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Zehfuß, Peter. "Betrug und Selbstbetrug : Ben Jonsons Komödien "Volpone" und "The alchemist" vor dem Hintergrund der elisabethanisch-jakobäischen Gesellschaft und in ihrer Bedeutung für die Gegenwart /." Regensburg : Roderer, 2001. http://www.gbv.de/dms/bs/toc/32615325x.pdf.
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Shimizu, Akihiko. "Ben Jonson and character." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/11906.
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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.
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Jones, Jennifer Dawn. "Complexity of character in Jonson's Sejanus." Huntington, WV : [Marshall University Libraries], 2005. http://www.marshall.edu/etd/descript.asp?ref=575.
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Lockwood, Tom. "Ben Jonson in the Romantic age /." Oxford : Oxford university press, 2005. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb400308380.
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Sanders, Julie. "Feigning commonwealths? : Ben Jonson and republicanism." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1994. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/66930/.
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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.
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Moul, Victoria. "Jonson and Horace : the dynamics of classical appropriation in Ben Jonson's verse." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.614333.
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Hui, Ting-yan Isaac. "Volpone's children Jonson, comedy and the nations of fools /." Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 2009. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/B41633933.
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Lynn, Andrew Norman. "The impact of Ben Jonson, 1637-1700." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2001. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/283969.
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Boguszak, Jakub. "Actors' parts in the plays of Ben Jonson." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:7732f887-5a9d-4fc6-afce-9bc4242265f9.
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The thesis continues the work undertaken in recent years by (in alphabetical order) James J. Marino, Scott McMillin, Paul Menzer, Simon Palfrey, Tiffany Stern, Evelyn Tribble, and others to put to use what is now known about the purpose, distribution, and usage of early modern actors' parts. The thesis applies the new methodology of reading 'in parts', or reconstituting early modern plays 'in parts', to the body of plays written by Ben Jonson. The aim of the project is to offer a reconsideration of Jonson as a man of theatre, interested not only in the presentation of his works in print, but also in their production at the Globe and at Blackfriars. By reconstructing and examining the parts through which the actors performing in Jonson's plays accessed their characters, the thesis proposes answers to the questions: how can we read and analyse Jonson's plays differently when looking at them in terms of actors' parts; did Jonson write with parts in mind; what did Jonsonian parts have to offer actors by way of challenge and guidance; what can we learn from parts about Jonson's assumptions and demands with regard to the actors; and how did actors themselves respond to those demands. These questions are significant because they engage critically with the tradition of seeing Jonson as a playwright dismissive of actors and distrustful of the theatre; they seek to establish a perspective that allows us to assess Jonson's abilities to instruct and challenge his actors through staging documents. More generally, the research contributes to the studies of the early modern rehearsal and staging practices and invites consideration of Shakespeare's part-writing techniques in contrast with those of his major rival. With no surviving early modern parts from Jonson's plays (indeed with only a handful of surviving parts from the period), the first task is to determine the level of accuracy with which the parts can be reconstructed from Jonson's printed plays. Stephen Orgel was by no means the first critic who used the example of Sejanus to assert that Jonson habitually doctored his plays before they were published, but his view has become a critical commonplace. This thesis re-examines the case of Jonson's revisions and concludes that, far from being representative, the 1605 Sejanus quarto is an anomaly which Jonson himself needed to account for in his address to the reader. It is true that Jonson cultivated a distinct style of presentation of printed material, but the evidence that he extensively tampered with the texts themselves after they were performed is scarce (again, the revisions found in the Folio versions of Every Man in His Humour and Cynthia's Revels are addressed and found to be exceptional, rather than typical), while the evidence of his pride in the original compositions and performances is much stronger. Since such enhancements as dedicatory poems, arguments (i.e. plot summaries), character sketches, or marginalia have no bearing on the shapes of actor's parts, they do not in any way compromise the reliability of the printed texts as sources from which Jonson's parts can, argues the thesis, be reconstructed with reasonable accuracy. Jonson, himself an actor and apparently a friend and admirer of a number of great actors of his age (Edward Alleyn, Nathan Field, Richard Robinson, Salomon Pavy, Richard Burbage), knew from personal experience how much depended on actors mastering, or, in their terminology, being 'perfect' in, their parts. By granting the actor access only to select portions of the complete play-text (i.e. his own lines and cues), the part effectively regulated the performance in cases when the actor had only limited knowledge of the rest of the play. Such cases seem to have been very common: documentary evidence suggests that actors had to learn their parts on their own over the course of a few weeks, and only then attended group rehearsals, most of which were concerned with 'business', not text which had already been learned. While some might have attended a reading of the play (if one was arranged for the benefit of the sharers, for instance), or gained more information about the play from their fellow actors, the parts remained their chief means of internalising their text and acquiring a sense of the play they were in. Jonson, who was not a resident playwright with any company performing in London and thus probably did not always have easy and regular access to the actors, could sometimes have taken advantage of the actors' dependence on their parts and crafted the parts as a means of exercising control over the performances of his plays. Building on this premise, the thesis examines various features of actors' parts that would have made a difference to an actor's performance. It draws on recent advancements in the studies of textual cohesion (linguistic features such as reference, substitution, ellipsis, etc.) to point out how the high and low frequency of cohesive ties (pairs of cohesively related words or phrases) in various sections of the part would have given an actor a good idea of how prominent his part was at any given moment. It examines Jonson's use of cues and patterns of cueing: like Shakespeare, Jonson was fond of using repeated cues to open up a space for improvisation, and he seems to have been aware of the need to provide the apprentices in the company with parts cued by a limited number of actors so as to allow for easier private rehearsals with their masters. The thesis also examines the common feature of Jonson's 'split jokes' - jokes that are divided across multiple parts - and asks whether any kind of comic effect can be achieved by excluding the punch line of a joke from the part that contains its setup, and the setup from the part that delivers the punch line, offering a fresh look at the nature of early modern comedy. In structural terms, the thesis considers how a narrative constituted solely by the lines present on an actor's part can diverge from the narrative of the play as a whole and how an understanding of a play as a text composed of actors' parts, as well as of acts and scenes, can help to refine arguments about Jonson's assumptions about the strengths of the companies for which he wrote. What emerges is an image of Jonson who, far from concerned only with readership, consciously developed a brand of comedy that was uniquely suited to, perhaps even relying on, the solipsistic manner in which the actors received and learned their parts.
