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
17th-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
the 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 not 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. 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