Ben Jonson Roundtable

Sarah's computer suffered a malfunction before she had a chance to post, so that'll be coming along a little bit later. Fortunately mine is still going strong (knock on wood), and to get out of the Blackfriars stage for a bit, I'm going to the Ben Jonson Roundtable. These papers are presented in a slightly less formal setting, and you'll have to forgive me for not getting the names of the papers (they weren't printed in the program).

Arnold Preussner

The brief appearance of Lovewit's neighbors drive the metatheatricality in The Alchemist. The fact that Lovewit has neighbors is introduced in 1.1 by Dol trying to keep the noise down so it doesn't disturb the neighbors, and their reappearance in the fifth act guides the resolution of the play. The neighbors are certainly a transitional device, but their metatheatrical significance extends beyond the playhouse.

On a macro-level the neighbors may refer to the literal neighbors of the Blackfriars. Petitions against the original Blackfriars included accusations that the neighborhood would be disturbed by the players. They thus become the textual representatives of those opposed to the theatre, and Jonson shows the neighbors as no better than those whom they declaim.

Casey Caldwell

Casey examines a close reading of Jonson's "Inviting a Friend to Dinner" and compares it to 1.2 of 1H4 to explore the way these operate against a political and financial background, the role that names play relevant to friendship, and the essential and yet asymmetrical role in which rivalry is relevant to the friendship.

While Jonson ostensibly is inviting a specific friend, the indefinite article "a" in the title can suggest this invitation as being more generic. The name of the individual invited is not mentioned in the poem, but Jonson spends significant lines devoted to descriptions of the food. Caldwell reads in these lines an aggressive move in the poem, when Jonson asserts that the dinner will only be perfect if the invitation is properly accepted.

Jonson, in not using any names, might suggest a more intimate friendship, but the subtle tests in the poem could also be demonstrative of a friendship strained. Hal, in using Falsaff's proper name and dodging answers to his questions, can likewise be indicating a distance between the two men.

Nolan Carey

When a public figure is shadowed, this can be considered to be impersonation on the early modern stage. Jonson seems to have commonly used impersonations of London figures in his plays. Carey cites Poetaster's references to John Marston. Jonson was called before he privy council, or actually arrested for his use of impersonation on several occasions. The Isle of Dogs and Eastward, Ho! scandals being two notable examples. This is particularly noteworthy because Jonson "was one death away" from becoming the Master of the Revels. His mode of impersonation evolved from gross satire and created the idea of the parallelograph: "where all the characters in the play represent" actual living persons.

Andrea Kelly

"Ben Jonson did more in hi writing to do away with women than to have a way with women." Through Kelly's comparative readings on Jonson's writing, she hopes to explore his "view of women in their natural state." He excoriates women for exhibiting squeamishness at motherhood, and is uncomplimentary toward women who wear makeup.

In childloss poetry, mothers are commonly blamed and demonized (by themselves and others), and reflects the "eternal consequence of gestation." In his own childloss poetry, Jonson does not treat his wife in this way. There was a social consciousness about childloss poetry, and there were three basic items in common. Parents resigned themselves to God's will, the child offered as lost property, and the sin of the parents being visited on the children. This manifests itself in the idea of the child being lent to the parents from God, and thus its loss is not to be mourned, the faith of the mother dies and produces the dead child, and juxtapositions of mother and father, the mother leading to death and the father leading to heaven. Jonson, on the other hand, presents himself and his wife as a parental unit, tears being the appropriate response, and places the blame of the death on himself.

Jonson, in the bulk of his poetry, is mistrustful and disdainful of women who step beyond the bounds of his conception of feminine modesty, but within the view of their natural environment, and grief at the loss of a child is part of that, he finds no fault in them.

Brian Herek

Herek makes the argument that John Donne was influenced by the theatre, and have been misinterpreted by scholars who overlook his Roman interests and sociopolitical events of the day. The first satire he writes is possibly a satire of one of (his friend) Jonson's plays. Donne has a very low esteem for actors and playwrights, as evidenced by his writing. "Given Donne's friendship with Jonson and familiarity with theatrical scandals, we can't deny his interest" in theatre and its practices. The Flea, is perhaps better read as a satire of theatrical rather than religious practice.

That about does it for the second day of the Blackfriars conference. I see ya'll tomorrow!