Rui Carvalho Homem

1
Rui Carvalho Homem (Universidade do Porto,
Portugal) Of Idiocy, Moroseness and
Vitriol Ben Jonson, Rage and the Singular
Voice University of Essex, February 2008
2
The best satire (...) is that which is surest in
its values (...) satire is always acutely
conscious of the difference between what things
are and what they ought to be Arthur Pollard,
Satire (London Methuen, 1970) 3 satire is
militant irony its moral norms are relatively
clear, and it assumes standards against which the
Grotesque and absurd are measured. (...) Satire
demands at least (...) a content which the reader
recognizes as grotesque, and at least an implicit
moral standard Northrop Frye, Anatomy of
Criticism Four Essays (1957), (Princeton, NJ
Princeton U.P., 1973) 223-4 a radical moral
stance is perhaps the most striking feature of
the satiric repertoire (...) satire is the most
problematic mode to the taxonomist, since it ()
can take almost any external form, and has
clearly been doing so for a very long
time Alastair Fowler, Kinds of Literature An
Introduction to the Theory of Genres and
Modes (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1982) 110
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Punishment is the most extreme, and at the same
time most common, consequence in satire Ronald
Paulson, The Fictions of Satire (Baltimore, Md
The Johns Hopkins Press, 1967) 10 ______________
__________________________________________________
_______________________________ the theme of
the comic is the integration of society (...) The
tendency of comedy is to include as many people
as possible in its final society Frye, Anatomy
of Criticism 43 Ambiguity and paradox lie at the
heart of comedy (...) The comic mode accepts that
as far as the human mind is concerned truth is a
plurality. David Farley-Hills, The Comic in
Renaissance Comedy (London and Basingstoke
Macmillan, 1981) 32-3
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there is a curious disjunction between the old
theoretical consensus about the genre established
in the early 1960s. According to that consensus,
satire is a highly rhetorical and moral art
(...) One result of broadening our recognition
of satiric forms is to be reminded of satires
immense and perhaps incomprehensible variety
(...) With few exceptions, satirists want to
keep their work open, ambiguous, unresolved, even
when declaring that they have finished Dustin
Griffin, Satire A Critical Reintroduction
(Lexington The University Press of Kentucky,
1994) 1, 3, 111
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if Men will impartially, and not asquint, look
toward the Offices and Function of a Poet, they
will easily conclude to themselves the
Impossibility of any Man's being the good Poet,
without first being a good Man. (...) she
poetry shall out of just rage incite her
servants (who are genus irritabile) to spout ink
in their faces, that shall eat farther than their
marrow into their fames (Ben Jonson, To the
most N O B L E and most E Q U A L S I S T E R S,
The two Famous Universities..., Dedication,
Volpone) I name no persons, but deride follies
(...) If men may by no meanes write freely, or
speake truth, but when it offends not why doe
Physicians cure with sharpe medicines, or
corrosives? Is not the same equally lawfull in
the cure of the minds, that is in the cure of the
body? (Ben Jonson, Timber or, Discoveries,
2304, 2313-17)
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It will be look'd for Book, when some but see
Thy Title, Epigrams, and nam'd of me, Thou
shoul'd be bold, licentious, full of gall
Wormwood, and sulphur, sharp, and tooth'd
withall, Become a petulant Thing, hurl Ink, and
Wit As Mad-men Stones not caring whom they
hit. Deceive their Malice, who could wish it
so. (To My Booke Epigrams 27)
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Natures that are hardned to evill, you shall
sooner breake, then make straight they are like
poles that are crooked, and dry there is no
attempting them. (Timber or, Discoveries
36-8) No precepts will profit a Foole (Timber
or, Discoveries 1770-2)
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Asper his Character. He is of an ingenious and
free spirit, eager and constant in reproofe,
without feare controuling the worlds abuses. One,
whom no seruile hope of gaine, or frosty
apprehension of danger, can make to be a
Parasite, either to time, place, or
opinion. _________________________________________
__________________________________________________
_______ (with an armed and resolued hand) Ile
strip the ragged follies of the time, Naked as at
their birth (...) (...) and with a whip of
steele, Print wounding lashes on their yron
ribs Every Man Out of His Humour, After the
second Sounding, 17-20
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Cordatvs. The Authors friend A man inly
acquainted with the scope and drift of his Plot
Of a discreet, and vnderstanding iudgementand
has the place of a Moderator. ____________________
__________________________________________________
_______________________________ Macilente. A Man
well parted, a sufficient Scholler, and
trauaild who (wanting that place in the worlds
account, which he thinks his merit capable of)
falls into such an enuious apoplexie, with which
his iudgement is so dazeled, and distasted, that
he growes violently impatient of any opposite
happinesse in another. Carlo Bvffone. A
Publicke, scurrilous, and prophane Iesterthat
() with absurd similes will transforme any
person into deformity. () that will sent you out
a supper some three mile off (). A slaue, that
hath an extraordinary gift in pleasing his palat,
and will swill vp more sacke at a sitting, then
would make all the Guard a posset. His religion
is rayling, and his discourse ribaldry. They
stand highest in his respect, whom he studies
most to reproach.
