Contradictory Unity Of Classicism And Carnival

As the most famous contemporary writer of Shakespeare,Ben Jonson is a remarkable poet and dramatist in English literary history.Jonson’s city comedies(Volpone,or The Fox;Epicene,or The Silent Woman;The Alchemist;Bartholomew Fair)represent his greatest achievement in drama.Jonsonists have been often studying and exploring them separately rather than as a whole.Some Jonsonists study Jonson’s classicism,some others explore his carnivalization,but few analyze systematically the contradictory unity of his classicism and carnivalization.The present research,adopting such literary theories and critical approaches as classicism,carnivalization,grotesque,new historicism,and feminism,and based on a close textual reading of Jonson’s autobiographic essay Discoveries,aims at a thorough analysis of Jonson’s contradictory comedy theory and a comprehensive and systematic study of the contradictory double grotesque in Jonson’s four city comedies.Apart from an introduction and a conclusion,this thesis falls into five chapters.The introduction presents a literature review,the definitions of “city comedy” and “grotesque”,the research methodology,the basic views and the structure of the dissertation.Chapter One explores Ben Jonson’s contradictory comedy theory to facilitate the analysis in the following chapters.This chapter covers Jonson’s positive absorption of Horatian and Ciceronian classicism,his active assimilation of Erasmus’ s Christian humanism and Rabelais’ scarnival grotesque,and his inventive combination of these thoughts.It particularly aims to clarify the fact that the essence of Jonsonian grotesque is a contradictory unity of classical moral criticism and carnival subversion.Chapter Two studies the grotesque fools in Volpone.On the one hand,Ben Jonson depicts a greedy and foolish grotesque world in which everyone deserves harsh criticism or severe punishment.On the other,these marginal grotesque figures present a carnival world view which is in opposition to the authoritarian ideology.They challenge and try to subvert the authority.Chapter Three exposes the female grotesque in Epicene.No matter“normal” or grotesque,female characters in Epicene are the Other and the grotesque in the feudal patriarchal society and ideology.They are scapegoats for men to express their anxiety about authority and metaphors for social corruption and human depravity.But female grotesques express their voice of femininity,and they merrily invert the traditional gender ideology and subvert the feudal patriarchal system.Chapter Four discusses the grotesque city in The Alchemist.This comedy has the clearest London setting and most typically expresses Ben Jonson’s close observation of seventeenth century London and its citizens.London in the comedy is a grotesque city haunted by plague and an evil city watched and punished by God.But in “The Liberties”,which is a temporary authority vacuum,the “alchemists” build up a utopian republic which parodies and subverts the rigidly stratified real London.Chapter Five expounds the grotesque images in Bartholomew Fair.Ben Jonson depicts many contradictory grotesque images in the comedy.Justice Adam Overdo sways between the stoic pursuit of “krisis/judicium” and the Christian belief of “do not judge”.Zeal-of-the-land Busy embodies conflicts between rigid puritan spirit and grotesque physical body.Ursula is a contradictory grotesque which is the symbol of Christian concept of evil as well as the carnival physical body.Through these grotesque images,Ben Jonson not only subverts the judicial and religious authority but also criticizes the moral corruption of seventeenth century England.The dissertation concludes that the contradictory double grotesque is the artistic expression of Ben Jonson’s contradictory comedy theory.It typically represents the achievements of Jonsonian city comedies,which contributed greatly to later English literature,especially to the comedy of manners in the Restoration period and the realistic novel in the nineteenth century.