ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the role of sexuality in criticism of royal favorites and highlights the importance of Christopher Marlowe’s oeuvre to the treatments of the favorite character in English drama. Focusing on Ben Jonson’s Sejanus His Fall, this chapter demonstrates that this play portrays a negative favorite based on two contemporary traditions: the Marlovian favorite or “overreacher” that is common in the plays of Marlowe, and the Neostoic culture, especially the work of Tacitus, that dominated the circle of Essex where Jonson found his literary patrons. It is suggested that, by portraying a negative favorite and a tyrannical sovereign, Jonson criticizes the marginalization of Essex and his followers from royal favor during the last period of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign and attempts to gain the favor of her successor to the English throne, King James I.
