POST SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMATISTS
Or
JACOBEAN AGE
Or
CONTRIBUTION OF BEN JOHNSON AND JOHN WEBSTER
INTRODUCTION
Drama in post Shakespearean England began to decline. It lost the wide open-mindedness that differentiated Shakespearean drama. The main causes, which led to the decline, are exhaustion of creative spirit, changed atmosphere, loss of national appeal and decline In techniques and blank verse. After Shakespeare, there was no great dramatist, so drama was to decline. Shakespeare catered to the need of the public. Everything changed after Shakespeare. The audience itself had changed. Shakespeare’s successor lacked not only his genius but also the moral quality and the deep insight. Ben Jonson and John Webster are the major dramatists of the Jacobean Age.
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BEN JONSON (June 11, 1572 – August 06, 1637)
Ben Johnson’s tomb bears the epitaph: ‘O, rare Ben Johnson.’ It expresses his greatness as a man, dramatist and a poet.
His concept of comedy:
Ben Jonson rejected the romantic comedy and tragi-comedy. He formulated his own theory of comedy. He tried to cure the theatrical evils of the time by establishing a comic and a tragic form based on the classic example.
According to him, comedy must be realistic. Instead of dealing with far-fetched romantic situation and characters, it must limit itself to the familiar world of everyday experience. In his first great comedy Every Man in His Humour Ben Jonson refers to this comedy. In The Alchemist, we find a perfect realistic picture of early seventeenth century England. He exposes the hypocrisy of Puritans”. He turned his observation to the uglier side,of human nature.
(Puritans: a member of a group of Protestants in 16th and 17th century England and 17th century America who believed in strict religious discipline and called for the simplification of acts of worship).
He did not permit the mingling of tragic and comic elements in comedy. Comedy, according to him, was meant to make people laugh, whereas tragedy was meant to arouse pity and fear. According to him, the chief aim of comedy was correction through amusement. He gave comedy of humours.
However, he used this term in vague. At first, he interpreted, Humour to mean only personal temperament as in Every Man in His Humour. However, gradually it covered social manners too.
As a dramatist
As a dramatist, he was a classicist. He stood against the romantic comedy of the Elizabethan age. He advocated the romantic comedy. He wanted drama to return to Greeks and Romans. He confined himself to the representation of London life in a satirical manner. He never had complicated plot. In Bartholomew Fair, there is hardly any plot. His characters are taken from the crowd around him. They are dominated by a ruling passion, which is reflected in all their action. They are types and not individual. Instead of the personification of live persons, they become the personifies of vice and virtue. They are readymade.
Realism and Satire
He was the first person to blend comedy and satire. He was a magnificent artist. First, he directed satire against cotemporary romantic stage and the follies of age. All his comedies are satire on the co contemporary evils of the court. Bartholomew Fairs is a satire on Puritanism. The Alchemist is a satire on alchemy. He satirizes the lust of gold.
To conclude one can say Jonson is the real founder of Comedy of humours of Restoration Period. His comedy of Humours was both moral in tone and purpose. His intellectualism, realism and classicism influenced the literary development during the seventeenth century. He is the pioneer of neoclassicism
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JOHN WEBSTER (1580 – 1634)
He is one of the greatest and most brilliant tragic dramatist of post- Elizabethan period. His two tragedies The White Devil (1609-12) and The Duchess of Malfi (1613–14) have earned him immortal place in the post-Shakespearean drama.
The Revenge – Horror tradition:
The revenge-horror tragedy was popular in Elizabethan England. Webster was one of the final practitioners of the blood-and-horror tragedy. In The White Devil and The Duchess ot Malfi. he deals with the motive of revenge. The Duchess of Malfi has the revenge in its ugliest form. The victim the Duchess of Malfi is full of innocence. Her brothers drove her to madness and death because she married against their wishes. The play is a powerful one but not a tragedy of higher order. However his poetry is good.
Antonio, the husband of the Duchess of Malfi says:
Basona, the villain says:
We are merely the stars’ tennis balls,
Struck and bandies
Which way we please them.
