University Paperbacks
3 total works
Renaissance comedy, first performed in 1605. Includes complete text in modernized English, critical and explanatory notes and Introduction. From the Yale Ben Jonson edition.
Ben Jonson's comedy "Bartholomew Fair", which, after holding the stage for over a century, is now less well known, is offered here in an edition, based on the text of the first edition, which affords help to the modern producer and reader. In this play, written and acted in 1614, Jonson produced his first comedy since "The Alchemist" in 1610. Both that play and "Volpone" (1605) had presented an extraordinary variety of corrupt energies withing an intricate moral and aesthetic structure. To some critics, the looser construction and the less trenchant satire of "Bartholomew Fair" have seemed to show Jonson returning to the "loose multiplicity" of his earlier works. Horsman reconsiders this notion, illustrating how Jonson fills the play with "varied humours", which preserve the appearance of freedom while never actually losing control.
Jonson's comic masterpiece, recently revived at the National Theatre with Simon Callow in the title role.