''A Tale of a Tub'' is a
Caroline
Caroline may refer to:
People
* Caroline (given name), a feminine given name
* J. C. Caroline (born 1933), American college and National Football League player
* Jordan Caroline (born 1996), American (men's) basketball player
Places Antarctica
* ...
era stage play, a comedy written by
Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...
. The last of his plays to be staged during his lifetime, ''A Tale of a Tub'' was performed in 1633 and published in 1640 in the second folio of Jonson's works.
History
The play was licensed for publication by Sir
Henry Herbert, the
Master of the Revels
The Master of the Revels was the holder of a position within the English, and later the British, royal household, heading the "Revels Office" or "Office of the Revels". The Master of the Revels was an executive officer under the Lord Chamberlain. ...
, on 7 May 1633, and acted by
Queen Henrietta's Men Queen Henrietta's Men was an important playing company or troupe of actors in Caroline era in London. At their peak of popularity, Queen Henrietta's Men were the second leading troupe of the day, after only the King's Men.
Beginnings
The company ...
at the
Cockpit Theatre
The Cockpit was a theatre in London, operating from 1616 to around 1665. It was the first theatre to be located near Drury Lane. After damage in 1617, it was named The Phoenix.
History
The original building was an actual cockpit; that is, a st ...
; it was the only one of Jonson's post-1614 plays not premiered by the
King's Men. The play was also performed at Court on 14 January 1634, before King
Charles I Charles I may refer to:
Kings and emperors
* Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings
* Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily
* Charles I of ...
and Queen
Henrietta Maria
Henrietta Maria (french: link=no, Henriette Marie; 25 November 1609 – 10 September 1669) was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland from her marriage to King Charles I on 13 June 1625 until Charles was executed on 30 January 1649. She wa ...
– though it was not well received.
Scholars are divided on the date of authorship of the play. Some judge it to be an early work, first composed perhaps around 1596, that Jonson later revised not long before its 1633 production. Recent opinion holds that the Jonson wrote the play in the era when it premiered, the early 1630s, and that its apparently archaic aspects are deliberate artistic choices on the author's part.
For modern critics and scholars, a primary focus of interest in the play is Jonson's ridicule of
Inigo Jones
Inigo Jones (; 15 July 1573 – 21 June 1652) was the first significant architect in England and Wales in the early modern period, and the first to employ Vitruvian rules of proportion and symmetry in his buildings.
As the most notable archit ...
as "In-and-In Medlay".
["In-and-in" was a popular dice game of the era; Jonson mentions it in '']The New Inn
''The New Inn, or The Light Heart'' is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy by English playwright and poet Ben Jonson.
''The New Inn'' was licensed for performance by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, on 19 January 1629, and acted ...
'', Act III, scene i. (The 1633 license for the play states that passages ridiculing Jones as "Vitruvius Hoop" were to be struck out. Jonson seems to have complied...merely to replace the Hoop material with the Medlay material.) Jonson had nourished a long-standing grudge against Jones, feeling that the architect had always received too much credit for the success of the Court
masque
The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment that flourished in 16th- and early 17th-century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio (a public version of the masque was the pageant). A masque ...
s that were written by Jonson but had their scenery, costumes, and stage effects designed by Jones. His ridicule of Jones runs from ''
Bartholomew Fair
The Bartholomew Fair was one of London's pre-eminent summer charter fairs. A charter for the fair was granted to Rahere by Henry I to fund the Priory of St Bartholomew; and from 1133 to 1855 it took place each year on 24 August within the precin ...
,'' where Jones in Lanthorn Leatherhead (1614), through ''
Neptune's Triumph for the Return of Albion
''Neptune's Triumph for the Return of Albion'' was a Jacobean era masque, written by Ben Jonson, and designed by Inigo Jones. The masque is notable for the contradictory historical evidence connected with it and the confusion it caused among ge ...
'' (1624) and ''
The Staple of News
''The Staple of News'' is an early Caroline era play, a satire by Ben Jonson. The play was first performed in late 1625 by the King's Men at the Blackfriars Theatre, and first published in 1631.
Publication
''The Staple of News'' was entere ...
'' (1626). Jonson further satirised Jones as "Colonel Iniquo Vitruvius" in his 1634 masque ''
Love's Welcome at Bolsover
''Love's Welcome at Bolsover'' (alternative archaic spelling, ''Balsover'') is the final masque composed by Ben Jonson. It was performed on 30 July 1634, three years before the poet's death, and published in 1641.
The masque was not produced by ...
.''
In addition to the Medlay character, the play features Diogenes Scriben, a bad poet and a pretended descendant of the Classical
Diogenes
Diogenes ( ; grc, Διογένης, Diogénēs ), also known as Diogenes the Cynic (, ) or Diogenes of Sinope, was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynicism (philosophy). He was born in Sinope, an Ionian colony on the Black Sea ...
. Commentators have speculated on intended real-life identities for this satirical figure, though no consensus has been achieved. The play is largely written in dialect; scholars have disputed the accuracy of Jonson's efforts in this regard.
Synopsis
The plot, which unfolds on
St. Valentine's Day, concerns the inept attempts of a variety of suitors to win the hand of Audrey Turfe, the daughter of a
Middlesex
Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...
constable. To break Audrey's engagement to John Clay the tilemaker, Squire Tub, a romantic rival, has the man falsely accused of theft. As Constable Turfe pursues the innocent man, yet another suitor, Justice Preamble, plays a comparable ruse against Squire Tub. All told, Audrey is chased after by four separate suitors, and apparently she has no particular preference among them. (She hesitates to accept Squire Tub, however, because of the social gap between them: "He's too fine for me, and has a Lady / Tub to his mother.") Amid the disorder, Pol-Marten, Lady Tub's usher, marries Audrey before others realise it. Their marriage is celebrated with a wedding masque, also titled "A Tale of a Tub," which retells the story of the play. (In the colloquial usage of the time, a "tale of a tub" is the same as "a cock and bull story.")
Jonson, here as often elsewhere in his plays, borrows elements from the Classical plays of
Aristophanes
Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme
In Ancient Greece, a deme or ( grc, δῆμος, plural: demoi, δημοι) was a suburb or a subdivision of Athens and other city-states ...
and
Plautus
Titus Maccius Plautus (; c. 254 – 184 BC), commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the gen ...
. The play was published with a motto from
Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His s ...
: ''Inficeto est inficetior rure.''
Notes
References
* Butler, Martin. "Late Jonson", in McMullen and Hope, eds. ''The Politics of Tragicomedy: Shakespeare and After.'' London and New York, Routledge, 1992.
* Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S. Smith, eds. ''The New Intellectuals: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama.'' Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1977.
* Loxley, James. ''The Complete Critical Guide to Ben Jonson.'' London, Routledge, 2002.
External links
''A Tale of a Tub'' online.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tale of a Tub, A
Plays by Ben Jonson
English Renaissance plays
1634 plays