Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the
comedy of humours; he is best known for the
satirical plays ''
Every Man in His Humour''
(1598), ''
Volpone, or The Fox'' (c. 1606), ''
The Alchemist'' (1610) and ''
Bartholomew Fair'' (1614) and for his
lyric
Lyric may refer to:
* Lyrics, the words, often in verse form, which are sung, usually to a melody, and constitute the semantic content of a song
* Lyric poetry is a form of poetry that expresses a subjective, personal point of view
* Lyric, from ...
and
epigram
An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, and sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word is derived from the Greek "inscription" from "to write on, to inscribe", and the literary device has been employed for over two mille ...
matic poetry. "He is generally regarded as the second most important English dramatist, after
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
, during the reign of
James I."
Jonson was a
classically educated, well-read and cultured man of the
English Renaissance with an appetite for controversy (personal and political, artistic and intellectual) whose cultural influence was of unparalleled breadth upon the playwrights and the poets of the
Jacobean era (1603–1625) and of the
Caroline era (1625–1642).
["Ben Jonson", ''Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge'', volume 10, p. 388.]
His ancestors spelled the family name with a letter "t" (Johnstone or Johnstoun). While the spelling had eventually changed to the more common "Johnson", the playwright's own particular preference became "Jonson".
Early life
In midlife, Jonson said his paternal grandfather, who "served King Henry and was a gentleman",
was a member of the extended Johnston family of
Annandale in the
Dumfries and Galloway
Dumfries and Galloway ( sco, Dumfries an Gallowa; gd, Dùn Phrìs is Gall-Ghaidhealaibh) is one of 32 unitary council areas of Scotland and is located in the western Southern Uplands. It covers the historic counties of Dumfriesshire, Ki ...
, a genealogy that is attested by the three spindles (
rhombi) in the Jonson family
coat of arms
A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in it ...
: one spindle is a diamond-shaped
heraldic device used by the Johnston family.
Jonson's father lost his property, was imprisoned, and, as a Protestant, suffered
forfeiture
Forfeit or forfeiture may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Forfeit'', a 2007 thriller film starring Billy Burke
* "Forfeit", a song by Chevelle from '' Wonder What's Next''
* '' Forfeit/Fortune'', a 2008 album by Crooked Fingers
...
under
Queen Mary. Becoming a clergyman upon his release, he died a month before his son's birth.
His widow married a master
bricklayer two years later.
[Robert Chambers, Book of Days] Jonson attended school in
St Martin's Lane in London.
[ Later, a family friend paid for his studies at ]Westminster School
Westminster School is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Westminster, London, England, in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. It derives from a charity school founded by Westminster Benedictines before the 1066 Norman Conquest, as d ...
, where the antiquarian, historian, topographer and officer of arms William Camden (1551–1623) was one of his masters. The pupil and master became friends, and the intellectual influence of Camden's broad-ranging scholarship upon Jonson's art and literary style remained notable, until Camden's death in 1623.
On leaving Westminster School in 1589, Jonson was to have attended the University of Cambridge
, mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts.
Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge.
, established =
, other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
, to continue his book learning but did not, because of his unwilled apprenticeship to his bricklayer stepfather. According to the churchman and historian Thomas Fuller (1608–61), Jonson at this time built a garden wall in Lincoln's Inn. After having been an apprentice bricklayer, Jonson went to the Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
and volunteered to soldier with the English regiments of Sir Francis Vere (1560–1609) in Flanders
Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to cultu ...
. England was allied with the Dutch in their fight for independence as well as the ongoing war with Spain.
The ''Hawthornden Manuscripts'' (1619), of the conversations between Ben Jonson and the poet William Drummond of Hawthornden[ (1585–1649), report that, when in Flanders, Jonson engaged, fought and killed an enemy soldier in single combat, and took for trophies the weapons of the vanquished soldier.]
After his military activity on the Continent, Jonson returned to England and worked as an actor and as a playwright. As an actor, he was the protagonist “Hieronimo” (Geronimo) in the play '' The Spanish Tragedy'' (c. 1586), by Thomas Kyd (1558–94), the first revenge tragedy in English literature. By 1597, he was a working playwright employed by Philip Henslowe, the leading producer for the English public theatre; by the next year, the production of '' Every Man in His Humour'' (1598) had established Jonson's reputation as a dramatist.
