Dating
Scholars have disputed the order in which two of the Jonson-Jones masques were performed at Court. Traditionally, Mercury Vindicated was assigned to the 1614–15 Christmas holiday season, and The Golden Age Restored to the following 1615–16 season. C. H. Herford and Percy Simpson, in their edition of Jonson's works, argued that the two masques had been chronologically transposed in the 1616 Jonson folio, and that TGAR actually preceded Mercury Vindicated. Their argument received some general acceptance for a time, but was refuted by later researchers.
The masques in the 1616 folio appear to be arranged in a consistent chronological order; Mercury Vindicated is second to last in the volume, and TGAR is the final work included. Recent scholarship tends to rely on the implications of the original text, and treats the two masques as presented in that order.
Read more about this topic: Mercury Vindicated From The Alchemists
Famous quotes containing the word dating:
“We go on dating from Cold Fridays and Great Snows; but a little colder Friday, or greater snow would put a period to man’s existence on the globe.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)