Ben Jonson's Theatrical Republics

by J. Sanders

Overview

This timely book challenges conventional critical wisdom about the work of Ben Jonson. Looking in particular at his Jacobean and Caroline plays, it explores his engagement with concepts of republicanism. Julie Sanders investigates notions of community in Jonson's stage worlds - his 'theatrical republics' - and reveals a Jonson to contrast with the traditional image of the writer as conservative, absolutist, misogynist, and essentially 'anti-theatrical'. The Jonson presented here is a positive celebrant of the social and political possibilities of theatre.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780333676622
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	08/19/1998
Edition description:	1998
Pages:	262
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Julie Sanders is Lecturer in English at Keele University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Note on Editions Used Introduction PART I: REPUBLICS - FAKE AND GENUINE Roman Frames of Mind 'Saying Something About Venice' PART II: THEATRICAL REPUBLICS The Alternative Commonwealth of Women Republicanism and Theatre The Republic in the Fair PART III: THEATRICAL COMMONWEALTHS AND COMMUNITIES The Commonwealth of Hell: The Devil is an Ass The Commonwealth of Paper: Print, News, and The Staple of News Alternative Societies: The New Inn and the Late Plays Local Government and Personal Rule in A Tale of a Tub Conclusion: The End of [T] his Commonwealth Does Not Forget the Beginning Notes Bibliography Index

Editorial Reviews

The co-editor of Refashioning Ben Johnson (1998) challenges the conventional characterization of Elizabethan dramatist and King's poet Ben Johnson as stodgily conservative. For her analysis of his pro-republican sympathies especially in the later plays, Sanders (English, Keele U.) draws mainly upon the Cambridge U. Press edition of the Selected Plays of Ben Johnson (ed. by Butler and Proctor, 1989). The author focuses on the playwright's public rather than court productions where she discerns a microcosm of the social currents for extending subjects' rights in his themes: e.g. "Something About Venice" (republics fake and genuine), "The Staple of News" (the commonwealth of print media), The New Inn (alternative societies), and A Tale of a Tub (local government and personal rule). Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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