John Marston

This article is about the 17th-century English poet and playwright. For the 19th-century English poet and playwright, see John Westland Marston.

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Rev. John Marston (baptized 7 October 1576 - 25 June 1634) was an English poet, playwright, and satirist.

Life

Overview

Marston, born at Coventry, was educated at Oxford. In later life he gave up writing for the stage, took orders, and was incumbent of Christchurch, Hants, 1616-1631. In 1602 appeared The History of Antonio and Mellida, and its sequel, Antonio's Revenge, ridiculed by Ben Jonson. In repayment of this Marston co-operated with Dekker in attacking Jonson in Satiromastix (a Whip for the Satirist). A reconciliation, however, took place, and his comedy, The Malcontent (1604), was dedicated to Jonson; another, Eastward Ho (1605), was written in collaboration with Jonson and Chapman. Other plays of Marston's are Sophonisba, What You Will (1607), and possibly The Insatiate Countess (1613). Amid much bombast and verbiage there are many fine passages in Marston's dramas, especially where scorn and indignation are the motives. Sombre and caustic, he has been called "a screech-owl among the singing birds."

Although his career as a writer lasted only a decade, his work is remembered for its energetic and often obscure style, its contributions to the development of a distinctively Jacobean style in poetry, and its idiosyncratic vocabulary.

Family

Marston belonged to the old Shropshire family of Marstons. His father, John Marston, sometime lecturer of the Middle Temple, 3rd son of Ralph Marston of Gayton (or Heyton), Shropshire, married Maria, daughter of Andrew Guarsi, an Italian surgeon who had settled in London.

Youth

Marston was born about 1575 (probably at Coventry).

On 4 February 1591-2 "John Marston, aged 16, a gentleman's son, of co. Warwick," matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford. This John Marston, who earned a B.A. on 6 February 1593-4 as "the eldest son of an esquire," is clearly the dramatist, (whom Wood wrongly identified with a John Marston, or Marson, of Corpus Christi). From a passage in the elder Marston's will, proved in 1599, it may be gathered that the dramatist was trained for the law, but found legal studies distasteful.

Career

He began his literary career in 1598 with 2 satires, The Scourge of Villanie, and The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion's Image (both burned by order of Archbishop Whitgift).

In the following year he was writing for the stage. Philip Henslowe records in his Diary, 28 September 1599, that he lent "unto Mr. Maxton, the new poete, the sum of forty shillings." The name "Maxton" is corrected by another hand to ‘Mastone.’ The entry plainly refers to Marston, but he is not mentioned again in the Diary.

Following the work of O.J. Campbell, it has commonly been thought that Marston turned to the theater in response to the bishop's ban; more recent scholars have noted that the ban was not enforced with great rigor and might not have intimidated prospective satirists at all. At any rate, Marston proved a good match for the stage — not the public stage of Henslowe, but the "private" playhouses where boy players performed racy dramas for an audience of city gallants and young members of the Inns of Court.

In 1603, he became a shareholder in the Children of Blackfriars company, at that time known for steadily pushing the allowable limits of personal satire, violence, and lewdness on stage. He wrote and produced 2 plays with the company. The earliest was The Malcontent in 1603; this satiric tragicomedy is Marston's most famous play. This work was originally written for the children at Blackfriars, and was later taken over (perhaps stolen) by the Kings' Men at the Globe, with additions by John Webster and (perhaps) Marston himself.

Marston married a daughter of Rev. William Wilkes, chaplain to James I and rector of St. Martin's, Wiltshire. Ben Jonson told Drummond of Hawthornden that "Marston wrote his father-in-law's preachings and his father-in-law his comedies," pleasantly contrasting the playwright's asperity with the preacher's urbanity.

Jonson also told Drummond that he had many quarrels with Marston, "beat him and took his pistol from him, wrote his 'Poetaster' on him; the beginning of them were that Marston represented him on the stage in his youth given to venery." The original quarrel began about 1598. They had been reconciled in 1604, but other quarrels followed.

In 1605 Marston prefixed complimentary verses to Jonson's Sejanus, and in the same year was published Eastward Ho, 4to, an excellent comedy of city life, written by Jonson and Marston in conjunction with Chapman. Passages in Eastward Ho containing satirical reflections on the Scots, and particularly glancing at Sir James Murray, gave offence. The authors were sent to prison, but were quickly released.

