DOCSLIB.ORG

Porteousj.Pdf (PDF, 3.083Mb)

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Porteousj.Pdf (PDF, 3.083Mb) Versions of contemporary London staged in Westward Ho (1604), Eastward Ho (1605), and Northward Ho (1605). Submitted by Jim Porteous to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English August 2020 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Signature: ………………………………………………………….. 1 Abstract My thesis researches, for the first time, the dialectical relationships between a cluster of plays performed at indoor playhouses in London immediately following the 1603-04 plague, in a capital radically impacted by population loss. These relationships are examined through an analysis of how the plays produce different versions of contemporary London and the degrees to which these are unlicensed or regulated. Building on the theoretical writings of de Certeau and the anthropologist Tim Ingold, I identify how versions of London are produced through the scope and significance of characters’ movements, through phenomenological and topographical excess, and through opportunities and agency afforded to women. In uncovering the playwrights’ responses to successive comedies I identify that these responses were increasingly a reaction to state surveillance. Dekker and Webster’s Westward Ho, performed at Paul’s, stages an innovative version of an open, unregulated London. A contextual analysis explains how the drama is grounded in a metatheatrical meshwork of theatregrams and tropes from plays performed from 1598-1603 set in modern London, yet produces a startlingly new version in which women are afforded unlicensed agency to create new situations and opportunities. I argue that Chapman, Jonson and Marston’s Eastward Ho at Blackfriars stands in antithetical opposition to Westward Ho. Eastward Ho, through satirising and parodying key elements of the first play, seeks to restore regulated civic and mercantile values. Dekker and Webster’s Northward Ho presents London life as a theatrical composition, where all is, potentially, a brand new play, circumventing authoritarian censorship and repression through a knowing metatheatrical artfulness. A final chapter considers how John Day’s The Isle of Gulls, 1606, follows the Ho plays, and engages with and satirises London’s new political scene by locating the drama in a foreign setting and, in a second distancing manoeuvre, turning back to pre-1598 generic conventions. 2 Contents Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 5 Notes on the Texts 6 Chronology 1598-1607 9 Chapter One: Versions of the City 10 The Playhouses at the Blackfriars and Paul’s 14 Neighbourhood Comedies: the Critical Background and Context 21 Theatrical Business and Theatregrams 25 Space, Movement and the Meshwork 29 Open and Closed: Texts and Audiences 32 Chapter Outlines 37 Chapter Two: London in History Plays 1597-1603 40 Citation and the Spatialisation of Actions 40 Tours and Invocations: Vertical and Lateral Modes 51 Chapter Three: The Meshwork 66 1598-1603: London as Theatreland 68 Theatregrams and the Swarming Structure of the Street 82 Chapter Four: Westward Ho 93 Post-plague: Restaging London, Reworking the Meshwork 94 Excesses, Phenomenological and Libidinous 102 Women’s Voices, Women’s Wayfaring 110 Credit and Audiences: Inns of Court Students, Courtiers 117 3 Chapter Five: Eastward Ho 126 Metatheatre and Discourse 127 Undressing and Monkeys 134 Stasis and Impossible Journeys 137 Satire and Surveillance 146 Chapter Six: Northward Ho 1 5 1 Absences and Inversions 152 Excess and the Meshwork 160 Parody and Pastiche 166 Plots and Impersonation 170 Chapter Seven: The Isle of Gulls, or ‘Southward Ho’ 181 Conclusion 197 Appendices: 1 The Mesh of Theatregrams, 1598-1603 202 2 Cues Received and Given by Clare and Birdlime in Westward Ho 204 3 Eastward Ho Touchstone’s Terrain 205 4 Northward Ho Locations and Settings 206 5 Northward Ho The Aesthetic Web of Plots and Playing 207 6 The ‘two divers nations’ in The Isle of Gulls 209 Works Cited 213 4 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Victoria Sparey and Jane Poynter at the University of Exeter for reading and commenting so helpfully on an early draft of Chapter Four. Chloe Preedy at Exeter provided enlightening commentaries on a number of chapters. Also at Exeter, Joe Kember kindly invited me to speak on Westward Ho in a departmental seminar series in 2019; in June of the same year I