Place Realism
Marmion's play is an exercise in "place realism," in which dramatists exploited actual locales around London for their works — something that became fashionable in the drama of the early 1630s. James Shirley's Hyde Park (1632) and Thomas Nabbes's Covent Garden (1633) and Tottenham Court (1634) participated this trend, as did several of the dramas of Richard Brome.
Earlier playwrights had also experimented with place realism, as in Lording Barry's Ram Alley (c. 1607) and Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair (1614). Indeed, the publication of Jonson's play in 1631 may have been important in initiating the Caroline fashion. Marmion was one of the Sons of Ben, self-professed followers of Jonson; and Holland's Leaguer bears resemblances to several Jonson plays, most notably The Alchemist.
Read more about this topic: Holland's Leaguer
Famous quotes containing the words place and/or realism:
“When you come to a place where you have to go left or right, go straight ahead.”
—Sister Ruth, U.S. nun. As quoted in Dakota, ch. 30, by Kathleen Norris (1993)
“Placing the extraordinary at the center of the ordinary, as realism does, is a great comfort to us stay-at-homes.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)