In 1606, Marston seems to have offended and then soothed King James. In Parasitaster; or, The fawn, he satirized the king specifically. However, in the summer of that year, he put on a production of The Dutch Courtesan for the King of Denmark's visit, with a Latin verse on King James that was presented by hand to the king. Finally, in 1607, he wrote The Entertainment at Ashby, a masque for the Earl of Huntingdon.

At that point, he stopped his dramatic career altogether, selling his shares in the company of Blackfriars. He moved into his father-in-law's house and began studying philosophy. In 1609, he became a reader at the Bodleian library at Oxford, was made a deacon on 24 September and a priest on 24 December 1609. Contemporary authors were bemused or surprised by Marston's change of career, with several of them commenting on its seeming abruptness.

On 10 October 1616 he was presented to the living of Christchurch, Hampshire, which he resigned (presumably from ill-health) on 13 September 1631.

In 1633 a collective edition of his plays was issued by the publisher, William Sheares, who, in a dedicatory address to Lady Elizabeth Carey, viscountess Falkland, speaks of the author as "in his autumn and declining age," and "far distant from this place."

On 25 June 1634 Marston died in Aldermanbury parish, London, and on the following day he was buried in the Temple Church beside his father. The gravestone was inscribed ‘Oblivioni sacrum,’ and it is curious to note that his early satire, The Scourge of Villainy (burned by archiepiscopal order in 1599), was dedicated "To everlasting Oblivion."

Marston's will was proved on 9 July 1634 by his widow, who was buried by his side on 4 July 1657.

Writing

Poems

Marston's earliest work was The Metamorphosis of Pigmalion's Image; and certain Satyres, 8vo, entered in the Stationers' Register 27 May 1598, and issued anonymously in the same year. The dedicatory verses "To the World's Mighty Monarch, Good Opinion," are subscribed "W.K.," (W. Kinsayder, a pseudonym assumed by Marston). The Scourge of Villanie: Three bookes of satyres, 8vo, appeared later in 1598, and was republished with additions in 1599.

Pigmalion's Image,’ written in the meter of Venus and Adonis, is a somewhat licentious poem. Marston, in the Scourge of Villainie (sat. vi.), pretends that it was written with the object of throwing discredit on amatory poetry, but the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1599 ordered both it and Pigmalion to be burned (see the ‘Order for Conflagration’ cited in Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. xii. 436). It was republished in 1613 and 1628 in a volume containing "Alcilia" and "Amos and Laura." The satires are vigorous, but rough and obscure. Among the persons attacked was Joseph Hall, who had assailed Marston in Virgidemiæ.

Among "Divers Poetical Essays," appended to Robert Chester's Love's Martyr, 1601, is a poem by Marston.

A wearisome manuscript poem, The New Metamorphosis; written by J.M., Gent., 1600 (Addit. MSS. 14824–6), of some 30,000 lines, has been uncritically assigned to Marston. A mot of Marston is recorded in Manningham's Diary under date 21 Nov. 1602, and in Ashmole MS. 36–7 is preserved a couplet by Marston on George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, ‘made some few months before he was murthered.’

Plays

In 1602 came from the press the History of Antonio and Mellida: The first part, 4to, and Antonio's Revenge: The second part, 4to, both acted by the Children of Paul's. These plays had been entered in the Stationers' Register on 21 October 1601, and in the same year had been held up to ridicule by Ben Jonson in the Poetaster. The writing is uneven; detached scenes are memorable, but there is an intolerable quantity of fustian. Frequently we are reminded of Seneca's tragedies, which Marston had closely studied.

The Malcontent, 1604, 4to, reissued in the same year, with additions by Webster, is more skilfully constructed, and shows few traces of the barbarous diction that disfigured Antonio and Mellida. It was dedicated to Jonson. Eastward Ho (1605), written with Jonson and Chapman, is an excellent comedy of city life. Hogarth is said to have drawn the plan of his prints, "The Industrious and Idle Prentice," from Eastward Ho, which was revived at Drury Lane on lord mayor's day 1751, under the title of The Prentices, and in 1775 as Old City Manners.