presented a paper on Eastward Ho at the Exeter University Centre for Early Modern Studies (CEMS) Post Graduate Symposium. I am also grateful to the organisers of the Graduate Conference “Negotiating Boundaries” held by the London Shakespeare Centre and Shakespeare’s Globe in February 2020 for the opportunity to give a paper on Northward Ho. Thanks too to Freya Cox Jensen and Laura Sangha and other colleagues in CEMS at Exeter, and to Emma Whipday and Robert Stagg for correspondence on matters of early Jacobean censorship and critical reception. Will Tosh kindly provided technical details about the Sam Wanamaker Theatre’s stage. Martin Wiggins and colleagues at the Shakespeare Institute generously let me participate in an illuminating read through of Northward Ho at Stratford-on-Avon in the summer of 2019. Many thanks too to the organisers of “The Marston Effect: John Marston and Theatrical Culture” at the University of Oxford (2019): for conversations which, though undoubtedly utterly unmemorable for those with whom I spoke, sparked ideas and lines of research which both contributed to the project and saved me from chasing down too many blind alleyways, thanks to Richard Dutton, James Bednarz and José Pérez Díez. I also thank the staff at the University of Exeter Library, for their friendly helpfulness, in person and online, and their hyper- efficiency. Harry McCarthy, a fellow researcher at Exeter, provided comradely support and acute academic insights. Above all, I have been immensely fortunate to have worked on this thesis with Pascale Aebischer, an inspirational, wise and generous supervisor: thank you. This is for my lovely and brilliant son, Richard, and my wonderful wife, Anne. And in memory of Sally Ledger, 1961-2009. 5 Notes on the texts References to Dekker’s works are from The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker edited by Fredson Bowers, with the exception of The Shoemakers’ Holiday, when Anthony Parr’s 1990 edition is used. References to Dekker and Webster’s collaborative work are from The Works of John Webster, Volume 4, edited by David Gunby, et al. (Works). References to Ben Jonson’s work, including the collaborative Eastward Ho, are from the online The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson, edited by David Bevington et al. (Jonson). (The online editorial content does not include page numbers.) References to Thomas Middleton’s work are from Thomas Middleton: The Collected Works, edited by Gary Taylor and John Lavagnino. References to Shakespeare’s works are from William Shakespeare: The Complete Works, edited by Richard Proudfoot et al. All the dramas are available on EEBO and have been consulted online. The texts are also available in print. I quote from the most recent scholarly edition, where there is one in existence. This has thrown up some anomalies. Blurt, Master Constable, for example, is available as a facsimile, but is also in the 1885 edition of the Collected Works of Thomas Middleton: in such cases I have quoted from the edited version. Similarly, for The London Prodigal I have referred to The Shakespeare Apocrypha of 1908, and for Thomas Lord Cromwell I have used Edward Malone’s Supplement to The Plays of William Shakespeare, 1780, reprinted in 1995. One consequence of using the most recent scholarly edition, where available, has been that the contrasts and differences explored between Westward Ho and Northward Ho played at Paul’s and the Blackfriars production of Eastward Ho are made more marked by the first two plays’ early modern spellings in Works contrasted with the latter’s modern spellings in Jonson. When quoting from texts with early modern spellings I have silently replaced ‘v’ with ‘u’ and vice versa, and similarly with ‘j’and ‘i’ when required. 6 Chronology 1598-1607 One main object in the thesis has been to track and trace echoes, allusions and theatregrams across and through the dense metatheatrical meshwork of plays set in contemporary London. As Mary Bly has emphasised, ‘Renaissance dramatists are virtually all “highly imitative”’ (“Defining the Proper Members” 116) and working out the chronology of who borrowed from who is an inexact science. Fortunately there are no difficulties in determining the chronological sequence of my four main texts: Westward Ho premiered in 1604, Eastward Ho in 1605, Northward Ho later in 1605, and The Isle of Gulls early in 1606. The table below sets out the estimated timeline I have