ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I argue that the Poets’ War creates a crucial context for Bartholomew Fair (1614) as a continued exploration of specific issues emerging from this debate. Jonson, Marston, and Dekker engage in both personal insult and professional denigration of one another (in general it is Marston and Dekker versus Jonson), 1 in a conflict that critics typically see coming to a conclusion with the publication of Jonson’s Poetaster and Dekker’s Satiromastix in 1602. However, it seems that Jonson was continuing to engage the terms of the Poetomachia as late as 1613, when he began working on Bartholomew Fair. Perhaps this should not be surprising, considering that (1) satire, the matter at the root of the contention, continued to be a highly relevant concern for Jonson, and (2) several Poetomachia plays had recently been published for the first time, keeping the conflict fresh in the minds of Jonson and his contemporaries. In spite of these circumstances, Bartholomew Fair has never properly been considered in the context of the Poetomachia. This chapter contends that in this work Jonson revisits two of the conflict’s central concerns: the value of certain kinds of satire and the role of the satirist in society. I argue that the three principal authority figures in the play—Wasp, Busy, and Overdo—each convey images (a stinging insect, a dog, and a medical purger) suggestive of specific satirists (Juvenal, Diogenes, 2 and Horace). This kind of imagery was current in the plays of the Poetomachia as well as in the satire of Elizabethan and Jacobean verse satirists. As Jonson revisits the Poetomachia, utilizing these images to discredit his rival satirists, he provides unique and significant insights into his perspective on contemporary satire.