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Rowe, Nicholas. "Case studies in the aristocratic patronage of Ben Jonson." Thesis, University of Reading, 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.386546.
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Johnson, A. W. "Angles, squares or roundes." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1987. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.236251.
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Bowman, David Hall. ""Eaten with a reformed mouth" democratizing gluttony in Jonson's Bartholomew Fair /." View electronic thesis (PDF), 2009. http://dl.uncw.edu/etd/2009-1/bowmand/davidbowman.pdf.
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Silver, Jeremy. "Language, power and identity in the drama of Ben Jonson." Thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London, 1986. http://repository.royalholloway.ac.uk/items/afe5e26d-221e-437c-bffd-ead6585af447/1/.
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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.
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Sutton, Peter David. "'The trade of application' : political and social appropriations of Ben Jonson, 1660-1776." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/16547.
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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.
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Tosi, Laura. "Comunicazione e aggressione : strategie di violenza e stati di contesa nelle commedie di Ben Jonson /." Bologna : Cisalpino, 1998. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb400505199.
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Martin, Mathew. "Modes of skepticism in the city comedies of Ben Jonson and Thomas Middleton." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape9/PQDD_0030/NQ46883.pdf.
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Palmer, Sean. "Representations of censorship and capital in some early middle plays by Ben Jonson." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2009. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.528057.
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Craig, Jennifer J. "Inventing 'living emblems' : emblem tradition in the masques of Ben Jonson, 1605-1618." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2009. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1307/.
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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.
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Yearling, Rebecca Kate. "Relationships between playwright and audience in the works of Ben Jonson and John Marston." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.439788.
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Gardini, Nicola. "Le umane parole : l'imitazione nella lirica europea del Rinascimento da Bembo a Ben Jonson /." Milano : Mondadori, 1997. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb37532415f.
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Harrison, Tom. "'Guides not commanders' : imitation and contamination of the classics in the comedies of Ben Jonson." Thesis, University of Hull, 2017. http://hydra.hull.ac.uk/resources/hull:16539.
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This study focuses on the imitative and contaminative creative practices of the Renaissance period, and specifically on how the work of classical authors and playwrights influenced the dramaturgy of Ben Jonson. By 'dramaturgy' I refer to the theories and practical choices that are made when composing a piece of drama, an art form that I see as a primarily intended for performance.1 In line with practice standard to Renaissance studies I generally use the term 'classical' in the non-technical manner to refer to the periods of history in which the Greek and Roman civilisations flourished, roughly from the mid-fifth century BC to the first century AD.
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Camard, Christophe. "Les représentations de l'Italie et des Italiens dans le théâtre de William Shakespeare et Ben Jonson." Thesis, Tours, 2010. http://www.theses.fr/2010TOUR2004.
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Cette thèse propose d’étudier la place et la portée de l’Italie comme lieu scénique dans les pièces de deux célèbres dramaturges de la période élisabéthaine. L’introduction met en lumière la présence et l’influence de l’Italie durant la période qui précède l’essor du théâtre à Londres, ainsi que l’omniprésence de la péninsule au théâtre entre 1580 et 1620, en particulier chez William Shakespeare. La première partie de l’étude s’attache à mettre en évidence la façon dont le décor italien se met en place et dont se construit la figure de l’Autre sur la scène élisabéthaine. Sur une scène où le décor physique est limité, les procédés de création d’une couleur locale prennent des formes diverses et variées et révèlent la nature de la dualité entre identité et altérité pour le spectateur de la Renaissance anglaise. C’est alors que l’on entrevoit les différences entre la représentation satirique de Ben Jonson et celle de William Shakespeare, dont la vision de l’Italie apparaît bien plus vague, complexe et changeante. La seconde partie de ce travail repose sur l’étude des différents topoï auxquels est liée l’Italie au théâtre. Ces derniers permettent de comprendre que la représentation de la péninsule s’appuie sur un certain nombre de codes en partie attendus du public. Ils démontrent en outre combien l’identité anglaise se construit à la fois à travers le rejet et l’imitation de la patrie de la Renaissance, en un temps où l’Europe est coupée en deux sur le plan politique et religieux<br>This dissertation proposes the study of the place and significance of Italy as a dramatic setting in the plays of two famous dramatists of the Elizabethan period. The introduction describes the presence and influence of Italy during the period preceding the rise and blossoming of the theatre in London, as well as the omnipresence of the Italian peninsula in drama between1580 and 1620, particularly in that of William Shakespeare. The first part of the study aims to show how the Italian setting is constructed and how the figure of the Other is represented on the Elizabethan stage. In a theatre where the physical décor is limited, the methods for creating local colour take diverse and varied forms and reveal the nature of the duality between identity and otherness for the English Renaissance spectator. This then brings into focus the differences between the satirical representation of Ben Jonson and that of William Shakespeare, whose vision of Italy appears far more vague, complex and mutable. The second part of this work focuses on the study of the different topoi to which Italy is linked in their plays. They reveal the extent to which representation of the Italian peninsula is based on a collection of codes shaped in part by the expectations by the public. Moreover, they demonstrate the importance of the simultaneous rejection and imitation of the homeland of the Renaissance in the construction of English identity,at a time when Europe is divided in two on political and religious grounds
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Gilley, Amy Bragdon. "Drawing, Writing, Embodying: John Hejduk's Masques Of Architecture." Diss., Virginia Tech, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/29724.
