Where It All Goes Down
London 1610
Welcome to 1610 London, Shmoopers. We drop in on the house of some rich dude (Master Lovewit) who has hightailed it out of the city because the plague is totally raging and he's not interested in dying a horrible, agonizing death. He's left his servant in charge of his pad while he's gone, opening the door for all kinds of zany high jinks and unruly behavior.
So, literary critics are always making a really big deal about the importance of The Alchemist's setting. Here's why:
1. Since the play is set in contemporary London (1610 or, the same year The Alchemist was first staged), it's chalk full of full of shout-outs to local places, events, and the types of people that original audiences would have recognized. In fact, the exact setting is in the Blackfriars district, which is the same neighborhood were The Alchemist was performed. Oh, yeah, about those familiar "events" we just mentioned. Like we said, 1610 was a plague year in London and Jonson never lets us forget it. The play has boatloads of shout-outs to illness and sickness, which is why we dedicate a whole section to "The Plague" in "Symbols, Imagery, and Allegory."
2. Technically, Jonson observes something that fancy scholars like to call the "classical unities of time, place, and action". That just means that the whole play 1) takes place in a single setting over 2) the course of a single day and 3) that all the action of the play contributes directly to the plot. (In other words, Jonson doesn't go off on any tangents and never introduces random characters or events that don't contribute to the resolution of the story. Like we've said, in the case of The Alchemist, all the stage action happens at Lovewit's house in less than 24 hours. (FYI--This can be a little confusing because there are tons of references to what the play's characters have been up to in the 4-6 weeks leading up to the single day on which the play takes place.) Brain Snack: Shakespeare totally blows off the "classical unities in his play The Winter's Tale but gets down with the concept in The Tempest.)
3. Jonson totally bags on contemporary London society. We talk about this in our section on "Tone" but we have to mention it here, too. Check out what Jonson says about his location choice:
Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known,No country's mirth is better than our own: (Prologue, 5-6)
Aww. That sounds so patriotic, right Shmoopers? But, wait a minute because Jonson is a total smart aleck. Now check out why he thinks London is such a great setting for a play:
No clime breeds better matter for your whore,
Bawd, squire, impostor, many persons more,
Whose manners, now called humours, feed the stage; (Prologue, 7-9)
Gee. Maybe this kind of attitude is why Jonson often got booed and heckled by some of his audience members.