Bartholomew Fair by Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson's comedy Bartholomew Fair, which, after holding the stage for over a century, is now less well known, is offered here in an edition, based on the text of the first edition, which affords help to the modern producer and reader. In this play, written and acted in 1614, Jonson produced his first comedy since The Alchemist in 1610. Both that play and Volpone (1605) had presented an extraordinary variety of corrupt energies withing an intricate moral and aesthetic structure. To some critics, the looser construction and the less trenchant satire of Bartholomew Fair have seemed to show Jonson returning to the loose multiplicity of his earlier works. Horsman reconsiders this notion, illustrating how Jonson fills the play with varied humours, which preserve the appearance of freedom while never actually losing control.