development of themes and arguments in the masques. By identifying Jonson’s processes in the expression of certain themes, this part gives a full picture of Jonson’s use of emblematic techniques and material. The first section realizes their use in the moulding of Platonic themes of love into celebration of King and State. The second section then scrutinizes the invention of the Masques of Blacknesse (1605) and Beautie, Love Freed (1611), and The Golden Age Restor’d (1615). This is followed by analysis of the changes Jonson makes to emblematic constructions between Pleasure reconcild and its rewrite For the Honour of Wales (1618). The alterations highlight Jonson’s reliance on emblematic interpretation of his entertainments. At the same time, it marks his decision to subvert his techniques after 1618 in order to cater to court tastes following the failure of Pleasure reconcild. A conclusion to this thesis is thus derived from the comparison, which illustrates Jonson’s methods up to 1618.

This thesis is an analysis of the manner in which the persona and works of Ben Jonson were appropriated – between the Restoration, in 1660, and the retirement of David Garrick, in 1776 – to reflect the political and social concerns of the age. Unlike previous studies, rather than primarily focusing on the stage history of Jonson, I analyse a wide range of sources – produced both within and outwith the theatre – in order to explore, across a variety of media, a breadth of material which appropriates the playwright and his works. I shall consider in my first main chapter the appropriations of Jonson within the Restoration court, in particular noting the assimilation of the playwright's work to what might be styled a proto-Tory ideology, as well as the way in which his plays could mirror the destabilising effects of the king's romantic liaisons. In my second chapter, I explore the moral reformation at the turn of the eighteenth century, in which we can see appropriations of Jonson which cast his works as being primarily didactic. The third chapter moves the narrative of the thesis into the years of the premiership of Sir Robert Walpole. I shall consider the way in which the playwright's works – especially The Alchemist and Eastward Ho! – were seen as being especially relevant to an age of speculation and mercantile endeavour, as well as examining the manner in which the figures of Sejanus and Volpone were appropriated to mock the increasingly unpopular premier. In the final chapter, I shall offer an analysis of Garrick's seminal portrayal of Drugger in the contexts of the political philosophy of the mid-eighteenth century, considering the manner in which it was interpreted alongside the character's further appropriations by Francis Gentleman. The thesis concludes by exploring political appropriations of Jonson up to the present day.

Chapter 1 considers Barclay's 'Ship of Fools' in relation to other folly literature in English, particularly Lydgate's 'Order of Fools', Skelton's 'Bowge of Courte', and 'Cocke Lorrel's Bote'. Motifs, allegories and the woodcuts of the text are discussed and some are included in an Illustrations section. Chapter 2 discusses Erasmian folly looking back to the Neoplatonic writings of Nicholas of Cusa, and to the debt Erasmian exegeses owe to Origen. Erasmus' own philosophical and theological views are examined, particularly as they are found in his 'Enchiridion', and in the influence of Thomas à Kempis' 'Imitation of Christ'. A close textual analysis of the 'Moriae Encomium' is undertaken in this light. Chapter 3 defines the lateral boundaries of folly, where it blends into madness. In the context of Renaissance psychology sixteenth century medical works are analysed, including Boorde's 'Breviary of Healthe', Barrough's 'Method of Physicke' and Elyot's 'Castel of Helth'. Blurring between madness and sin, the negative judgments on the mad as demon-possessed, and the biblical models from which such judgments largely arose give alternative perspectives on madness and its relation to folly. Chapters 4-6 look at three Shakespearean comedies showing the development of a primarily Erasmian view of folly. This moves from overt references in 'Love's Labour's Lost' to natural folly, the folly of love and theological folly, through carnivalesque aspects of folly and madness in 'Twelfth Night', to an embedded notion of folly which influences and affects the darker comedy of 'Measure for Measure'. Chapter 7 considers satires of Hall, Marston and Guilpin, and looks at Jonson's Humour plays in this context. 'Volpone' and 'Epicoene', and 'The Alchemist' and 'Bartholomew Fair' are discussed in pairs, showing the softening of Jonson's attitude to folly, and his increasing representation of Erasmian folly reaching its full expression in 'Bartholomew Fair'.

