Bartholomew Fair is a play in five acts by Ben Jonson. It was first staged in 1614 at the Hope Theatre. It was the last of his three major plays.

The plot

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The play begins with the ramblings of the book-keeper who insults Jonson’s portrayal of the actual Bartholomew Fair (a cloth fair held annually in the West Smithfield area of London, England). The Scrivener then comes out and kicks the book-keeper off stage. The Scrivener then presents a set of articles supposedly drawn out in haste by the author and to which the audience must agree before the play can begin. They are as follows:

1. The audience agrees to remain in the theatre for a little more than 2.5 hours during which time the author promises to present a new play called Bartholomew Fair
2. The audience is to “censure” or judge the play
   1. only in accordance with how much they paid for their ticket; and if they bought other people’s tickets, they are allowed those people’s share of censure
   2. only if they are not influenced by others in their censure
   3. only if their censure remains constant from day to day and is not influenced by legal proceedings which may subsequently be brought against the play
3. The audience should not expect more than can be expected from a fair and they should be content with the portrayal of the contemporary Smithfield fair—although the fair was greater in times past.
4. The audience is not to read into the play and find political satire therein. Anyone who does so is to be reported and left at the mercy of the author.
5. The audience is not to be upset because the language of the play “savors of Smithfield, the booth, and the pig broth.” Furthermore, the audience is not to accuse the author of naming the Deity on stage because such cries as “god quit you” or “bless you” are merely colloquial phrases.
6. In witness and acknowledgement of these articles, and as the audience members have already paid for something they have not received, they are now to clap before the show has even begun.

While these articles can be read as preposterously humorous and enforcement of them is completely beyond authorial control then and now, we glean from them evidence of Jonson’s fantasy of authorial control.

With the exit of the scrivener the induction ends and we meet the characters that will take us to Bartholomew Fair, after which the play is named. There is John Littlewit the proctor who moonlights as a puppet show writer. There is his wife Win whom we quickly learn was the subject of last night’s drunken revelries between Littlewit and his friends Quarlous and Winwife. Littlewit has dressed Win up in a velvet gown and Quarlous, hung over and confused, remembers only that “I agreed with Proctor John here to come and do somewhat with Win (I know not what ‘twas) today” (I.iii.29). These activities quickly give way to bigger concerns such as how to win Dame Purecraft (Win’s mother) for Winwife the widow hunter. We learn that Winwife’s rival for the hand of Dame Purecraft is the hypocritical, gluttonous, puritan-zealot Busy. But before these characters can strategize how to outwit the zealot, in busts the short-of-stature but forever contentious Wasp.

Wasp belongs to a separate grouping of characters—from whose perspective we will also witness the fair. Wasp is governor to the slow-witted child-like Cokes who is to wed his brother-in-law’s ward, Mistress Grace. Wasp busts in upon the Littlewits because he has come for the marriage license for this wedding. It is not long, however, before his lost flock wanders in looking for their vaporous leader. “Oh Numps (nickname for Wasp)! Are you here, Numps?” (I.v.1) cries Cokes as he arrives looking for his governor. Cokes is accompanied by his sister, Mistress Overdo and his fiancée Grace. Mistress Overdo is the wife of Adam Overdo—inept Justice of the peace at the Fair and Grace’s warden. Justice Overdo has given Grace to his brother-in-law Cokes and she must wed the dumb-witted Cokes or forfeit all of her land—as per the legal regulations surrounding ward-ship in the seventeenth century.

Once the marriage license has been secured, Cokes begs to go to Bartholomew Fair and Wasp cannot but give in. This puts Littlewit and Win in mind to go to the fair as well, but they know such a licentious, appetite-indulging event will be condemned by the Puritan Busy who currently holds sway over Win’s mother Dame Purecraft. So naturally they employ the one thing no one—not even hypocritical puritans—can deny: a pregnant woman! Win pretends to have a pregnancy-induced craving for roast pork that can only be satisfied with Bartholomew pig. Littlewit explains the situation to Dame Purecraft and goes to consult Busy on the matter only to find him “fast by the teeth i’the cold turkey pie, i’the cupboard, with a great white loaf on his left hand and a glass of malmsey on his right” (I.vi.36-38). Only after Busy cleans up from his surreptitious feast, does he enter to save the day. Busy performs a remarkable feat of mental gymnastics—whereby he reasons that for the sake of saving Win’s “first-fruits” (I.vi.67) they must go to the abominable Fair and eat pig. They can be “religious in the midst of the profane” (I.vi.74-75), and it will be okay to eat the pig as long as “it be eaten with a reformed mouth, with sobriety and humbleness, not gorged in with gluttony or greediness” (I.vi.75-77). Reasoning further, Busy realizes there might be an additional benefit to attending the fair: he can engage in anti-Semitism and thereby differentiate the Puritans from the Jews simply by eating pig. Busy declares: In the way of comfort to the weak, I will go, and eat. I will eat exceedingly, and prophesy. There may be a good use made of it too, now I think on’t: by the public eating of swine’s flesh, to profess our hate and loathing of Judaism, whereof the brethren stand taxed. I will therefore eat; yea, I will eat exceedingly. (I.v.94-99) With these resolutions to eat exceedingly, the Littlewits, Dame Purecraft and Busy head for the fair! Act II brings us to the glorious Fair where we will spend the rest of the play experiencing one outrageous act after another. We meet three of the fair vendors: Lantern Leatherhead, Joan Trash and Ursula. Leatherhead sells hobbyhorses and dolls while Trash sells Gingerbread—rotten gingerbread, according to Leatherhead. Ursula is a fat, dripping, oozing, sweaty mother-figure of the fair who sells roast pigs and operates a brothel out of the same tent. Around her orbit a motley crew of characters: bawds and pimps, ballad-singers and cutpurses, whores and wrestlers. During the play Ursula is both revered for her economic success and mocked for her gross, non-feminine body. We meet these characters and debauchery follows shortly on their heels.

At the conclusion of the five act play things are not as they were when the play began. Win and Dame Overdo have been enlisted as whores. Busy has eaten two pigs. He has also been out-argued by the indecorous puppet Dionysius. Grace has found a new husband as has Dame Purecraft. Cokes has been robbed three times and reduced to walking about in his undergarments. Justice Overdo, Wasp and Busy have all served time in the stocks. Wasp has given up trying to govern Cokes. Justice Overdo has given up trying to enforce justice at the fair. The play ends when Justice Overdo invites everyone to his house for supper.

English Renaissance plays | 1614 plays