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The following dissertation will examine the architectural masques of architect and poet, John Hejduk. Hejduk's masques are more than the text or the drawing; like their inspiration, the Stuart Court Masque, the architectural masque is a compendium of text, symbol, history, and performance, which is meant to lead the viewer to a greater comprehension of the citizen's role in the creation of community.
There has been as yet no study of the direct links to the Stuart Court Masque, the invention poet Ben Jonson and architect Inigo Jones, or what the links in Hejduk's masques to the emblem books, which are the heart of the Court Masque. The following dissertation will undertake an explication of two key Hejduk texts as means to demonstrate the architectural meaning of Hejduk's Architectural Masques as a descendant of the Stuart Court Masque. The dissertation examines Hejduk's pedagogical biography, the history of the Court Masque and emblem book (which is the basis of the Architectural Masques), Hejduk's own dumb' emblem book, Silent Witnesses, and finally, Victims, his first masque which is the application of his theory to the masque.
The methodology of the dissertation involves an explication of Hejduk's texts, drawing on an understanding of his own education as an architect and educator. The examination of his two texts, Silent Witnesses, and Victims, are to be the basis for drawing out the imagination as a student and a teacher. Such textual examination is meant to encourage the reader, and future architects, of the deep influence of the past in creating art of the present and future.<br>Ph. D.
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Wheeler, Collette. "Re-reading women's patronage : the Cavendish/Talbot/Ogle Circle." Thesis, Brunel University, 2018. http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/17592.
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Bulman, Helen Lois. "Concepts of folly in English Renaissance literature : with particular reference to Shakespeare and Jonson." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3475.
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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'.
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Lee, Michael Duncan. ""... take me for a man": The Role of the Boy Companies in the Theatre of Jacobean London." Thesis, University of Canterbury. English, 1993. http://hdl.handle.net/10092/1000.
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This thesis involves a study of theatre in early 17th century London, focussing on the work of the boy companies. These were theatre companies made up entirely of child actors, who performed on the stages of the private theatres up until about 1609. The attitude that I take is that the performances staged by these companies constituted a separate theatre-form or performance-practice of its own, and accordingly I approach the plays put on by these companies as being part of a specific repertoire, the study of which nevertheless bears wide implications for our understanding of the culture of early modern London. Regarding their performances in terms of the possibilities which they offered for the de-familiarisation of cultural practices, of selfconsciously staging conventions in high relief, I have followed a seam of scepticism surrounding the representation of identity in this culture. My 'thesis' is that within the cultural practice that this theatre constituted there was an acute awareness of the inconsistencies and evasions which existed within the strategies of self-fashioning in the urban setting, an awareness which was ironically distinguished by a highly ambivalent theatricality. The first chapter involves a reading of one of the last and certainly most demanding plays written for this theatre, Epicoene or The Silent Woman by Ben Jonson. Growing out of Jacques Lacan's studies of subjectivity and the subjective gaze, I approach this playas a performance-text which directly and self-consciously addresses issues of performance and dramaturgy. In chapter two I site the space of the theatre itself with reference to other available 'playing spaces', in particular the banqueting-house and the city itself, as I draw in other plays of the repertoire. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the body of the child as being constructed in this culture as an ambiguous site of passivity and self-avoidance, out of which I turn to deal with the constituting and performing of male and female gender.
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Anderson, Julie Anne. "The Fox and the Goose: The Pamphlet Wars and Volpone's Animal Metaphors." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2017. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/7273.
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Ben Jonson wrote Volpone when England's pamphlet wars and the rule of Queen Elizabeth I contributed to an environment in which the <">woman question<"> was forefront in many minds. These social concerns echo in Volpone, resulting in a play that not only deals with vices and greed, but that also, to a limited degree, contributes to the querelle de femmes. The play's numerous animal metaphors create distinctions between characters; among other things, animalistic surnames represent the vices and complexities of humanity, and, more specifically, reverberate with judgments that seem to underscore the injustices of misogynistic pamphleteers. Moreover, Jonson's characters Bonario and Celia represent the ideal images of manhood and womanhood and are armed with various virtues that allow them to overcome trials. Ultimately, when read in the context of the Early Modern pamphlet wars, Volpone's animal metaphors form a conservative defense of women that condemns misogyny and advocates a partnership between virtuous men and women for the sake of moral social order.
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Forain, Guillaume. ""A sport for the taste of the court" : présentation et traduction annotée de huit masques de cour de Ben Jonson (1605-1624)." Montpellier 3, 2009. http://www.biu-montpellier.fr/florabium/jsp/nnt.jsp?nnt=2009MON30049.
