John Marston The Malcontent

The play was one of marston s most successful works.

John marston the malcontent. The malcontent is often categorized as a revenge play although it is quite unlike thomas kyd s the spanish tragedy shakespeare s titus andronicus or the revenger s tragedy uncertain authorship. He refuses to flatter as others do. Altofronto as the malcontent is described as a likable person of marked intelligence and straightforward honesty. In john marston whose best known work is the malcontent 1604 in which he rails at the iniquities of a lascivious court.

It is a great joy to read and one of my favorite pieces of renaissance literature. His career as a writer lasted a decade and his work is remembered for its energetic and often obscure style its contributions to the development of a distinctively jacobean style in poetry and its idiosyncratic vocabulary. He is the disguised deposed rightful ruler of genoa. Malevole the title character of marston s masterpiece has good reason to be a malcontent.

An extensive body of scholarly research and critical commentary has accumulated around it. On the negative side however he is. Having recently deposed the rightful duke his brother altofronto in a coup pietro paradoxically values malevole s savage honesty although that truth telling includes revelations he may not want to hear. One of marston s most successful works in his lifetime the malcontent is set in the court of pietro duke of genoa a place whose frenzied ferment of intrigue and infidelity is observed with a bilious eye by the court cynic malevole.

He wrote it as well as other major works for a variety of children s companies organized groups of boy actors popular during elizabethan and jacobean times. Today only english majors are likely to be acquainted with john marston s works. The malcontent is widely regarded as one of the most significant plays of the english renaissance. The play is a collection of intrigues questions as to who knows what about whom and disguises.

The malcontent is an early jacobean stage play written by the dramatist and satirist john marston ca. In 1601 john marston william shakespeare ben jonson and george chapman were described as the best and chiefest of our modern writers. John marston was an english poet playwright and satirist during the late elizabethan and jacobean periods. Even his most popular play the malcontent 1604 is seldom encountered.