The “Sacrilegious” Object: Puppet Narrative and Material Performance in Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair

Abstract Book of the 11th International Conference on Research in Social Sciences

Year: 2026

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The “Sacrilegious” Object: Puppet Narrative and Material Performance in Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair

Shengzhe Yao

ABSTRACT:

Ben Jonson boldly experiments with playwriting in Bartholomew Fair, in which the puppet play in the last act is especially experimental: Busy debates with the puppet which is under Leatherhead’s control about whether the puppet show is profane. In fact, the puppet, an object that resembles human beings can be understood as, to use Agamben’s term, a “sacrilegious” object. On the one hand, it is a holy thing that denies violations from the secular; on the other hand, the puppet, as something secular that has an appearance similar to human beings, reveals the idea that “everyone can be a puppet”. Pacing between the domain of the holy and the domain of the secular, the puppet as an object proves to be capable of showing great agency: its material performance suggests Jonson’s worries about the luxury and extravagance of court life in James I’s reign and meanwhile, develops Plato’s theory of mimesis concerning representations of reality. Through the lens of the puppet, we may get a glimpse of man’s position in the world of things in the flourishing capitalist economy in the 17th century.

Keywords: Bartholomew Fair; Ben Jonson; Object; Puppet Narrative