This thesis explores the interconnection of sacramental eating and humoural curing in selected plays by William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. It contends that the drama actively participated in the medico-religious debates of post-Reformation England. Investigating the health benefits attributed to the Eucharistic meal in its pre- and post-Reformation forms, this thesis shows that early modern religious debates occupy an important place in contemporaneous drama, proposing that aspects of religion, particularly the Eucharist, were explored by Shakespeare and Jonson with regards to the Sacrament's medicinal efficacy. The thesis suggests that the drama identifies religious anxiety as medico-spiritual trauma, and offers performative sacramento-humoural therapy. In tracing intersections of sacramentality, cannibalism, and Galenic humourism in six plays, the thesis analyses early modern concepts of the body, blood, food, medicinal practices, the Eucharist, and morality, showing that drama was used as a medical and didactic tool. Chapter 1 explores issues of corporeality and community in Coriolanus, unearthing interconnected concepts of humoural eating and changing religious communities. Chapter 2 investigates early modern medical practices in Titus Andronicus, placing medicinal cannibalism at the nexus of martyrdom, sacramentality, and humoural disease. Chapter 3 develops notions of sacramentality by analysing the philosophy of neo-stoicism in Julius Caesar and linking it with acts of penance. Chapter 4 discusses the portrayal of these themes in Bartholomew Fair, examining Jonson's investigative approach to dramatic portrayals of medico-religious debates. Chapter 5 compares Every Man In His Humour and Every Man Out of His Humour, identifying themes of the medieval morality play, and showing that they were employed for didactic and medicinal purposes. This thesis concludes that interconnected discourses of sacramental eating and humoural curing constitute dramatic commentary on contemporaneous medico-religious issues, and offer temporary, performative salvation for a religiously troubled nation.

This thesis argues that social debt profoundly transformed the environment in which literature was produced and experienced in the early modern period. In each chapter, I examine the various ways in which social debt affected Renaissance writers and the literature they produced. While considering the cultural changes regarding patronage, love, friendship, and debt, I will analyze the poetry and drama of Ben Jonson, Lady Mary Wroth, William Shakespeare, and Thomas Middleton. Each of these writers experiences social debt in a unique and revealing way. Ben Jonson's participation in networks of social debt via poetry allowed him to secure both a livelihood and a place in the Jacobean court through exchanges of poetry and patronage. The issue of social debt pervades both Wroth's life and her writing. Love and debt are intertwined in the actions of her father, the death of her husband, and the themes of her sonnets and pastoral tragicomedy. In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (c. 1596), Antonio and Bassanio’s friendship is tested by a burdensome interpersonal debt, which can only be alleviated by an outsider. This indicated the transition from honor-based credit system to an impersonal system of commercial exchange. Middleton’s A Trick to Catch the Old One (1608) examines how those heavily in debt dealt with both the social and legal consequences of defaulting on loans.

This study discusses the evolution of the English country-house poem from its inception by Ben Jonson in "To Penshurst" to the present. It shows that in addition to stylistic and thematic borrowings primarily from Horace and Martial, traditional English values associated with the great hall and comitatus ideal helped define features of the English country-house poem, to which Jonson added the metonymical use of architecture. In the Jonsonian country-house poem, the country estate, exemplified by Penshurst, is a microcosm of the ideal English social organization characterized by interdependence, simplicity, service, hospitality, and balance between the active and contemplative life. Those poems which depart from the Jonsonian ideal are characterized by disequilibrium between the active and contemplative life, resulting in the predominance of artifice, subordination of nature, and isolation of art from the community, as exemplified by Thomas Carew's "To Saxham" and Richard Lovelace's "Amyntor's Grove." Architectural features of the English country house are examined to explain the absence of the Jonsonian country-house poem in the eighteenth century. The building tradition praised by Jonson gradually gave way to aesthetic considerations fostered by the professional architect and Palladian architecture, architectural patronage by the middle class, and change in identity of the country house as center of an interdependent community. The country-house poem was revived by W. B. Yeats in his poems in praise of Coole Park. In them Yeats reaffirms Jonsonian values. In contrast to the poems of Yeats, the country-house poems of Sacheverell Sitwell and John Hollander convey a sense of irretrievable loss of the Jonsonian ideal and isolation of the poet. Changing social patterns, ethical values, and aesthetics threaten the survival of the country-house poem, although the ideal continues to reflect a basic longing of humanity for a pastoral retreat where life is simple and innocent.

