Jacobean City Comedy

by Brian Gibbons

Overview

The first decade of the Jacobean age witnessed a sudden profusion of comedies satirizing city life; among these were comedies by Ben Jonson, John Marston and Thomas Middleton, as well as the bulk of the repertory of the newly-established children’s companies at Blackfriars and Paul’s. The playwrights self-consciously forged a new genre which attracted London audiences with its images of folly and vice in Court and City, and hack-writing dramatists were prompt to cash in on a new theatrical fashion.

This study, first published in 1980, examines ways in which the Jacobean city comedy reflect on the self-consciousness of audiences and the concern of the dramatists with Jacobean society. This title will be of interest of students of Renaissance Drama, English Literature and Performance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138279957
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	03/23/2017
Series:	Routledge Library Editions: Renaissance Drama , #1
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Preface to the Second Edition; Acknowledgements; 1. City comedy as a genre 2. A fountain stirr’d: city comedy in relation to the social and economic background 3. The approaching equinox: politics and city comedy 4. To strip the ragged follies of the time 5. Marston and the Court: folly and corruption 6. Money makes the world go around: the city satirized 7. Conventional plays 1604-7 8. Middleton and Jonson 9. Bartholomew Fair and The Devil Is an Ass: city comedy at the zenith; Appendix; Notes; Select bibliography; Index