Episode 198:

As Ben Jonson was writing ‘The Poetaster’ in 1601 the Elizabethan age was drawing to a close.  Elizabeth would live until March 1603, but by 1601 any hope of a natural heir was long past and her court and councillors were playing a waiting game and with different degrees of secrecy were trying to manipulate the situation over the accession to their own advantage.  Jonson, I’m sure, had an eye and an ear on those politics, but the comedy he was writing was more concerned with the politics of the theatre than those in the court.  In the previous episode on ‘Cynthia’s Revels’ and in my episodes on Thomas Dekker, that you can still find on the podcast archive, I have touched on ‘the war of the poets’ and this episode on ‘The Poetaster’ will bring these matters to a close.  Although it’s not essential you might find listening to those earlier episodes useful, if you have not done so already, before listening to this one.

The early performance of the play and it’s place in the ‘war of the poets’

The print history of the play

The theme of the role of the poet

A short synopsis of the play

The caricature of John Marston

The Poetaster and Satiromastix

The feud as fuelled by the rivalry between playing troupes

The poet as councillor and companion to the monarch

The exposing of the poetasters

The change in title

Reference to the Essex rebellion

The attempted censoring of the play

The epilogue

The end of the ‘Poetomachia’

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