Features of Dramatic History and Neo-Classicist Elements in Ben Jonson’s Fragment Mortimer His Fall

В статье рассматривается дифференциация и эволюция драматических жанров в конце XVI —начале XVII века в репертуаре английских театров. Отправной точкой нашего исследования служит фрагмент в посмертном собрании Бена Джонсона (1572–1637) наброска «Падение Мортимера», о котором издатель сообщает как о пьесе, не завершенной автором и относящейся к последним месяцам его жизни. Жанр елизаветинской трагедии характеризуется нами как относительно стабильный в течение целого десятилетия. Исходя из наличия у большинства этих пьес содержательных, структурных и художественных особенностей, проверяется принадлежность сцен о Мортимере и Эдуарде III к данной традиции. Анализ фабулы и способов раскрытия основного конфликта в контексте творчества Джонсона и в его отношении к современному театру, прежде всего к шекспировским пьесам, показывает, что незаконченная пьеса «Падение Мортимера» могла быть задумана в период относительного затишья в театральной жизни в середине 1610-х годов. В ней настойчиво реализуются принципы неоклассицизма и отхода от смешения стилевых регистров, которые были характерны для исторических хроник. Ограниченный диапазон действующих лиц, присутствие хоров и групповой диалог, отход от психологической трактовки героя и других персонажей — всё это позволяет заключить, что целью Б. Джонсона было возрождение трагического с национальным содержанием в формах, предписанных античностью. Abstract. The object of analysis is the short-lived, yet unique genre of English dramatic history at the turn of the 16th–187th cc. Emerging in the early years of Elizabeth I’s reign, the history served as a secular replacement of medieval mysteries. The chief features linking histories with the familiar genre of the pre-Reformation tradition were as follows: (1) presence of stock characters; (2) transparent message to the broader audience (religious or national); (3) alternation of low and lofty scenes to provide variety and spectacular turns. At the top of its development, in the 1590s, the history obtained stability of content and diction in the series of William Shakespeare’s tetralogies, to which King John and All’s Trues served as a prologue and epilogue. It would be wrong to exclude Ben Jonson, in so many ways linked to Shakespeare’s work and fame, from participation in the genre practice. Even though he did not contribute dramatized chronicles of Britain’s past for the stage, he tried his hand in Roman tragedies and each conformed to at least two of the features above. In close reading of the surviving part of Ben Jonson’s Mortimer His Fall we distinguish an echo of Elizabethan central path in history, yet evidence of increased Classicist tendencies is much stronger, which suggests new grounds for dating this dramatic sketch.

Tragic Time in Ben Jonson's Sejanus and Catiline

This essay explores Ben Jonson's treatment of dramatic and historical time in his Roman tragedies, Sejanus His Fall (1603) and Catiline His Conspiracy (1611). Although the plays conspicuously fail to respect neoclassical strictures about the unity of time, both reproduce the temporal compression of Greek and Roman tragedy through their sustained intertextual engagements with a wide range of Roman source texts, including, above all, Lucan's Bellum Civile, and the works of the late antique court poet Claudian. The ultimate effect of these quotations, allusions, and reminiscences is to transform Jonson's dramas of early imperial corruption and late Republican civil conflict into proleptic visions of Roman history as a phantasmagoria of unceasing political violence, extending to the ends of both classical antiquity and classical literature.

Tragedy According to Jacobus Pontanus and the Tradition of Antiquity

The aim of this study is to present the findings of a comparative analysis that covers—on the one hand—the theory of tragedy presented in Poeticarum institutionum libri III by Jakob Pontanus (Spanmuller), the classical and Renaissance poetics and commentaries on which he based his work, as well as the ancient tragedies that belonged to the literary canon in Jesuit colleges, and—on the other hand—Pontanus’s theoretical approach mentioned above and his tragedy Elezarus Machabaeus. The works of Pontanus have previously been discussed by Joseph Bielmann. However, Bielmann did not present them against the background of the Greek and Roman tragedies or the statements of the ancient theorists on drama, the Renaissance theoretical reflection on tragedies, or the playwriting practice resulting from this reflection. Consequently, his characterisation of the Elezarus Machabaeus is untenable, and his comments on Pontanus’s theory of drama need reviewing. Determining whether Pontanus respected the rules of ancient tragedy or whether he openly violated them is important because he was one of the most outstanding Jesuit humanists and a person of authority in his community. If we take into account the fact that Elezarus Machabaeus was the first tragedy printed by the Jesuits, the Poeticarum institutionum libri tres was one of the first printed Jesuit textbooks of this kind, and Pontanus himself was also the author of other books recommended for reading in Jesuit colleges and participated in the work of the committee for the evaluation and approval of the Jesuit school act, his views on the imitation of ancient models should be considered influential at least to a moderate degree and at least in some literary circles of his time. This matter is addressed in the introductory part of this paper. It also contains a short presentation of Pontanus’s textbook against the background of other Jesuit poetics, as well as of his main sources in the field of drama theory. Subsequently, the author presents Pontanus’s concept of drama and then discusses his piece taking into account the context of ancient and contemporary drama theory and practice of writing. In the light of this comparative reading, Eleazarus Machabaeus seems to be generally based on ancient models despite certain peculiarities, such as the composition and absence of choruses, which may be surprising at first. Both Pontanus’s tragedy and his theoretical approach should be regarded as classical in nature.

Studien zu Homer, zur Tragödie und zum Satyrspiel

This book contains 17 contributions on Homer and the reception of his works, Greek and Roman tragedies and satyr plays. These essays discuss the artistic creation of Odysseus’s travels and the reception of Homer’s two epics in both ancient and modern times, fundamental questions on Greek tragedy, such as catharsis, character and characterisation or its sociopolitical significance, and various aspects of satyr plays, such as the mythical subject matter of this genre, which has unfortunately almost been completely lost, or the composition of the chorus of satyrs and the form and significance of its dances.

Les Suppliantes de Euripide (c.1540): A Lost Translation Recovered

The manuscript shelfmarked Rothschild Supplement-2200 in the Bibliothèque nationale de France has recently been identified as a lost verse translation of Euripides' Suppliants, one of a series of French translations of Greek and Roman tragedies of the 1530s and 1540s which helped to usher in the beginning of French tragedy as a genre. This contribution provides a complete transcription of this anonymous work. An introduction provides some analysis of its form, content, and context. Much the strongest candidate as its likely author, it is argued, is Jacques Amyot.

Can Senecan Theater of Passions Educate a Virtuous Person?

The article is devoted to the consideration of the pedagogical content of Seneca’s tragedy. The article provides a solution for the problem, which is contained in the controversy – on the one hand, Seneca as other Stoics believes that the passions negatively affect the soul of human being, on the other hand, his tragedies portray plots overrun with passions involving murder, perfidy, betrayal and other crimes. The author suggests that this feature of the plot of dramatic works of Seneca cannot be explained by simple respect of the tradition, according to which the passion is the main driving force of both the ancient Greek and ancient Roman tragedies. The author shows that Seneca intentionally uses certain artistic techniques to achieve the pedagogical effect.