The clue to these often malignant dialectics
is very difficult to find.
The action of his plays--if incidental quarrels, full of sneering
allusions, are left aside--is generally of such diminutive proportions
that one may well ask, after the perusal of some of his dramas, whether
they contain any action at all. No doubt the satirist, too, has his
legitimate place in the dramatic art; but he must know how to hit the
weaknesses of human nature in certain striking types. Jonson, however,
is far from being able to lay a claim to such dramaturgic merit. At
'haphazard he took certain individualities from the idly gossiping crowd
that congregated in the central nave of St. Paul's Church, and put them
on the stage. Whoever had been strutting about there to-day in his
silken stockings, proudly displaying the nodding feathers in his hat,
his rich waist-coat and mantle, and boasting a little too loud before
some other gallant of his love adventures, ran great danger--like all
those whose demeanour in St. Paul's gave rise to backbiting gossip--of
being pourtrayed in the 'Rose,' in the 'Curtain,' or in the theatres
of the 'little eyases,' in such a manner that people were able, in
the streets, to point them out with their fingers.
Like so many other novelties, this kind of comedy, too, may for a while
have found its admirers. Soon, however, this degradation of the Muse
brought up such a storm that Jonson had to take refuge in another
domain of the dramatic art (1601).
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