John Marston (playwright)
John Marston (baptised 7 October 1576 – 25 June 1634) was an English playwright, poet and satirist during the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods. His career as a writer lasted only a decade. His work is remembered for its energetic and often obscure style, its contributions to the development of a distinctively Jacobean style in poetry, and its idiosyncratic vocabulary.
Life
Marston was born to John and Maria Marston née Guarsi, and baptised 7 October 1576, at
Early career
Marston's brief career in literature began with a foray into the then-fashionable genres of erotic
Playwriting with Henslowe
In September 1599, John Marston began to work for Philip Henslowe as a playwright. Following the work of O. J. Campbell, it has commonly been thought that Marston turned to the theatre in response to the Bishops' Ban of 1599; more recent scholars have noted that the ban was not enforced with great rigor and might not have intimidated prospective satirists at all. At any rate, Marston proved a good match for the stage—not the public stage of Henslowe, but the "private" playhouses where boy players performed racy dramas for an audience of city gallants and young members of the Inns of Court. Traditionally, though without strong external attribution, Histriomastix has been regarded as his first play; performed by either the Children of Paul's or the students of the Middle Temple in around 1599, it appears to have sparked the War of the Theatres, the literary feud between Marston, Jonson and Dekker that took place between around 1599 and 1602. In c. 1600, Marston wrote Jack Drum's Entertainment and Antonio and Mellida, and in 1601 he wrote Antonio's Revenge, a sequel to the latter play; all three were performed by the company at Paul's. In 1601, he contributed poems to Robert Chester's Love's Martyr. For Henslowe, he may have collaborated with Dekker, Day, and Haughton on Lust's Dominion.
Feud with Jonson
By 1601, he was well known in London literary circles, particularly in his role as enemy to the equally pugnacious
If Jonson can be trusted, the animosity between himself and Marston went beyond the literary. He claimed to have beaten Marston and taken his pistol. However, the two playwrights were reconciled soon after the so-called War; Marston wrote a prefatory poem for Jonson's Sejanus in 1605 and dedicated The Malcontent to Jonson. Yet in 1607, he criticized Jonson for being too pedantic to make allowances for his audience or the needs of aesthetics.
Blackfriars
Outside of these tensions, Marston's career continued to prosper. In 1603, he became a shareholder in the Children of Blackfriars company, at that time known for steadily pushing the allowable limits of personal satire, violence, and lewdness on stage. He wrote and produced two plays with the company. The first was The Malcontent in 1603; this satiric tragicomedy is Marston's most famous play. This work was originally written for the children at Blackfriars, and was later taken over (perhaps stolen) by the Kings' Men at the Globe, with additions by John Webster and (perhaps) Marston himself.
Marston's second play for the Blackfriars children was The Dutch Courtesan, a satire on lust and hypocrisy, in 1604–5. In 1605, he worked with
In 1606, Marston seems to have offended and then soothed King James. First, in Parasitaster, or, The Fawn, he satirized the king specifically. However, in the summer of that year, he put on a production of The Dutch Courtesan for the King of Denmark's visit, with a Latin verse on King James that was presented by hand to the king. Finally, in 1607, he wrote The Entertainment at Ashby, a masque for the Earl of Huntingdon. At that point, he stopped his dramatic career altogether, selling his shares in the company of Blackfriars. His departure from the literary scene may have been because of another play, now lost, which offended the king. It seems that the French ambassador complained to King James about the disrespectful treatment of the French court in plays by Chapman performed at Blackfriars. To strengthen his case he added that another play had been performed in which James himself was depicted drunk. Incensed, James suspended performances at Blackfriars and had Marston imprisoned. This suggests that he was the author of the offending play.[2]
Later life
After the end of his literary career, he moved into his father-in-law's house and began studying
Tombs at that time often started with the formulaic "Memoriae Sacrum" ("Sacred to the memory") followed by the name of the tomb's occupant and an account of their achievements even though such words are
Reception and criticism
Marston's reputation has varied widely, like that of most of the minor Renaissance dramatists. Both The Malcontent and The Dutch Courtesan remained on stage in altered forms through the
After the Restoration, Marston's works were largely reduced to the status of a curiosity of literary history. The general resemblance of Antonio's Revenge to Hamlet and Marston's role in the war of the poets ensured that his plays would receive some scholarly attention, but they were not performed and were not even widely read. Thomas Warton preferred Marston's satires to Bishop Hall's; in the next century, however, Henry Hallam reversed this judgment. William Gifford, perhaps the eighteenth century's most devoted reader of Jonson, called Marston "the most scurrilous, filthy and obscene writer of his time".[citation needed]
The Romantic movement in English literature resuscitated Marston's reputation, albeit unevenly. In his lectures, William Hazlitt praised Marston's genius for satire; however, if the romantic critics and their successors were willing to grant Marston's best work a place among the great accomplishments of the period, they remained aware of his inconsistency, what Swinburne in a later generation called his "uneven and irregular demesne".[citation needed]
In the twentieth century, however, a few critics were willing to consider Marston as a writer who was very much in control of the world he creates. T. S. Eliot saw that this "irregular demesne" was a part of Marston's world and declared that "It is … by giving us the sense of something behind, more real than any of the personages and their action, that Marston establishes himself among the writers of genius".[4] Marston's tragic style is Senecan and although his characters may appear, on Eliot's own admission, "lifeless", they are instead used as types to convey their "theoretical implications".[5] Eliot in particular admired Sophonisba and saw how Marston's plays, with their apparently stylised characters and bitter portrayal of a world where virtue and honour only arouse "dangerous envy" (Sophonisba; Act 1, scene 1, line 45) in those around them, actually bring to life "a pattern behind the pattern into which the characters deliberately involve themselves: the kind of pattern which we perceive in our own lives only at rare moments of inattention and detachment".[6]
Works
Plays and production 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 theatre, 1600.
