Two Magian Comedies: ‘The Tempest’ and ‘The Alchemist’

Summary

If another confrontation between Shakespeare and Jonson is still allowable, then the challenger should be allowed to arm himself with one of his Latin epigraphs. So, on the title-page of Sejanus, the author warns the reader not to look for centaurs or gorgons or harpies; these particular pages will savour of man. The distich is quoted from Martial, an acknowledged kindred spirit ofJonson's, and it seems a curious point of departure for a tragedy, since Martial's epigram (x, iv) had excluded from his life-like pages such monstrous figures as Oedipus and Thyestes. Jonson cut the quotation conveniently short, yet it hints at the limitations that might emerge from a critical comparison of Sejanus or Catiline with Coriolanus or Antony and Cleopatra. For the younger playwright, always more interested in human machinations than in the workings of destiny, tragedy could be reduced to conspiracy. Hence it differed from comedy only to the extent that, in the words of the Prologue to Every Man in His Humour, crimes may differ from follies. That prologue, introducing a revision which shifted the setting from Italy to England, heralds a more realistic drama by condemning the extravagances and ineptitudes of the popular theatre. After casting an invidious glance at such rivals, and appealing for the more judicious laughter of the audience, it concludes by hoping: 'You, that haue so grae'd monsters, may like men'.