Dogs Urinating on the 1623 Folio: The Jaggard Press’s Dionysus Ornament in Context

Abstract

This case study of the Dionysus ornament illustrates how the 1623 Shakespearean folio carries with it echoes of previous folio works as it reinterprets this image within its own context. The paper establishes the other Jaggard Press titles in which the headpiece appears to explore how these different contexts draw out the image’s semiotic potential. It notes an extreme uptick in use in Crooke’s Mikrokosmographia, an anatomical work in which urination and ejaculation feature prominently. Operating in tandem with the 1623 prefatory materials, the headpiece participates in the visual organisational logic of the Folio, structures the Folio’s establishment of generic variety, and introduces the volume-wide rhetorical strategy of reading Englishness within a global context. The woodcut’s synchronously urinating dogs also suggest a commentary on the communal bodily experience of live theatre. Having noted ways early modern printed folio projects can be mutually citational through ornaments, the paper discusses how the Shakespearean volume positions itself within the English inflection of classical single-author collected drama through the associations with Dionysus, patron god of drama, and Ben Jonson’s 1616 Workes. The conclusion considers the Second Folio’s adoption of the headpiece as part of the 1623 Folio’s iconic look.