Richard Harp

The Cambridge companion to Ben Jonson

Chronology of Jonsons life and dates of works 1. True relation: the life and career of Ben Jonson Sara van den Berg 2. Jonsons London and its theatres Martin Butler 3. The court Leah S. Marcus 4. Learning Robert Young 5. Satiric styles Richard Dutton 6. The major comedies David Bevington 7. Late plays Richard Harp 8. Jonson and Shakespeare Russ McDonald 9. Jonson and the arts Stephen Orgel 10. The folio of 1616 James Riddell 11. Classicism John Mulryan 12. Poetry Ian Donaldson 13. Jonsons criticism Stanley Stewart 12. The critical heritage Robert Evans.

Scholars' bedlam : Menippean satire in the Renaissance

This study acknowledges the influence of certain classical authors, especially Lucian, on the revival of Menippean form in the Renaissance, and also seeks to explain the popularity of the Menippean satire by other means. Among the works discussed are Rabelaiss Tiers livre, Nashes Lenten Stuff, and Burtons Anatomy of Melancholy.

The major comedies

Ben Jonson wrote Volpone for the Kings Men in 1605-6. This premier acting company had been given the accolade of that title, the Kings Men, when James I came to the English throne in 1603. Its roster included Richard Burbage and William Shakespeare, both of whom, along with Augustine Phillips, Henry Condell, Will Sly, Will Kemp, John Heminges, Thomas Pope, Christopher Beeston, and John Duke, are listed in the Jonson Folio of 1616 as having acted in Jonsons Every Man in his Humour in 1598. They then constituted the Lord Chamberlains Men, and for some years had been the premier acting company of England (in fierce competition with the Admirals Men, headed by Edward Alleyn). In 1599, the Lord Chamberlains Men had moved into their new theatre, the Globe, on the south side of the Thames across from London in Southwark. Jonsons Every Man out of his Humour was one of their new plays in this location, along with Shakespeares Julius Ccesar and Henry V. Jonsons Sejanus was acted here in 1603, Volpone in 1605-6 (featuring Burbage, Condell, Heminges, Sly, and two newcomers, John Lowin and Alexander Cooke), The Alchemist in 1610, and Catiline in 1611. The Kings Men presented Jonsons The Staple of News in 1626 at their second Globe Theatre, the first having burned down in 1613.

Jonson's London and its theatres

Jonsonian topographies Ben Jonson was one of the more traveled dramatists of the English Renaissance. He crossed the Channel twice, as a footsoldier in the Low Countries in the 1590s, and as chaperone for the visit of Sir Walter Raleighs son to Paris in 1613. At home his most notable journey was his 1618-19 walk to Edinburgh and back, during which he laid plans for a Loch Lomond pastoral and a poem on the wonders of Scotland. Among other exploits, he visited Sir Robert Cotton in Huntingdonshire in 1603, and turned up in Rutland in 1621. But it is entirely characteristic that while away from the city, his imagination harked back to it. In Scotland, he dubbed Edinburgh “Britains other eye” (HS 1: 143), implying that Englands capital was eye number one. Incidents from the Paris trip became source material for Bartholomew Fair. At Cottons house, he was unable to forget the danger his family stood in from the plague, and was troubled by dreams of home (HS 1: 139-40).

Habits of mind : evidence and effects of Ben Jonson's reading

This books central aim is to provide new primary evidence about Jonsons reading--evidence that supplements the data already available in his important commonplace book, the Discoveries. The marked books discussed here are deliberately diverse as are the methods used in discussing them.

Using Elemental Literary Forms in the Composition Class.

types: fable, fairy tale, parable, proverb, and myth. Bettleheim is concerned principally with the insights fairy tales provided about childrens psychological development, but he also makes clear that these stories should be re-examined by all those working in the humanities and social sciences for new pedagogical approaches. Those of us teaching reading and writing will especially take this charge to heart. For if a student is to write about his own experience and that of his society, he must first have acquired a framework within which he can see