Jonson described his wife to William Drummond as "a shrew, yet honest". The identity of Jonson's wife is obscure, though she sometimes is identified as "Ann Lewis", the woman who married a Benjamin Jonson in 1594, at the church of St Magnus-the-Martyr, near London Bridge.["Ben Jonson", ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 15th edition, p. 612.]
The St. Martin's Church registers indicate that Mary Jonson, their eldest daughter, died in November 1593, at six months of age. A decade later, in 1603, Benjamin Jonson, their eldest son, died of bubonic plague
Bubonic plague is one of three types of plague caused by the plague bacterium ('' Yersinia pestis''). One to seven days after exposure to the bacteria, flu-like symptoms develop. These symptoms include fever, headaches, and vomiting, as ...
when he was seven years old, upon which Jonson wrote the elegiac "On My First Sonne
"On My First Sonne", a poem by Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised t ...
" (1603). A second son, also named Benjamin Jonson, died in 1635.
During that period, Jonson and his wife lived separate lives for five years; Jonson enjoyed the residential hospitality of his patrons, Esme Stuart, 3rd Duke of Lennox and 7th Seigneur d'Aubigny and Sir Robert Townshend.
Career
By summer 1597, Jonson had a fixed engagement in the Admiral's Men, then performing under Philip Henslowe's management at The Rose
A rose is a perennial plant of the genus ''Rosa'', or the flower it bears.
Rose may also refer to:
Colors
* Rose (color)
** RAL 3017 Rose
* Rose (heraldic tincture)
Arts, entertainment and media Film
* ''Rose'' (2011 film), a Polish film ...
.[ John Aubrey reports, on uncertain authority, that Jonson was not successful as an actor; whatever his skills as an actor, he was evidently more valuable to the company as a writer.
By this time Jonson had begun to write original plays for the Admiral's Men; in 1598 he was mentioned by Francis Meres in his ''Palladis Tamia'' as one of "the best for tragedy."][ None of his early tragedies survive, however. An undated comedy, '' The Case is Altered'', may be his earliest surviving play.
In 1597, a play which he co-wrote with Thomas Nashe, '' The Isle of Dogs'', was suppressed after causing great offence. Arrest warrants for Jonson and Nashe were issued by Queen ]Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
Eli ...
's so-called interrogator, Richard Topcliffe. Jonson was jailed in Marshalsea Prison and charged with "Leude and mutynous behaviour", while Nashe managed to escape to Great Yarmouth. Two of the actors, Gabriel Spenser and Robert Shaw, were also imprisoned. A year later, Jonson was again briefly imprisoned, this time in Newgate Prison, for killing Gabriel Spenser in a duel
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two people, with matched weapons, in accordance with agreed-upon Code duello, rules.
During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly single combats fought with swords (the r ...
on 22 September 1598 in Hogsden Fields[ (today part of Hoxton). Tried on a charge of ]manslaughter
Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th ...
, Jonson pleaded guilty but was released by benefit of clergy,[ a legal ploy through which he gained leniency by reciting a brief Bible verse (the neck-verse), forfeiting his 'goods and chattels' and being branded on his left thumb.][
While in jail Jonson converted to Catholicism, possibly through the influence of fellow-prisoner Father Thomas Wright, a Jesuit priest.]
In 1598 Jonson produced his first great success, '' Every Man in His Humour'', capitalising on the vogue for humorous plays which George Chapman had begun with '' An Humorous Day's Mirth''. William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
was among the first actors to be cast. Jonson followed this in 1599 with '' Every Man out of His Humour'', a pedantic attempt to imitate Aristophanes
Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion ( la, Cydathenaeum), was a comic playwright or comedy-writer of ancient Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his fo ...
. It is not known whether this was a success on stage, but when published it proved popular and went through several editions.
Jonson's other work for the theatre in the last years of Elizabeth I's reign was marked by fighting and controversy. ''Cynthia's Revels
''Cynthia's Revels, or The Fountain of Self-Love'' is a late Elizabethan stage play, a satire written by Ben Jonson. The play was one element in the ''Poetomachia'' or War of the Theatres between Jonson and rival playwrights John Marston and ...
'' was produced by the Children of the Chapel Royal at Blackfriars Theatre in 1600. It satirised both John Marston, who Jonson believed had accused him of lustfulness in '' Histriomastix'', and Thomas Dekker. Jonson attacked the two poets again in '' Poetaster'' (1601). Dekker responded with '' Satiromastix'', subtitled "the untrussing of the humorous poet".[ The final scene of this play, whilst certainly not to be taken at face value as a portrait of Jonson, offers a caricature that is recognisable from Drummond's report – boasting about himself and condemning other poets, criticising performances of his plays and calling attention to himself in any available way.