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Cette étude propose la première traduction in extenso de huit textes écrits par Ben Jonson pour des masques de cour sous Jacques Ier. Genre pluridisciplinaire, équivalent anglais du ballet de cour français et de l’intermezzo italien, le masque eut une existence éphémère (1605-1640), mais brillante. Le premier volume retrace ses origines et le travail des deux artistes qui lui donnèrent sa supériorité sur ses prédécesseurs : Jonson, par la qualité de ses textes, et Inigo Jones, dont les scénographies somptueuses réduisirent ces derniers à un rôle de faire valoir sous le règne suivant. Puis un panorama critique montre que le masque, loin d’être simplement un panégyrique royal, donnait souvent voix à des enjeux politiques complexes. Sont également exposés l’esprit et les principes de cette traduction : il s’est agi de faire entendre à la fois l’aspect idéologiquement et historiquement daté de ces textes (notamment en traduisant en alexandrins rimés les pentamètres iambiques du main masque, le panégyrique proprement dit), mais aussi leur dimension plus moderne, en particulier dans les passages comiques de l’antimasque. Enfin, ce volume comprend de nombreux documents (chronologiques, biographiques, iconographiques) en annexe. Le second volume inclut les textes anglais et leur traduction en regard, justifie le choix des éditions utilisées (Herford & Simpson, Orgel), présente le contexte historique et les grandes lignes thématiques de chaque oeuvre, et fournit de nombreuses notes qui prennent en compte le travail de commentaire antérieur et l’apport critique le plus récent. Cette traduction inédite vise à rendre les masques de Jonson accessibles à la communauté francophone ; mais les mises à jour et interprétations proposées dans le volumineux appareil critique pourront également se révéler utiles aux spécialistes de la période<br>This study offers the first full-length translation of eight texts written by Ben Jonson for Jacobean court masques. The masque, a cross-disciplinary genre and the counterpart of the French ballet de cour and Italian intermezzo, was short-lived (1605-1640), but dazzling. The first volume traces its origins and the work of the two artists who improved it over its predecessors : Jonson, by the quality of his texts, and Inigo Jones, whose lavish stage designs reduced the text to a mere foil in the next reign. Then, a critical overview of the genre shows that, far from being only a royal panegyric, masques often voiced complex political issues. The spirit and principles of this translation are also put forward : the aim was to express both the ideological and historical outdatedness of these texts (especially by translating into rhymed Alexandrine verse the iambic pentametres of the main masque – the panegyric part proper), but also their more modern dimension, especially in the comic passages of the antimasque. Lastly, there are many chronological, biographical and iconographical documents appended to this volume. The second volume includes the English text and French translation facing each other, accounts for the choice of the editions used (Herford & Simpson, Orgel), presents the historical context and main thematic lines of each masque, and provides numerous notes, taking into account the work of the previous commentators and the most recent critical contributions. This unprecedented translation aims at making Jonson’s masques available to the francophone community ; yet the updating work and interpretations offered in the substantial critical apparatus may prove useful to the specialists of the period
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Berg, Jaime. ""And the trees of the field shall clap their hands" ecologies of nature and spirituality in the poems of Spenser, Marvell, Lanyer, and Jonson /." Click here for download, 2009. http://proquest.umi.com.ps2.villanova.edu/pqdweb?did=1950563961&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=3260&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
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Westlake, David. "Positive representation of Inns of Court lawyers in Jacobean city comedy." Thesis, Brunel University, 2010. http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/4530.
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This thesis examines representations of lawyers and law in examples of Jacobean city comedy, taking into account certain contemporary developments in the legal profession and the law in England. The period covered is 1598-1616. The thesis questions the conventional interpretation of city comedy as hostile to the legal profession. It suggests the topic is more complex than has been assumed, arguing that city comedy makes direct and indirect positive representation of Inns of Court lawyers, who are to be distinguished from attorneys (newly segregated in the Inns of Chancery), amateur quasi-lawyers, and university-educated civil lawyers. It is proposed that city comedy represents Inns of Court lawyers positively in two ways. Firstly, by means of legal content: representations of developments in the profession and the law demonstrate a wish to connect with the young lawyers and students of the Inns of Court, and reflect a contemporary drive by them for increased organization and regulation. Secondly, by means of literary form: ostensibly pejorative representations need not be taken at face value; instead, they may be found to be ironic. The main proposed contributions to knowledge are: that Inns of Court lawyers were a favoured part of the target audience of the private playhouses, making it questionable that they would be represented negatively in city comedy; that lawyers as represented in city comedy are not a single or a simple category; that representation of lawyers is inflected by the various forms and impulses of city comedy; and that city comedy incorporates some reflection of the increasing professionalization of legal practice in the period.
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Kotzur, Julia. "'When we have stuffed these pipes and these conveyances of our blood with wine and feeding' : sacramental eating and Galenic humourism in the drama of William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson." Thesis, University of Aberdeen, 2016. http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=231864.
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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.
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Criswell, Christopher C. "Networks of Social Debt in Early Modern Literature and Culture." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2014. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc799514/.
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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.
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Harris, Candice R. (Candice Rae). "The Decline of the Country-House Poem in England: A Study in the History of Ideas." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1988. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc331572/.
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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.
