Five Plays (World's Classics) [Paperback]

Ben Jonson (Author), G. A. Wilkes (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0192817825 | ISBN-13: 978-0192817822 | Publication Date: June 23, 1988 | Edition: annotated edition

This fully annotated and modernized collection of plays--including Every Man in his Humour, Sejanus, Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair--represents the full range and complexity of Jonson's art as a playwright.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This a handy edition for teacher and student."--Robert C. Steensma, University of Utah

"This is the right selection, balanced intelligently. The accompanying information is useful and appropriate."--Dorothy H. Jacobs, University of Rhode Island

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Ben Jonson (c. 1572-1637) was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. G. A. Wilkes is at University of Sydney. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 624 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; annotated edition edition (June 23, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0192817825
• ISBN-13: 978-0192817822
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 4.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,754,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Appropriate for Undergraduate Classrooms, November 11, 2007

By 

Daniel Gates (New Orleans, LA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Five Plays (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

The advantages of this collection are the number of plays it includes and its low price. Its grave disadvantage is the notes, which are insufficient for undergraduate classrooms, at least in the U.S. They're hit-or-miss. Sometimes they give you information you really do need, but they leave gaps. For instance, readers apparently should not need to be told that one of the meanings of "motion" in the seventeenth century is "puppet show." (See Volpone V.iv.77, on p. 332.) I used this edition to teach Volpone and Bartholomew Fair in a class of undergraduate English majors at a highly selective university in the fall of 2007. The unexplained vocabulary created a barrier for the students (and for me, frankly), and I ended up relying on the Norton edition edited by Richard Harp to fill in the gaps in our comprehension. I wish I had ordered that edition for the course instead; although it doesn't offer as many plays, it does also include three masques.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Meet Ben Jonson, July 5, 2000

By 

K. McDermott (Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Five Plays (World's Classics) (Paperback)

FYI, the plays included in this edition are Every Man in his Humour, Sejanus, Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair. While Jonson's language is not as accessible as Shakespeare's, his plays are by no means a waste of time. No one had a sharper ear for the ways in which people in society delude themselves and others. Sejanus is rough going for anyone who isn't an ancient-Roman history buff, but the comedies offer wicked portraits of con artists, hustlers, wannabes, posers, and manglers of language. This edition doesn't offer a lot of help to readers unfamiliar with 17th-century English, but it's a good basic version of these plays, some of which aren't easy to find in cheap editions.