Desired Property:Materializing And Manipulating Interpersonal Relationships In Ben Jonson’s London Comedies

Ben Jonson is a noted English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor, who is famous for his masques, comedies and critical essays. Where comedies are concerned, city comedies occupy the middle period of his literary creation and allow him to reach the culmination of his career. Jonson’s city comedies are an innovation on the Jacobean stage, which became popular immediately, of which the most famous are Epicoene, or The Silent Woman (1609); The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614).Previous studies on Jonson’s London comedies have mainly concentrated on its London setting, property, trickster figure, women characters, and marriage etc. Yet those perspectives are frequently discussed separately. Through investigating his London comedies, it is not hard to perceive the decisive and promoting force of money or desired property in interpersonal relationships, including gender relationship, social relationship and kinsman relationship. Consequently this thesis aims at testifying the internal links between desired property and the above kinds of relationships.The general knowledge of city comedy (London comedy), including its origin, concept, unique characteristics and representative works, composes the main idea of the introduction. Then a brief summary of the scholarship on Jonsonian studies is sorted out. Chapter one mainly concentrates on the links between desired property and gender relationship. It begins with some information of the development of capitalistic enterprises in Jacobean London. After that, the stimulating and controlling force of money on gender relationship is analyzed in Epicoene and Bartholomew Fair. Through analyzing several couples’ marriage and their gender relationship after marriage, the decisive force of money can be traced.Chapter two focuses on the unique connections between desired property and social members’ relationship. That kind of social members’ relationship can be hardly defined as "friendship". By examining the Collegiate members’ behaviour in The Alchemist, the Ladies Collegiate members’utterance in Epicoene and Bartholomew Fair members’actions, it is not difficult to reach a conclusion that money is the only motivation summoning them together, but also bringing up conflicts. Friendship is true trial at that time.Chapter three aims at researching desired property and kinsman relationship. The relationship between uncle and nephew, mother and daughter, adoptive father and his ward are all closely related to money. The last part of this thesis makes a conclusion of what have been argued above. Finally the writer of the present paper exemplifies one of Jonson’s famous prologues to testify that Jonson holds similar viewpoints on the internal links between fortune and interpersonal relationships.