Cynthia's Revels, or The Fountain of Self-Love is a late Elizabethan stage play, a satire written by Ben Jonson, first performed in 1600 at the Blackfriars Theatre by the Children of the Chapel, one of the troupes of boy actors active in that era. The play was one element in the so-called Poetomachia or War of the Theatres between Jonson and rival playrwights John Marston and Thomas Dekker. The Children acted the play at Court during the 1600-1 Christmas season—though it was not "liked." This article is in need of attention. ... 1867 edition of the satirical magazine Punch, a British satirical magazine, ground-breaking on popular literature satire. ... For other persons of the same name, see Ben Johnson (disambiguation). ... 1600 was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar). ... Blackfriars Theatre was the name of two separate theatres in the City of London, built on grounds previously belonging to a Dominican monastery. ... The Children of the Chapel (later known as the Children of the Queens Revels) was a troupe of child actors in Elizabethan England. ... Edward Kynaston, one of the last boy players (1889 engraving of a contemporary portrait) Boy player is a common term for the adolescent males employed by English Renaissance acting companies. ... The War of the Theatres is the name commonly applied to a controversy from the later Elizabethan theatre; Thomas Dekker termed it the Poetomachia. ... John Marston (October 7, 1576 - June 25, 1634) was an English poet, playwright and satirist during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. ... Thomas Dekker, (c. ...

The play was entered into the Stationers' Register on May 23, 1601, with the title Narcissus the Fountain of Self-Love. It was published in quarto later that year by the bookseller Walter Burre, under the title The Fountain of Self-Love, or Cynthia's Revels. The play next appeared in print when it was included in the first folio collection of Jonson's works in 1616. A prefatory note to the folio text identifies the principal actors in the cast of the original 1600 production: Nathaniel Field, John Underwood, Salathiel (or Salomon) Pavy, Robert Baxter, Thomas Day, and John Frost. Pavy played the role of Anaides. The Stationers Register was a journal maintained by the Stationers Company of London. ... Events February 8 - Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, rebels against Elizabeth I of England - revolt is quickly crushed February 25 - Robert Devereux beheaded Jesuit Matteo Ricci arrives in China Bad harvest in Russia due to rainy summer Dutch troops drive Portuguese from Málaga Battle of Kinsale, Ireland Births... The size of a specific book is measured from the head to tail of the spine, and from edge to edge across the covers. ... Year 1616 (MDCXVI) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Monday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar). ... Nathaniel Field (1587 - 1620), was an English dramatist and actor; his father was the Puritan preacher John Field and his brother became the Bishop of Llandaff. ... An editor has expressed a concern that the subject of the article does not satisfy the notability guideline or one of the following guidelines for inclusion on Wikipedia: Biographies, Books, Companies, Fiction, Music, Neologisms, Numbers, Web content, or several proposals for new guidelines. ...

There are significant differences between the Q and F texts of the play. Scenes IV,i and IV,iii are longer in F, and Act V is entirely new. Also, the character called Criticus in Q is named Crites (Greek for "judge") in F. It is thought that Jonson's original long play was cut down for performance by the boys.^[1]

In Satiromastix, another play of the Poetomachia, Thomas Dekker accuses Jonson of having portrayed himself as Criticus, who is described as "a creature of almost perfect and divine temper (Cynthia's Revels, II,iii). Some commentators have argued that Jonson was not quite so vain as to describe himself this way, and that, based on an allusion elsewhere in Jonson's works, Criticus may instead represent John Donne.^[2] Individual commentators have tried to identify other characters in the play with historical and literary figures of the era (Anaides, for example, being Marston—or Dekker), though a firm scholarly consensus on identifications has not evolved. For the Welsh courtier and diplomat, see Sir John Donne. ...

Both as part of the Poetomachia and as a work by Jonson, Cynthia's Revels has received a good measure of attention from scholars and critics. The play, however, has not been judged as one of the playwright's successes. Critics have called the play "paralyzed," "repugnant," and "stupefyingly dull."^[3] A more generous critic has classified Cynthia's Revels, along with Jonson's other early comedies, as learning exercises for the comic masterpieces that would follow, Volpone and The Alchemist.^[4] (And new approaches to the play have been essayed, as in Sarah Annes Brown's "Arachne's Web: Intertextual Mythography and The Renaissance Actaeon.")^[5] Volpone, or The Fox, is a black comedy by Ben Jonson first produced in 1606, and considered one of the finest comedies of the Jacobean period. ... The Alchemist is a comedy by English playwright Ben Jonson. ...

