The Selected Plays of Ben Jonson: Volume 2: The Alchemist, Bartholomew Fair, the New Inn, a Tale of a Tub

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Overview

Four of Ben Jonson's plays are examined in this volume: two are his major works and two from his later oeuvre. The Alchemist (1610) is a major satire on folly and greed, brilliantly plotted and dazzling in its use of language. Bartholomew Fair (1614), possibly Jonson's greatest achievement, reveals a panoramic depiction of London society. The New Inn (1629) and A Tale of a Tub (1633) suggest a different Jonson, exploring new forms and writing from a profoundly modified perspective. In The New Inn, a romantic comedy overlaid with an atmospheric melancholy and ethical urgency, Jonson engages seriously for the first time with the conventions of non-satiric comedy. A Tale of a Tub, a riotous farce set in the early years of Queen Elizabeth, is now widely regarded as a nostalgic Jonsonian pastiche of Elizabethan popular drama. In recent criticism, Jonson's later career has been undergoing considerable reassessment, and this edition is the first that attempts to take this new view of Jonson into account.