Two Menus
Carnival in Ben Jonson's Poetry
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12358468 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Anne Brumley (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 223-239 |
| Publication date | 2010-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Exemplaria (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1041-2573 • E-ISSN: 1753-3074 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1179/104125710x12730486675901 |
| OpenAlex | W2062475606 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 17 |
Many critics believe that Ben Jonson's ouevre is self-contradictory. Peter Stallybrass and Allon White, for instance, have suggested that “the notion of authorship to which Jonson dedicated his poetic career was in every way in contradiction to Saturnalia, the grotesque, even to the theatre itself.” By contrast, they wrote that Bartholomew Fair was a carnivalesque work, lacking “the haughty individuation of the classical to which Jonson so avidly aspired.” In the years since Stallybrass and White published these views, our understanding of both carnival and Jonson's historical context has changed a great deal. In this essay, I aim to integrate these changes into a reading of Jonson's “neoclassical” or “plain style” poetry. I analyze “To Penshurst” and Epigram 101, “Inviting a Friend to Supper,” within the cultural contexts of the foods and food practices listed therein. Still legible in this style, these poems also participate in a second life. Their alternative possibilities poke fun at and destabilize the “plain style” world. It seems, therefore, that Jonson's notion of authorship was more expansive and sophisticated than we have realized
Aesthetics · Art · Context (archaeology · Contradiction · Elegiac · Elegy · Expansive · Linguistics · Literature · Plea · Poetry · Reading (process · Style (visual arts · Supper · White (mutation · History · Joseph Conrad and Literature · Law · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Philosophy · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism
The politics and poetics of transgression
Jonson’s Magic Houses
The Loaded Table
Food in Medieval Times
Premodern Sexualities
Aguecheek's Beef, Belch's Hiccup, and Other Gastronomic Interjections
All About Jonson's Poetry
The Jonsonian Corpulence, or the Poet as Mouthpiece
Ben Jonson and the Publicke Riot
"Reconsidering Ben Jonson and the "Centered Self
Bakhtin on Poetry
Penshurst
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |