Bartholomew Fair
by Ben Jonson
- 8 Members Following
Follow a topic to see new activity, such as homework help questions and answers, in your personal feed on the homepage.
Navigate
See Also
- Ben Jonson (Censorship (Ready Reference series))
- Ben Jonson (Critical Survey of Drama, Second Revised Edition)
- Ben Jonson (Critical Survey of Poetry: British, Irish, & Commonwealth Poets)
- Ben Jonson (Cyclopedia of World Authors, Fourth Revised Edition)
- Ben Jonson (Dictionary of World Biography: The 17th and 18th Centuries)
At a glance:
- Author: Ben Jonson
- First Published: 1631
- Type of Work: Satiric Play
- Genres: Satire, Drama, Comedy
- Subjects: Love or romance, England or English people, Seventeenth century, London, Theft, Puppets or puppet plays, Fairs, Puritans or Puritanism
- Locales: London, England
At Smithfield, horse dealers and cloth manufacturers hold an annual fair--complete with games, sideshows, and entertainments--on St. Bartholomew’s Day. Jonson uses the fair as a microcosm of society. Here men and women pursue pleasures, connive to get ahead, and try to escape life’s limitations. Hardly any of them find what they expect.
Justice Overdo, disguising himself in order to detect criminals, unwittingly befriends a pickpocket and finds himself accused of stealing. By the day’s end he has been beaten, arrested, and locked in the pillory.
Bartholomew Cokes, a...
(The entire page is 535 words.)
Want to read the whole thing?
Subscribe now to read the rest of this article. Plus, get access to:
- 30,000+ literature study guides
- Critical essays on more than 30,000 works of literature from Salem on Literature (exclusive to eNotes)
- An unparalleled literary criticism section. 40,000 full-length or excerpted essays.
- Content from leading academic publishers, all easily citable with our "Cite this page" button.
- 100% satisfaction guarantee READ MORE
Popular Questions
See all »- In Ben Jonson's play Bartholomew Fair, what kind of a man is Zeal-of-the-Land Busy? How is he treated and what happens to...
- Which characters seek to exert their authority in Bartholemew Fair?
- How come there is no study guide available for "Bartholomew Fair"? I have really been battling to find info on Ben Jonson and his...
- In Ben Jonson's play Bartholomew Fair, who are all the Puritan characters, and why are they significant?
- Does the play Bartholomew Fair celebrate human frailty or just accept it with disgust?
