'Poetaster' (1601), by Ben Jonson.
2. 'Satiromastix' (1602), by Thomas Dekker.
3. 'Malcontent' (1604), by John Marston.
4. 'Volpone' (1605), by Ben Jonson.
5. 'Eastward Hoe' (1605), by Ben Jonson, Chapman,
and Marston.
In 'The Poetaster' Ben Jonson makes his chief attack upon Dekker and
Shakspere. In 'Satiromastix,' Dekker defends himself against that attack.
In doing so, he sides with Shakspere; and we thereby gain an insight
into the noble conduct of the latter. Between Jonson and Shakspere
there had already been dramatic skirmishes during several years before
the appearance of 'The Poetaster.' We shall only be able to touch
rapidly upon their meaning, considering that we confine ourselves,
in the main, to a statement of that which concerns 'Hamlet.'
After Jonson, in his 'Poetaster,' had exceeded all bounds of decent
behaviour with most intolerable arrogance, Shakspere seems to have
become weary of these malicious personal onslaughts; all the more so
because they were apparently put into the mouth of innocent children.
So he wrote his 'Hamlet,' showing up, therein, the loose and perplexing
ideas of his chief antagonist, who belonged to the party of
Florio-Montaigne.
Hamlet, as we shall prove beyond the possibility of cavil, is the
hitherto unexplained 'purge' in 'The Return from Parnassus,' which
'our fellow Shakspere' administered to Ben Jonson in return for the
'pill' destined for himself in 'The Poetaster.
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