Culture
16:38, 07-Nov-2017
Britain bars export of rare copy of Shakespeare rival Ben Jonson's play
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British Arts Minister John Glen on Monday put a temporary export bar on a rare
annotated copy of a book by Shakespeare's venerable rival Ben Jonson to provide
an opportunity to keep it in the country.
The rare copy of "The Silent Woman," a comedy first performed in 1609, faces the
risk of going overseas unless a buyer can be found in the next few months to
match the recommended price of 63,000 US dollars.
Samuel Pepys, a famous English diarist, described "The Silent Woman" as "the
best comedy that ever was wrote."
Ben Jonson (1572-1637) is hailed as the most important writer of the English
Renaissance after William Shakespeare, having lived and worked in an age of
great social change that produced some of the finest works of English
literature.
Images of Ben Jonson (left) and William Shakespeare (right). /Photo via Twitter
Images of Ben Jonson (left) and William Shakespeare (right). /Photo via Twitter
A spokesperson for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)
said the extraordinarily rare volume is the only known example of a document
showing how a play by Ben Jonson was prepared for performance.
"This volume occupies a unique place among surviving materials because of the
nature and range of its annotations, including stage directions,details of
props, and textual corrections, which collectively do not fall into any category
previously known to scholars of seventeenth-century theater," she said.
"The volume is of outstanding interest to the study of English theatrical
history," she added.
Glen hoped that the book could be kept in Britain to enrich the study of English
theatrical history and learn more about the performances of Jonson's work.
Advisers from Britian's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport recommended the export bar.
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Source(s): Xinhua News Agency