The spirited comedy, The Dutch Courtezan, 1605, 4to, originally produced by the Children's company at Blackfriars, and revived by Betterton in 1680 under the title of The Revenge; or, A Match in Newgate, shows Marston at his best. Parasitaster; or, The Fawne, 1606, 4to, an entertaining comedy (partly founded on Boccaccio's Tales), was followed in the same year by a blood-curdling tragedy, the Wonder of Women; or, The tragedie of Sophonisba, 4to. What you Will, a comedy, 1607, 4to, contains some sarcastic allusions to Jonson.

The Insatiate Countess, a tragedy, was published in 1613, 4to, with Marston's name on the title-page. It was reprinted in 1631, and in most copies of that edition Marston's name is found; but in one copy (belonging to the Duke of Devonshire) of ed. 1631 the authorship is assigned to actor William Barksteed, and the Insatiate Countess was not included in the 1633 collective edition of Marston's plays. A couple of lines from this tragedy are found in Barksteed's Myrrha, 1607; and there are many passages of graceful poetry that bear no resemblance to Marston's authentic writings. The explanation may be that Marston, when he entered the church, left this work unfinished, and that it was afterwards taken in hand by Barksteed. It is to be regretted that the text of the Insatiate Countess, which has much poetry and passion, is frequently corrupt and mutilated. Plot and underplot are taken from the 4th and 15th Tales of Bandello, pt. i.; both tales are given in Painter's Palace of Pleasure, Nos. 24 and 26.

In 2 indifferent anonymous comedies, Histriomastix, 1610, and Jack Drum's Entertainment, 1616, Marston's hand is plainly distinguishable. His share in the former may be slight, but for the latter (written about 1600) he was largely responsible.

Miscellaneous

He also wrote some Latin speeches (Royal MSS., 18 A, xxxi. Brit. Mus.) on the occasion of the visit of the king of Denmark to James I in 1606; and an entertainment (Bridgewater House MS.) in honor of a visit paid by the Dowager-countess of Derby to her son-in-law and daughter, Lord and Lady Huntingdon, at Ashby. The Mountebank's Masque (1st printed in Nichols's Progresses of James I, iii. 466), performed at court in February 1616–17, was assigned by Collier on insufficient authority to Marston. Some of the songs are much in Campion's manner. Portions of the masque are found in Quarles's ‘Virgin Widow,’ 1649.

Marston's works were collected in 1856, 3 vols. 8vo, by J.O. Halliwell; and by A.H. Bullen in 1887, 3 volumrs 8vo. The satires and poems, 2 volumrs 4to, are included in Grosart's Occasional Issues.

Critical introduction

by William Minto

If we were asked whether Marston should be classed as a satirist or as a dramatist, it would be difficult to give a satisfactory answer. His plays are full of satiric power, and his satires are not without evidences of the dramatist’s way of looking at life. The personages of his dramas, though boldly and fully portrayed, are set up as types of base or noble humanity, to be vehemently disliked or liked. The author is far from being impartial in his exhibition of their character; the reader seems to be aware of him standing by with a stern moral purpose to emphasize their vices and their virtues. In his satires, on the other hand, he has a habit of turning round upon himself which may truly be called dramatic. He rails, and then rails at himself for railing; pours forth torrents of abuse upon the objects of his dislike,— dancing, fencing, sonnetteering dandies, apish scholars, pedants, gulls, perfumed inamoratos,— the vices, the effeminacies, the affectations of the time,— and then vituperates himself no less roundly as a vile, snarling, canker-eaten, rusty cur, who will rake everything into his tumbril, and cannot see good in anything.

The Elizabethan time was too large and full-blooded, too full of sanguine aspiration, of prosperous bustle and variety, to be favourable to the production of satire. It was not sufficiently out of temper with itself to encourage the satirist Marston’s so-called satires are rather wild buffooneries, than the offspring of deep-seated and savage indignation. Though the language is strong enough to warrant the idea that he was much offended by the profligacy and apish fopperies of the gilded youth of the time, and he makes himself out to be a terrible cynic, ‘who cannot choose but bite,’ he does not really bite, but only belabours with a clown’s cudgel of inflated skin.

