Ben Jonson's 'Dotages'

A Reconsideration of the Late Plays

Larry S. Champion

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780813187914
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Critica letteraria inglese

Although there has been a general revival of interest in Ben Jonson's dramatic work in the past twenty years, little critical effort has been directed to his late plays—dismissed by John Dryden as the "dotages" of an aging mind. Through a close reading of The Devil Is an Ass, The Staple of News, The New Inn, and The Magnetic Lady in light of Jonson's own theories of comedy, author Larry S. Champion demonstrates that they reveal the same precise construction and dramatic control found in his acclaimed masterpieces. Furthermore, these works reflect Jonson's continued emphasis upon realism and satiric attack, though they may not be equal in quality or dramatic effectiveness.

The brief and undistinguished stage runs of the late plays are not an accurate gauge of their dramatic merit. Rather than indicating an enfeebled mind, these late plays reveal Jonson to be a continuing innovator—adapting the forms of the pastoral, the romance, and the morality play to the purposes of comic satire. Previous critics have charged that Jonson was merely desirous of regaining public favor at the expense of his artistic integrity. The present study suggests, however, that Jonson in these plays was in reality burlesqueing the popular fad of exaggerated romantic comedy, which he considered a degradation of the dramatic art.

IV. The Staple of News: Allegory of the Golden Mean

One of the most amusingly perplexing aspects of The Staple of News is the contradictory nature of previous critical remarks concerning the merits of the play. On the one hand, we read that this “last complete and finished masterpiece of Jonson’s genius”¹ is “a complex dramatic achievement”² reflecting extraordinary merit.³ On the other, the play is called little more than a concoction of dotage ingredients⁴ characterized by a “heathy dryness”⁵ and belabored by “a good deal that is merely boring”⁶ and “incredibly dull.”⁷ Critics of the latter sort frequently recall the nine-year hiatus between The Devil Is an Ass (1616) and The Staple of News (1625), concluding that Jonson’s long absence from the stage is painfully evident and that his long association with the masque has led him to “in a sense a new kind of comedy.”⁸

Our point of departure for an analysis of this play is to recognize that, despite the interval of years, the dramatic method of The Staple of News is clearly anticipated in The Devil Is an Ass. The Staple of News represents again Jonson’s use of material from the native dramatic tradition—the morality motif and characters who carry both allegorical and realistic significance. At the same time we are able to determine the abiding principles of the poet’s comic intent and the means by which he maintains a comic tone even while utilizing such overt didactic techniques. That is, a consideration of his satiric treatment of the men and practices of early seventeenth-century journalism, his modifications of the prodigal son story, and his method of establishing a thematic connection between these strands of action will illustrate the manner in which he weaves the morality aspects, the “obtrusive moralizing,” into the comic fabric.

The main plot action describes the prodigal Penniboy Junior, his monetary extravagances, his exposure and expulsion by his father in disguise, and his final repentance and redemption. The protasis, acts I and II, introduces in turn Junior, Canter, and Senior, establishing the respective scale of values of each. The miserly Senior is the reverse of the prodigal. The foolishness and danger of both extremes is implied through Canter’s advice to Junior, who at twenty-one exults over the apparent death of his father and his coming of age. Without so much as examining the bills, Junior pays all his parasites and visits the office of Staple News, which Tom the barber tells him has been established in the very house in which he has chambers. Tom desires journalistic experience, and, when Junior purchases him a position, the operation of the staple (the gathering, vending, and dissemination of news) is revealed. Junior is awed by the various news departments and the “methods of collection and preparation” and hears of the courtship of Lady Pecunia. She, the ward of his uncle Richer Penniboy (Senior), is sought by several suitors, including Cymbal, Master of the Staple. Senior allows her to associate only with those through whom his financial status will be improved. Thus, he favors the courtship of Cymbal, who seemingly is engaged in a lucrative profession. Nevertheless, according to the terms of his brother’s will, Penniboy Senior must allow Junior to court his ward. When Pecunia enters, Junior fawningly offers to show her the staple. In the course of the action the spectator realizes that Junior’s father is not dead. Disguised as a poor attendant upon his newly rich son, Canter comments throughout the play as the choric observer.