followed for selected plays: it includes plays that are not neighbourhood comedies but which are used in the latter, and which the dramatists of the neighbourhood comedies appear to have expected their audiences to be familiar with. The table draws on, in particular, the appendix on repertories for the Globe and Blackfriars in Sarah Dustagheer’s Shakespeare’s Two Playhouses, and Martin Wiggins and Catherine Richardson’s British Drama: A Catalogue, Volumes 4 and 5. With the exception of the 1604 run at Paul’s and the two Ho plays in 1605 there is no chronological order intended within discrete years. I have attributed 1601’s Blurt, Master Constable to Thomas Dekker as the sole author, rather than to Thomas Middleton alone or as a collaboration between the two: the negative evidence is the play’s absence from The Collected Works of Middleton, 2007.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Book Review: TF Wharton (Ed). the Drama of John Marston. Cambridge
    112 Book Reviews unfair to criticize a researcher too harshly for a following a pre-existing set of selection criteria. At the same time it is reasonable to expect that a declared set of criteria should be rigorously maintained, and that the intellectual basis of those criteria should be clearly stated and take some account of the historical reality of the period under examination. The ambitious task undertaken by the REED project is to be applauded, and it is to be regretted that the present volume falls somewhat short of the standards set by the project as a whole. david hickman T.F. Wharton (ed). The Drama of John Marston: Critical Re-Visions. Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp xiii, 233. For a dramatist with at least three canonically important works (The Dutch Courtesan, The Malcontent, and Antonio’s Revenge) contemporary critics have been especially chary of addressing John Marston’s plays. Of those three works, one (Antonio’s Revenge) finds general mention only as a spectacularized and stylized foil to Hamlet.1 Indeed, only a single work – The Dutch Courtesan – today receives attention approaching any degree of regularity: Susan Baker, Donna Hamilton, and Jean Howard have each written outstanding material- ist/feminist appraisals.2 This continuing paucity of critical regard is especially surprising given the astonishing generic range and inventiveness of Marston’s plays as well as their incisive representations of a particularly volatile period in early modern culture. Marston collaborated brilliantly with some of the most distinguished dramatists of the period (Ben Jonson and George Chapman on Eastward Ho!; John Webster on additions to The Malcontent) and also mis- chievously burlesqued the genres they themselves defined.
    [Show full text]
  • •Ÿcattle of This Colourâ•Ž
    Early Theatre 15.1 (2012) Pamela Allen Brown ‘Cattle of this colour’: Boying the Diva in As You Like It Shakespeare may have written for an all-male stage, but his plays are full of women who relish acting. ‘Bring us to this sight, and you shall say / I’ll prove a busy actor in their play’ (3.4.54–5), says Rosalind, as eager as Bot- tom or Hamlet to get into the act.1 Why such stress on female theatricality on a womanless stage? My theory is that As You Like It and other plays show the imprint of the ground-breaking actresses who took the lead in Italian professional troupes decades before Shakespeare’s debut. A startling innova- tion when they appeared in Commedia dell’Arte companies in mid-century, women soon performed in scripted and improvised plays in every genre. A few directed their troupes and became international stars, sought after by royal patrons throughout Europe. News reached London from diplomats, travelers, and players, and in the 1570s Italian players appeared several times at Elizabeth’s court, culminating in the 1578 visit of an arte troupe that included actresses.2 English playwrights responded quickly to the challenge. From the late 1570s, writers created exotically histrionic ‘women’ who seize the stage to deliver passionate arias of love and despair, scheme with virtuosic flair, and display elegant wit and rhetorical sophistication. Major female roles grew longer than ever before, while expanding in range, significance, and com- plexity. Lyly, Kyd, and Marlowe placed unprecedented demands on the boy player, calling for displays of rhetorical mastery, feats of actorly control, and torrents of passion and frenzy.