This " War of the Theatres" appears to have ended with reconciliation on all sides. Jonson collaborated with Dekker on a pageant welcoming James I to England in 1603 although Drummond reports that Jonson called Dekker a rogue. Marston dedicated ''The Malcontent'' to Jonson and the two collaborated with Chapman on '' Eastward Ho'', a 1605 play whose anti-Scottish sentiment briefly landed both Jonson and Chapman in jail.
]
Royal patronage
At the beginning of the English reign of James VI and I
James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until ...
in 1603 Jonson joined other poets and playwrights in welcoming the new king. Jonson quickly adapted himself to the additional demand for masque
The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment that flourished in 16th- and early 17th-century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio (a public version of the masque was the pageant). A mas ...
s and entertainments introduced with the new reign and fostered by both the king and his consort[ ]Anne of Denmark
Anne of Denmark (; 12 December 1574 – 2 March 1619) was the wife of King James VI and I; as such, she was Queen of Scotland from their marriage on 20 August 1589 and Queen of England and Ireland from the union of the Scottish and En ...
. In addition to his popularity on the public stage and in the royal hall, he enjoyed the patronage of aristocrats such as Elizabeth Sidney (daughter of Sir Philip Sidney) and Lady Mary Wroth. This connection with the Sidney family provided the impetus for one of Jonson's most famous lyrics, the country house poem ''To Penshurst''.
In February 1603 John Manningham reported that Jonson was living on Robert Townsend, son of Sir Roger Townshend, and "scorns the world." Perhaps this explains why his trouble with English authorities continued. That same year he was questioned by the Privy Council about '' Sejanus'', a politically themed play about corruption in the Roman Empire. He was again in trouble for topical allusions in a play, now lost, in which he took part. Shortly after his release from a brief spell of imprisonment imposed to mark the authorities' displeasure at the work, in the second week of October 1605, he was present at a supper party attended by most of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators. After the plot's discovery he appears to have avoided further imprisonment; he volunteered what he knew of the affair to the investigator Robert Cecil Robert Cecil may refer to:
* Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury (1563–1612), English administrator and politician, MP for Westminster, and for Hertfordshire
* Robert Cecil (1670–1716), Member of Parliament for Castle Rising, and for Wootton Ba ...
and the Privy Council. Father Thomas Wright, who heard Fawkes's confession, was known to Jonson from prison in 1598 and Cecil may have directed him to bring the priest before the council, as a witness.
At the same time, Jonson pursued a more prestigious career, writing masques for James's court. '' The Satyr'' (1603) and '' The Masque of Blackness'' (1605) are two of about two dozen masques which Jonson wrote for James or for Queen Anne, some of them performed at Apethorpe Palace when the King was in residence. ''The Masque of Blackness'' was praised by Algernon Charles Swinburne as the consummate example of this now-extinct genre, which mingled speech, dancing and spectacle.
On many of these projects he collaborated, not always peacefully, with designer Inigo Jones
Inigo Jones (; 15 July 1573 – 21 June 1652) was the first significant Architecture of England, architect in England and Wales in the Early modern Europe, early modern period, and the first to employ Vitruvius, Vitruvian rules of proportion an ...
. For example, Jones designed the scenery for Jonson's masque ''Oberon, the Faery Prince
''Oberon, the Faery Prince'' was a masque written by Ben Jonson, with costumes, sets and stage effects designed by Inigo Jones, and music by Alfonso Ferrabosco and Robert Johnson. ''Oberon'' saw the introduction to English Renaissance theatre o ...
'' performed at Whitehall
Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London. The road forms the first part of the A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea. It is the main thoroughfare running south from Trafalgar Square towards Parliament ...
on 1 January 1611 in which Prince Henry, eldest son of James I, appeared in the title role. Perhaps partly as a result of this new career, Jonson gave up writing plays for the public theatres for a decade. He later told Drummond that he had made less than two hundred pounds on all his plays together.