This thesis traces the use of pity in early modern English literature, highlighting in particular the ways in which the emotion prompted personal anxieties and threatened Burckhardtian notions of the self-contained, autonomous individual, even as it acted as a central, crucial component of personal identity. The first chapter considers pity in medieval drama, and ultimately argues that the institutional changes that took place during the Reformation ushered in a new era, in which people felt themselves to be subjected to interpersonal emotions – pity especially – in new, overwhelming, and difficult ways. The remaining three chapters examine how pity complicates questions of personal identity in Renaissance literature. Chapter Two discusses the masculine bid for pity in courtly lyric poetry, including Philip Sidney's Astrophil and Stella and Barnabe Barnes's Parthenophil and Parthenophe, and considers the undercurrents of vulnerability and violation that emerge in the wake of unanswered emotional appeals. This chapter also examines these themes in Spenser's The Faerie Queene and Sidney's Arcadia. Chapter Three also picks up the element of violation, extending it to the pitiable presentation of sexual aggression in Lucrece narratives. Chapter Four explores the recognition of suffering and vulnerability across species boundaries, highlighting the use of pity to define humanity against the rest of the animal kingdom, and focusing in particular on how these questions are handled by Shakespeare in The Tempest and Ben Jonson, in Bartholomew Fair. This work represents the first extended study of pity in early modern English literature, and suggests that the emotion had a constitutive role in personal subjectivity, in addition to structuring various forms of social relation. Ultimately, the thesis contends that the early modern English interest in pity indicates a central worry about vulnerability, but also, crucially, a belief in the necessity of recognising shared, human weakness.

The following Thesis is a survey of seventeenth-century uranography, with specific focus on the use of the Pleiades and Charles's Wain by English poets and pageant writers as astrological ciphers for the Stuart dynasty (1603-1649; 1660-1688). I then use that survey to address the problem of irony in John Dryden's 1685 Pindaric elegy, "To the Pious Memory of Mrs. Anne Killigrew," since the longstanding notion of what the Pleiades signify in Dryden's ode is problematic from an astronomical and astrological perspective. In his elegiac ode, Dryden translates a young female artist to the Pleiades to actuate her apotheosis, not for the sake of mere fulsome hypberbole, but in such a way that Anne (b. 1660-d. 1685) signifies for the reign of Charles II (1660-1685) in her Pleiadic catasterism. The political underpinnings of Killigrew's apotheosis reduce the probability that Dryden's hyperbole reserves pejorative ironic potential.

abstract: This dissertation considers why several characters on the Early Modern Stage choose to remain silent when speech seems warranted. By examining the circumstances and effects of self-silencing on both the character and his/her community, I argue that silencing is an exercise of power that simultaneously subjectifies the silent one and compels the community (textual or theatrical) to ethical self-examination. This argument engages primarily with social philosophers Pierre Bourdieu, Alain Badiou, and Emmanual Levinas, considering their sometimes contradictory ideas about the ontology and representation of the subject and the construction of community. Set alongside the Early Modern plays of William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and Thomas Kyd, these theories reveal a rich functionality of self-silencing in the contexts of gender relations, aberrant sociality, and ethical crisis. This multi-faceted functionality creates a singular subject, establishes a space for the simultaneous existence of the subject and his/her community, offers an opportunity for empathetic mirroring and/or insight, and thereby leads to social unification. Silence is, in its effects, creative: it engenders empathy and ethical self- and social-reflection.
Dissertation/Thesis
Ph.D. English 2011

Until recent years, the historical moment of Charles II's return to England was universally accepted as a clear marker of the end of "the Cavalier winter," a welcome victory over theater-hating Puritans. To verify this historical view, literary historians have often glorified the role of King Charles II in the history of the "revival" of drama during the Restoration, whereas they tend to consider the Long Parliament's 1642 closing of the theaters as a decisive manifestation of Puritans' antitheatricalism. This historical perspective based upon what is often known as "the rupture model" has obscured the vibrant development of dramatic forms during the English civil wars and the ways in which the revolutionary energy exploded during this period continued to influence in the Restoration the deployment of dramatic forms and imagination across various social groups. By focusing on the generic development of drama and theatricality during the English civil wars, my dissertation challenges the conventional historiography of the English civil war literature, which has been overemphasizing the discontinuity between the English civil war and the periods before and after it. The first chapter shows how the theatrical energy displaced from traditional cultural domains energized an emerging cheap print market and contributed to the invention of new dramatic forms such as playlets and newsbooks. The second chapter questions the conventional association of Puritanism and antitheatricalism by rehistoricizing antitheatrical writers and their pamphlets and by highlighting the dramatic impulses at work in Puritan iconoclasm during the English civil wars. The final chapter offers the Restoration Milton as a case study to illustrate how the proposed historical perspective replacing "the rupture model" better explains not only the politics of Milton's Paradise Lost but also of Restoration drama.