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CORD. Why this is right Furor Poeticus! Kind
gentlemen, we hope your patience Will yet
conceiue the best, or entertaine This
supposition, that a madman speakes (...) MIT. You
haue seene his play, CORDATVS? pray you, how
ist? CORD. Faith sir, (...) somewhat like Vetus
Comoedia After the second Sounding, 147-50,
228-32
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the switchback action of comedy repeatedly throws
off those characters who try to ride it towards a
fixed goal of their own choosing Nicholas Grene,
Shakespeare, Jonson, Molière The comic
contract (London and Basingstoke Macmillan,
1980) 43
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men who are great lovers of themselves waste the
public Francis Bacon, Essay XXXIII Of Wisdom
for a Mans Self, Essays, ed. Michael J.Hawkins
(London Dent, 1981) 72 The best composition
and temperature is to have openness in fame and
opinion secrecy in habit, dissimulation in
seasonable use and a power to feign, if there be
no remedy Bacon, Essay VI Of Simulation and
Dissimulation 19
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I gloryMore in the cunning Purchase of my
wealth,Then in the glad possession, since I
gaineNo common way I vse no Trade, no venterI
wound no earth with plow-shares fat no beastsTo
feede the shambles haue no mills for yron,Oyle,
corne, or men, to grinde 'hem into poulderI
blow no subtill glasse expose no shipsTo
threatnings of the furrow-faced seaI turn no
moneys, in the publike bankeNor vsure
priuate. () What should I doe,But cocker vp
my genius, and liue freeTo all delights, my
fortune calls me to? (Volpone 1.1.30-40, 70-2)
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TRUEWIT Why, heres the man that can melt away
his time, and never feels it! What between his
mistress abroad and his ingle at home, high fare,
soft lodging, fine clothes, and his fiddle, he
thinks the hours ha no wings or the day no
post-horse. Epicoene or The Silent Woman 22-5
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Shee has a breath worse than my grand-mothers,
profecto. (...) And she has a perruke, that's
like a pound of hempe, made vp in
shoo-thrids.(...) a most vile face! and yet
shee spends me fortie pound a yeere in mercury
and hogs-bones. All her teeth were made i'the
Blacke-Friers both her eye-browes i'the Strand,
and her haire in Siluer-street. Euery part o'the
towne ownes a peece of her.(...) She takes her
selfe asunder still when she goes to bed,
into some twentie boxes and about next day noone
is put together againe, like a great Germane
clocke and so comes forth and rings a tedious
larum to the whole house, and then is quiet
againe for an houre, but for her
quarters. Epicoene 4.2. 83-4, 88-9, 91-5,
97-101
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A Womans friendship! God whom I trust in, Forgive
me this one foolish deadly sin () I could
forgive her being proud! a whore! Perjur'd!
and painted! if she were no more But she is
such, as she might, yet, forestall The Divell
and be the damning of us all. XX A
Satyricall Shrub, The Vnder-wood 171-2 Pox on
thee, Vulcan, thy Pandora's pox, And all the
Evils that flew out of her box Light on thee Or
if those plagues will not doo, Thy Wives pox
on thee, and Bltessgt Bltroughtongts too. An
Execration upon Vulcan, The Vnder-wood 212
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Cle. (...) hee hath chosen a street to lie in,
so narrow at both ends, that it will receiue no
coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common
noises () Tru. () How dos he for the bells?