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Burtin, Tatiana. "Figures de l’avarice et de l’usure dans les comédies : The Merchant of Venice de Shakespeare, Volpone de Jonson et L’Avare de Molière." Thesis, Paris 10, 2011. http://www.theses.fr/2011PA100136/document.
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L’émergence d’un « ‘esprit’ capitaliste » (Weber) en Angleterre et en France au tournant des XVIe-XVIIe siècles a favorisé la reconfiguration des rapports entre avaritia et cupiditas, qui déterminent tout le champ sémantique de l’usure et de l’intérêt. Cette thèse postule que cette évolution est sensible dans la comédie française et anglaise de l’époque, et plus particulièrement chez les grands dramaturges qui ont marqué l’imaginaire collectif en mettant en scène des personnages avares. À partir d’un type comique issu à la fois du théâtre antique et du canon religieux bien établi dans l’Occident chrétien, l’appréhension nouvelle de l’argent comme objet et comme signe permet de construire une véritable figure moderne de l’avarice. Shylock, Volpone et Harpagon sont suspendus entre un or quasi divin, et l’univers plus ou moins connu de l’argent, qu’ils pensent maîtriser grâce à leur trésor. S’ils s’intègrent parfaitement à la fluidité moderne des échanges économiques, culturels et sociaux, ils participent aussi à leur dévalorisation, par une activité et un discours proprement usuraires. Leur entourage tente de soumettre cette « labilité » (Simmel) suscitée par l’économie de l’usurier-avare à un nouvel ordre, cosmique, éthique ou politique. Le conflit se résout devant la justice, instance discriminatoire externe et prétexte à la mise en abyme du jugement social. L’analyse finale de ces dénouements permet de comprendre le travail de chaque auteur sur la forme et la fonction du comique, à travers le texte, les genres, ou une esthétique de l’espace. Elle montre que chacun s’attache à valoriser l’apport de son art au public dans une période de crise socio-économique<br>The emergence of a capitalist ‘spirit’ (Weber) in England and France at the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries played a leading role in reconfiguring the relation between avaritia and cupiditas which determine the whole semantic field of usury and interest. This thesis postulates that this evolution is perceptible in French and British comedy at that time, in particular for some of the playwrights who staged miserly characters imprinted in our collective imagination. Starting from a comic type as common in Greek and Roman drama as it was in the well-established religious canon in the Christian West, a new understanding of money as object and as sign leads to the construction of a truly modern figure of avarice.Shylock, Volpone (Mosca) and Harpagon, hang on to a almost divine idea of gold and the more or less known world of money, medium they think they control through their treasure, and which is about to become the universal equivalent of any good. Those characters fit perfectly into this modern dynamic of economic, cultural and social exchanges, but they also contribute, with their strictly usurious speech, to its depreciation. Their entourage tries to tame this « lability » of values (Simmel) generated by the economy of the usurer-miser to a new order – a cosmic, ethical or political order. Conflicts are resolved by a court of law, external discriminatory authority and pretext for the mise-en-abyme of social judgment. The analysis of these denouements allows one to understand the work of each author in the comic form and function, through the text, the genres, or an aesthetic of space. It shows how much each author strived to value the contribution of his art to the public, in a time of socio-economic crisis
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Cocquio, Pezeron Diane. "Inigo Jones scénographe du masque Stuart, 1605-1640." Rennes 2, 1994. http://www.theses.fr/1994REN20033.
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Sous la férule d'Inigo Jones le masque, introduit en Angleterre en 1512, s'enrichit de costumes féeriques, d'une machinerie complexe permettant les changements de décor à vue, d'une scénographie obéissant aux lois de la perspective et de livrets d'inspiration mythologique visant à glorifier les souverains et à légitimer leur pouvoir. Ces spectacles de cour, tels que Jones les conçut, rompaient non seulement avec les formes traditionnelles de divertissement qui avaient prévalu jusque là en Angleterre mais annonçaient de surcroît l'avènement de l'opéra<br>Under Inigo Jones's supervision the masque first introduced in England in 1512 got fairy custumes, complex machines allowing changes of scenery, a scenography according to the laws of perspective and libretti inspired from mythological sources which aimed at glorifying the sovereigns and legitimazing their power. The masque, as Jones conceived it, not only broke with the traditional forms of entertainment which had prevailed in England until that time but moreover heralded the advent of the opera
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Lockwood, Thomas Edward. "Studies in Ben Jonson's reception, 1780-1850." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.620376.
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Johnson, Toria Anne. "'Piteous overthrows' : pity and identity in early modern English literature." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/4197.
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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.
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Derbyshire, Emily Charlotte Rose. "Indeterminate topographies and intermediate characters in Ben Jonson's city plays." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2016. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.723453.
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Brown, Nicola. "The New Inn in context : Ben Jonson's play for 1628-29." Thesis, University of York, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.238674.
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McEvoy, Sean. "Mammon's room and Hieronimo's cloak : representation and identity in Ben Jonson's middle comedies." Thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2004. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.406358.