    [Show full text]
  • LUCAN's CHARACTERIZATION of CAESAR THROUGH SPEECH By
    LUCAN’S CHARACTERIZATION OF CAESAR THROUGH SPEECH by ELIZABETH TALBOT NEELY (Under the Direction of Thomas Biggs) ABSTRACT This thesis examines Caesar’s three extended battle exhortations in Lucan’s Bellum Civile (1.299-351, 5.319-364, 7.250-329) and the speeches that accompany them in an effort to discover patterns in the character’s speech. Lucan did not seem to develop a specific Caesarian style of speech, but he does make an effort to show the changing relationship between the General and his soldiers in the three scenes analyzed. The troops, initially under the spell of madness that pervades the poem, rebel. Caesar, through speech, is able to bring them into line. Caesar caters to the soldiers’ interests and egos and crafts his speeches in order to keep his army working together. INDEX WORDS: Lucan, Caesar, Bellum Civile, Pharsalia, Cohortatio, Battle Exhortation, Latin Literature LUCAN’S CHARACTERIZATION OF CAESAR THROUGH SPEECH by ELIZABETH TALBOT NEELY B.A., The College of Wooster, 2007 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS ATHENS, GEORGIA 2016 © 2016 Elizabeth Talbot Neely All Rights Reserved LUCAN’S CHARACTERIZATION OF CAESAR THROUGH SPEECH by ELIZABETH TALBOT NEELY Major Professor: Thomas Biggs Committee: Christine Albright John Nicholson Electronic Version Approved: Suzanne Barbour Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2016 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................1
    [Show full text]
  • Ben Jonson and the Mirror: Folly Knows No Gender
    Western Michigan University ScholarWorks at WMU Dissertations Graduate College 6-2001 Ben Jonson and The Mirror: Folly Knows No Gender Sherry Broadwell Niewoonder Western Michigan University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations Part of the Classical Literature and Philology Commons, English Language and Literature Commons, and the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons Recommended Citation Niewoonder, Sherry Broadwell, "Ben Jonson and The Mirror: Folly Knows No Gender" (2001). Dissertations. 1382. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/1382 This Dissertation-Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate College at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BEN JONSON AND THE MIRROR: FOLLY KNOWS NO GENDER by Sherry Broadwell Niewoonder A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, Michigan June 2001 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BEN JONSON AND THE M IR R O R : FO LLY KNOWS NO GENDER Sherry Broadwell Niewoonder, Ph.D. Western Michigan University, 2001 Ben Jonson, Renaissance poet and playwright, has been the subject of renewed evaluation in recent scholarship, particularly new historicism and cultural materialism. The consensus among some current scholars is that Jonson overtly practices and advocates misogyny in his dramas. Such theorists suggest that Jonson both embodies and promulgates the anti­ woman rhetoric of his time, basing their position on contemporary cultural material, religious tracts, and the writings of King James I.
    [Show full text]
  • Playwright and Minister
    PLAYWRIGHT AND MAN OF GOD: RELIGION AND CONVENTION IN THE COMIC PLAYS OF JOHN MARSTON by Blagomir Georgiev Blagoev A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto © Copyright by Blagomir Georgiev Blagoev (2010) PLAYWRIGHT AND MAN OF GOD: RELIGION AND CONVENTION IN THE COMIC PLAYS OF JOHN MARSTON Blagomir Georgiev Blagoev Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto 2010 ABSTRACT John Marston’s literary legacy has inevitably existed in the larger-than-life shadows of his great contemporaries William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. In the last two centuries, his works were hardly taken on their own terms but were perceived instead in overt or implicit comparison to Shakespeare’s or Jonson’s. As a result, Marston’s plays acquired the lasting but unfair image of haphazard concoctions whose cheap sensationalism and personal satire often got them in trouble with the authorities. This was the case until recently, especially with Marston’s comic drama. Following revisionist trends, this study sets out to restore some perspective: it offers a fresh reading of Marston’s comic plays and collaborations—Antonio and Mellida, What You Will, Jack Drum’s Entertainment, The Dutch Courtesan, The Malcontent, Parasitaster, Eastward Ho, and Histrio-Mastix—by pursuing a more nuanced contextualization with regard to religious context and archival evidence. The first central contention here is that instead of undermining political and religious authority, Marston’s comic drama can demonstrate consistent conformist and conservative affinities, which imply a seriously considered agenda. This study’s second main point is that the perceived failures of Marston’s comic plays—such as tragic ii elements, basic characterization, and sudden final reversals—can be plausibly read as deliberate effects, designed with this agenda in mind.
