The Self-Centred Art

Ben Jonson's Parts in Performance
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-0-367-51563-8
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 316 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 485 g

Reihe: Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama

The Self-Centred Art is a study of the plays of Ben Jonson and the actors who first performed in them.

Jakub Boguszak shows how the idiosyncrasies of Jonson’s comic characters were thrown into relief in actors’ part-scripts—scrolls containing a single actor’s lines and cues—some five hundred of which are reconstructed here from Jonson’s seventeen extant plays. Reading Jonson’s spectating parts, humorous parts, apprentice parts, and plotting parts, Boguszak argues that the kind of self-absorption which defines so many of Jonson’s famous comic creations would have come easily to actors relying on these documents. Jonson’s actors would have moreover worked on their cues, studied their speeches, and thought about the information excluded from their parts differently, depending on the type they had to play. Boguszak thus shows that Jonson brilliantly adapted his comedies to the way the actors worked, making the actors’ self-centredness serve his art.

This book addresses Jonson’s dealings with the actors as well as the printers of his plays and supplements the discussion of different types of parts with a colourful range of case studies. In doing so, it presents a new way of understanding not just Ben Jonson, but early modern theatre at large.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Boguszak, Jakub

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Dramen und Dramatiker
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Theaterwissenschaft Schauspieltechnik, Theaterpädagogik
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Theaterwissenschaft Theatergeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literatur: Sammlungen, Anthologien

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 Reconstructing Jonson’s parts

2 Jonson’s revisions

3 Jonson among the actors

4 Spectating parts

Case study: ‘Cupid’ (Cynthia’s Revels (Q))

5 Humorous parts: sweet fools

Case study: ‘Polish’ (The Magnetic Lady)

6 Humorous parts: bitter fools

Case study: ‘Adam Overdo’ (Bartholomew Fair)

7 Apprentice parts

Case study: ‘Frances Fitzdottrel’ (The Devil Is an Ass)

8 Plotting parts

Case study: ‘Catiline’ (Catiline)

9 All parts assembled

Case study: The Alchemist 4.6–4.7

10 Taking the measure of Jonson’s plays

11 Conclusion

12 Bibliography

Appendix 1: Actors’ Parts in Case Studes

‘Cupid’ (Cynthia’s Revels (Q))

‘Polish’ (The Magnetic Lady)

‘Adam Overdo’ (Bartholomew Fair)

‘Frances Fitzdottrel’ (The Devil Is an Ass)

‘Catiline’ (Catiline)

The Alchemist 4.6–4.7

Appendix 2: Sizes of Actors’ parts in Jonson’s plays

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Jakub Boguszak is a Lecturer in Shakespeare and Early Modern Theatre at the University of Southampton, UK. His published work includes studies of Shakespeare, Jonson, and early modern drama in performance and in print.