In his 1912 edition of the play, editor A. C. Judson argued that Jonson modeled this play (for him, an atypically unrealistic work) on the plays of John Lyly, specifically Lyly's Galathea, Midas, Sapho and Phao, and Endymion. Among many resemblances and relationships, Jonson's pages in Cynthia, "Cupid, Morus, and the rest, are repetitions of Samias, Dares, and Epiton" in Endymion.^[6] Though Jonson refers to Lyly's plays as umbrae, plays long dead, Judson disputes the view of other critics that Jonson was satirizing or ridiculing Lyly. John Lyly (Lilly or Lylie) (c. ...

Synopsis

The play begins with three pages disputing over the black cloak usually worn by the actor who delivers the prologue. They draw lots for the cloak, and one of the losers, Anaides, starts telling the audience what happens in the play to come; the others try to suppress him, interrupting him and putting their hands over his mouth. Soon they are fighting over the cloak and criticizing the author and the spectators as well.

In the play proper, the goddess Diana, or Cynthia, has ordained a "solemn revels" in the valley of Gargaphie in Greece. The gods Cupid and Mercury appear, and they too start to argue. Mercury has awakened Echo, who weeps for Narcissus, and states that a drink from Narcissus's spring causes the drinkers to "Grow dotingly enamored of themselves." The courtiers and ladies assembled for the Cynthia's revels all drink from the spring. The Diana of Versailles In Roman mythology, Diana was the virgin goddess of the hunt, in literature the equivalent of the Greek goddess Artemis, though in cult she was thought to be the god of horror and fear. ... It has been suggested that Cupid (holiday character) be merged into this article or section. ... A sculpture of the Roman god Mercury by 17th-century Flemish artist Artus Quellinus. ... Echo and Narcissus, by John William Waterhouse. ... Narcissus A Boeotian hero whose archaic myth was a cautionary tale warning boys against being cruel to their lovers. ...

Asotus, a foolish spendthrift who longs to become a courtier and a master of fashion and manners, also drinks from the spring; emboldened by vanity and self-love, he challenges all comers to a competition of "court compliment." The competition is held, in four phases, and the courtiers are beaten. Two symbolic masques are performed within the play for the assembled revelers. At their conclusion, Cynthia (representing Queen Elizabeth) has the dancers unmask and shows that vices have masqueraded as virtues. She sentences them to make reparation and to purify themselves by bathing in the spring at Mount Helicon. Elizabeth I redirects here. ... This article is about the mountain. ...

The figure of Actaeon in the play may represent Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, while Cynthia's lady in waiting Arete may be Lucy, Countess of Bedford, one of Elizabeth's ladies in waiting as well as Jonson's patroness.^[7] Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex (10 November 1566 – 25 February 1601), favourite of Queen Elizabeth I of England, is the best-known of the many holders of the title Earl of Essex. ...

The play is notably rich in music, as is typical for the theatre of the boys' companies, which originated as church choirs.

Notes

1. ^ Chambers, Vol. 3, pp. 363-4.
2. ^ Chambers, Vol. 3, p. 364.
3. ^ Logan and Smith, pp. 73-4.
4. ^ Logan and Smith, p. 13.
5. ^ In Rhodes and Sawday, pp. 120 ff.
6. ^ Judson, pp. lvii-lxiii.
7. ^ Leah S. Marcus, "Jonson and the Court," in Harp and Stewart, pp. 31-2.

References

• Chambers, E. K. The Elizabethan Stage. 4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923.
• Harp, Richard, and Stanley Stewart, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Ben Jonson. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000.
• Judson, Alexander Corbin, ed. Cynthia's Revels, or, The Fountain of Self-Love. New York, Henry Holt, 1912.
• Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S. Smith, eds. The New Intellectuals: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama. Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1977.
• Rhodes, Neil, and Jonathan Sawday, eds. The Renaissance Computer: From the Book to the Web. London, Routledge, 2000.
• Taine, Hippolyte. The History of English Literature. London, Chatto and Windus, 1890.

Sir Edmund Kerchever Chambers (1866–1954) was an English literary critic and Shakespearean scholar. ...

External Link

Cynthia's Revels online.