Theme and Structure in the Alchemist

Abstract

Coleridge's assertion that The Alchemist has one of the three finest plots in literature has not been challenged, perhaps because so few people read Jonson or have the chance to see his plays performed, and thus are denied the opportunity of misunderstanding him fully. And it is re-emphasized by Miss Ellis-Fermor's analysis of the play's vortical structure, in The Jacobean Drama.2 As she observes, the order of the action, once seen, cannot fail to give delight, and this order is so precise, so logical, and so perfect that it contributes finally to the comic effect. The reader, or spectator, must see that the superbly skillful handling of the various intrigues is a technical feat of the first order, and that in building his play up to a hilarious climax at the end of the fourth act and then giving us, not an anti-climax, as we expect, but a new and greater climax, Jonson has, so far as the architecture is concerned, given us one of the most astonishing plots imaginable. But this linear structure, the order of the action, is only one aspect-and the simplest, at that-of the total structure; and since it has been well defined elsewhere,3 I shall not engage in otiose repetition here. Let it be simply observed that the play is a wonderful piece of architecture, in the study of which there is, for the studious artisan, a world of profit and delight. But one segment of Miss Ellis-Fermor's discussion, because it bears directly on my next point, must be mentioned. After her admirable analysis of the linear structure, she asks how we are to explain, in terms of structure, the long and florid (and sublime) speeches of Sir