Renaissance Self-Fashioning: ''Epicoene'' by Ben Jonson

This thesis considers the issue of Renaissance self-fashioning through one of Ben Jonson’s satirical play called Epicoene.
Renaissance self-fashioning has been chosen as the subject of my dissertation becouse this period is widely considered as a turning point of our Western culture and mainly becouse it is always the individual that should be scritinized in the annals of history to gain a satisfactory answer to those deeper questions which have always buffled mankind within European literature, such as who we are, where the truth lies behind appearances.
As it is not mere opinion that each of us is the result of many constructs and our cultural roots reach back far into the past in the first place I've analized what self-fashioning effectively meant in the Renaissance with a brief overview of its humanistic roots and what it means today. I've then gone on to analyze the City of London itself in Early Jacobean times and its influence on playwrights and society.I finally liked to comment on the evolutionary nature of self-fashioning in our modern times in order to gain a deeper awareness not only of myself but olso of our present cultural environment.
It is well known that any effort made in exploring, analyzing and understanding the world around us can be compared to looking insistently at the sun; it cannot be done without the serious risk of becoming blind.
However, as human beings, we repetedly do so as it reflects our curiosity, our natural tendency to gain knowledge to sustain our innermost needs for certainties and a controllable order.