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Ben Jonson's middle comedies in particular have an astonishing energy, excitement and capacity to thrill. Where does this come from? Having surveyed recent Jonson criticism, I argue that Jonson's deep-rooted Stoicism and humanism make him hostile to the dissolution of personal identity produced by the rampant free market of Jacobean London, and to the `classical' episteme in Foucault's sense. Jonson's response is to write drama which is not mimetic; it embodies and continues the world, and thus organically re-unites signifier and signified. Both early modern and current theory are discussed in support of this claim. I argue that Jonson's commitment to the theory and practice of classical rhetoric entails a thoroughly materialist understanding of the workings of language. I look at the physical impact of Jonson's language on his audience. I argue that Jonson's middle comedies are best understood not as mimetic or even primarily representational. They are rhetorical displays by performers at play, who do not strive to signify an imagined on-stage world so much as to sport promiscuously with the conventions of popular and classical theatre. This is not classical mimesis, but theatre as raw phenomenon. In support of the argument I quote actors and directors. The effect is a kind of Erasmian lusus, where the audience are challenged to find a new and authentic moral understanding in a city where all solid moral landmarks have just melted into air. The final two chapters look at how this idea makes sense of the distinctive way that Jonson interpenetrates the `on-stage' and `off-stage' worlds as a matter of dramatic strategy. I produce a detailed reading of Jonson's employment of personation; his expositions and endings; his distinctive use of on-stage time; and his exploitation of the different modes of spatial representation on the early modem stage for ironic effect.
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Moussaid, Malika. "A Courtly Device : the courtly and the popular in Ben Jonson's Masques, 1605 - 1621." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.309934.
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Lutz-Wahl, Sabine. "Selektive Hydroxylierung von Alpha- und Beta-Ionon durch Streptomyces-Stämme und molekulargenetische Arbeiten zur Identifizierung und Isolierung der Ionon-Hydroxylase aus Streptomyces fradiae Tü 27 /." [S.l. : s.n.], 1999. http://www.bsz-bw.de/cgi-bin/xvms.cgi?SWB8339140.
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Jones, Mark Francis. "The influence of alchemy and Rosicrucianism in William Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre and The tempest, and Ben Jonson's The alchemist." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1987. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22011.
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Bibliography: pages 207-213.<br>This thesis traces the influence of alchemy and its renaissance in the early seventeenth century as Rosicrucianism, in William Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre and The Tempest, and Ben Jonson's The Alchemist. Shakespeare's Final Plays are a dramatic experiment that ventures beyond realism, with a common symbolic pattern of loss and reconciliation that reflects the alchemical one of Man's Fall, self-transmutation and reconciliation with the divine spark within him. Pericles, Prince of Tyre is a crude first attempt in this genre, portraying Everyman's journey to perfection in Pericles's wanderings. The quest for Antiochus's Daughter represents the search for Man'soriginal purity of soul, which has, however, become corrupted and dominated by Man's lower nature, embodied in the incestuous King Antiochus. The prince's flight by sea indicates a process of self-transmutation: the loss of his fleet in a tempest symbolises the purification of his Soul from earthly desires, reflected in the laboratory refinement of base metals in fire (lightning) and water (sea). Pericles is able to unite with his refined Soul, incarnated in Thaisa: from their union the Philosopher's Stone or the Spirit, Marina, is born, who transmutes the base metals of men's natures by evoking the divine "seed of gold" within them, even in a degraded brothel. The Spiritr now grown to strength, is able to reunite the other component of Everyman, Body and Soul, the parents, who have completed their purification. The Tempest represents Shakespeare's complete mastery of his alchemical theme. The Alonso-Ferdinand pair embodies Everyman, the father or Soul having been seduced into evil, incarnate in Antonio, while the son, not yet king, is the divine spark within him. This seed of gold must be separated from the corrupted soul in the purifying alchemical tempest, so as to grow back to the Spirit, symbolised by his meeting and eventual marriage with Miranda. Alonso can only be reunited with his son after his purificatory wanderings about the island, in which he confronts his guilt embodied in a Harpy, who awakens his conscience and reminds him why he has lost his divine inner nature he sought for. Prospero represents the Spirit-Intellect of Everyman, tainted by the lower nature, evident in his desire for revenge, and embodied in Caliban. When the unfallen spiritual forces incarnate in Miranda win him over to compassion, he forgives his enemies and can meet the repentant Alonso, and return to earthly duties as the Everyman who has reclaimed his divine heritage. Ben Jonson's The Alchemist shows the debasement of alchemy by frauds who exploit those who, ignoring its spiritual aims, see it as a magical means to obtain gold. Alchemy becomes a symbol of the goldlust ruling London society, as opposed to the spiritual gold of wisdom sought by the true alchemist. The gulls caricature the goal of self-transmutation in their desire to transmute their mundane, lacklustre selves into "something rich and strange" through the Philosopher's Stone. Jor1sor1, deeply learned in alchemy, parodies many of its key concepts and motifs; the final perfection of Man and Nature, the consummation of the esoteric alchemical Opus, is distorted in false, exoteric alchemy hy the degradation and impoverishment of both frauds and gulls.
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Brown, Morgan Alexander. "The Pleiadic Age of Stuart Poesie: Restoration Uranography, Dryden's Judicial Astrology, and the Fate of Anne Killigrew." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2010. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/english_theses/77.
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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.
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Alyo, Muhammed W. "Comparing men and times : the classical sources and the political significance of Ben Jonson's "Sejanus" and "Catiline" in early Jacobean and Restoration England." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1992. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/34762/.