The eloquence of Hall’s satires makes one hesitate to say that the language had not then been developed into a fitting instrument for polished satire, but, however this may be, Marston made no attempt at rapier-like thrusts of cynical wit. He guffawed at Hall’s "worthless satires," and the graceful archaism of his style, which seemed to him as contemptible as any of the minor vices which the satirist undertook to expose. Hall in a satire expressed a wish that he could use the freedom of speech of the ancient satirists. Marston gratified this wish without scruple, to such an extent that he has been stigmatised as the most filthy and scurrilous writer of his time. To the former epithet Marston has some claim, but to call him scurrilous conveys an imputation of ill-nature which would be most undeserved. That he could write better things than the coarse, rugged, furious, ribald, broadly-humorous couplets which he called satires, and which he estimated himself at their true value, when he took his "solemn congé of this fusty world," may be seen by any one who consults Charles Lamb’s extracts from his plays, or better still, the plays themselves.

Critical reputation

Marston's reputation has varied widely, like that of most of the minor Renaissance dramatists.

A certain "W.I.," in The Whipping of the Satire, 1601, commented severely on Marston's satires, and in the same year an anonymous rhymester issued The Whipper of the Satire in Marston's defense. Meres, in Palladis Tamia (1598) mentions Marston among leading English satirists; John Weever, in his Epigrams, 1599, joins him with Ben Jonson; and Charles Fitzgeoffrey, in Affaniæ, 1601, has some Latin verses in his praise. The best criticism on Marston's satires is in The Returne from Parnassus.

Both The Malcontent and The Dutch Courtesan remained on stage in altered forms through the Restoration. The subplot of the latter was converted to a droll during the Commonwealth; after the Stuart Restoration, either Aphra Behn or Thomas Betterton updated the main plot for The Revenge, or The Match in Newgate, although this adaptatiom makes the play both more sentimental and less morally complex. Gerard Langbaine makes a laudatory but superficial comment about Marston in his survey of English dramatic poets.

After the Restoration, Marston's works were largely reduced to the status of a curiosity of literary history. The general resemblance of The Malcontent to Hamlet and Marston's role in the wars of the poets ensured that his plays would receive some scholarly attention, but they were not performed and were not even widely read. Thomas Warton preferred Marston's satires to Bishop Hall's; in the next century, however, Henry Hallam reversed this judgment. William Gifford, perhaps the 18th century's most devoted reader of Jonson, called Marston "the most scurrilous, filthy and obscene writer of his time."

The Romantic movement in English literature revived Marston's reputation, albeit unevenly. In his lectures, William Hazlitt praised Marston's genius for satire; however, if the romantic critics and their successors were willing to grant Marston's best work a place among the great accomplishments of the period, they remained aware of his inconsistency, what Swinburne in a later generation called his "uneven and irregular demesne."

In the 20th century, however, a few critics were willing to consider Marston as a writer who was very much in control of the world he creates. T.S. Eliot saw that this "irregular demesne" was a part of Marston's world and declared him "among the writers of genius" (Elizabethan Dramatists). Marston's tragic style is Senecan and although his characters may appear, on Eliot's own admission, "lifeless", they are instead used as types to convey their "theoretical implications" (Michael Scott, John Marston's Plays). Eliot in particular admired Sophonisba and saw how Marston's plays, with their apparently stylised characters and bitter portrayal of a world where virtue and honour only arouse "dangerous envy" (Sophonisba; Act 1, scene 1, line 45) in those around them, actually bring to life "the kind of pattern which we perceive in our own lives only at rare moments of inattention and detachment".

Publications

Poetry

• The Scourge of Villanie. Three bookes of satyres. London: J. Roberts, for J. Buzbie, 1598;
  • revised and enlarged edition, London: J. Roberts, for J. Busbie, 1599.
  • (edited by G.B. Harrison). London: John Lane / New York: Dutton, 1925.
• The Poems of John Marston (1598-1601) (edited by Alexander Balloch Grosart). Blackburn, UK: privately published, printed by C.E. Simms, Manchester, 1879.
• Poems (edited by Arnold Davenport). Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press, 1961.

