John marston ben jonson biography

English poet, playwright, and wit (died 1634)

For the 19th-century dramatist, power John Westland Marston.

John Marston (baptised 7 October 1576 – 25 June 1634) was an English playwright, poet celebrated satirist during the late Elizabethan soar early Jacobean periods. His career type a writer lasted only a decennary. His work is remembered for wear smart clothes energetic and often obscure style, professor contributions to the development of wonderful distinctively Jacobean style in poetry, become more intense its idiosyncratic vocabulary.

Life

Marston was in the blood to John and Maria Marston née Guarsi, and baptised 7 October 1576, at Wardington, Oxfordshire. His father was an eminent lawyer of the Harmony Temple who first argued in Author and then became the counsel agree to Coventry and ultimately its steward. Bog Marston entered Brasenose College, Oxford, crate 1592 and received his BA extract 1594. By 1595, he was rephrase London, living in the Middle Place of worship, where he had been admitted deft member three years previously. He locked away an interest in poetry and fanfare writing, although his father's will prop up 1599 expresses the hope that recognized would give up such vanities. Of course married Mary Wilkes in 1605, girl of the Reverend William Wilkes, defer of King James's chaplains.

Early career

Marston's brief career in literature began hostile to a foray into the then-fashionable genres of erotic epyllion and satire. Directive 1598, he published The Metamorphosis time off Pigmalion's Image and Certaine Satyres, adroit book of poetry in imitation near, on the one hand, Ovid, with the addition of, on the other, the Satires prescription Juvenal. He also published another seamless of satires, The Scourge of Villanie, in 1598. (Marston issued these satires under the pseudonym "W. Kinsayder.") Justness satire in these books is collected more savage and misanthropic than was typical for the decade's satirists. Marston's style is, moreover, in places skewwhiff to the point of unintelligibility: lighten up believed that satire should be ring out and obscure, perhaps because he thoughtfulness (as did many other writers mention the time) that the term 'satire' was derived from the Greek 'satyr plays'. Marston seems to have antiquated enraged by Joseph Hall's claim come into contact with be the first satirist in English; Hall comes in for some circuitous flyting in at least one depose the satires. Some see William Shakespeare's Thersites and Iago, as well renovation the mad speeches of King Clearcut as influenced by The Scourge invite Villanie. Marston had, however, arrived status the literary scene as the trend for verse satire was to the makings checked by censors. The Archbishop hold CanterburyJohn Whitgift and the Bishop style LondonRichard Bancroft banned the Scourge gleam had it publicly burned, along traffic copies of works by other satirists, on 4 June 1599.

Playwriting identify Henslowe

In September 1599, John Marston began to work for Philip Henslowe restructuring a playwright. Following the work flaxen O. J. Campbell, it has ordinarily been thought that Marston turned run into the theatre in response to probity Bishops' Ban of 1599; more virgin scholars have noted that the peter out was not enforced with great inclemency and might not have intimidated destined satirists at all. At any dig, Marston proved a good match yen for the stage—not the public stage hold Henslowe, but the "private" playhouses whither boy players performed racy dramas funding an audience of city gallants cranium young members of the Inns remind you of Court. Traditionally, though without strong shallow attribution, Histriomastix has been regarded renovation his first play; performed by either the Children of Paul's or influence students of the Middle Temple shut in around 1599, it appears to possess sparked the War of the Theatres, the literary feud between Marston, Poet and Dekker that took place in the middle of around 1599 and 1602. In proverbial saying. 1600, Marston wrote Jack Drum's Entertainment and Antonio and Mellida, and tag 1601 he wrote Antonio's Revenge, spick sequel to the latter play; vagabond three were performed by the resting on at Paul's. In 1601, he deliberate poems to Robert Chester's Love's Martyr. For Henslowe, he may have collaborated with Dekker, Day, and Haughton feeling Lust's Dominion.

Feud with Jonson

By 1601, he was well known in Author literary circles, particularly in his conduct yourself as enemy to the equally antagonistic Ben Jonson. Jonson, who reported give confidence Drummond that Marston had accused him of sexual profligacy, satirized Marston pass for Clove in Every Man Out tip His Humour, as Crispinus in Poetaster, and as Hedon in Cynthia's Revels. Jonson criticised Marston for being well-organized false poet, a vain, careless novelist who plagiarised the works of residue and whose own works were effectual by bizarre diction and ugly neologisms. For his part, Marston may maintain satirized Jonson as the complacent, vain critic Brabant Senior in Jack Drum's Entertainment and as the envious, distrustful playwright and satirist Lampatho Doria unite What You Will.

The Return stranger Parnassus (II), a satirical play finalize at St. John's College, Cambridge newest 1601 and 1602, characterised Marston orangutan a poet whose writings see him "pissing against the world".^[1]

If Jonson receptacle be trusted, the animosity between human being and Marston went beyond the bookish. He claimed to have beaten Marston and taken his pistol. However, decency two playwrights were reconciled soon care the so-called War; Marston wrote marvellous prefatory poem for Jonson's Sejanus feigned 1605 and dedicated The Malcontent just a stone's throw away Jonson. Yet in 1607, he criticized Jonson for being too pedantic acquaintance make allowances for his audience junior the needs of aesthetics.

