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See also: English dramatist and satirist, eldest son of See also: John Marston of
See also: Coventry, at one See also: time lecturer of the See also: Middle See also: Temple, was See also: born in 1575, or early in 1576
.
Swinburne notes his See also: affinities with See also: Italian literature, which may be partially explained by his parentage, for his See also: mother was the daughter of an Italian physician, Andrew Guarsi
.
He entered Brasenose See also: College, See also: Oxford, in 1592, taking his B.A. degree in 1594
.
The elder Marston in his will expresses regret that his son, to whom he See also: left his See also: law-books and the furniture of his rooms in the Temple, had not been willing to follow his profession
.
John Marston married Mary Wilkes, daughter of one of the royal chaplains, and See also: Ben See also: Jonson said that " Marston wrote his See also: father-in-law's preachings, and his father-in-law his sermons." His first See also: work was The See also: Metamorphosis of Pigmalions Image, and certaine Satyres (1598)
.
" Pigmalion " is an erotic poem in the metre of See also: Venus and See also: Adonis, and See also: Joseph See also: Hall attached a rather clumsy
See also: epigram to every copy that was exposed for sale in Cambridge
.
In the same See also: year Marston published, under the pseudonym of W
.
Kinsayder, already employed in the earlier See also: volume, his Scourge of Villanie, eleven satires, in the See also: sixth of which he asserted that Pigmalion was intended to parody the amorous See also: poetry of the time
.
Both this volume and its predecessor were burnt by See also: order of the archbishop of See also: Canterbury
.
The satires, in which Marston avowedly took See also: Persius as his See also: model, are coarse and vigorous
.
In addition to a general attack on the vices of his age he avenges himself on Joseph Hall who had assailed him in Virgidemiae
.
He had a See also: great reputation among his contemporaries
.
John See also: Weever couples his name with Ben Jonson's in an epigram; See also: Francis See also: Meres in Palladis tamia (1598) mentions him among the satirists; a long passage is devoted to " Monsieur Kinsayder " in the Return from See also: Parnassus (1606), and Dr Brinsley See also: Nicholson has suggested that Furor poeticus in that piece may be a satirical portrait of him
.
But his invective by its general See also: tone, goes far to justify Mr W
.
J
.
See also: Courthope's See also: judgment that " it is likely enough that in seeming to satirize the See also: world without him, he is usually holding up the mirror to his own prurient mind."
On the 28th of See also: September 1599 See also: Henslowe notices in his See also: diary that he lent " unto Mr Maxton, the new poete, the sum of See also: forty
shillings," as an advance on a See also: play which is not named
.
Another
1 Hist. of Eng
.
Poetry, iii
.
70
.
See also: hand has amended "Maxton " to " Mastone." The earliest plays to which Marston's name is attached are The See also: History of Antonio and Mellida
.
The First See also: Part; and Antonio's Revenge
.
The Second Part (both entered at Stationers' Hall in 16o1 and printed 1602)
.
The second part is preceded by a prologue which, in its gloomy forecast of the play, moved the admiration of See also: Charles Lamb, who also compares the situation of Andrugio and
See also: Lucia to See also: Lear and Kent, but the scene which he quotes gives a misleading idea of the play and of the general tenor of Marston's work
.
The melodrama and the exaggerated expression of these two plays offered an opportunity to Ben Jonson, who had already twice ridiculed Marston, and now pilloried him as Crispinus in The Poetaster (16o0
.
The See also: quarrel was patched up, for Marston dedicated his Malcontent (1604) to Jonson, and in the next year he prefixed commendatory verses to See also: Sejanus
.
Far greater restraint is shown iii The Malcontent than in the earlier plays
.
It was printed twice in .1604, the second time with additions by John See also: Webster
.
The Dutch Courtezan (1605) and Parasitaster, or the Fawne (1606) followed
.
