The ALCHEMIST by Ben Jonson "Classic Edition"

by Ben Jonson

The Alchemist, comedy in five acts by Ben Jonson, performed in 1610 and published in 1612. The play concerns the turmoil of deception that ensues when Lovewit leaves his London house in the care of his scheming servant, Face.
The Alchemist, comedy in five acts by Ben Jonson, performed in 1610 and published in 1612. The play concerns the turmoil of deception that ensues when Lovewit leaves his London house in the care of his scheming servant, Face.

Genres: Classics, School

304 pages, Paperback

Published June 21, 2022

About the author

Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems. A man of vast reading and a seemingly insatiable appetite for controversy, Jonson had an unparalleled breadth of influence on Jacobean and Caroline playwrights and poets. A house in Dulwich College is named after him.

See more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Jonson

Reviews

[Jon Beadle · Rating 3 out of 5]

If anyone wants me to provide them with proof that Ben Jonson did NOT actually write any of the plays attributed to Shakespeare, exhibit A is this play.

[king bitchard 💜 · Rating 2 out of 5]

i read a censored version of this so maybe the real one is funnier but GOD THIS SUCKED

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I could definitely tell this was supposed to be funny but this seems like one of those plays you need to see on stage to really get

[CA Ram Melam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This drama presents only social and psychological types of characters rather than individuals with life and blood. The play's author, Ben Jonson, has a natural mental inclination for satire. So he always perceives the follies and foibles of his age with a critical eye and ridicules them with the instrument of comedy.

Limitations of Jonson's comedy: The collective effect of Ben Jonson's theory and practice was that his range was unduly restricted and narrow. Moreover, his comedies are bereft of the human feelings of love and lack the quality of universality. Of course, Jonson's realism and satire had much validity in his own age. This concept explains why modern readers and spectators are not interested in them, though Jacobean theatergoers might have been thrilled by these satirical compositions.

In the literary world, the works of Jonson's always compare with that of Dickens and Shakespeare, where these two authors' imagination is realistic and romantic with a wide variety of characters and plots.

[Richard Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

With nothing but a few footnotes to help with the language, this is pretty tough going, but I still enjoyed it quite a bit. At 4 stars, I'm going a bit on a limb, with so many other people giving it a 3 or less while comparing it unfavorably with Shakespeare. But I found it witty and amusing. I would like to understand it better, for sure, but the scams and tricks are clever and the action tight enough to amuse a reader, considering always this is a 400 year old play, not a modern novel.

A wealthy homeowner is away for weeks, and while he's out, his servant is using the house to run several scams with a pair of partners: a man posing (pretty convincingly) as a competent alchemist, cooking up potions and pretending to know astrology, and a prostitute posing as a respectable woman. They've got a number of people on the hook, telling them they're getting closer all the time to finishing the long process of making a philosopher's stone, confusing them with fancy alchemical language, putting them off, while making them bring in fabrics, costly metal items (to turn to gold), tobacco, and actual money. The marks will want to get rich and do either good works (so they say) or sleep with lots of women. It's a long scam, and though they're pulling it off, the neighbors notice the strange comings and goings and at a couple people suspect they're being tricked. It looks like they might pull it off despite a whistleblower tricking them, but they get interrupted in their multiple scams when the homeowner comes back weeks early and learns what's happening from his neighbors.

There is a happy ending of sorts, on top of a pretty good skewering of scammers, puritans, ambitious men, and fools of all sorts. This is one I would like to reread with a study guide, and make more sense of it. (Also, I'd like a version that avoids my pet peeve--I hate books that only give the first three letters of character's name at every line. It doesn't work for my brain. I have to rehearse who is who over and over. Doll is 4 letters, but we print Dol? How much room does this save? How many pages? Can't we just put everybody's name?) A more thoroughly annotated copy would also help.

Still, as is, I liked it, and think people looking for other plays from Shakespeare's times would probably also enjoy it.

[Elsie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listen, I didn’t think I would like it. I don’t typically like con-game setups. Plus I read Volpone a first, and I didn’t like it at all (mainly because of all of the domestic violence), so I wasn’t expecting this other play by Jonson to be good, but I love it.

I thought that this play was absolutely hilarious. From Mammon’s extremely weird speeches to Ananias’s and Surly’s asides to the moment at the end in which everyone has forgotten about Dapper tied up and gagged in the bathroom, I enjoyed it all. It was extremely fast-paced, but it was still easy to follow for me. I think that another one of the reasons that I enjoyed this so much, especially compared to Volpone, was that there wasn’t a particularly sinister or dark element to it. It was just comedy, and I didn’t feel bad for enjoying it or the characters. Sure, a lot of the characters were pretty immoral people, but they were more amusing than anything. (Also, I thought that the little nod to Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” with the whole fairy queen bit was very funny.)

[Rachel Lemmen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Though with a lot of research and dictionaries this play can become deep and an interesting satirical metaphor perhaps on the theater or just naïveté, it is SO hard to read due to the 17th century London vernacular. In my opinion, if a text requires a boat load of secondary research to get it, the author is trying too hard.

[Katy · Rating 3 out of 5]

the amount of times i had to explain i was not in fact reading the novel The Alchemist but instead the elizabethan play...

i honestly wish i had been reading the novel The Alchemist

i am in the trenches

[Jessica Maravalhas · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, to my surprise, i was really enjoying this play. It was a fun read, even though it was for class. However, the ending disappointed me a bit. I expected the ending to be, i dont know, more? It was kinda vague, more could have been said, but well, it was still good nevertheless.

[M Summ · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s no wonder that Ben Jonson isn’t well known as a contemporary with the Bard! How could anyone pay attention to this work when Shakespeare is able to mock his era is a much more artful way?
I read this as part of my classic British literature course that I’m listening to and learning from.

[chloe · Rating 3 out of 5]

i got scammed by a wayward coffee machine whilst reading this, which felt rather fitting

[Mayank Tiwari · Rating 1 out of 5]

After reading this shit I couldn’t read any book

[Mia · Rating 2 out of 5]

thumbs down

[Josh Swinscoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

definitely a play i would rather watch than read

[Gill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely one of BenJo's best, this fairly bounces along. Re-read in a cut version - definitely more fun.

[Brenton Jackson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was something… that’s for sure