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The History Of European Theatre
The Poetaster: ‘Good Ignorance, I’m Glad Thou Art Gone’
Episode 198:
As Ben Jonson was writing ‘The Poetaster’ in 1601 the Elizabethan age was drawing to a close. Elizabeth would live until March 1603, but by 1601 any hope of a natural heir was long past and her court and councillors were playing a waiting game and with different degrees of secrecy were trying to manipulate the situation over the accession to their own advantage. Jonson, I’m sure, had an eye and an ear on those politics, but the comedy he was writing was more concerned with the politics of the theatre than those in the court. In the previous episode on ‘Cynthia’s Revels’ and in my episodes on Thomas Dekker, that you can still find on the podcast archive, I have touched on ‘the war of the poets’ and this episode on ‘The Poetaster’ will bring these matters to a close. Although it’s not essential you might find listening to those earlier episodes useful, if you have not done so already, before listening to this one.
The early performance of the play and it’s place in the ‘war of the poets’
The print history of the play
The theme of the role of the poet
A short synopsis of the play
The caricature of John Marston
The Poetaster and Satiromastix
The feud as fuelled by the rivalry between playing troupes
The poet as councillor and companion to the monarch
The exposing of the poetasters
The change in title
Reference to the Essex rebellion
The attempted censoring of the play
The epilogue
The end of the ‘Poetomachia’
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1. Trailer
03:52||Ep. 1An introduction to The History Of European Theatre PodcastThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy1. Prologue and Pre History
25:26||Season 1, Ep. 1Episode 1An Introduction to the podcast and your host.Pre-history and how the urge to mimic and present might have been the start of theatre.Religious ritual and Shamanism.The Abydos Passion play and the Egyptian Book of the Dead.The beginning of Greek Theatre.A note on dates and the nature of translations.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy2. Dionysus and the beginning of Greek Theatre
26:53||Season 1, Ep. 2Episode 2An overview of the history of Greece to the 5th Century BCE including Minoan and Mycenaean periods, the Greek dark age and the rise of the city state.The development of the religious festivals and their main featuresAn overview of the main playwrights and their plays:AeschylusSophoclesEuripidesAristophanesMenanderThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy3. The Place Of Seeing
31:49||Season 1, Ep. 3Episode 3The vocabulary of the theatre we inherit from the GreeksThe layout of the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens and it's main featuresDevelopments in the theatre over timeThe ChorusStage MachineryMasks and costumeThe judging and prizesThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy4. Aeschylus: The First Tragedies
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28:21||Season 1, Ep. 5Episode 5A detailed review of Agamemnon, the first part of The Oresteia trilogy by AeschylusThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy6. The Oresteia part 2
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