Ben Jonson and the Serial Publication of News*

Dutch Influences on English Literary Culture in the Early Renaissance, 1470–1650

“…For Marcus Nevitt, the Staple was a rearguard action, as 'Jonson attempted (and failed) to preserve the boundaries of the stage's newsworthiness', in the process only 'conceding that the news pamphlet was about to succeed the stage as the main medium for distributing news'. 95 Don Wayne reaches a similar conclusion, arguing that the Staple 'betrays anxiety about the status of that form of information more properly termed knowledge or truth over which the poet in Jonson's conception presides'. 96 Jonson evidently conceived the news-trade as a direct threat to his own position.…”