Plays

• The Metamorphosis of Pigmalions Image; and certaine satyres. London: Iames Roberts, for Edmond Matts, 1598;
  • (edited by René Ben Sussan). Waltham Saint Lawrence, UK: Golden Cockerell Press, 1926.
• Jacke Drums Entertainment; or, The comedie of Pasquill and Katherine London: Thomas Creede, for Richard Olive, 1601.
• Loves Martyr; or, Rosalins Complaint (by Marston, Ben Jonson, William Shakespeare, and George Chapman London: R. Field, for E. Blount, 1601;
  • (edited by Alexander Balloch Grosart). London: New Shakspere Society / N. Trubner, 1878.
• The History of Antonio and Mellida London: Matthewe Lownes & Thomas Fisher, 1602.
• Antonios Revenge. London: R. Bradock, for Thomas Fisher, 1602;
  • (edited by W. Reavley Gair). Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press / Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977.
• The Malcontent (with John Webster). London: Valentine Simmes, for William Aspley, 1604;
  • (edited by Martin L. Wine). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1964.
• Eastward Hoe (by Marston, George Chapman, & Ben Jonson) London: George Eld, for William Aspley, 1605;
  • (edited by R.W. Van Fossen). Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press / Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979.
• The Dutch Courtezan. London: T. Purfoote, for J. Hodgets, 1605;
  • (edited by Martin L. Wine). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1965.
• Parasitaster; or, The fawn. London: T. Purfoote, for William Cotton, 1606;
  • (edited by David Blostein). Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press / Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978.
• The Wonder of Women; or, The tragedie of Sophonisba. London: Iohn Windet, 1606.
• What You Will. London: George Eld, for Thomas Thorpe, 1607.
• Histrio-mastix: Or, The Player Whipt. London: George Eld, for Thomas Thorpe, 1610.
• The Insatiate Countesse: A tragedie (with William Barksted). London: T. Snodham, for Thomas Archer, 1613.
• The Workes of Mr. J. Marston: Being tragedies and comedies, collected into one volume. London:A. Mathewes, for W. Sheares, 1633.
• Comedies, Tragi-comedies; & Tragedies. London: 1652.
• Antonio and Mellida / Antonio's Revenge. Oxford, UK: Malone Society / Oxford University Press, 1922.
• The Plays of John Marston (edited by H. Harvey Wood). (3 volumes), Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1934.
• Selected Plays (edited by MacDonald P Jackson; Michael Neill). Cambridge, UK, & New York: Cambridge University Press,

Non-fiction

• A Sermon Preached at St. Margaretts in Westminster. London: F.L., for Io. Burroughes, and Io. Franke, 1642.

Collected editions

• Works (edited by J.O. Halliwell-Phillipps). London: John Russell Smith, 1856.
• Works (edited by A.H. Bullen). (3 volumes), London: J.C. Nimmo, 1887; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1887.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

Plays

• Histriomastix, London, Paul's Theatre, 1599 (attrib.).
• Antonio and Mellida, London, Paul's Theater, 1599-1600.
• Jack Drum's Entertainment, London, Paul's Theater, 1599/1600.
• Antonio's Revenge, London, Paul's Theater, 1600.
• What You Will, London, Paul's Theater, 1601.
• The Malcontent, London, Blackfriars Theatre, 1603–1604; Globe Theatre, 1604.
• Parasitaster, or The Fawn, London, Blackfriars Theater, 1604.
• Eastward Ho, by Marston, George Chapman, and Ben Jonson, London, Blackfriars Theater, 1604-1605.
• The Dutch Courtesan, London, Blackfriars Theater, 1605.
• The Wonder of Women, or The Tragedy of Sophonisba, London, Blackfriars Theater, 1606.
• The Spectacle Presented to the Sacred Majesties of Great Britain, and Denmark as They Passed through London, London, 31 July 1606.
• The Entertainment of the Dowager-Countess of Darby, Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire, 1607.
• The Insatiate Countess, by Marston and William Barksted, London, Whitefriars Theatre, 1608?.

If Love Be Holy, If That Mystery (John Marston Poem)

See also

• List of British poets
• List of English-language playwrights

References

•  Bullen, Arthur Henry (1893) "Marston, John (1575?-1634)" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 36 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 256-258 . Wikisource, Web, Feb. 11, 2018.

External links

Poems

• Marston, John (1575?-1634) ("The Scourge of Villainy") at Representative Poetry Online
• "Sattyre VI. Hem nosti'n"
• Marston in The English Poets: An anthology: "To Detraction," "To Everlasting Oblivion"
• John Marston at PoemHunter (6 poems)
• John Marston at Poetry Nook (39 poems)

Books

• Works by John Marston at Project Gutenberg
• John Martson at Amazon.com
• The Complete Works of John Martson at University of Leeds

About

• John Marston in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Rev. John Marston (1576-1634) at English Poetry, 1579-1830
• John Marston (1576-1634) at Luminarium

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Marston,_John_(1575%3F-1634)_(DNB00) Marston, John (1575?-1634)