Cle. O, i' the Queenes time, he was wont to goe
out of towne euery satterday at ten a clock, or
on holy-day-eues. But now, by reason of the
sicknesse, the perpetuitie of ringing has
made him deuise a roome, with double walls, and
treble seelings the windores close shut, and
calk'd and there he liues by candle-light. He
turn'd away a Man, last weeke, for hauing a paire
of new shooes that creak'd. And this fellow waits
on him, now, in tennis-court socks, or slippers
sold with wooll and they talke each to other,
in a trunke. Epicoene 1.1.167-9, 180-90
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Hee has got on his whole nest of night-caps, and
lock'd himselfe vp, i' the top o' the house, as
high, as euer he can climbe from the noise. I
peep'd in at a crany, and saw him sitting ouer a
crosse-beame o' the roofe, () vp-right and he
will sleepe there. Epicoene 4.1.21-6
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MAM. (...) Ill purchase Deuonshire, and
Cornwaile, And make them perfect
Indies! (...) Ill walke Naked between my
succubae. (...) Ill ha no bawds, But fathers,
and mothers. They will doe it best. The
Alchemist 2.1.35-6 2.2.47-8, 57-8
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Beleeu't, I will. Svb. Thy worst. I fart at
thee. Dol. Ha' you your wits? Why gentlemen!
For loue Fac. Sirrah, I'll strip you Svb.
What to doe? lick figs Out at my Fac. Rogue,
Rogue, out of all your sleights. Dol. Nay,
looke yee! Soueraigne, Generall, are
you mad-men? Sub. O, let the wild sheepe
loose. Ile gumme your silkes With good strong
water, an' you come. The Alchemist 1.1.1-7
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MAM. (...) my flatterersShall be the pure,
and grauest of Divines,That I can get for money.
My mere fooles,Eloquent burgesses, and then my
poets,The same that writ so subtly of the
fart, Whom I will entertaine, still, for that
subiect. The Alchemist 2.2.59-64 And
sure, it was thintent Of the graue fart, late
let in parliament, Had it beene seconded, and not
in fume Vanishd away Epigram CXXXIII On the
Famovs Voyage 108
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Here they continue their game of vapours, which
is non sense. Euery man to oppose the last Man
that spoke whetheltrgt it concern'd him, or
no Bartholomew Fair, 4.4.26ff VVas. Good
Master Hornet, turd i' your teeth, hold you your
tongue (...) and turd i' your little wiues teeth
too (...), 'twill make her spit, as fine as she
is, (...)    Joh. O! be ciuill, Master
Numpes.   VVas. Why, say I haue a humour not to
be ciuill how then? who shall compell me?
you?   Joh. Here is the boxe, now.   VVas. Why
a pox o' your boxe, once againe let your little
wife stale in it, and she will. Bartholomew
Fair, 1.4.53-64
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on Ursula Vrsa maior (2.5.190) fleshly
woman (3.6.33) shee-Beare (2.3.1) mother o
the Pigs (2.5.75) fatnesse of the Fayre
(2.2.118) Body o the Fayre! (2.5.73)
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Well, in Iustice name, and the Kings and for the
common-wealth! defie all the world, Adam Ouerdoo,
for a disguise, and all story for thou hast
fitted thy selfe, I sweare () They may haue
seene many a foole in the habite of a Iustice
but neuer till now, a Iustice in the habit of a
foole. Thus must we doe, though, that wake
for the publike good and thus hath the wise
Magistrate done in all ages. () I Adam Ouerdoo,
am resolu'd therefore, to spare spy-money
hereafter, and make mine owne discoueries.
Many are the yearly enormities of this Fair ().
But this is the speciall day for detection of
those foresaid enormities. Here is my
blacke booke, for the purpose () under this
couert I shall see, and not be seene. () And as
I began, so I'll end in Iustice name, and the
Kings and for the Common-wealth. Bartholome
w Fair, 2.1.1ff
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Now, to my enormities looke vpon mee, O
London! and see me, O Smithfield The example of
Iustice, and Mirror of Magistrates the true top
of formality, and scourge of enormity. Harken
vnto my labours, and but obserue my discoueries
and compare Hercules with me, if thou dar'st, of
old or Columbus, Magellan or our countrey man
Drake of later times stand forth, you weedes of
enormity, and spread. Bartholomew Fair
5.6.33-40
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Qvar. (...) remember you are but Adam, Flesh, and
blood! you haue your frailty, forget your other
name of Ouerdoo, and inuite vs all to supper.
There you and I will compare our discoueries and
drowne the memory of all enormity in your bigg'st
bowle at home. Bartholomew Fair 5.6.96-100
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Our word idiot comes from the Greek (...)
word whose primary sense is of privacy,
peculiarity, isolation. A person or culture
guarding its privacy to an extreme extent becomes
idiotic, (...) and such resistance to
the foreign, such incapacity to translate, spells
its doom Rosanna Warren (ed.), The Art of
Translation Voices from the field (Boston,
Mass Northeastern U.P., 1989) 3