Bartholomew Fair was first performed on October 31, 1614 by the company Lady Elizabeth's Men. It is a Jacobean comedy and is generally considered one of Jonson's four famous comedies – among The Alchemist, Epicoene, and Volpone. Of these plays, Bartholomew Fair was written last. Many agree that it is one of the most experimental plays in Jonson's repertoire.
The play is set during Bartholomew Fair, which was an annual staple of life in London until the nineteenth century. The fair – which took place in August each year – began as a site for commerce but quickly evolved into an occasion for spectacle and social interaction. The fair was held at Smithfield, a northwestern London neighborhood known for its slaughterhouses and sites of public executions. As it changed over the years, the fair continued to be a place where merchants could buy and sell goods, but it also became a source of pleasure among all ranks of London society. As such, the fair was known to draw crowds from all social classes.
In the play, Jonson presents just one day at the fair through a myriad of characters. Readers may have a difficult time following the numerous plots that develop, which works to the play's advantage in its attempt to portray the chaotic nature of the fair and London society more generally. A sampling of characters from the play includes a justice of the peace, balladeers, pickpockets, fortune-hunting bounders, pious Puritans, and a number of other con artists and scammers. These exaggerated characters – which some might call caricatures – and their messy interactions with one another reflect Jonson's broader writing style featured prominently in his other plays: that is, Jonson uses fundamentally problematic characters to strip away any pretenses of morality or ethics, commenting ironically on the nature of London's social strata in Jacobean England.
Since Bartholomew Fair is a comedy, of course, the fair winds down with nobody suffering, but everyone sharing collectively in the folly of being human.
