Through studying Volpone's three bastard children, this book discusses how Jonson's comedies are built upon the tension between death, castration and nothingnes

Ben Jonson has often been accused of needless erudition and of a morose refusal to join in the festive spirit. Further aggravation has come from the application

The Early Modern Grotesque: English Sources and Documents 1500-1700 offers readers a large and fully annotated collection of primary source texts addressing the

A detailed literary historical argument about the sources and consequences of Jonson's realism.

Carnival and Literature in Early Modern England explores the elite and popular festive materials appropriated by authors during the English Renaissance in a wid