Poetaster: Ben Jonson

by Ben Jonson, Tom Cain

Ovid. I like not this sudden and general heaviness amongst our godheads; 'tis somewhat ominous. Apollo, command us louder music, and let Mercury and Momus contend to please and revive our senses.

Genres: Plays, Fiction, Drama, Classics

304 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1985

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

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

See my review of Jonson's Complete Plays--which features this one play.

[Jiang Yuqi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Admittedly not a good play (not as good as some other Jonsonian comedies, at least)
However, it’s just hilarious that Jonson basically wrote an Ancient Rome AU of all his theatre colleagues - he hated half of them, apparently.
I laughed so hard sometimes when reading this.
If I could go back in time…to the 1900, I would try to dissuade W.B.Yeats from reading too much into this play. Honestly it’s just a never-ending whim.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am reviewing the version in the Oxford World's Classics: The Devil is an Ass and Other Plays.

Poetaster shows exactly why Ben Jonson is so good, and also why he's not: every single line in this is brilliant: there's a consistent quality to this play that is phenomenal. It also has the first known version of the "Take My Wife..." joke that I have come across.

But: it seems to be two (or three) plays jammed together, and Act Five seems to be his revenge on two of his colleagues (and it's more than somewhat unsubtle): yes, it's funny, and Demetrius' defence of why he was attacking Horace (basically, lots of other people like his stuff, so it was time to get nasty on his ass) reminds me of an internet troll (human nature doesn't really change, only the means by which we make our insults of each other).

But there's the story of Ovid and his ill-fated affair with the Emperor's daughter, which ends up like a version of Romeo and Juliet; there's Crispinus' attempt to seduce the married Chloe, and outwit her (frankly dim) husband; there's Tucca's attempt to do the same thing. All three of these plots are finished by the end of Act Four, without really resolving, and Act Five has two new plots: the praise of Virgil by the other poets, and Crispinus' and Demetrius' attempts to get Horace arrested which backfires on them and on Tucca, neither of which are dramatically as interesting.

This play would have benefited from someone in 1601 blue-penciling it, and saying: let's deal with these plots: they're really good. The last Act is pretty much a different play (beautifully written and everything, but....) Knowing what Ben Jonson was like, I am sure that wouldn't be a job anyone would have taken on willingly, but it would probably have made for a better play (Volpone, Epicene, Bartholomew Fair, Alchemist) rather than this beauifully written misfire.

And it's a lot better without the original epilogue, which is essentially Jonson having a whinge.

[Stefanie]

18% of the book was an introductory history of Ben Jonson. I made it through Act 1, but even with that history I still felt like I had no idea what was happening. I'd maybe read an annotated version.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poetaster is a scornful, intolerant word for a poet who writes insignificant and/or rubbish poetry. It's pronounced po-et-ass-ter, which I thought I would mention after asking for poe-taste-r (delicious Poe!) in the library and being met with utter contempt. I think the librarian's reaction to my mistake and Jonson's treatment of the poetasters in his play amount to the same thing: pointless elitism.

Whilst Jonson's ego is something that endears him to me (mostly because he has the writing talent to back it up, but also because this makes poems like 'On my First Sonne' all the more poignant when he steps back from centrestage), in 'Poetaster' I think he went a bit overboard.

The play is part of The War of the Theatres, and is a satirical attack on Jonson's rivals, John Marston and Thomas Dekker. The author depicts himself as Horace (!) and Marston and Dekker as minor Roman 'poetasters' Crispinus and Demetrius Fannius, respectively. Apparently this play lost him the war, and was a flop with the Elizabethan audience, although he went on to be a well-respected poet and playwright regardless.

I have to say I side with the Elizabethan audience on this one! It was a very dull read (and I expect also a very dull watch).

[Gill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good grief this is long! Jonson's (possibly) final shot in the War of the Theatres, in which he portrays a thinly-veiled representation of his rival, Marston as a worthless poet vomiting up peculiar words. A certain irony in that Jonson accuses other writers of long, tedious speeches. In long, tedious speeches. Some humour works, though the habit of giving the Roman poets great chunks translated from their own works doesn't help.

Read as part of the Shakespeare Institute's 2019 readathon, #Websterthon

And read again as part of the REP online reading of the repertoire of the children's companies.

It has to be said, this is very much better than any of the boys' plays also in repertoire in those very early years at the Blackfriars - the vocabulary vomiting scene can be very funny, as can the scene in which Horace (aka Ben himself) desperately tries to get away from the boring poet who has cornered him.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of Ben Jonson's little-known comedies now, this is an ebullient, scathing and literarily-knowing attack on bad poets jumping on the bandwagon of their betters. Set in a fictional Rome under Augustus, this features star parts from such classical luminaries as Horace (Jonson), Vergil, Ovid, Tibullus, Gallus and a Propertius who has locked himself away to pine for the dead Cynthia...

You probably need to have a fairly good acquaintance with these poets to `get' the play. There are fine comedic moments as Vergil recites from the completed Aeneid for the first time; Ovid and Julia (Augustus' daughter) re-enact the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet; and the bad poets literally throw up their plagiarised verses.

Rather wonderful in an erudite and intellectual way.

[Paul Adkin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ben Jonson was an enormously erudite writer and he is not easy to read because of the wealth of cross references in his works. If it was performed in its entirety the pacing of this play would have to have been electric, the dialogues spurted with sharp clear wit. How he managed to stage this with his company of young boys, is hard to fathom. Any production would need careful eye to detail and an in-depth analysis of text in order to pull it off.
Of course, plays are meant to be seen, not read. The proof of this pudding would be in the tasting, but I've never seen a production of it.

[Hayley Lawton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Such a blatant attack on poets of the day, it got so crazy and silly in there towards the end.