{"title":"Puppets, Sexlessness, and the Dumbfounding of Male Epistemology in Jonson's Bartholomew Fair","authors":"R. Darcy","doi":"10.1353/sel.2020.0016","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Ben Jonson excluded Bartholomew Fair from his momentous Workes (1616), which might have indicated ambivalence in him about the play's social project. In exploring gender and authority, the play's festival setting abandons male vocality and its broadcast of certainty and knowledge. The puppets' sexlessness, revealed at play's end, renders Puritanical arguments about gender and cross-dressing irrelevant and foolish in the space of human affairs. Yet such a conclusion for Jonson, who was slavishly attentive to Classical regulations of the theater, may betray a moment of artistic doubt after the failure of Catiline and uncertainty about his legacy as a dramatist.","PeriodicalId":45835,"journal":{"name":"STUDIES IN ENGLISH LITERATURE 1500-1900","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"STUDIES IN ENGLISH LITERATURE 1500-1900","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sel.2020.0016","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"Arts and Humanities","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract:Ben Jonson excluded Bartholomew Fair from his momentous Workes (1616), which might have indicated ambivalence in him about the play's social project. In exploring gender and authority, the play's festival setting abandons male vocality and its broadcast of certainty and knowledge. The puppets' sexlessness, revealed at play's end, renders Puritanical arguments about gender and cross-dressing irrelevant and foolish in the space of human affairs. Yet such a conclusion for Jonson, who was slavishly attentive to Classical regulations of the theater, may betray a moment of artistic doubt after the failure of Catiline and uncertainty about his legacy as a dramatist.
期刊介绍:
SEL focuses on four fields of British literature in rotating, quarterly issues: English Renaissance, Tudor and Stuart Drama, Restoration and Eighteenth Century, and Nineteenth Century. The editors select learned, readable papers that contribute significantly to the understanding of British literature from 1500 to 1900. SEL is well known for thecommissioned omnibus review of recent studies in the field that is included in each issue. In a single volume, readers might find an argument for attributing a previously unknown work to Shakespeare or de-attributing a famous work from Milton, a study ofthe connections between class and genre in the Restoration Theater.