- What You Will, London, Paul's theatre, 1601.
- The Malcontent, London, Blackfriars Theatre, 1603–1604; Globe Theatre, 1604.
- Parasitaster, or The Fawn, London, Blackfriars theatre, 1604.
- Eastward Ho, by Marston, George Chapman, and Ben Jonson, London, Blackfriars theatre, 1604–1605.
- The Dutch Courtesan, London, Blackfriars theatre, 1605.
- The Wonder of Women, or The Tragedy of Sophonisba, London, Blackfriars theatre, 1606.
- The Spectacle Presented to the Sacred Majesties of Great 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, London, 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 J. Roberts & sold by J. Buzbie, 1598; revised and enlarged edition, London: J. Roberts, 1599).
- Jacke Drums Entertainment: Or, The Comedie of Pasquill and Katherine (London: Printed by T. Creede for 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 of Antonio and Mellida (London: Printed by R. Bradock for M. Lownes & T. Fisher, 1602).
- Antonios Revenge (London: Printed by R. Bradock for T. Fisher, 1602).
- The Malcontent (London: Printed by V. Simmes for W. Aspley, 1604).
- Eastward Hoe, by Marston, Chapman, and Jonson (London: Printed by G. Eld for W. 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. Cotton, 1606).
- The Wonder of Women, or The Tragedie of Sophonisba (London: Printed by J. Windet, 1606).
- What You Will (London: Printed by G. Eld for T. Thorppe, 1607).
- Histriomastix: Or, The Player Whipt (London: Printed by G. Eld for T. Thorp, 1610).
- The Insatiate Countesse, by Marston and William Barksted (London: Printed by T. Snodham for T. Archer, 1613).
- The Workes of Mr. J. Marston (London: Printed by A. Mathewes for W. Sheares, 1633); republished as Tragedies and Comedies (London: Printed by A. Mathewes for W. Sheares, 1633).
- Comedies, Tragi-comedies; & Tragedies, Nonce Collection (London, 1652).
- Thomas Dekker, John Day, and William Haughton(London: Printed for F. K. & sold by Robert Pollard, 1657).
Notes
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (February 2015) |
- ^ Knowles 2009 cites The Return from Parnassus, Part Two, I.ii, ll. 266–70.
- ^ Grote 2002, p. 171.
- ^ Scodel 1991, p. 57.
- ^ T.S.Eliot, Elizabethan Essays (London: Faber & Faber, 1934) p189−90
- ^ (Michael Scott, John Marston's Plays: Theme, Structure and Performance, 1977)
- ^ T.S. Eliot, Selected Essays, London: Faber, 1932, reprinted and enlarged, 1934, repr. 1999), p. 232
References
- Bednarz, James (2001), Shakespeare and the Poets' War, New 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, John (bap. 1576, d. 1634)", doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/18164 (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) The first edition of this text is available at Wikisource: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1893). . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 36. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- Scodel, Joshua (1991), The English Poetic Epitaph: Commemoration and Conflict from Jonson to Wordsworth (illustrated ed.), Cornell University Press, p. 57, ISBN 9780801424823
External links
- Works by John Marston at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about John Marston at Internet Archive
- Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. XV (9th ed.). 1883. p. 575. .
- The Works of John Marston, vol. 1. A. H. Bullen, ed. at Google Books
- The Works of John Marston, vol. 2.
- The Works of John Marston, vol. 3.