    [Show full text]
  • Lucan's Natural Questions: Landscape and Geography in the Bellum Civile Laura Zientek a Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulf
    Lucan’s Natural Questions: Landscape and Geography in the Bellum Civile Laura Zientek A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2014 Reading Committee: Catherine Connors, Chair Alain Gowing Stephen Hinds Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Classics © Copyright 2014 Laura Zientek University of Washington Abstract Lucan’s Natural Questions: Landscape and Geography in the Bellum Civile Laura Zientek Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Catherine Connors Department of Classics This dissertation is an analysis of the role of landscape and the natural world in Lucan’s Bellum Civile. I investigate digressions and excurses on mountains, rivers, and certain myths associated aetiologically with the land, and demonstrate how Stoic physics and cosmology – in particular the concepts of cosmic (dis)order, collapse, and conflagration – play a role in the way Lucan writes about the landscape in the context of a civil war poem. Building on previous analyses of the Bellum Civile that provide background on its literary context (Ahl, 1976), on Lucan’s poetic technique (Masters, 1992), and on landscape in Roman literature (Spencer, 2010), I approach Lucan’s depiction of the natural world by focusing on the mutual effect of humanity and landscape on each other. Thus, hardships posed by the land against characters like Caesar and Cato, gloomy and threatening atmospheres, and dangerous or unusual weather phenomena all have places in my study. I also explore how Lucan’s landscapes engage with the tropes of the locus amoenus or horridus (Schiesaro, 2006) and elements of the sublime (Day, 2013).
    [Show full text]
  • Contribution of Ben Jonson to Development of the English Renaissance Comedy
    УДК: 821.111.09-22 Џонсон Б. ИД: 195292940 Оригинални научни рад ДОЦ. ДР СЛОБОДАН Д. ЈОВАНОВИЋ1 Факултет за правне и пословне студије „др Лазар Вркатић” Катедра за англистику, Нови Сад CONTRIBUTION OF BEN JONSON TO DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE COMEDY Abstract. Ben Jonson’s Works, published in 1616, included all his comedies written that far, and meant an important precedent which helped to establish drama as lit- erary kind comparable to the rest of literature. Before that date, drama was regarded as un- worthy of the name of literature, and Jonson was the first to give it its new dignity. His comedies written after 1616 were usually published immediately after they were acted. Jonson’s theoretical interests were an expression of his intellectual aristocratism and his realistic temperament. He took pride in being able to create comedies according to the best scientific rules, and felt superior to those who made them by sheer talent. Jonson was the only theoretician among the English Renaissance dramatists, but although he was ready to fight for his rules, his application of them was broad and elastic. In his comedies there are many departures from classical models, often modified by his keen observation of every- day English life. The theory he adhered to was an abstract and rigid kind of realism, which in his practice was transformed by his gift of observation and his moral zeal into a truly realistic and satirical comic vision of life. Key words: comedy, drama, theory, classical models, everyday English life, realism, satire. 1 [email protected] 348 Зборник радова Филозофског факултета XLII (1)/2012 EXCEPTIONAL PERSONALITY, OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION Benjamin or Ben Jonson (1573?-1637) was the central literary personality of the first two decades of the XVII century.