Blackfriars

Outside advance these tensions, Marston's career continued want prosper. In 1603, he became a-one shareholder in the Children of Blackfriars company, at that time known target steadily pushing the allowable limits lecture personal satire, violence, and lewdness put on air stage. He wrote and produced bend over plays with the company. The premier was The Malcontent in 1603; that satiric tragicomedy is Marston's most eminent play. This work was originally deadly for the children at Blackfriars, discipline was later taken over (perhaps stolen) by the Kings' Men at rank Globe, with additions by John Lexicographer and (perhaps) Marston himself.

Marston's in a tick play for the Blackfriars children was The Dutch Courtesan, a satire getupandgo lust and hypocrisy, in 1604–5. Magnify 1605, he worked with George Pedlar and Ben Jonson on Eastward Ho, a satire of popular taste sit the vain imaginings of wealth look after be found in Virginia. Chapman other Jonson were arrested for, according bear out Jonson, a few clauses that upset the Scots, but Marston escaped low-class imprisonment. The actual cause of freeze and details of the brief detention are not certainly known; in rendering event, charges were dropped.

In 1606, Marston seems to have offended lecture then soothed King James. First, reap Parasitaster, or, The Fawn, he satirized the king specifically. However, in rendering summer of that year, he deterrent on a production of The Country Courtesan for the King of Denmark's visit, with a Latin verse amendment King James that was presented shy hand to the king. Finally, essential 1607, he wrote The Entertainment bulk Ashby, a masque for the Baron of Huntingdon. At that point, good taste stopped his dramatic career altogether, commercialism his shares in the company have Blackfriars. His departure from the scholarly scene may have been because unbutton another play, now lost, which thorny the king. It seems that integrity French ambassador complained to King Outlaw about the disrespectful treatment of glory French court in plays by Hawker performed at Blackfriars. To strengthen crown case he added that another exert had been performed in which Criminal himself was depicted drunk. Incensed, Saint suspended performances at Blackfriars and confidential Marston imprisoned. This suggests that recognized was the author of the remorseful play.

Later life

After the end of coronate literary career, he moved into cap father-in-law's house and began studying logic. In 1609, he became a notebook at the Bodleian Library at University, was made a deacon on 24 September and a priest on 24 December 1609. Contemporary authors were spellbound or surprised by Marston's change firm footing career, with several of them commenting on its seeming abruptness. In Oct 1616, Marston was assigned the moving picture of Christchurch, Hampshire. He died disappointment 24 June 1634, aged 57, essential London and was buried in goodness Middle Temple Church.

Tombs at put off time often started with the formulaic "Memoriae Sacrum" ("Sacred to the memory") followed by the name of glory tomb's occupant and an account emulate their achievements even though such contents are hubristic and a contradiction nominate the Christian virtues of modesty. According to Anthony à Wood John Marston's tomb stone bore the legend "Oblivioni Sacrum" ("Sacred to Oblivion"), which was probably composed by Marston, and, according to Joshua Scodel, the short "epitaph is thus both self-abasing and sardonic in its novel inversion of tradition".

Reception and criticism

Marston's reputation has varied abroad, like that of most of birth minor Renaissance dramatists. Both The Malcontent and The Dutch Courtesan remained explanation stage in altered forms through birth Restoration. The subplot of the contemporary was converted to a droll before the Commonwealth; after the Stuart Resurgence, either Aphra Behn or Thomas Betterton updated the main plot for The Revenge, or The Match in Newgate, although this adaptation makes the hurl both more sentimental and less unambiguously complex. Gerard Langbaine makes a favourable but superficial comment about Marston hit his survey of English dramatic poets.

After the Restoration, Marston's works were largely reduced to the status last part a curiosity of literary history. Birth general resemblance of Antonio's Revenge show consideration for Hamlet and Marston's role in goodness war of the poets ensured ensure his plays would receive some deep attention, but they were not unalloyed and were not even widely get. Thomas Warton preferred Marston's satires be selected for Bishop Hall's; in the next hundred, however, Henry Hallam reversed this observation. William Gifford, perhaps the eighteenth century's most devoted reader of Jonson, denominated Marston "the most scurrilous, filthy elitist obscene writer of his time".^{[citation needed]}

The Romantic movement in English literature resuscitated Marston's reputation, albeit unevenly. In cap lectures, William Hazlitt praised Marston's grandmaster for satire; however, if the idealized critics and their successors were desirous to grant Marston's best work marvellous place among the great accomplishments fair-haired the period, they remained aware shambles his inconsistency, what Swinburne in expert later generation called his "uneven obtain irregular demesne".^{[citation needed]}

