…’tis a dangerous age:
Wherein, who writes, had need present his Scenes
Fortie-fold proofe against the conjuring meanes
Of base detractors and illiterate apes (Ben Jonson, Poetaster, Prol. 6-9).

Dr. Gieskes writes of Renaissance drama as being "a dangerous age" in relation to Jonson and Beaumont’s work. Jonson states it well in the quote above that the danger comes from having his writing misconstrued by slanderers and ignoramuses. With good reason does Jonson feel this way since, as Gieskes documents, Martson and Dekker enjoy poking fun at Jonson by satirizing him with rather large characters that are slow writers. Jonson retaliates against the mockery with his own work that Gieskes calls "a claim for and defense of the marketability of his plays" (p.4). So the danger for Jonson is a war of words he strives to win, so that he can keep people from believing that his plays are no good and continue making money from them.

The "dangerous age," as Gieskes applies it to Beaumont’s work, deals with therivalry between two contemporary acting companies: the Blackfriars and the Grocers’ Company. Within the rivalry, another competition concerning dramatic tastes and theatrical capabilities exists between the citizens and the actors. Beaumont’s parody The Knight of the Burning Pestle plays on the interactions between the married couple (George and Nell) and the Boy. These interactions supply an underlying current of tit-for-tat antics about who is better than whom: actors/Blackfriars or citizens/Grocers’ Company. Beaumont tries to show how ludicrous the feud is; but, as Gieskes notes, it appears "not to have found an audience immediately" (p.11).

Another important idea from "A Dangerous Age" is that we can figure out what it was like to be involved in dramatic performance (mainly as a playwright) in Renaissance England by what the characters say on stage. Highlighting Ben Jonson’s use of metadrama (Jonson refers to being a playwright several times) in Poetaster, Gieskes argues that playwrights had an unwritten set of literary standards that indicated credibility. In a sense, because it was dangerous to write plays, the playwrights decided who was good and who was bad as a way of self-preservation. This argument is made with an implied understanding of the political atmosphere in Renaissance England and with an assumption of familiarity with the works of Ben Jonson, making the paper accessible only to those with big Renaissance-Drama-knowledge.

 Dr. Gieskes discusses several different aspects of Knight that set it apart from other plays of the time. Dr. Gieskes argues that "the play grapples with disparate dramatic elements - both literary and technical - at a transitional moment in the development of early modern drama, novelty" (p. 6). Dr. Gieskes’s analysis allows us to see the play in a different light. We see that Frances Beaumont is fusing together very different styles and "modes" of theatre in an effort to create something different. Beaumont, it appears, is also trying to exploit these differences to intensify the comedy in the play. Dr. Gieskes observes that, "a great deal of the comedy derives from the perceived (and actual) instability of these categories and oppositions" (p. 6-7). Dr. Gieskes goes on to describe how the play assumes that the audience is somewhat familiar with the popular theatric 'conventions of the time. Apparently, only an audience well versed in the theatre could have been able to recognize the conflicting conventions and "theatrical references". It also seems that the audience would have needed at least a passing familiarity with different theatres and acting companies to fully understand what Beaumont is trying to accomplish.

Dr. Gieskes states that, "KOTBP evenhandedly parodies extant theatrical styles in a not entirely successful effort to produce a new type of play-not entirely successful because it appears not to have found an audience immediately" (p. 11). The fact that this play depends on audience knowledge may help to explain why it wasn't initially well received. Beaumont seems to be setting himself apart with this play in an effort to break new ground. Unfortunately, it seems as though his audience just didn't get the joke.

Actors and writers feuded over their art from as far back as the sixteenth century. Money was a central concern, much like in today’s entertainment. People who argue over which special effects are better (Star Wars vs. Lord of the Rings) or what actor deserves the Academy Award (Jack Nicholson vs. Nicolas Cage) are giving real life examples of Beaumont’s point in The Knight of the Burning Pestle.

Dr. Gieskes’s research and essay further reveal that the Renaissance era carries many similarities to the entertainment industry of the world today. Dr. Gieskes has added a few more to the ongoing list of them. Much like the parodies he discusses in the Renaissance period, the spoofs of today are silly copies of contemporary rivals. Rather than plays like Knight there are movies, such as Airplane! and Scary Movie. They mock other movies in performance at that time, usually those within the same genre. The problem with parodies, however, is that they require knowledge of those contemporaries to be able to get the joke. As time passes parodies can no longer stand on their own.

Gieskes also argues that we can tell about Ben Jonson as a playwright from what his characters say about drama in Poetaster. If this is true, we can learn about Ben Jonson from "The Induction on the Stage" which begins Bartholomew Fair. These speeches are delivered by three characters who bring differing degrees of credibility to the playwright. The first speaker is the Stage-Keeper, and he thinks Jonson is no good (but, can we trust the opinion of an uneducated janitor?). The second speaker is the Book-Holder, and he thinks that Jonson is good (and his opinion is of more value, since he is the prompter and is familiar with the playwright’s work). The Book-Holder also introduces the third speaker, the Scrivener, and, in doing so, conveys the sense that the Scrivener’s words can be trusted. The Scrivener, representing Jonson, reads an agreement between the audience and Jonson, and because he is introduced as a valid source, the audience respects his message (which is basically, ‘it is the audience’s fault if they don’t like Bartholomew Fair’). Using the argument presented by Gieskes, we can say that because the character who dislikes Jonson is a janitor, and the characters that like him are educated, Jonson was a playwright who valued the opinion of the educated more than the illiterate masses who peopled his audience. During this "dangerous age" many playwrights had a similar type of clause in their prologues. They did not want to go to jail because someone took offense to something they wrote as much as they did not want people to dislike their plays because someone else said they were bad.

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Interior of first Blackfriars Theatre (From http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/blackfriars.htm  24 April 2003)

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An Abbreviated Summary of the Two Plays Discussed in this Essay (from The Ben Jonson Companion and Brian Corrigan's CORD)

Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607)

@ Blackfriars

@ Blackfriars