Rome -- History -- Tiberius, 14-37 -- Drama; Sejanus, Lucius Aelius, -31 -- Drama; Tragedies (Drama)
We have digressed into detail in this particular case to exemplify the
difficulties of criticism in its attempts to identify the allusions in
these forgotten quarrels. We are on sounder ground of fact in recording
other manifestations of Jonson’s enmity. In “The Case is Altered” there
is clear ridicule in the character Antonio Balladino of Anthony Munday,
pageant-poet of the city, translator of romances and playwright as
well. In “Every Man in His Humour” there is certainly a caricature of
Samuel Daniel, accepted poet of the court, sonneteer, and companion of
men of fashion. These men held recognised positions to which Jonson
felt his talents better entitled him; they were hence to him his
natural enemies. It seems almost certain that he pursued both in the
personages of his satire through “Every Man Out of His Humour,” and
“Cynthia’s Revels,” Daniel under the characters Fastidious Brisk and
Hedon, Munday as Puntarvolo and Amorphus; but in these last we venture
on quagmire once more. Jonson’s literary rivalry of Daniel is traceable
again and again, in the entertainments that welcomed King James on his
way to London, in the masques at court, and in the pastoral drama. As
to Jonson’s personal ambitions with respect to these two men, it is
notable that he became, not pageant-poet, but chronologer to the City
of London; and that, on the accession of the new king, he came soon to
triumph over Daniel as the accepted entertainer of royalty.
“Cynthia’s Revels,” the second “comical satire,” was acted in 1600,
and, as a play, is even more lengthy, elaborate, and impossible than
“Every Man Out of His Humour.” Here personal satire seems to have
absorbed everything, and while much of the caricature is admirable,
especially in the detail of witty and trenchantly satirical dialogue,
the central idea of a fountain of self-love is not very well carried
out, and the persons revert at times to abstractions, the action to
allegory. It adds to our wonder that this difficult drama should have
been acted by the Children of Queen Elizabeth’s Chapel, among them
Nathaniel Field with whom Jonson read Horace and Martial, and whom he
taught later how to make plays. Another of these precocious little
actors was Salathiel Pavy, who died before he was thirteen, already
famed for taking the parts of old men. Him Jonson immortalised in one
of the sweetest of his epitaphs. An interesting sidelight is this on
the character of this redoubtable and rugged satirist, that he should
thus have befriended and tenderly remembered these little theatrical
waifs, some of whom (as we know) had been literally kidnapped to be
pressed into the service of the theatre and whipped to the conning of
their difficult parts. To the caricature of Daniel and Munday in
“Cynthia’s Revels” must be added Anaides (impudence), here assuredly
Marston, and Asotus (the prodigal), interpreted as Lodge or, more
perilously, Raleigh. Crites, like Asper-Macilente in “Every Man Out of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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