The Works Of Ben Jonson: With Notes Critical And Explanatory, And A Biographical Memoir

by Ben Jonson

"The Works Of Ben With Notes Critical And Explanatory, And A Biographical Memoir" by Ben Jonson. This volume presents a composite selection of Jonson’s early-17th-century plays, including The Alchemist, Catiline, His Conspiracy, and Bartholomew Fair, with editorial notes on context, language, and dramatic technique. The excerpt focuses on The Alchemist’s London den of con artists led by Subtle and Face, using fake chemistry, bogus omens, and social pretense to critique greed, imposture, and religious hypocrisy. It also surveys Catiline, His Conspiracy’s Roman tragedy of tyranny, statecraft, and moral complexity, anchored in classical sources and political rhetoric. In Bartholomew Fair, the bustling Jacobean carnival doubles as a ribald stage for social satire, Puritan zeal, and the performance of marriage, fortune, and public virtue. Across these sections, Jonson’s sharp wit, metafictional commentary, and rapid stagecraft illuminate the interplay between commerce, credulity, and authority in early modern London. The editor’s apparatus foregrounds historical context and theatrical craft.

560 pages, Paperback

First published January 8, 2010

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