His moral vision and characterization
He also impresses with his moral vision. In his plays, the God is not mocked. The evil doer is caught in the net that he has woven for others. Even his wickedest characters are also aware of their crime. Before they die, they learn the law of poetic justice. Flamineo cries while dying. “My life was a black charnel.” The, villains in The Duchess of Malfi are also aware of their sins. His range of characterization is limited. He only talks about revenge and murder, cruelty boldness with which he has drawn the picture of corrupt humanity is impressive.
In short, in spite of some limitations, Webster ranks high in the Post -Shakespearean drama.
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Minor dramatists:
George Chapman (1559- 1634)
He was an English dramatist, translator, and poet. By the late 1590s, Chapman had achieved success as a playwright. His plays show an experiment with dramatic form. His An Humorous Day’s Mirth was one of the first plays to be written in the comedy. This was later used by Ben Jonson in Every Man in his Humour and Every Man Out of his Humour. With The Widow’s Tears he was also one of the first writers to melt comedy with more serious themes, creating the tragicomedy later made famous by Beaumont and Fletcher. He also wrote tragedies.
John Marston (1576 – 1634)
He was an English dramatist. He was one of the most dynamic satirists of the Shakespearean era. His most famous work is “The Malcontent” (1604). This play tells the story of the deposed duke, Altofront.
John Ford (1586 – 1639)
He was an English playwright and poet of the Jacobean and Caroline era. His plays explore the conflicts between individual passion and conscience and the laws and morals of society at large. Ford is best known tor the tragedy Tis Pity She’s a’ Whore (1833). It is a family drama with a plot on the line of incest.
Beaumont and Fletcher:
They were the English dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I. Around 1609, Beaumont and Fletcher seemingly replaced Shakespeare as the chief dramatists of the King’s Men. In quick succession they wrote Philaster (1609), The Maid’s Tragedy (1610), and A King and No King (1611). The promising partnarship came to an end quite soon. The first collected edition of Beaumont and Fletcher’s plays was published in 1647.
Thomass Dekkar (1572 – 1632)
He was more an English Elizabethan dramatist. He was a versatile and prolific writer. His career spanned several decades, His most famous play is The Shoemaker’s Holiday, or The Gentle Craft 1600. It is categorised by modern critics as citizen commedy. This play reflects his concerns with the daily lives of ordinary Londoners, and contains the poem The Merry Month of May. He is also known for his work The Honest Whore, Part 2 (1630). Both the plays use the moralistic tone of traditional drama.
Thomas Heywood (1570 – 1641)
He was a prominent English playwright, actor, and author of late Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre. Heywood’s most famous plays are his domestic tragedies and comedies. His masterpiece is generaly considered to be Woman Killed with Kindness (1603). It is a domestic tragedy about an adulterous wife. The play narrates the story of Master Frankford and his wife Anne, a married couple.
Thomas Middleton(1580 – 1627)
He was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. Middleton ranks alongside John Fletcher and Ben Jonson as one of the most successful and prolific playwrights of the Jacobean period. He was one of the few Renaissance dramatists aci to wrote in achie equal success in comedy and tragedy. Middleton wrote in various genres, including tragedy, history, and city comedy. His most famous plays are the tragedies “The Changeling” (co-written with William Rowley) and “Women Beware Women.”
Cyril Tourneur (1575 – 1626)
He was an English dramatist. He enjoyed his greatest success during the reign of King James I of England. His best-known work is The Revenger’s Tragedy (1607). However. the play has alternatively been attributed to Thomas Middleton. The play characterizes the satiric tone and sarcasm of much Jacobean tragedy
CONCLUSION
In summary, the dramatists of the Jacobean age can be categorized into two classes as follows:
(i) The dramatists of the old school- Dekker, Heywood, Webster, Beaumont, and Fletcher.
(ii) The satiric group includes Chapman, Jonson, Marston, Middleton, and Tourneur.
One of the reasons for the decadence in Jacobean drama was its loss of national spirit and patronage. Another reason was decadent courtly taste with tales of intrigue, cruelty, and immorality.
