English city comedy. A subgenre.
- hugo2825
- 25. Jan.
- 5 Min. Lesezeit
The English Folk Theatre
Since the Middle Ages, English popular theatre had been a major form of mass entertainment, reaching its zenith during the Renaissance. London theatres of that era were numerous. The Blackfriars and the Globe Theatre, where Shakespeare performed, each held around 3,500 people, while smaller theatres like The Swan and The Rose probably accommodated about 2,000 spectators. In addition, smaller private theatres were increasingly common.
Going to the theater was more than just a stage performance. It often turned into a public gathering or festival. Unlike today, the audience didn't look at a proscenium stage, but surrounded a stage platform open on three sides. And also unlike today, the cheapest seats were those in the front rows. This can perhaps be explained by the fact that spectators standing directly at the edge of the stage had to stare upwards throughout the entire performance, which put a considerable strain on their necks. These standing places were reserved for the so-called " groundlings ," members of the lower classes who were probably not always reserved in their expressions during the performance and were accustomed to loudly voicing their reactions to the events on stage. Visitors came and went during the performance; people ate and drank, bought and sold, and pimps are also said to have plied their trade. The popular theatre of the English Renaissance, during the reign of Elizabeth I and her successor James I, was a public festival comparable to large events of our time, such as sporting events and other mass gatherings outdoors, or rock concerts in stadiums. As its name suggests, popular theatre was intended for everyone, for members of all social classes. Shakespeare's Globe Theatre is said to have borne the inscription: Totus mundus agit histrionem – the whole world is a play, a thought that Jacques would later develop in Shakespeare's comedy As You Like It .
The entire spectrum of plays was performed: tragedies, tragicomedies, comedies, masques, and other theatrical forms. In particular, the university-trained playwrights, the so-called " university wits" such as John Lyly, Robert Greene, George Peele, and Christopher Marlowe, vied for the public's favor. And the plays of their rival William Shakespeare, who, as far as we know today, was not among the university wits , were performed just as widely. Shakespeare himself also directed a troupe of actors, The Lord Chamberlain's Men , later renamed The King's Men , which then enjoyed the patronage of the new, arts-loving King James I.
The subject matter of the comedies discussed here was almost always romantic in nature. The settings were almost invariably in the south, primarily in Italy, France, or Spain. These locations are made clear to the audience through the names of the characters. In Shakespeare's * The Winter's Tale*, we encounter "Leontes, the King of Sicilia," in * All's Well That Ends Well*, "The King of France," and in *The Tempest*, "Alonso, King of Naples." However, precise geographical references to these southern settings are not found in the plays themselves. They had evidently already become symbols during the Renaissance, awakening longings in theatergoers in the cooler climate of England. This invited them to create their own mental images of these distant southern locations, thus participating creatively in the dramatic events.
London as the setting for City Comedy
This romantically oriented tradition noticeably changed after the accession of the new King James I in 1603. Instead of the southern locations to which audiences had become accustomed and perhaps even expected, playwrights increasingly chose London as the setting for their new comedies; the small town of Ware in Hertfordshire, not far from the capital, as a secondary setting in the play Northward Ho (1607), is merely the exception that proves the rule. Eastward Ho , written by George Chapman, John Marston, and Ben Jonson and first performed in 1605, is set in London, and several names of streets and districts of the city (Wapping, Cheapside, Isle of Dogs, Billingsgate, Thames-Side) are mentioned. The same is true for the comedies Westward Ho and the main setting of Northward Ho, two plays that written jointly by Thomas Dekker and John Webster, and are satirical in their reference to Eastward Ho . Similarly, as the title suggests, in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair , where we also find references to trade and commerce in London.
The central themes are also different now. Playwrights forgo the legendary and miraculous elements that Shakespeare, for example, incorporated into *The Tempest* or *The Winter's Tale* . The unconscious and inexplicable, as in *A Midsummer Night's Dream* , are also eliminated. Instead, they focus on London society and satirically highlight the sore spots of everyday life there at the time. Greed, avarice, and usury are recurring themes in City comedies , for example in Thomas Middleton's *A Mad World, My Master* and in the aforementioned *Eastward Ho* by Chapman, Marston, and Jonson, as well as in Jonson's * Bartholomew Fair *. In this low form of comedy, John Day, in *Law Tricks * (1608), even included adultery. And satire didn't stop at the royal court. John Marston, in * The Malcontent* and *The Fawn*, addresses the vain ambitions, sycophancy, favoritism, and discrimination at Italian princely courts. The playwright was satirically targeting weaknesses and shortcomings at the London court of that time, for it was indeed this court he was referring to, and was thus subtly urging improvements.
The playwrights' striking interest in themes of this kind leads to only one conclusion: that the general social, political, and economic situation in London at the time was dire, much was perceived as rotten by the population, and this, as comedic material, was bound to attract widespread interest. Elizabethan-Jacobaean London had by then grown into a rapidly expanding city, and according to sources, it had around 200,000 inhabitants at the beginning of the 17th century. Trade flourished and, with the East India Company, now extended as far as East Asia. This led to a cosmopolitanization of the city, coupled with the influx of foreigners. And this, in turn, brought problems of housing, infrastructure, and especially hygiene. Early echoes of this high level of immigration can perhaps be found in Shakespeare's Moor in Othello or Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta , plays that made the foreign their central theme. Finally, James I's reign as king was not universally undisputed, and he had to fight for his power in Parliament, which likely provided John Marston with ample material for his two aforementioned City Comedies , * The Malcontent* and *The Fawn*. And the king struck back: when *Eastward Ho* satirized Scotland, James I, who was of Scottish descent, had the authors George Chapman, John Marston, and Ben Jonson summarily arrested and imprisoned.
The City Comedies thus reflect drastic changes in early seventeenth-century London. Surprisingly, as a subgenre, they have not received widespread attention in literary histories, either English or German, even though individual comedies of this genre have been repeatedly analyzed. Brian Gibbons' portrayal of Jacobean City Comedies (London 1980) is an exception, and it has lost none of its value forty-five years after its publication. Dramas of this subgenre and the lives of the respective playwrights have been extensively studied, among other things, by Robert Fricker in his comprehensive work Das Ältere Englische Schauspiel (Francke Verlag Bern, 3 vols., 1975, 1983, 1987) . It was discussed.
And once again regarding the interesting cover image, which belongs to an interesting collection: "This file comes from the Welcome Collection, a website operated by Wellcome Trust, a global charitable foundation based in the United Kingdom. Refer to Wellcome blog post (archive)."
HM Merlin 16.11.2025