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Fallacy
Key Examples in The Alchemist
Prologue
Explanation and Analysis:
The Alchemist is a satirical comedy. Like other satirists, Jonson hopes to expose and mock the vices, follies, and errors of humanity and, more specifically, of 17th-century London. In the Prologue, Jonson clarifies the aims and methods of satire, both generally and in this play:
Fortune, that favours fools, these two short hours,
We wish away, both for your sakes and ours,
Judging spectators; and desire, in place,
To the author justice, to ourselves but grace.
Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known,
No country's mirth is better than our own:
No clime breeds better matter for your whore,
Bawd, squire, impostor, many persons more,
Whose manners, now call'd humours, feed the stage;
And which have still been subject for the rage
Or spleen of comic writers. Though this pen
Did never aim to grieve, but better men.
