Search
Close
Search
Advanced Search
Search Menu
AI Discovery Assistant

Extract

IN Thomas Dekker’s Satiromastix the poet Horace is a blatant caricature of Ben Jonson. Throughout the play Captain Tucca, a character taken from Jonson’s Poetaster, is used to mercilessly criticize Jonson. In one scene Tucca mocks him for having been ‘a poore Iorneyman Player’ and then makes a reference to his involvement in the Isle of Dogs affair:

Death of Hercules, he could neuer play that part well in’s life, no Fulkes you could not: thou call’st Demetrius Iorneyman Poet, but thou putst vp a Supplication to bea poore Iorneyman Player, and hadst beene still so, but that thou couldst not set a good face vpon’t: thou hast forgot how thou amblest (in leather pilch) by a play-wagon, in the highway, and took’st mad Ieronimoes part, to get seruice among the Mimickes: and when the Stagerites banisht thee into the Ile of Dogs, thou turn’dst Ban-dog (villanous Guy) & euer since bitest, therefore I aske if th’ast been at Parris-garden, because thou hast such a good mouth; thou baitst well, read, lege, saue thy selfe and read.1

The general meaning of the words I have highlighted is reasonably clear. As Cyrus Hoy put it: ‘after his experience of The Isle of Dogs Horace (Jonson) turned satirist and has been snarling ever since’.2 The precise meaning, though, is open to question. Hoy refers to Jonson’s ‘experience of The Isle of Dogs’, but this is vague. Which particular part of the experience caused him to turn satirist?

Issue Section:
Notes
You do not currently have access to this article.
Download all slides