The epitasis, acts III and IV, is concerned with the actual courtship of money (Pecunia), first at the news staple and later at the Devil Tavern. At the staple the prodigal urges her to become his mistress. Later, members of the staple staff urge her to become Cymbal’s mistress. After Junior finally wins her favor, he prostitutes her before all by bidding her to bestow kisses all around, an act symbolizing his mental and spiritual depravity. Senior, in his attempts to recover Pecunia, is thrown out of the house to “return to his kennels.” At this point the disguised father, able to bear no more, throws off his disguise, denounces his son as prodigal and incompetent, bequeaths him a ragged cloak, and exposes the superficiality of each jeerer in turn. Thus, we have arrived at the catastasis, or false resolution, at the end of act IV. Canter has exposed his son and brother to ignominious ridicule.

The catastrophe, act V, furnishes Junior the opportunity to regain his father’s favor. Canter, before disguising himself to test his son, had entrusted his entire estate to the lawyer Picklock, who was to administer it for the boy’s benefit. Picklock now proves false by denying Canter’s feoffment, intending to destroy both father and son financially. His scheme is overturned, however, by the son, who rescues his father from financial disaster and regains his rightful position. Father and son are reconciled, the dishonest Picklock is set in the pillory, Penniboy Junior is made the heir of Penniboy Senior (the miser), and the boy and Lady Pecunia are married.

The topical material, which no doubt caught the major interest of the spectator, again reveals Jonson as an acute observer of the contemporary scene, able and determined to make comedy a vehicle of social reform. The date of this play, 1625,⁹ is only four years after the foundation of what is generally called the first English newspaper. Even so, the practice of newsmongering and the abuses Jonson attacks were well established. Individual news pamphlets date back as far as the reign of Henry VIII, but it was during the years 1618-1625 that regularly published newspapers became firmly established. The outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War in 1618 and the ensuing problems to the throne and fortunes of an English princess had created throughout the country an interest in continental news that was without precedent. In the summer of 1621 sheets were printed “every week at least,” with all “manner of news, & a strange stuffe as any we have from Amsterdam.”¹⁰ The first newsbook numbered in a series was A Currant of General News, printed on May 18, 1622.¹¹ Though there is no extant copy of this issue, a copy of the second number, May 23, does exist. This newsbook was confined to reports from the continent and often was merely a translation of German, Italian, or Dutch dispatches. It was not until 1641 that the Star Chamber decree against publication of domestic news was abolished. In October 1622 this first series was succeeded by another, similar in format and quality. While there is no consistent title, the one most commonly used was Weekly Newes from Italy, Germany, Hungary, Spaine, and France.¹²

Concerning both the integrity of the news and its physical format, a multitude of variations occurred among these early newsbooks which forces us to conclude that Jonson’s depiction of the staple and its mode of operation is not exaggerated. The only consistent elements were the placement of the date and the serial number and, most important, the sensational quality of the news. Staple news was the extraordinary, the abnormal, the prodigious. An unidentified author of an early coranto, cited by Stanley Morison in his study, claims that the reader was literally and gullibly news-hungry. If the printer lacked sufficient copy to meet a publication deadline, the public would clamor for news of any sort, trivial or serious, true or false. Obviously, such a receptive market invited scurrilous news-mongering. As a result, the reputable printer constantly felt constrained to defend his materials as meticulously accurate:

Custom is so predominant that bothe the Reader and the Printer of these pamphlets agree in their expectation of weekly newes, so that if the printer have not the wherewithall to afford satisfaction, yet will the Reader com and aske every day for any newes; not out of curiosity or wantonness but pretending a necessity either to please themselves or satisfie their customers. Therefore is the Printer, both with charge and pains taking, very careful to have his friends abroad supply his wants at home with pertinent letters, and acquaint him with the printed copies beyond the seas, that hee may acquaint you with such true intelligence as his fortune lights upon—so that according to the affaires published elsewhere, sometimes you may have two Corantoes in one week. Which, seeing it is for your owne sake, and especially that you may make the country afar off partake of our London newes, be so far generous as to acknowledge this his kindnesse, and doe not dishearten him in his endeavors, by making any doubt of the truth of his intelligence. For, to use a little protestation, I can assure you, there is not a line printed or proposed to your view, but carries the credit of other originalles, and justifies itself from honest and understanding authority; so that if they should faile there in true and exact discoveries, be not ye too malignant against the Printer here, that is so far from any invention of his owne, that when hee meets with improbability or absurdity, he leaves it quite out rather than startle your patience, or draw you into suspition of the verity of the whole, because some one passage may be untrue, or reiterates the second time.¹³

Either such men of principle were the exceptions or their protestations but paper thin. When the market for news was relatively unproductive, the printer often reworked older material, presenting it as contemporaneous. Furthermore, there was a general lack of editorial supervision even for what news was available. There was no great concern with the makeup of the coranto, and the printing was ...