Sejanus His Fall

Jonson, Benjamin [Ben]; Herford, C. H.; Simpson, Percy

doi:10.1093/oseo/instance.00000017

Cited by 3 publications

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“…Flattery and false friendships are ubiquitous in the play. Tiberius' first appearance is dominated by his hypocritical disdain for flattery which he secretly enjoys, 57 suggestively reflecting his usage of the language of republican senatorial legitimacy -'The servant of the Senate' (1.393) -to mask the realities of his monarchical power. The influence of false friendships is clearest in the final scene in which the senators, anticipating Sejanus' elevation, initially loudly praise him before deserting him when it is revealed that Tiberius is actually ordering his fall.…”

Section: Republican Friendship In Plays On Imperial Romementioning

confidence: 99%

Republican friendship and the fall of the Roman Republic in late Elizabethan and early Jacobean drama

Moncrieff

2021

Cahiers Élisabéthains: A Journal of English Renaissance Studies

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This article synthesises historical scholarship on early modern friendship and classical republicanism to argue that Cicero, through the ideal of ‘republican friendship’, exerted a much greater influence over early modern understandings of Roman history than has previously been realised. Exploring Roman plays by William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, with reference to other classical dramas, it examines how dramatists used the Ciceronian ideal of republican friendship to create a historical framework for the political changes they were portraying, with Jonson using it to inform a Tacitean perspective on Roman history and Shakespeare scrutinising and challenging the nature of republican friendship itself.

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Section: Republican Friendship In Plays On Imperial Romementioning

confidence: 99%

Republican friendship and the fall of the Roman Republic in late Elizabethan and early Jacobean drama

Moncrieff

2021

Cahiers Élisabéthains: A Journal of English Renaissance Studies

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“…Indeed, it should be remembered that the King's Men had already been involved in a highly confrontational court production in 1603, Sejanus His Fall, which led to Ben Jonson's appearance before the Privy Council on charges of "popperie and treason." 30 The tonal similarities between these two plays' treatment of political authority are compelling, especially when we consider them holistically as products of the same repertory, with Shakespeare himself performing (as is recorded) in Sejanus, possibly acting the role of Tiberius. 31 Another confrontational play, Sir Thomas More, may be worth considering in this context, since it is self-conscious about late medieval literary history and sympathetic toward pre-Reformation figures and ideas; it was arguably revised by Shakespeare and others -after being censored a decade before -around 1603.…”

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confidence: 98%

Shakespeare's Everyman: Measure for Measure and English Fundamentalism

Fulton¹

2010

Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies

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The accession of James I triggered an outpouring of religious literature, including Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, which was performed before a royal audience on December 26, 1604. With over thirty biblical allusions and a conspicuously scriptural title, Shakespeare's most biblical play is also arguably his most medieval play, as its allegorical structure and homiletic themes mimic those of the medieval morality play. While Shakespeare's play participates in the religious celebration of the new monarchy, it does so with rich irony, revealing stark contradictions in English political culture. The play's medievalism and its biblical allusions critically expose the efforts of some English Protestants to authorize power on the basis of a fundamentalist reading of the Bible. The biblical interests of Measure for Measure also respond to the king's censure of the Geneva Bible, an act that reinforced the tight relationship between biblical interpretation and the foundations of authority.

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“…Ben Jonson, another actor-writer had done the same: to him 'the … offices of a tragic writer' consisted of writing in a way he described in performance terms: with 'gravity and height of elocution, fulness and frequency of sentence'. 23 It was usual to write for the sound of performance. The gorgeousness of the visual depiction -with Juliet's radiance teaching torches to flame, then exuding light like a sparkling jewel when all around it is dark -is here enhanced sonorously.…”

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confidence: 99%

Early Modern Tragedy and Performance

Stern

2016

Oxford Handbooks Online

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When early modern plays were staged with black curtains, ‘tragedy’ began the moment the audience entered a playhouse. ‘Tragedy’, then, did not always need to be part of a play’s content: it could be a look, an atmosphere, a theatrical mood. This chapter explores ‘tragedy’ as a kind of performance as well as a kind of drama. Considering ‘tragic’ staging, ‘tragic’ ways of walking (‘strutting’, ‘jetting’, and ‘stalking’), ‘tragic’ ways of speaking (‘ranting’ and ‘canting’ in a tragic ‘tone’ or ‘key’), and the presentation of tragic passions, the chapter argues that Shakespeare’s consciousness of staging dictates his choice of metaphor and symbol. Enacted tragedy, it suggests, helped form Shakespeare’s tragic sensibility.

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Sejanus His Fall

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Republican friendship and the fall of the Roman Republic in late Elizabethan and early Jacobean drama

Republican friendship and the fall of the Roman Republic in late Elizabethan and early Jacobean drama

Shakespeare's Everyman: Measure for Measure and English Fundamentalism

Early Modern Tragedy and Performance

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