Marston, John 1576-1634
English dramatist and satirist

Born in Wardington, Oxfordshire, the son of a Shropshire lawyer and an Italian mother, he attended Brasenose College, Oxford, and then studied law at the Middle Temple. His first work was The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion's Image: and Certain Satires (1598), a licentious poem which was condemned by Archbishop Whitgift. He began to write for the theatre in 1599, and in 1602 published Antonio and Mellida and Antonio's Revenge, two gloomy and ill-constructed tragedies, partially redeemed by some strikingly powerful passages. A comedy, The Malcontent (1604), more skilfully constructed, was dedicated to Ben Jonson, with whom he had many quarrels and reconciliations, and with Jonson and George Chapman he wrote the comedy Eastward Ho (1605), for which, due to some reflections on the Scots, the authors were imprisoned. Other plays include The Dutch Courtesan (1605, a comedy), Parasitaster, or the Fawn (1606), Sophonisba (1606, a tragedy) and What You Will (1607). He gave up play-writing, and took orders in 1609, and (1616-31) was a clergyman at Christchurch, Hampshire. The rich and graceful poetry of The Insatiate Countess (1613) is unlike anything else in Marston's work, suggesting the play may have been completed by another hand.

Bibliography: A F Caputi, John Marston, Satirist (1961)