    [Show full text]
  • It Would, to Put It Mildly, Be Nice to Know More About the Backstage Oper- Ations of a Playing Company Like the Chamberlain’S Men Or the Admiral’S in the Later 1590S
    Early Theatre 10.1 (2007) ANDREW GURR The Work of Elizabethan Plotters, and 2 The Seven Deadly Sins It would, to put it mildly, be nice to know more about the backstage oper- ations of a playing company like the Chamberlain’s Men or the Admiral’s in the later 1590s. About the company that Shakespeare joined in 1594 we are unlikely ever to know much more than the few hard facts now current can tell us. But given Henslowe’s Diary with its intricate records of the day-by- day operations of Edward Alleyn and his company, there is better reason to hope for some clarification of the extraordinary processes that helped fifteen or more players to put six different plays on stage every week and to run a repertory consisting of more than thirty plays each year. Regrettably little about that uniquely high-speed process has come out so far, and this study of the backstage book-keeper and stage management will not take it very much further. But, as the chronic optimists say, every little helps. The Admiral’s company must have had several helpers for the staging of their plays besides the costumiers, to whom the Henslowe papers note pay- ments, and the property men. The difficulties of reading the Diary start there. Were the backstage workers employed by Henslowe himself as owner of the playhouse the company rented, or were they members of the company, hired and paid by the sharers? None of the stage hands is named in the accounts, though there are some bonds signed by hired men who were players.
    [Show full text]
  • Problem Fathers in Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama Tom Macfaul Index More Information
    Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-02894-4 - Problem Fathers in Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama Tom Macfaul Index More information Index Note: Plays which receive frequent mention or detailed analysis are indexed by title; works receiving only passing reference appear as subheadings under the author’s name (where known). Addled Parliament 157 Bacon, Francis, In Felicem Memoriam Adelman, Janet 224 Elizabethae 46 Aeschylus 149 Bamber, Linda 4 Agamemnon 92 Barnes, Barnabe see The Devil’s Charter Eumenides 8 Barry, Lording see Ram Alley, or Merry Tricks The Libation Bearers 8, 236 bastardy Alexander, Peter 112 false allegations of 148–9, 202–3, Alexander VI, Pope (Rodrigo Borgia) 209–10 129–30 invoked/suspected in response to unfilial allegory 14–15 behaviour 50, 135 moral 30 role in plot/characterization 55, 77–8, 79, political 28–9 115–16, 140–1, 147 Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany (anon.) 109 Bayley, John 149 Alphonsus King of Aragon (Greene) 51–2 Beaumont, Francis see Beaumont and Fletcher; amorality 52–4 The Knight of the Burning Pestle anagnorisis see recognition Beaumont and Fletcher Anne, Queen (wife of James I) 157 Cupid’s Revenge 114, 231 Antonio’s Revenge (Marston) 110–11 Love’s Care 233 Anything for a Quiet Life (Middleton/Webster) see also A King and No King 187–8 Beggar’s Bush (Fletcher) 176–7 Apius and Virginia (‘R.B.’) 25, 56, 160 confusions of plot 176–7 Appius and Virginia (Webster) 17, Belsey, Catherine 4, 70–1 208–11 Berger, Harry 16, 236 father–daughter relationship 208–9 Beza, The´odore, Abraham’s Sacrifice Ariosto, Ludovico 29–30 I Suppositi 31 Bible Orlando Furioso 220 referencing of episodes from 196 Aristotle 5 tragedies based on 29–30 Armin, Robert see The Two Maids of biological theory 12, 40, 227 More-Clacke The Birth of Merlin (Rowley) 153–5, 237 As You Like It (Shakespeare) 103–7, 108, 146, blessing, paternal 6, 74, 154, 176, 222 174, 231 problematic nature 72–3 recognition scene 105–6, 167 The Blind Beggar of Bednall Green (anon., poss.
    [Show full text]
  • William Marston, Apprentice; and Eastward Ho!