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The primary objective of this thesis is to examine the interaction between drama and politics in Ben Jonson's two surviving tragedies, Sejanus and Catiline, during the early years of the Jacobean and Restoration periods. Jonson relied heavily on classical scholarship in writing his two extant tragedies, his stated reason being to convince the readers of their "truth of Argument". But Jonson, nevertheless, adapted his sources in an ingenious way that both suited his dramatic purposes and served to cast light on social and political realities in the England of his own day. For Jonson, as for many Renaissance historians, the past had meaning primarily because of its valuable lessons for the present and the future. Thus, one of my aims is to examine both the nature and the extent of Jonson's dependenceo n the classical sources which provided him with the historical stories and details that he dramatized in the two plays. SuccessiveE nglish governmentsi n the seventeenthc entury treated drama, especially that based on historical material, as a potentially dangerous medium for disseminating propaganda and for influencing public opinion against specific government policies. Therefore, part of this work will be devoted to discussing censorship regulations within early Jacobean and Restoration England, and to examining their effects both on Jonson and on the reception of his two tragedies. Each of the two plays is studied in the context of its historical sources in order to determine Jonson's method of adapting his sources as well as the extent of topicality that each play seems to provide, both on the Jacobean and the Restoration stage. The method adopted in this study is to place the two Roman tragedies within the contemporary setting for which they were originally intended and then within the context of the early Restoration period when the two plays are thought to have been revived.
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Templeman, Sally Jane. "Cooks, cooking, and food on the early modern stage." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/9824.
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This project aims to take the investigation of food in early modern drama, in itself a relatively new field, in a new direction. It does this by shifting the critical focus from food-based metaphors to food-based properties and food-producing cook characters. This shift reveals exciting, unexpected, and hitherto unnoticed contexts. In The Taming of the Shrew and Titus Andronicus, which were written during William Shakespeare’s inn-yard playhouse period, the playwright exploits these exceptionally aromatic venues in order to trigger site-specific responses to food-based scenes in these plays. Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair brings fair-appropriate gingerbread properties onstage. When we look beneath the surface of this food effect to its bread and wine ingredients, however, it reveals a subtext that satirizes the theory of transubstantiation. Jonson expands on this theme by using Ursula’s cooking fire (a property staged in Jonson’s representation of Smithfield’s Bartholomew Fair) to engage with the prison narrative of Anne Askew, who was burned to death in front of Bartholomew Priory on the historic Smithfield for denying the doctrine of transubstantiation. This thesis also investigates water, which, for early moderns, was a complex and quasi-mystical liquid: it was a primary element, it washed sin from the world during the Great Flood, it was a marker of status, it was a medicine, and it was a cookery ingredient. Christopher Marlowe not only uses dirty water to humiliate his doomed monarch in Edward II, but he also uses it to apportion blame to the king for his own downfall. In Timon of Athens, Shakespeare draws on the theory of the elements to cast Timon as a man of water, who, Jesus-like, breaks up and divides (or splashes around) his body at his “last” supper. Fully-fledged cook characters were a relative rarity on the early modern stage. This project looks at two exceptions: Furnace in Philip Massinger’s A New Way to Pay Old Debts and the unnamed master cook in John Fletcher’s The Tragedy of Rollo, Duke of Normandy. Both playwrights use their respective gastronomic geniuses to demonstrate the danger that lower-order expertise poses to the upper classes when society is in flux. Finally, this project demonstrates that a link existed between ornate domestic food effects and alchemy. It shows how Philip Massinger’s The Great Duke of Florence and Thomas Middleton’s Women, Beware Women use food properties associated with alchemy to satirize notions of perfection in their play-worlds.
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Penlington, Amanda Jane. "'A little easy and modern for the times' : a documentary of productions of Ben Jonson's plays by major professional theatre companies in England, 1977-2000." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2001. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/50713/.
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This thesis is a collation and discussion of productions of Ben Jonson's plays in England between 1977 and 2000. It focuses on mainstream theatre productions. Therefore, amateur and Fringe productions, adaptations and productions by small-scale theatre companies are not included. It contains previously unreleased material of interviews with theatre practitioners who have been instrumental in staging the productions covered. Whilst scholarship has concentrated on recent productions of Shakespeares, tudies in Jonsonianp erformanceh ave been neglected.W ith the recent resurgence in popularity of Jonson's texts in the English theatre repertoire, it is now pertinent to assessth e methodsu sed to staget he work of this playwright. This thesis focuses only on the staging of texts presented between the two dates; this does not cover all of Jonson's texts. Contained in two volumes, Part One raises issues of performance, whilst in Part Two productions are considered within chapters on each play. An Afterword (in Volume One) considers the future of production and the action needed to be taken for future progression in performance and performance studies. The Appendix (in Volume One) contains detailed venue information. The thesis is intended as a documented record of productions, in order to stimulate future research into Jonsonian performance methods. By examining recent productions the failures and successeso f the contemporaryt heatre's approacht o Jonsonh ave been noted. This will contribute to an understanding of how Jonson's texts continue to work on stage. The title of this thesis comes from Bartholomew Fair, a play that addressesth e need to assimilatet he presentationo f theatre within contemporary concerns.
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MacLeod, Brock Cameron. "Polybian text: historiography in the margins of Ben Jonson's Quarto Sejanus." Thesis, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1828/3663.
