Poetomachia

English

Etymology

Coined by Thomas Dekker. See poet and μάχη (mákhē, “battle”).

Proper noun

the Poetomachia

1. (historical) A controversy in later Elizabethan theater, involving a number of playwrights satirizing each other with their plays, in a period when verse and prose satire was banned due to the Bishops' Ban of 1599.