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6 ‘Three Cranes, Mitre, and Mermaid men’: Metadramatic Self-Deprecation and Authority in Bartholomew Fair
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Published:November 2016
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Abstract
Bartholomew Fair presents both a satirical allegory of London life in general, and microcosmic parodies of types of authority in particular. Critical consensus has it that troubled authority is especially embodied and mocked in the play’s middle-class characters, and that the play then proceeds to mock this very mockery. This duality has bred dichotomous interpretations. The play is either a ‘dark indictment of human irrationality and moral decay’ or a ‘celebration of the rejuvenating energies of folly and festival disorder’. This chapter offers a middle ground which views the play as a self-conscious offering of its own theatrical folly as both a critique of the decay of moral authority and a self-deprecating admission of complicity in it. Jonson’s assertion of the poet’s duty to critique official corruption is well known, but in this case his satire of general social venality very much includes ‘authority like his own’. If this is Jonson’s friendliest play, it is because of the self-directed cast of its humour and the inclusivity which arises from it. This chapter explores the genial fellowship of metadramatic self-mockery that Bartholomew Fair offers to both commoners and King, which both allows and defuses the play’s critique of authority.
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