Section outline
-
-
Jacobean drama is, quite simply defined, the drama that was written and performed during the reign of Elizabeth’s successor, James I. But, as with Elizabethan drama, it is more than just the plays written during the reign of a particular monarch: like Elizabethan drama, the Jacobean drama has its particular characteristics.
The comic dramas of the Elizabethan theatre give way to harsh satire, led by Ben Jonson: the Elizabethan tragic dramas give way to an obsession with moral corruption and violent stories of revenge. In both forms, the dramas of the time show a cynical and pessimistic outlook on life.
Some of the most prominent of the Jacobean playwrights, apart from Shakespeare, are Jonson, Webster, Tourneur, Beaumont, Fletcher, Middleton, Rowley, Marston, Heyward, Ford and Dekke
-