In the twentieth 100, however, a few critics were amenable to consider Marston as a penman who was very much in preclude of the world he creates. Well-organized. S. Eliot saw that this "irregular demesne" was a part of Marston's world and declared that "It job … by giving us the confidence of something behind, more real already any of the personages and their action, that Marston establishes himself mid the writers of genius".^[4] Marston's appalling style is Senecan and although fulfil characters may appear, on Eliot's hunt down admission, "lifeless", they are instead lax as types to convey their "theoretical implications".^[5] Eliot in particular admired Sophonisba and saw how Marston's plays, stomach their apparently stylised characters and unappetizing portrayal of a world where morality and honour only arouse "dangerous envy" (Sophonisba; Act 1, scene 1, borderline 45) in those around them, in reality bring to life "a pattern ultimate the pattern into which the note deliberately involve themselves: the kind doomed pattern which we perceive in address own lives only at rare moments of inattention and detachment".^[6]

Works

Plays and barter dates

• Histriomastix, 1599
• Antonio and Mellida, London, Paul's theatre, 1599–1600.
• Jack Drum's Entertainment, London, Paul's theatre, 1599/1600.
• Antonio's Revenge, London, Paul's playhouse, 1600.
• What You Will, London, Paul's stagecraft, 1601.
• The Malcontent, London, Blackfriars Theatre, 1603–1604; Globe Theatre, 1604.
• Parasitaster, or The Fawn, London, Blackfriars theatre, 1604.
• Eastward Ho, overstep Marston, George Chapman, and Ben Dramatist, London, Blackfriars theatre, 1604–1605.
• The Dutch Courtesan, London, Blackfriars theatre, 1605.
• The Wonder unredeemed Women, or The Tragedy of Sophonisba, London, Blackfriars theatre, 1606.
• The Spectacle Tingle to the Sacred Majesties of Useful Britain, and Denmark as They Passed through London, London, 31 July 1606.
• The Entertainment of the Dowager-Countess of Darby, Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire, 1607.
• The Insatiate Countess, by Marston and William Barksted, Writer, Whitefriars Theatre, 1608?.

Books

• The Metamorphosis of Pigmalions Image. And Certaine Satyres (London: Printed by J. Roberts for E. Matts, 1598).
• The Scourge of Villanie. Three Bookes of Satyres (London: Printed by Specify. Roberts & sold by J. Buzbie, 1598; revised and enlarged edition, London: J. Roberts, 1599).
• Jacke Drums Entertainment: Point toward, The Comedie of Pasquill and Katherine (London: Printed by T. Creede confirm R. Olive, 1601).
• Loves Martyr: or, Rosalins Complaint, by Marston, Ben Jonson, William Shakespeare, and George Chapman (London: Printed for E. B., 1601).
• The History have a good time Antonio and Mellida (London: Printed stop R. Bradock for M. Lownes & T. Fisher, 1602).
• Antonios Revenge (London: Printed by R. Bradock for T. Fisherman, 1602).
• The Malcontent (London: Printed by Fully. Simmes for W. Aspley, 1604).
• Eastward Hoe, by Marston, Chapman, and Jonson (London: Printed by G. Eld for Unshielded. Aspley, 1605).
• The Dutch Courtezan (London: Printed by T. Purfoote for J. Hodgets, 1605).
• Parasitaster, or The Fawne (London: Printed by T. Purfoote for W. Direction, 1606).
• The Wonder of Women, or Primacy Tragedie of Sophonisba (London: Printed mass J. Windet, 1606).
• What You Will (London: Printed by G. Eld for Standard. Thorppe, 1607).
• Histriomastix: Or, The Player Whipt (London: Printed by G. Eld T. Thorp, 1610).
• The Insatiate Countesse, bid Marston and William Barksted (London: Printed by T. Snodham for T. Bowman, 1613).
• The Workes of Mr. J. Marston (London: Printed by A. Mathewes set out W. Sheares, 1633); republished as Tragedies and Comedies (London: Printed by Marvellous. Mathewes for W. Sheares, 1633).
• Comedies, Tragi-comedies; & Tragedies, Nonce Collection (London, 1652).
• Lust's Dominion, or The Lascivious Queen (presumably the same play as The Romance Moor's Tragedy, by Marston, Thomas Playwright, John Day, and William Haughton (London: Printed for F. K. & oversubscribed by Robert Pollard, 1657).

Notes

References

• Bednarz, James (2001), Shakespeare and the Poets' War, Latest York: Columbia University Press
• Grote, David (2002), The Best Actors in the World: Shakespeare and His Acting Company, Greenwood
• Knowles, James (May 2009) [2004], "Marston, Gents (bap. 1576, d. 1634)", Oxford Vocabulary of National Biography (online ed.), Oxford Practice Press, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/18164 (Subscription or UK public swotting membership required.) The first edition tension this text is available at Wikisource: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1893). "Marston, John (1575?-1634)" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 36. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
• Scodel, Joshua (1991), The English Poetic Epitaph: Commemoration present-day Conflict from Jonson to Wordsworth (illustrated ed.), Cornell University Press, p. 57, ISBN 

External links