aBurntShip

                                A Lost Classic or 400 Year Old Flop?                                                           Readers of a certain age may remember Patrick Stewart's remarkable portrayal of Sejanus in the BBC television dramatisation of Robert Graves's I Claudius. Lucius Aelius Sejanus was a prefect of the Praetorian Guard during the reign of Tiberius. Famous for becoming the effective ruler of the Empire, whilst Tiberius sunk into a debauched old age and despondency, frequently absent from Rome.  Sejanus tumbled from power during one single day in AD 31 and was delivered up to the mob over a week later.  The whole affair became a subject for Ben Jonson's play Sejanus His Fall, a controversial and much neglected play, performed in 1...

                                           Volpone ( first performed  1606 )  Have been reading'Ben Jonson, Volpone  and the Gunpowder Plot' by Richard Dutton (Cambridge University Press, 2008). In some respects, such a study is a paradox :Volpone's greatest strength is that it is basically a fable that exposes greed and folly, therefore has a timeless appeal . I am not necessarily convinced that 'Volpone' is directly connected to the Gunpowder Treason. But a valuable work nevertheless.                                  ' Volpone'  Illustration by Aubrey Beardsley,1898. Courtesy Wikipedia Netherlands,   Ben Jonson was quite a personality.  A scholar, a builder's apprentice, a soldier, actor, playwright, poet. An Anglican who became a Catholic for a number of years, ...