    Early Theatre 19.2 (2016), 81–100 http://dx.doi.org/10.12745/et.19.2.2678 Charles Cathcart Edward Greene, Goldsmith; William Marston, Apprentice; and Eastward Ho! This essay presents new information about the family of John Marston the dramatist. I review this material in relation to the work of Suzanne Gossett and W. David Kay, the two editors of Eastward Ho! for The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson. My article explores how our knowledge of a writer’s personal relation- ships may affect our understanding of that writer’s contribution to a collaborative enterprise. In the summer of 1605 three members of the Marston family each experienced a significant event. All were in their twenties. Thomas Marston, eldest son and heir of William Marston of Middleton in Shropshire, was admitted to the Middle Temple. His brother William became free of the Goldsmiths Company. And their cousin John ran into serious trouble as a consequence of his involvement in writing Eastward Ho! In this essay I bring forward new information about the family of John Mar- ston the dramatist and connect this evidence with biographical findings that have attracted little attention since the time of R.E. Brettle’s thesis in 1927 or that of the publication of the Middle Temple records some twenty years previ- ously.1 I will seek to relate this material to a significant publishing exercise of much more recent times: the work of the two editors of Eastward Ho! for The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson, Suzanne Gossett and W.
    [Show full text]
  • Shakespeare, Jonson, and the Invention of the Author
    11 Donaldson 1573 11/10/07 15:05 Page 319 SHAKESPEARE LECTURE Shakespeare, Jonson, and the Invention of the Author IAN DONALDSON Fellow of the Academy THE LIVES AND CAREERS OF SHAKESPEARE and Ben Jonson, the two supreme writers of early modern England, were intricately and curiously interwoven. Eight years Shakespeare’s junior, Jonson emerged in the late 1590s as a writer of remarkable gifts, and Shakespeare’s greatest theatri- cal rival since the death of Christopher Marlowe. Shakespeare played a leading role in the comedy that first brought Jonson to public promi- nence, Every Man In His Humour, having earlier decisively intervened— so his eighteenth-century editor, Nicholas Rowe, relates—to ensure that the play was performed by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, who had ini- tially rejected the manuscript.1 Shakespeare’s name appears alongside that of Richard Burbage in the list of ‘principal tragedians’ from the same company who performed in Jonson’s Sejanus in 1603, and it has been con- jectured that he and Jonson may even have written this play together.2 During the years of their maturity, the two men continued to observe Read at the Academy 25 April 2006. 1 The Works of Mr William Shakespeare, ed. Nicholas Rowe, 6 vols. (London, printed for Jacob Tonson, 1709), I, pp. xii–xiii. On the reliability of Rowe’s testimony, see Samuel Schoenbaum, Shakespeare’s Lives (Oxford, 1970), pp. 19–35. 2 The list is appended to the folio text of the play, published in 1616. For the suggestion that Shakespeare worked with Jonson on the composition of Sejanus, see Anne Barton, Ben Jonson: Dramatist (Cambridge, 1984), pp.
    [Show full text]
  • What Did John Marston Know About Shakespeare?
    i&notD about ^Ij^feegpeare? Patrick ^uckrtbge John Marston has been a shadowy but persistent presence in heterodox discussions ofthe Shakespeare autiiorship since the nineteenth century. It is hardly surprising that he should have something to offer to an investi­ gation of concealed Uterary and theafrical identities in London in the 1590s: he was living and working in the Inns of Court and around the theattes from about 1594, when he matticulated from Brasenose College, Oxford University, until 1606, when he left the Middle Temple. A cursory glance at Marston's poems and plays reveals an oddly persistent preoccupation with that popular but enigmatic body of work coming to be known as 'Shakespeare' through the 1590s, the most striking being The Metamorphosis ofPigmalion 's Image, his parody/pastiche ofVenus and Ado­ nis, and the links and parallels in character, situation and dialogue between Hamlet and Antonio's Revenge. Other tum-of-the-century plays of Marston' s —Antonio and Mellida, What You Will, The Dutch Courtesan, and The Malcontent—appear to exhibit a more generally ironic relationship to certain Shakespearean plays, such as Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, and Measure for Measure. As the author of two volumes of verse satires, Marston took a 'profes­ sional' interest in duplicity, hypocrisy, and imposture, ttaditional satiric targets that he would have seen as notably instantiated in the use of 'front-men' or 'stooges' for aristocratic writers. There are a few passages in the satires where he could be referring to such a practice: the allusion to those who ..
    [Show full text]