126 BEN JONSON JOURNAL

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1 BOOK REVIEWS James D. Mardock, Our Scene is London: Ben Jonson s City and the Space of the Author. New York and London: Routledge, ix+164 pages. This short volume makes a determined and persistent attempt to consider Jonson s use of stage space, particularly in relation to the ways in which he makes use of London in some of the plays. Connected here with this undoubtedly important field of investigation is another which is equally significant and interesting: Jonson s perception and promotion of himself as author. As with the exploitation of space, this matter of authorship remained a prominent subject of Jonson s work, including the non-dramatic poetry. Before consideration of some of the details of these two topics, however, it may be useful to raise a more general issue. This is rather a short book of 115 pages and I think the weight of the two main preoccupations makes them worth a more extended treatment. The length and variety of Jonson s work remains a challenge he wrote much more non-dramatic poetry than Shakespeare, for example and the concentration of the central chapters on the magna opera, Epicene, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, is a limitation which might well have been avoided. Admittedly the author does also say something about Eastward Ho, Everyman in His Humour, andthe Devil is an Ass, considered as preliminaries and an Envoi to the main objectives, but it seems to me that that Jonson studies would benefit greatly from exploratory work of the kind attempted in this volume

2 126 BEN JONSON JOURNAL which gave a fuller account of the extent of Jonson s achievement, particularly in the productive Caroline period. The Magnetic Lady and ATaleofaTub, in slightly different ways individually, develop much of the material discussed here. The former is centered upon Lady Loadstone s house, without and within, and the latter provides a fascinating geography of the London villages surrounding St Pancras as the action moves between them. Using such material, the theoretical propositions posed here might have been further sustained, or even usefully modified if the target had been broader. The author has much to say about the way London is reflected in his chosen plays and he also gives thought to some developments in the ways Jonson used a persona of himself. The growth of interest in the exploration of London as a theatrical tool or device is traced in particular at the beginning of the reign of James I and it is implied that Jonson owed something to Dekker s embodiment of the London environment at the time when, though rivals, they were both working on the welcoming ceremonies and performances for the new reign. But this insemination was also a means of development because Jonson grounded his representation of London in the vigorous satirical mode of the satiric comedies which really established him on the London stage. It is proposed here that space became linked with the moral integrity of characters and also that the distinction between humours characters, who are generally ridiculed, and the heroic protagonists Wellbred and Edward Know ell are discernible in their ability to change the significance of places by means of their moral integrity. Thus space becomes an important indication of moral value and it must indeed be conceded that Jonson s poetics are nothing if not moral. Similarly Brainworm, another of the voices of the author, has the power to transform space. In Eastward Ho the author finds further significant development of the use of London in his suggestion that theatre has power over place. This suggests that theatrical readings can be imposed upon locations in London which are embodied in the plays. In this case, by way of example he notices that the Counter, one of the London prisons, becomes a stage upon which action takes place in the presence of an onstage audience. This understanding of Jonson s manipulation of the relationship between the stage and the London around him is valuable since Jonson shows great versatility in

3 Book Reviews 127 his exploitation of stage space and it was a matter of perennial interest to him. For the audience too there is a sense that they are continually being expected or invited to reassess the significance of space. However, the description of such aspects as showing that theatre has power over place seems rather strained and the phenomenon under consideration might be more clearly described. Epicene and The Alchemist are treated in tandem because of their being produced in a time of plague. They are both set specifically in London and both operate in very restricted fictional places: the houses of Morose and Lovewit. One of the intriguing features of both interestingly pinpointed here is Jonson s manipulation of doors. The author shows that these function in a variety of ways exclusion, inclusion, as well as being thresholds which have two sides to them. But there is also an external world which is partially reflected from within the closed houses. The latter are also the scene of theatrical transformations by the characters acting within, so that once again the theatre with all its differences is imposed upon a location. As Mardock points out, The Alchemist is systematically metatheatrical, and this is effected not only by the use of place but also by the performances given by the characters. By means of a demonstration of the false use of space including the transformation of Morose s house into a theatrical space Jonson is perceived as demonstrating his own ideal view, pointing to virtue, intelligence, and critical judgment. This is couched in the rather strained idea that Jonson is in competition with his own characters. But it may seem that since Jonson created the characters in the first place and unlike Shakespeare he is noted for being interested in creation ab initio he is likely to win any competition that may take place. Perhaps a more suitable formulation might be that which is emphasized so frequently in the masques and which Jonson developed vigorously through his career: the idea of the contrary within the concept, antimasque responding to masque. The pressure towards metatheatricality noted by Mardock in The Alchemist takes us a further step towards a realisation of Jonson s staging methods. There is useful acknowledgement here of the treatment of fantasy in this play. For example it is noticed that Drugger is aware of Subtle s powers over the manipulation of space. The ways in which the latter and Face exploit it are carefully described here and the discussion of the interplay between them and the caricature of theatrical practices involved leads to an