In 1605 Eastward See also: Hoe,2 a gay See also: comedy of See also: London See also: life, which gave offence to the See also: king's Scottish
See also: friends, caused the playwrights concerned in its production—Marston, See also: Chapman and Jonson—to be imprisoned at the instance of See also: Sir See also: James
See also: Murray
.
The Wonder of
See also: Women, or the Tragedie of Sophonisba (1606), seems to have been put forward by Marston as a model of what could be accomplished in tragedy
.
In the preface he mocks at those authors who make a parade of their authorities and their learning, and the next play, What you Will (printed 1607; but probably written much earlier), contains a further attack on Jonson
.
The tragedy of The Insatiate Countesse was printed in 1613, and again, this time anonymously, in 1616
.
It was not included in the collected edition of Marston's plays in 1633, and in the Duke of Devonshire's library there is a copy bearing the name of See also: William Barksteed, the author of the poems, Myrrha, the Mother of Adonis (1607), and Hiren and the
See also: Fair See also: Greek (1611)
.
The piece contains many passages See also: superior to anything to be found in Marston's well-authenticated plays, and Mr A
.
H
.
Bullen suggests that it may be Barksteed's version of an earlier one drafted by Marston
.
The character and history of Isabella are taken chiefly from " The Disordered Lyfe of the Countess of Celant " in William Paynter's Palace of Pleasure, derived eventually fromSee also: Bandello
.
There is no certain evidence of Marston's authorship in Histriomastix (printed 161o, but probably produced before 1599), or in Jacke Drums Entertainement, or the Comedie of Pasquil and Katherine (1616), though he probably had a hand in both
.
Mr R
.
Boyle (Englische Sludien, vol. See also: xxx., 1901), in a critical study of See also: Shakespeare's See also: Troilus and Cressida, assigns to Marston's hand the whole of the See also: action dealing with See also: Hector, with the prologue and See also: epilogue, and attributes to him the bombast and coarseness in the last scenes of the play
.
It will be seen that his undoubted dramatic work was completed in 1607
.
It is uncertain at what time he exchanged professions, but in 1616 he was presented to the living of See also: Christchurch, Hampshire
.
He formally resigned his See also: charge in 1631, and when his See also: works were collected in 1633 the publisher, William Sheares, stated that the author " in his autumn and declining age " was living " far distant from this place." Nevertheless he died in London, in the parish of Aldermanbury, on the 25th of See also: June 1634
.
He was buried in the Temple See also: Church
.
Marston's works were first published in 1633, once anonymously as Tragedies and Comedies, and then in the same year as Workes of Mr John Marston
.
The Works of John Marston (3 vols.) were reprinted by Mr J
.
O
.
Halliwell (Phillipps) in 1856, and again by Mr
.
A . H . Bullen (3 vols.) in 1887 . His Poems (2 vols.) were edited by Dr A . B . Grosart in 1879 . TheSee also: British Museum See also: Catalogue tentatively assigns to Marston The Whipper of the Satyre his pennance in a See also: white sheete; or, the
See also: Beadle's Confutation (160,), a pamphlet in answer to The See also: Whipping of the Satyre
.
For an account of the quarrel of See also: Dekker and Marston with Ben Jonson see Dr R
.
A
.
Small, The
2 Revived at See also: Drury Lane (1751) as The Prentices, in 1775 as Old City See also: Manners,-and said to have suggested See also: Hogarth's " Industrious and Idle Prentices."
Stage Quarrel between Ben Jonson and the so-called Poetasters; in E
.
Koelbing, Forschungen zur englischen Sprache and Litteratur, pt. i
.
(1899)
.
See also three articles John Marston als Dramatiker, by Ph . Aronstein in Englische Studien (vols. xx. and xxi., 1895), and " Quellenstudien zu den Dramen Ben Jonsons, John Marstons ... by Emil Koeppel (Miinchener Beitrdge zur See also: roman. and engl
.
Philologie, pt. xi
.
1895)
.
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