ENGLISH

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)

By Ben Jonson

Book information

Year
1989
ISBN
0521318424, 9780511597787, 9780521267380, 9780521318426
LCC
PR2602 .B87 1989
Open Library ID
OL2033613M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
8 MB (8269954 bytes)
Pages
556\550
Topic
Chemistry
Time added
2011-06-04 13:46:07

Description

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.

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