The Poet and His Patrons

Abstract

Following a practice established with his dedication of Volpone (published 1607) to Oxford and Cambridge, The Masque of Queens (1609) to Prince Henry and his tragedy Catiline His Fall (1611) to William Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke, Jonson printed The Alchemist in 1612 with a dedicatory epistle to Lady Mary Wroth, the niece of Sir Philip Sidney. His dedication of plays to individual patrons was unusual in the period and served as another sign that he considered his plays ‘classic’ pieces worthy of the recognition accorded serious literature. It also points to his complex role in the transition from an older system of literary patronage to a new market-orientated print culture.¹ No contemporary playwright did more than he to raise the literary status of drama or maintained a greater independence from the usual conditions of theatrical employment, but the absence of a royalty system made it impossible for him to earn a living from the print audience he courted so assiduously? For this reason he seems to have asked for partial payment in presentation copies like those surviving examples of Cynthia’s Revels that contain inserted tributes to William Camden and the Countess of Bedford, and (as noted in Chapter 3) he cultivated a network of patrons to whom he addressed odes, epistles and epigrams of praise.³