The Selected Plays of Ben Jonson: Volume 2: The Alchemist, Bartholomew Fair, The New Inn, A Tale of a Tub (Plays by Renaissance and Restoration Dramatists) - Softcover

Jonson, Ben

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521318424 ISBN 13: 9780521318426

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1989

Synopsis

Four of Ben Jonson's plays are examined in this volume: two are his major works and two from his later oeuvre. The Alchemist (1610) is a major satire on folly and greed, brilliantly plotted and dazzling in its use of language. Bartholomew Fair (1614), possibly Jonson's greatest achievement, reveals a panoramic depiction of London society. The New Inn (1629) and A Tale of a Tub (1633) suggest a different Jonson, exploring new forms and writing from a profoundly modified perspective. In The New Inn, a romantic comedy overlaid with an atmospheric melancholy and ethical urgency, Jonson engages seriously for the first time with the conventions of non-satiric comedy. A Tale of a Tub, a riotous farce set in the early years of Queen Elizabeth, is now widely regarded as a nostalgic Jonsonian pastiche of Elizabethan popular drama. In recent criticism, Jonson's later career has been undergoing considerable reassessment, and this edition is the first that attempts to take this new view of Jonson into account.

About this title

Book Description:

Four of Ben Jonson's plays are examined in this second volume of criticism: two are his major works and two from his later oeuvre. They include The Alchemist, Bartholomew Fair, The New Inn and A Tale of a Tub.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0521318424
• ISBN 13: 9780521318426
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 556
• Editor: Butler Martin