The 1590s 'War of the Theatres' rivalry between London playwrights

Imagine 1590s London as a high-stakes football derby where the strikers used poetry to end careers. This was the War of the Theatres, a full-blown locker room brawl played out on the public stage.

Ben Jonson, the league’s most aggressive enforcer, traded insults with rivals like John Marston. They didn't tweet; they wrote entire plays just to call each other talentless hacks. It was the original diss track culture, with the audience cheering for the best character assassination.

Even Shakespeare got caught in the crossfire. It proves the greats were really just competitive athletes fighting for the biggest slice of the box office pie.

Wait, how do you actually land a 'diss track' punch using just poetry?

It wasn't subtle shade; it was a full-frontal tackle. In his play Poetaster, Jonson had a character representing Marston swallow a 'purge' pill, forcing him to literally vomit up 'pretentious' words right on stage.

Marston counter-attacked by mocking Jonson’s slow 'work rate.' He joked that Jonson took a whole year to grind out one play, calling him a benchwarmer who couldn't keep up with the league's high-octane pace.

They even targeted physical stats, like Jonson’s 'rocky face.' It was a brutal PR war designed to make the opponent look like an amateur to the home crowd.

Which specific 'pretentious' words were considered a foul back then?

Jonson was playing referee on the English language. He targeted "inkhorn terms"—fancy, Latin-heavy words that Marston used to sound more sophisticated than he actually was.

Imagine a commentator calling out a striker for doing "unnecessary step-overs" that lead to a turnover. Jonson made the actor gag out words like "retrograde" and "spurious." To him, these were linguistic fouls that cluttered the beautiful game of poetry.

By making Marston’s avatar literally "throw up" these terms, Jonson was telling the crowd that his rival’s vocabulary was a toxic substance the theater needed to purge.

How on earth did they stage a 'word vomit' scene back then?

Jonson didn't leave it to the imagination. He scripted a literal medical procedure where the character was fed pills to induce the purge. It was a high-concept gag, like a modern halftime show stunt designed to go viral.

The actor likely used a basin hidden from the front row or palmed some vomit props. The real magic was in the timing—as each word like "strenuous" or "clumsy" was shouted out, the actor would heave, making the audience see the language as literal waste.

It was a brutal piece of physical theater. By turning a linguistic debate into a gross-out comedy, Jonson ensured that every time the crowd heard those fancy words later, they would only think of a man gagging into a bucket.

So did Marston just take that L or did he launch a counter-attack?

Marston didn't just walk off the pitch; he subbed in heavy hitter Thomas Dekker. Together, they launched a counter-offensive called Satiromastix. It was a tactical masterclass in retaliation that put Jonson on the defensive.

They dragged Jonson’s own character into their play and forced him to swear an oath to stop being a self-important referee. It was a momentum shift that proved Jonson couldn't just bully his way to the top.

The kicker? After all that public mud-slinging, they eventually shook hands. A few years later, they were co-writing plays, proving today’s bitter rival is tomorrow’s teammate.