Eastward Hoe in 1605. That play offended King James with its anti-Scottish satire, a part apparently written by Marston. While Marston evaded capture, Jonson and Chapman ended up in jail as a result. Context Shakespeare probably alludes to The War of the Theatres in a scene between Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: Rosencrantz: Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation holds it no sin to tar them to controversy: there was, for a while, no money bid for argument unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question. Hamlet: Is't possible? Guildenstern: O, there has been much throwing about of brains. (Hamlet 2.2.362-9) Scholars differ over the true nature and extent of the rivalry behind the Poetomachia. Some have seen it as a competition between theatre companies rather than individual writers, though this is a minority view. It has even been suggested that the playwrights involved had no serious rivalry and even admired each other, and that the "War" was a self-promotional publicity stunt, a "planned ... quarrel to advertise each other as literary figures and for profit." Most critics see the Poetomachia as a mixture of personal rivalries and serious artistic concerns—"a vehicle for aggressively expressing differences...in literary theory...[a] basic philosophical debate on the status of literary and dramatic authorship." Notes References Bednarz, James P. Shakespeare and the Poets' War. New York, Columbia University Press, 2001. Chambers, E. K. The Elizabethan Stage. 4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923. Halliday, F. E. A Shakespeare Companion 1564–1964. Baltimore, Penguin, 1964. Hirschfeld, Heather Anne. Joint Enterprises: Collaborative Drama and the Institutionalization of English Renaissance Theatre. Boston, University of Massachusetts Press, 2004. Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S. Smith, eds. The Popular School: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama. Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1975. External links Poetaster on Gutenberg British drama Theatre in the United Kingdom 16th-century theatre 17th-century theatre Theatre controversies 1599 in England 1600 in England 1601 in England 1602 in England