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Satiromastix, or The Untrussing of the Humorous Poet is a lateElizabethan stage play byThomas Dekker, one of the plays involved in the Poetomachia orWar of the Theatres.[1]
The play was entered into theStationers' Register on 11 November1601, and published inquarto in1602, printed byEdward Allde for the bookseller Edward White.[2][3] The title page of the quarto attributes authorship to Dekker, and states that the play was performed by both theLord Chamberlain's Men and theChildren of Paul's.
Scholars agree that the figure of Horace inSatiromastix representsBen Jonson. As George Kirkpatrick Hunter argues,
"InSatiromastix, Horace (Jonson) is represented as a social hanger-on and toady, desperate to establish himself as an independent moralist but fearful of being held responsible for his judgments. We know his writing is corrupt, not because it is bad writing but because he himself is dishonest; his verse is concocted to exploit social possibilities, though he represents it as an essential part of a well-regulated state..."[4]
Individual commentators have also tried to link other characters in the play with historical and literary figures of the era, though no consensus has been reached on any further identifications. It is thought that the play's satirical content was likely grafted onto a work already written, either in whole or in part; critics have noted that the tragic main plot and comic subplot ofSatiromastix have little to do with the Poetomachia.Satiromastix is a response to Jonson'sThe Poetaster, which premiered in the spring of 1601; Dekker's play adopts the characters Crispinus, Demetrius, and Tucca from Jonson's. So the final writing and the performance of Dekker's play had to fit between spring and November of that year. It has been conjectured thatJohn Marston may have made some contribution toSatiromastix, since he was Jonson's prime antagonist in the matter; but here again no firm consensus has been achieved.[2]