Jacobean Drama The English theatre during the reign

Jacobean Drama The English theatre during the reign of James I (1603– 25) was known as Jacobean theatre. Although Shakespeare was still writing major works until around 1611, the leading dramatist of the era was Ben Jonson. Other noted Jacobean playwrights included John Marston, Thomas Middleton, Thomas Heywood, John Ford, Thomas Dekker (c. 1570– 1632), Cyril Tourneur (c. 1575– 1626), and Samuel Rowley (c. 1575– 1624). In comedy, the Elizabethan concerns with characterization and romantic love began to give way…

John Webster (c. 1580 – c. 1634) • an English Jacobean dramatist, and a late contemporary of William Shakespeare. • His tragedies The White Devill and The Duchess of Malfi are often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17 th -century English stage. • Webster wrote one more play on his own: The Devil's Law Case (c. 1617– 1619? ), a tragicomedy.

His later plays • His later plays were collaborative city comedies: • Anything for a Quiet Life (c. 1621), co-written with Thomas Middleton and • A Cure for a Cuckold (c. 1624), co-written with William Rowley. • Keep the Widow Waking (with John Ford Rowley and Dekker). • The play itself is lost, although its plot is known from a court case. • He is believed to have contributed to the tragicomedy The Fair Maid of the Inn with John Fletcher Ford, and Phillip Massinger. • His Appius and Virginia probably written with Thomas Heywood is of uncertain date.

John Heywood (c. 1497 – c. 1580) • was an English writer known for his plays, poems, and collection of proverbs. • The Play called the foure PP; a newe and a very mery interlude of a palmer, a pardoner, apotycary, a pedler (c. 1530) • Usually considered to be a domestic tragedy, A Woman Killed with Kindness is complex in its didacticism, as Heywood explores the boundaries of marital punishment, and the moral weight of mercy.

• woman struggles to survive, and then struggles to die, in Heywood’s startling domestic tragedy about the possession and punishment of women, probably first published in 1607.

• The Proverbs of John Heywood 1546 • • • Famous epigrams Haste maketh waste. (1546) Out of sight out of minde. (1542) When the sun shineth, make hay. (1546) Look ere ye leap. (1546) Two heads are better than one. (1546)

Thomas Dekker (1570? -1632) • Of Dekker's life, nothing is known for certain before 1598 Dekker was a prolific writer, having part in some 50 plays over his career—only twenty of these, as well as some masques, have survived • The second play, his most well-known, and his masterpiece, is The Shoemaker's Holiday (1599). It takes place in London and provides a variety of vivid, portraits of Londoners and their daily life. It is still the most often produced of Dekker's plays. . in 1604 Dekker collaborated with Jonson on The King's Entertainment • .

• Of Dekker's numerous collaborations, the most notable include • Westward Ho (1604), The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyatt (c. 1604), • and Northward Ho (c. 1605) with John Webster; • The Honest Whore, Part I(1604)) with Thomas Middleton; • The Virgin Martyr (1620) with Philip Massinger; The Witch of Edmonton (c. 1621).

Dekker was also accomplished as a prose writer. The moralizing tone occasionally apparent in his dramatic works is obvious in his many pamphlets. The Wonderful Year (1603) relates the effects of the plague on London.

John Ford, 1586 - 1640 • • • His career as a playwright definitely begins, however, in 1621, when he joined with Thomas Dekker and William Rowley in the composition of The Witch of Edmonton. After about 1624, however, he seems to have worked alone, and his reputation rests chiefly upon his three unaided tragedies of forbidden love, -'Tis Pity She's a Whore -first performed between 1629 and 1633 The play's treatment of the subject of incest made it one of the most controversial works in English literature) , - The Broken Heart Set in Classical Greece, the play recounts the story of Amyclas, King of Laconia (or Sparta), his daughter Calantha, and their court – •

Thomas Middleton 1570 -1627 • A Chaste Maid in Cheapside is Middleton’s masterpiece of Jacobean city comedy, rich in irony and wordplay. Middleton welds together themes of corruption, money and sex into a complex whole, in which comedy is mingled with disgust.

• the play signals its ironic nature even in the humorously ironic title: Cheapside maids were noted for their chastity. • London’s busiest commercial area is shown to be a crucible of mercantile greed, where money is more important than either happiness or honour, the most coveted commodities to be bought with it are sex and social prestige, and even true lovers must trick their way to marriage.

Ben Jonson 1572 – 1637 • the second place among the Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists is universally assigned, on the whole justly, to Ben Jonson, who both in temperament and in artistic theories and practice presents a complete contrast to Shakespeare

Ben Jonson (1572 - 1637) • His position as the leader of literary and dramatic taste and the centre of literary society in London was a new thing in English life, and his influence was so commanding and complete that most of the lesser dramatists stood in some sort of relation to him. • Jonson’s art lent itself to imitation by lesser men more readily than Shakespeare’s apparent artlessness covered a far more subtle method and mystery than did Jonson’s strict canons of conformity to definite theories of dramatic composition.

• he is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (1598), • Volpone, or The Foxe (1605), • The Alchemist (1610), and • Bartholomew Fayre: A Comedy (1614) satirical comedies displaying Jonson's classical learning and his interest in formal experiment,

• Two tragediesthat largely failed to impress Renaissance audiences: • Sejanus • Catiline, ,

• In 1605, Jonson began to write masques for the entertainment of the court. The earliest of his masques, . The masques displayed his erudition, wit, and versatility and contained some of his best lyric poetry. • Masque of Blacknesse (1605) was the first in a series of collaborations with Inigo Jones, noted English architect and set designer. • This collaboration produced masques such as The Masque of Owles, Masque of Beauty (1608), and Masque of Queens (1609), which were performed in Inigo Jones' elaborate and exotic settings