Ben Jonson's Poetaster - Oh, terrible windy words!

It’s the War of the Theatres! Ben Jonson feuding with John Marston and Thomas Dekker! Who cares! Poetaster, or the Arraignment (1601) features two key scenes where Jonson, under the guise of Horace, is tormented by and then torments Marston, the bad poet of the title. Dekker, a mere hack, gets off easy. The play is set in Augustan Rome, and most of the characters are poets, actual poets, in both…