''Satiromastix, or The Untrussing of the Humorous Poet'' is a late

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personific ...

stage play by Thomas Dekker, one of the plays involved in the Poetomachia or

War of the Theatres The War of the Theatres is the name commonly applied to a controversy from the later Elizabethan theatre; Thomas Dekker termed it the ''Poetomachia''. Because of an actual ban on satire in prose and verse publications in 1599 (the Bishops' Ban of ...

. The play was entered into the

Stationers' Register The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including print ...

on 11 November

1601 This epoch is the beginning of the 400-year Gregorian leap-year cycle within which digital files first existed; the last year of any such cycle is the only leap year whose year number is divisible by 100. January 1 of this year (1601-01-01) ...

, and published in

quarto Quarto (abbreviated Qto, 4to or 4º) is the format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produc ...

1602 Events January–June * January 3 – Battle of Kinsale: The English defeat Irish rebels and their Spanish allies. (The battle happens on this date according to the Gregorian calendar used by the Irish and Spanish but on Thursday, 24 Dece ...

, printed by Edward Allde for the bookseller Edward White. The title page of the quarto attributes authorship to Dekker, and states that the play was performed by both the

Lord Chamberlain's Men The Lord Chamberlain's Men was a company of actors, or a " playing company" (as it then would likely have been described), for which Shakespeare wrote during most of his career. Richard Burbage played most of the lead roles, including Hamlet, Othe ...

and the Children of Paul's. Scholars agree that the figure of Horace in ''Satiromastix'' represents

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 ...

. As George Kirkpatrick Hunter argues,

"In ''Satiromastix'', Horace (Jonson) is represented as a social hanger-on and toady, desperate to establish himself as an independent moralist but fearful of being held responsible for his judgments. We know his writing is corrupt, not because it is bad writing but because he himself is dishonest; his verse is concocted to exploit social possibilities, though he represents it as an essential part of a well-regulated state..."George Kirkpatrick Hunter, ''English Drama 1586–1642: The Age of Shakespeare,'' Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1997; p. 300.

Individual commentators have also tried to link other characters in the play with historical and literary figures of the era, though no consensus has been reached on any further identifications. It is thought that the play's satirical content was likely grafted onto a work already written, either in whole or in part; critics have noted that the tragic main plot and comic subplot of ''Satiromastix'' have little to do with the Poetomachia. ''Satiromastix'' is a response to Jonson's ''

The Poetaster ''Poetaster'' is a late Elizabethan satirical comedy written by Ben Jonson that was first performed in 1601. The play formed one element in the back-and-forth exchange between Jonson and his rivals John Marston and Thomas Dekker in the so-call ...

'', which premiered in the spring of 1601; Dekker's play adopts the characters Crispinus, Demetrius, and Tucca from Jonson's. So the final writing and the performance of Dekker's play had to fit between spring and November of that year. It has been conjectured that John Marston may have made some contribution to ''Satiromastix'', since he was Jonson's prime antagonist in the matter; but here again no firm consensus has been achieved. E. K. Chambers, ''The Elizabethan Stage,'' 4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923; Vol. 3, p. 293.

References

External links

Scan of the quarto of 1602
(Internet Archive) {{Thomas Dekker English Renaissance plays 1601 plays Plays by Thomas Dekker (writer)

See also

References

External links