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Intoxicating Spaces

The Impact of New Intoxicants on Urban Spaces in Europe, 1600–1850

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Author: crosbystevens

Posted on 23rd January 202327th January 2023

Love and Intoxication in a Renaissance Pleasure Palace

This short film documents my collaboration with Phil Withington, other academics, and creative partners to explore the significance of intoxicants in Ben Jonson’s The New Inn, and its connections to Bolsover Castle. Jonson, author of Volpone and The Alchemist, produced the play at the start of 1629. It’s a romantic comedy set in The Light Heart, an inn where the Host – a nobleman in disguise – receives high-born revellers and their servants. Beer and wine flow as secrets and identities are revealed. The play appeared on the London stage soon after Jonson’s patron William Cavendish was made an Earl, and his mother became a Baroness. The family had also just begun an impressive extension to Bolsover Castle, their sumptuous pleasure house in Derbyshire, creating a palatial venue for feasting. Was The New Inn intended for a celebratory event featuring wine, the famous Derbyshire ale, and lavish amounts of sugar?

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Partners & Funding

Intoxicating Spaces was a collaboration between Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg (Germany), the University of Sheffield (UK), Stockholm University (Sweden), and Utrecht University (Netherlands). We were funded by HERA, as part of its Joint Research Programme Public Spaces: Culture and Integration in Europe, and the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF)

Multilingual Overviews

Brief introduction in Dutch Brief introduction in German Brief introduction in Swedish

Image Credits

Unless otherwise credited, all header, column, featured, and decorative images are from the Wellcome Collection, London (Public Domain Mark 1.0)

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