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Since its 1605 quarto publication, Ben Jonson's Sejanus has inspired much critical commentary. Although criticism credits Jonson with a compositorial role in the Quarto's production, critics continue to assess its marginalia as a defense against application or a scholarly pretense. Editors have pared down the marginalia, setting them as footnotes or endnotes; others have relegated them to appendices; still others have abandoned them entirely. Neither critics nor editors have weighed Jonson's marginalia beside the dramatic text they inform. Reading the Quarto Sejanus as a composite of margins and centre, within its bibliographical, theoretical, and literary contexts, shows it to be a learned study in emergent theories of historiography. In its innovations, the composite redresses the
inefficacies of contemporary historians and editors. To understand Sejanus's textual interactions. the opening chapter examines tbe quarto itself. In each feature of its composition - from its title page, through its prefatory epistle, laudatory poems, and argument, to its very mise-en-page - the Quarto Sejanus declares itself the learnedly innovative product of long labour, and demands to be read as such. Chapter 2 considers the impact upon Renaissance historiographers of historiographic models, ranging from Gildas Sapiens to North's Plutarch, and theoretic models, from the Florentine to the Polybian. The composite Sejanus is innovatively Polybian in its comprehensive attention to human cause and circumstance. Sejanus' historiographic claims are tested against Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Chapter 3 begins the process of investigating Sejanus's bibliographical innovations. The investigation begins with the reception of the scholarly text in 1605 through three interdependent early-modern practices - margination. education, and reading - to show that, having no conception of supplemenlarity, the Renaissance reader read the whole page. Chapter 4 produces something afthe Quarto Sejanus's bibliographical context through two contemporary marginated texts - Matthew Gwinne's Latin drama Nero and Sir John Harington's translation of Orlalldo Furioso. Chapter 5 tests my claims to the Quarto Sejanus's bibliographical innovation within the context created in Chapter 4. The Quarto's composite fonn transcends the limits of the text to a degree unmatched by its dramatic or historiographic contemporaries, allowing Jonson to model right and ill-reasoned action through psychologically realized characters within vividly historicized events.<br>Graduate
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Faber, Joel. "All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter: Plainness and Eloquence in Jonson, Donne, and Herbert." 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10222/14195.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis traces a stylistic development from the dichotomy of plainness and
eloquence in Elizabethan style, through the stylistic innovations of Ben Jonson and John
Donne to the ultimate synthesis of the two styles in George Herbert's poetry. To
accomplish this, the thesis reads a selection of their works closely, paying particular
attention to the effects of style on the reader's reception of a poem's content. A
progression is observed, in which Jonson demonstrates that ornamental language does not
necessarily obscure truth; Donne uses that eloquence for didactic purposes, to illuminate
paradoxical truth; and Herbert enlists delightful language within a plain style in his effort
to communicate persuasively in his devotional lyrics. Thus the development of the
“metaphysical” style is read not as an adoption of classical or continental style, but as a
response to the problems of style inherited from the Elizabethan dichotomy between
plainness and eloquence.
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Oseman, Arlene Anne. "The alchemical quest and renaissance epistemology: with a comparitive study of Ben Jonson's:The Alchemist and William Shakespeare's: The Tempest." Thesis, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10539/2200.
Full textAbstract:
Student Number : 8701228T -
PhD thesis -
School of Literature and Language Studies -
Faculty of Humanities<br>The argument that unfolds throughout this thesis represents the development
of my own understanding of the Renaissance conception and application of
alchemical theories and philosophies, especially as it applies to my appreciation
of the works of two of the crucial figures of the period – Shakespeare and Ben
Jonson. These men were far more than entertainers. They were committed to
their art as an essential component in the shaping and maintenance of the
societal conscience. As dramatist-philosophers, they not only treated issues of
topical interest and debate around the individual in relation to individual, and
the individual in relation to the larger worlds of nature and politics, but also
provided learned and insightful comment on the possible nature and function
of the individual soul/mind in relation to itself. My deepening sensitivity to and
comprehension of early modern alchemical philosophies and practices as apt
analogies for psychological development led me to believe that Jonson and
Shakespeare, separately though similarly, externalized, or dramatized, the inner
trajectory of self-knowledge.
This thesis, then, represents my own exploratory expedition into Renaissance
epistemological thought as embodied in various alchemical texts. The
correlations between alchemy and early modern psychologies become more
apparent with each chapter. In the opening chapters, the historical and
intellectual context for an hypothesis of a Renaissance psychology is set out.
Chapter Three focuses on Renaissance conceptions of self-knowledge. The
classical dictum of nosce teipsum is explored in relation to a range of
contemporary alchemical arguments about the nature of philosophy and knowledge. In Chapter Four, I present a proposal of a Renaissance ‘model’ of
psychological development, which may be seen to be analogous to the
alchemical process as widely understood and depicted in the literature of the
time. The fifth chapter is a ‘bridge’ between the foregoing thesis and the
expository analysis of Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist and Shakespeare’s The
Tempest: it particularizes the foregoing argument and attempts to come to some
apprehension of Jonson’s individual conception of self-knowledge and
psychological development. The sixth chapter demonstrates this apprehension
in relation to Jonson’s The Alchemist.
Shakespeare’s The Tempest is thus seen as being in direct conversation with both
Jonson’s The Alchemist, and with the philosophical and artistic trends of the
period. In Chapter Seven, I explore the evidence that Shakespeare was drawing
from a ‘common pool’ of intellectual material with Jonson. However, I also
suggest that Shakespeare presents a differing, though in some ways
complementary, view of self-knowledge. Both Shakespeare and Jonson, I
propose, are drawing on alchemical language and imagery to present
contrasting characterizations of human potential and evolution. In effect, the
respective dramatic texts present two distinct conceptualizations of the
‘philosopher’s stone’, which, in turn, suggests two models of human
perfectibility that seem to be poles apart. These two works, however, are
undeniably related and mutually effective within the Renaissance crucible of
alchemy.