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Jasper Mayne's The City Match Term Paper

Evidently these sorts of scenes were meant to silence the bored, common nut-crackers. The text is not overtly ideological in its content, although many plays were: "In a period when journalism ran riot and the power of Parliament could not suppress hostile news-books and pamphlets, it was not necessary for royalists to restrict their attacks upon the party in control to allegorical plays and the oblique allusions of the drama. Nevertheless, the drama proved a useful medium for the expression of royalist ideals and for attacks upon the weaknesses of the Puritans as seen through Cavalier eyes" (Wright 86).

It is the play's arch style and its humorous and indulgent attitude towards drunkenness, religious irreverence, and other attitudes anathema to the Puritans mark it as a Cavalier-supporting play. Mayne may have professed to feel guilty writing a piece of "tinsel," but he did not see this as harmful either, as did the Puritans. However, changes in political circumstances as a result of the Commonwealth changed the British stage forever. During the Commonwealth, more and more people began to read plays, and plays like Mayne's

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nature, and were geared to a higher class of audience. Mayne praised his contemporary Ben Jonson for his realism, and the stage became increasingly detailed and realistic, especially after female actors were allowed (Gurr 148). The Puritans did not silence the stage, but they did change it, and "The City Match" was written during a critical juncture between two very different styles and eras of British drama.
Works Cited

Covington, Sarah. "John Foxe and His World." Renaissance Quarterly. 56. 4. (Winter, 2003): 1293-1295. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0034-4338%28200324%2956%3A4%3C1293%3AJFAHW%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N

Gurr, Andrew. The Shakespearean Stage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

Jasper Mayne." The Classic Encyclopedia. 6 Oct 2007. http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Jasper_Mayne

Wright, Louis B. "The Reading of Plays during the Puritan Revolution." The Huntington

Library Bulletin. No.6. 73-108. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1935-0708%28193411%290%3A6%3C73%3ATROPDT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-a

Sources used in this document:
Works Cited

Covington, Sarah. "John Foxe and His World." Renaissance Quarterly. 56. 4. (Winter, 2003): 1293-1295. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0034-4338%28200324%2956%3A4%3C1293%3AJFAHW%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N

Gurr, Andrew. The Shakespearean Stage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

Jasper Mayne." The Classic Encyclopedia. 6 Oct 2007. http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Jasper_Mayne

Wright, Louis B. "The Reading of Plays during the Puritan Revolution." The Huntington
Library Bulletin. No.6. 73-108. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1935-0708%28193411%290%3A6%3C73%3ATROPDT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-a
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