In 1616 Jonson received a yearly pension of 100 marks (about £60), leading some to identify him as England's first Poet Laureate. This sign of royal favour may have encouraged him to publish the first volume of the folio collected edition of his works that year.[ Other volumes followed in 1640–41 and 1692. (See: Ben Jonson folios)
On 8 July 1618 Jonson set out from Bishopsgate in London to walk to Edinburgh, arriving in Scotland's capital on 17 September. For the most part he followed the great north road, and was treated to lavish and enthusiastic welcomes in both towns and country houses.] On his arrival he lodged initially with John Stuart, a cousin of King James, in Leith, and was made an honorary burgess of Edinburgh at a dinner laid on by the city on 26 September. He stayed in Scotland until late January 1619, and the best-remembered hospitality he enjoyed was that of the Scottish poet, William Drummond of Hawthornden,[ sited on the River Esk. Drummond undertook to record as much of Jonson's conversation as he could in his diary, and thus recorded aspects of Jonson's personality that would otherwise have been less clearly seen. Jonson delivers his opinions, in Drummond's terse reporting, in an expansive and even magisterial mood. Drummond noted he was "a great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others".][
On returning to England, he was awarded an ]honorary
An honorary position is one given as an honor, with no duties attached, and without payment. Other uses include:
* Honorary Academy Award, by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, United States
* Honorary Aryan, a status in Nazi Germany ...
Master of Arts
A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. ...
degree
Degree may refer to:
As a unit of measurement
* Degree (angle), a unit of angle measurement
** Degree of geographical latitude
** Degree of geographical longitude
* Degree symbol (°), a notation used in science, engineering, and mathemati ...
from Oxford University.
The period between 1605 and 1620 may be viewed as Jonson's heyday. By 1616 he had produced all the plays on which his present reputation as a dramatist is based, including the tragedy '' Catiline'' (acted and printed 1611), which achieved limited success[ and the comedies '' Volpone'' (acted 1605 and printed in 1607), '' Epicoene, or the Silent Woman'' (1609), '' The Alchemist'' (1610), '' Bartholomew Fair'' (1614) and '' The Devil Is an Ass'' (1616).][ ''The Alchemist'' and ''Volpone'' were immediately successful. Of ''Epicoene'', Jonson told Drummond of a satirical verse which reported that the play's subtitle was appropriate, since its audience had refused to applaud the play (i.e., remained silent). Yet ''Epicoene'', along with ''Bartholomew Fair'' and (to a lesser extent) ''The Devil is an Ass'' have in modern times achieved a certain degree of recognition. While his life during this period was apparently more settled than it had been in the 1590s, his financial security was still not assured.
]
Religion
Jonson recounted that his father had been a prosperous Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
landowner until the reign of " Bloody Mary" and had suffered imprisonment and the forfeiture of his wealth during that monarch's attempt to restore England to Catholicism. On Elizabeth's accession he had been freed and had been able to travel to London to become a clergyman. (All that is known of Jonson's father, who died a month before his son was born, comes from the poet's own narrative.) Jonson's elementary education was in a small church school attached to St Martin-in-the-Fields parish, and at the age of about seven he secured a place at Westminster School
Westminster School is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Westminster, London, England, in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. It derives from a charity school founded by Westminster Benedictines before the 1066 Norman Conquest, as d ...
, then part of Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...
.
Notwithstanding this emphatically Protestant grounding, Jonson maintained an interest in Catholic doctrine throughout his adult life and, at a particularly perilous time while a religious war with Spain was widely expected and persecution of Catholics was intensifying, he converted to the faith.[Riggs (1989: 51–52)] This took place in October 1598, while Jonson was on remand in Newgate Gaol charged with manslaughter
Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th ...
. Jonson's biographer Ian Donaldson is among those who suggest that the conversion was instigated by Father Thomas Wright, a Jesuit priest who had resigned from the order over his acceptance of Queen Elizabeth's right to rule in England.[Donaldson (2011: 134–140)] Wright, although placed under house arrest on the orders of Lord Burghley, was permitted to minister to the inmates of London prisons. It may have been that Jonson, fearing that his trial would go against him, was seeking the unequivocal absolution that Catholicism could offer if he were sentenced to death. Alternatively, he could have been looking to personal advantage from accepting conversion since Father Wright's protector, the Earl of Essex
Earl of Essex is a title in the Peerage of England which was first created in the 12th century by King Stephen of England. The title has been recreated eight times from its original inception, beginning with a new first Earl upon each new cre ...
, was among those who might hope to rise to influence after the succession of a new monarch. Jonson's conversion came at a weighty time in affairs of state; the royal succession, from the childless Elizabeth, had not been settled and Essex's Catholic allies were hopeful that a sympathetic ruler might attain the throne.
