The Social Relations of Jonson's Theater [Hardcover]

A detailed literary historical argument about the sources and consequences of Jonson's realism.In this book, originally published in 1992, Haynes presents a detailed literary historical argument about the sources and consequences of Jonson's realism. He examines the entanglements of life and art in Jonson's time both through a look at the life of that period and through insightful readings of Jonson's plays.In this book, originally published in 1992, Haynes presents a detailed literary historical argument about the sources and consequences of Jonson's realism. He examines the entanglements of life and art in Jonson's time both through a look at the life of that period and through insightful readings of Jonson's plays.The author considers the Elizabethan playwright Ben Jonson a realist and an acute observer of the transformation from feudalism to capitalism with many of the forms and purposes of Jonson's realism resulting from the social dynamics of the London theater audience. Haynes presents a detailed literary historical argument about the sources and consequences of Jonson's realism and examines the entanglements of life and art in Jonson's time both through a look at the life of that period and through insightful readings of Jonson's plays. The book is informed by the new social history and polemicizes against the moral and formal preoccupations of the past two generations of Jonson criticism.Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction: Jonson's realism; 2. The origins of Jonson's realism; 3. 'Thus neere, and familiarly allied to the time'; 4. Representing the Underworld: The Alchemist; 5. Festivity and the dramatic economy of Bartholomew Fair; Index.