Coming of Age on Stage: Jonson’s Epicoene and the Politics of Childhood in Early Stuart England

Abstract

By the time King James I took the throne, the actors in London’s children’s theatre companies were rapidly approaching adulthood. This essay uses Ben Jonson’s Epicoene to suggest that the liminal status of these young performers was key to the way the plays explored and represented the vexed status of the Jacobean political subject. At a time when James was countering parliamentary unrest by adopting and expanding the rhetoric of the firm but benevolent father-king, works like Jonson’s asked whether it was possible, or even desirable, to leave childish things behind.

Review of periodical literature published in 2012

“…Greteman discusses the careers of child actors on the early Stuart stage, or rather the careers of actors pretending to be children. One company, known under different names all starting with the word ‘Children’ (p. 136), contained ‘children’ in their early 20s.…”

“…One such infant prodigy signed a bond with a theatrical financier and then tried to avoid payment claiming that he was under the age of 21, when he was not. Greteman also provides some information about the actors' wages. Mauck evaluates the career of Christopher Merrett who attempted to reform the medical profession of seventeenth‐century London.…”