The term poetaster, meaning an inferior poet with pretensions to artistic value, had been coined by Erasmus in 1521. It was used by Jonson in 1600 and then popularised with this play a year later. Poetaster is a late Elizabethan satirical comedy written by Ben Jonson that was first performed in 1601. The play formed one element in the back-and-forth exchange between Jonson and his rivals John Marston and Thomas Dekker in the so-called Poetomachia or War of the Theatres of 1599-1601.