4 128 BEN JONSON JOURNAL intriguing discussion of the ending of the play. This centers upon whether Face is finally dominant as Subtle disappears over the back fence or whether he too is overwhelmed by Lovewit who is now returned home as the plague subsides. Thus the manipulation of theatrical space, located within London, is presented as a feature of Jonson s plays and I would suggest that this relates to onstage space as well as imagined offstage space to which Mardock occasionally refers. This becomes more elaborate in Bartholomew Fair where he suggests that several of the most active characters are portrayed as misusing the space of the Fair to their own detriment. This is detected in Cokes, Busy, and most especially Overdo. The latter s adoption of a disguise fails to allow him to survey the Fair properly and he ends as an impotent figure whose authority is only in name. Possibly, as Mardock suggests, he is a foil for Jonson s presence in the play. This is most clearly manifested in the correct interpretation of the Fair by Quarlous who is a more detached observer but yet one who is securely placed within the Fair. Two further features discussed here broaden the way the Fair is managed: the use of the puppet play by Littlewit and Jonson s special relationship with the audience. The former is interpreted here as a failed city comedy and thus is seen as a vehicle for increasing Jonson s control over the stage space. Control of the audience is determined partly by the contract at the beginning and the invitation or challenge to exercise better judgment than the characters show. This line of argument is certainly intriguing and it fits into Jonson s long standing concern to engage with an audience of understanders. It is also placed in a context here by the observation in the Induction that the contrast puts the members of the audience under the obligation to remain in the places their money or their friends have put them in (Induction 77 8). This links with the other main concern of the book: Jonson s presentation of himself as author. He is certainly there in the Induction of Bartholomew Fair being described in a comic vignette as having kicked the Stage-keeper three or four times about the tiring house for making an inappropriate and un-jonsonian suggestion and thus he is a part of the offstage contexts for the play. It may be noticed at this point that presences of this kind are indeed a persistent motif in Jonson s other work, even to the fascinating passage in The Magnetic Lady which refers to his absence from the

5 Book Reviews 129 theatre when called for, an ironic means of promoting his presence in the commentary on the action and dramatization embedded in the interchange between Messrs Damplay and Probee with the Boy who speaks for Jonson. However, there is scope for a more critical account of Jonson s presence in his texts as it was clearly innovative and indeed Jonson s relationship with his audiences was much dependent upon it. Mardock usefully separates Jonson s presentation of himself through the medium of the printed book, especially the Works (1616), and he notes that the presentation of this volume is by means of a classical title-page without reference to the world of the theatre. This book provides many interesting interpretations of some aspects of the plays, in particular in its treatment of the behavior of the characters and the interchanges between them, and also in its attention to metatheatricality. These are treated with considerable success here and attention is thus directed to important aspects of Jonson s achievement in the theatre. This is manifest in the appreciation of the consistent and explicit theatricality embedded in The Devil is an Ass. In this play Jonson significantly takes over some of the theatrical devices of the sixteenth-century interludes. But the terminology of authorship here is rather an uncertain matter and there is, it seems to me, some difficulty in establishing the proposed connection between authorship and the ways in which stage space with a specific London resonance is managed through a possible concern about authorship. Moreover to suggest that the characters are attempting to wrest the playwright s theatrical powers from him invests the characters with powers which they can hardly possess. Peter Happé University of Southampton DOI: /E Barbara Ravelhofer, The Early Stuart Masque: Dance, Costume, and Music. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, xvi+317 pages. Ill. Ravelhofer s thorough and meticulous contribution to dance scholarship is a deliberate and welcome corrective to what she views as masque criticism s focus on the literary elements of the

APHRA BEHN STAGE THE SOCIAL SCENE

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