This book studies the major city comedies of Ben Jonson and Thomas Middleton in the context of the quarrel between theater and philosophy. The book presents deconstructive and materialist readings of Jonson's Volpone, Epicoene, The Alchemist and Bartholomew Fair and Middleton's Michaelmas Term, A Trick to Catch the Old One, and A Chaste Maid in Cheapside.