Cynthia’s Revels is an allegorical comedy written by Ben Jonson. First performed in 1600, it was published in printed form the next year. The work is an example of plays produced as part of the War of the Theaters. The theaters in question were the Children of the Chapel Royal at Blackfriars, which performed Jonson’s plays, and St. Paul’s Boys, which mounted productions of works written by John Marston and Thomas Dekker.
Jonson became embroiled in a feud with Marston and Dekker that resulted in a series of plays containing characters created by one playwright who mocked the other. In his work Jack Drum’s Entertainment, Marston created a character named Brabant seen as a vicious caricature of Jonson. With Cynthia’s Revels, Jonson retaliated. A “light voluptuous reveler” named Hedon and a “strange arrogating puff” named Anaides are considered to be thinly veiled portrayals of Marston and Dekker, respectively.
The play was often produced bearing its original subtitle: "The Fountain of Self-Love."
