ABSTRACT
Peter Barnes is a passionate admirer of Jonson. Of all the contemporary practitioners whose work is discussed in this section of the book, he would be proudest to be thought of as a ‘Jonsonian’. The danger of claiming a Jonsonian inheritance for Barnes from a set of shared characteristics is that it risks tautology and invites the unworthy speculation that the claim to the Jonsonian cloak is a means of self-aggrandisement. Jokes and humour can be used to reinforce hegemonic structures of authority or to subvert them. Barnes’ examination of the social psychology of acquiescence can be seen to have its roots in Jonson’s theatre. Jonson and Barnes each use various strategies to destabilise audience response, to encourage audiences to interrogate their own relationship to what they are watching. The final four lines of Jonson’s ‘Argument’ summarise the bulk of the play.
