Ben Jonson (1572–1637)

In 1611 two experienced London playwrights collaborated on a new play dramatizing a real-life contemporary wonder, Mary Frith, known as Moll Cutpurse, "a sometime thief and notorious cross-dresser" (ix). In Feb 2023 at the Blackfriars theater in Staunton VA a group of enthusiastic amateur players offered a staged reading of the rarely performed play, prompting me to revisit it. It's at once clear why it has become popular in recent years, after almost 4 centuries of neglect.

The real-life show more Frith was charged with theft and a host of notoriously male behaviors - drunkenness, swearing, dueling, swaggering, and cross-dressing. Middleton and Dekker's Moll affects some of those behaviors but is presented sympathetically as an outspoken free-thinker transcending the rigid constraints of her class and gender. Such froward behavior attracts some undesired admirers to this "maddest, fantastical'st girl" (2.1.192) for her "heroic spirit and masculine womanhood" (2.1.336-7), but much of the play rehearses the knee-jerk attacks on one who "strays so from her kind [that] Nature repents she made her" (1.2.214-5). Her non-binary gender presentation is at the heart of her offense: "It is a thing One knows not how to name; . . . 'Tis woman more than man, Man more than woman, and . . . The sun gives her two shadows to one shape" (1.2.129-33). The fact that such attacks come from the play's senex, Sir Alexander Wengrave, who blocks a heterosexual pair of true lovers from wedded bliss, makes clear where the plot's sympathies rest.

The play offers Moll several memorable bits of stage business. Twice in act 3 when in male garb she draws her weapon to engage with and defeat male opponents. Then act 4 finds her placing a viol da gamba between her trousered legs to perform two songs about transgressive wives, and in act 5 she engages in a bout of "canting," a slang duel that ends with yet another song.

Her verbal climax comes earlier, in an articulate attack on a would-be seducer, the poorly endowed Laxton (lacks stone): "Thou'rt one of those That thinks each woman thy fond flexible whore. . . . What durst move you, sir, To think me whorish? . . . "Cause, you'll say, I'm given to sport, I'm often merry, jest? Had mirth no kindred in the world but lust? . . . I scorn to prostitute myself to a man, I that can prostitute a man to me. . . she that has wit and spirit May scorn to live beholding to her body for meat Or for apparel . . . Base is the mind that kneels unto her body . . . My spirit shall be mistress of this house As long as I have time in't" (3.1.72-140).

Though Moll is the play's featured character, her part in the love-plot is relatively small. It is mostly limited to unmasking plotters and dodging entrapment while allying with the young lover Sebastian Wengrave to cozen his father and marry his true love Mary (about whom the roaring girl says "I pitied her for name's sake, that a Moll Should be so crossed in love" (4.1.68-9). Much of the play is taken up with the misadventures of two city gallants, whose attempts to "wap, niggle and fadoodle" (5.1.189-95) with two housewives and bamboozle their husbands are thwarted by the wives themselves (as in Shakespeare's Merry Wives).

In the end, though this city comedy flirts with transgression at every turn, it ends up affirming heterosexual marriage and wifely wiles. Sir Alexander the senex apologizes for his errors and praises Moll as "a good wench" and the foxy housewives as "kind gentlewomen, whose sparkling presence Are glories set in marriage" (5.2.268-9). Perhaps the chief roarer speaks for her sisters as well as herself when she proclaims, "I please myself, and care not else who loves me" (5.1.332). show less

Turns out Ben Jonson is a riot! I need to read/watch more of his plays. So many weird names and shenanigans, and he's certainly not afraid to break the fourth wall in order to call out his critics or talk up his own accomplishments, haha.

If you like Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor, Taming of the Shrew, or the country and tavern parts of Henry IV Part 2, you'll probably like this!

This was my first Ben Jonson play. Admittingly, I did not think I was going to enjoy it. I am typically not the comedic type-- or so I thought. Yet, Jonson charms with his blank verse and the play flows so adequately and wonderfully that it is a pleasure to read. The only thing that prevented it from getting a five-star rating was the antiquity of the play. It is hard to completely understand, due to the nuances of language, one-hundred percent of what is happening. Nevertheless, it was a show more great read and I will read more Ben Jonson in the future. show less

What to say about Ben Jonson? Well, for starters, his verse is flawed at best. He often rhymes in a contrived fashion, cheats the meter, and slaps references in haphazardly. He's no master of English as Shakespeare proves himself time and time again. But Jonson is something here in these poems that so many poets aren't, and that's fun. In fact, so rare is fun in poetry that most people wrongly revile it. Even when Jonson fails he is still fun, as in The Forest when he first asks what he show more should sing about in an epode and then proceeds to completely strike out. Not to worry if you're looking for good stuff, though, because the other two major sections, Epigrams and Underwoods, are far superior. And Jonson is far from a one-(failed)-trick pony.

I find Jonson to be both simple and plain spoken. Don't misinterpret me here about this either, I mean both of those things in the best way. There is not always need of guile and subversion in the poetic arts, and as a matter of fact many ply those needlessly. Instead what you have is what's on the paper without need of gloss or end notes or any of that. This book also includes his Discoveries, Or Explorata in which he shows off a much less wise version of Ben Franklin's Poor Richard. Again, though, the key word is fun and even Franklin's autobiography, for how brief it is, can get stuffy. For the less gracious reading I still like Jonson better than Donne, and of Shakespeare's contemporaries I'd probably choose him although with recognition that Geoffrey Chaucer blows him away. It must also be said here that in the realm of obsequies, Jonson is without peer. Where Shakespeare liked to cut others down, Jonson built others up in his poetry and his compliments to those around them feel heartfelt and paid-for. show less