Poetaster (play)

The play formed one element in the back-and-forth exchange between Jonson and his rivals John Marston and Thomas Dekker in the so-called Poetomachia or War of the Theatres of 1599–1601.

The title page of the first edition states that the play was performed by the Children of the Chapel, one of the companies of boy actors popular at the time.

It is widely accepted among scholars and critics that the character of Horace in Poetaster represents Jonson himself, while Crispinus, who vomits up a pretentious and bombastic vocabulary, is Marston, and Demetrius Fannius is Dekker.

Individual commentators have attempted to identify other characters in the play with historical and literary figures of the era, including George Chapman and Shakespeare — though these arguments have not been accepted by the scholarly consensus.

[2] It is generally argued that the play is more than a mere venting of personal spleen against two rivals; rather, Jonson attempted in Poetaster to express his views on "the poet's moral duties in society.