Three distinct sub-plots are woven into the framework of this play:

1) A father-son relationship, where old Knowell is an over-jealous father who entertains suspicions of his son Edward Knowell's conduct. His suspicions are instituted on a letter misdelivered to him. The deceitful servant Brainworm

This was the hardest slog I've ever had reading old plays. Wow.

I'll admit, I just didn't get it. Broadly, sure--different people represent different "humours," or personality types, like those prone to anger or jealousy, and we see how that works out for them. But scene by scene? I didn't know what

To the mass of reviewers who gave this three stars: come on guys be so for real right now.

The language is delightful and LOTS of the jokes are very funny. Elizabethan comedies sometimes have a bit too much of that mean schoolboy humour (e.g. locking someone in a room and pretending they're insane in

If this play has any purpose, beyond being utterly silly, it totally escaped me. But, because it is so silly, it avoided most of the worrying renaissance tropes of misogyny, racism, and classism that pervade so many like plays. Ben Jonson is just having a laugh, and the silly misunderstandings turn

This is an endlessly delightful play. I can't say anything, really, about editor Miola's decision to work with the Quarto text rather than the much later Folio text, but as he notes, all of the editions are worth editing (including Garrick's 18th century cut). In any case, as an edition of the 1598

This was a difficult play to read. Made me hate the author somehow. However, it’s very rewarding after you figure out characters/every lewd jokes. I ended up loving this play myself.
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Why do everyone say “Shakes wrote best Woman characters”? This is better.
If only we knew to apply a satirical t

Read as part of the 2020 Extra Mile readathon of the Shakespeare Institute in the lockdown summer of 2020.

We read the 1601 Quarto version, set in Florence, as that is what was performed by the Lord Chamberlain's Men at the Theatre. A group reading usually brings out the strengths and weaknesses of a

I'd give this somewhere between two and three stars, closer to three. I read it just a few months back and remember surprisingly little...which perhaps testifies to my memory of being unimpressed. Dickens loved this play enough to have staged it famously (and every so often?), but then Bobadil is ex

Actual rating: 3.5 stars

This play was the one which made me realize Ben Jonson's work wasn't actually all that bad... well, to be fair, the only reason I disliked his plays to begin with was that I had to study them.

Man, I wish I could get my hands on a really good, well-written biography of Jonson