Conviction, and certainly not expedience alone, sustained Jonson's faith during the troublesome twelve years he remained a Catholic. His stance received attention beyond the low-level intolerance to which most followers of that faith were exposed. The first draft of his play ''Sejanus His Fall
''Sejanus His Fall'', a 1603 play by Ben Jonson, is a tragedy about Sejanus, Lucius Aelius Sejanus, the favourite of the Roman emperor Tiberius.
''Sejanus His Fall'' was performed at court in 1603, and at the Globe Theatre in 1604. The latter ...
'' was banned for " popery", and did not re-appear until some offending passages were cut. In January 1606 he (with Anne, his wife) appeared before the Consistory Court in London to answer a charge of recusancy, with Jonson alone additionally accused of allowing his fame as a Catholic to "seduce" citizens to the cause. This was a serious matter (the Gunpowder Plot was still fresh in people's minds) but he explained that his failure to take communion was only because he had not found sound theological endorsement for the practice, and by paying a fine of thirteen shillings (156 pence) he escaped the more serious penalties at the authorities' disposal. His habit was to slip outside during the sacrament, a common routine at the time—indeed it was one followed by the royal consort, Queen Anne of Denmark
Anne of Denmark (; 12 December 1574 – 2 March 1619) was the wife of King James VI and I; as such, she was Queen of Scotland from their marriage on 20 August 1589 and Queen of England and Ireland from the union of the Scottish and En ...
, herself—to show political loyalty while not offending the conscience. Leading church figures, including John Overall, Dean of St Paul's
The dean of St Paul's is a member of, and chair of the Chapter of St Paul's Cathedral in London in the Church of England. The dean of St Paul's is also ''ex officio'' dean of the Order of the British Empire.
The current dean is Andrew Tremlett ...
, were tasked with winning Jonson back to Protestantism, but these overtures were resisted.[Donaldson (2011: 228–9)]
In May 1610 Henry IV of France
Henry IV (french: Henri IV; 13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), also known by the epithets Good King Henry or Henry the Great, was King of Navarre (as Henry III) from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. He was the first monarc ...
was assassinated, purportedly in the name of the Pope; he had been a Catholic monarch respected in England for tolerance towards Protestants, and his murder seems to have been the immediate cause of Jonson's decision to rejoin the Church of England.[Donaldson (2011: 272)] He did this in flamboyant style, pointedly drinking a full chalice of communion wine at the eucharist
The Eucharist (; from Greek , , ), also known as Holy Communion and the Lord's Supper, is a Christian rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches, and as an ordinance in others. According to the New Testament, the rite was institu ...
to demonstrate his renunciation of the Catholic rite, in which the priest alone drinks the wine.[Riggs (1989: 177)] The exact date of the ceremony is unknown.[ However, his interest in Catholic belief and practice remained with him until his death.
]
Decline and death
Jonson's productivity began to decline in the 1620s, but he remained well known. In that time, the Sons of Ben or the " Tribe of Ben", those younger poets such as Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, and Sir John Suckling who took their bearing in verse from Jonson, rose to prominence. However, a series of setbacks drained his strength and damaged his reputation. He resumed writing regular plays in the 1620s, but these are not considered among his best. They are of significant interest, however, for their portrayal of Charles I's England. '' The Staple of News'', for example, offers a remarkable look at the earliest stage of English journalism. The lukewarm reception given that play was, however, nothing compared to the dismal failure of '' The New Inn''; the cold reception given this play prompted Jonson to write a poem condemning his audience (''An Ode to Himself''), which in turn prompted Thomas Carew, one of the "Tribe of Ben", to respond in a poem that asks Jonson to recognise his own decline.
The principal factor in Jonson's partial eclipse was, however, the death of James and the accession of King Charles I in 1625. Jonson felt neglected by the new court. A decisive quarrel with Jones harmed his career as a writer of court masques, although he continued to entertain the court on an irregular basis. For his part, Charles displayed a certain degree of care for the great poet of his father's day: he increased Jonson's annual pension to £100 and included a tierce of wine and beer.
Despite the strokes that he suffered in the 1620s, Jonson continued to write. At his death in 1637 he seems to have been working on another play, ''The Sad Shepherd''. Though only two acts are extant, this represents a remarkable new direction for Jonson: a move into pastoral
A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music ( pastorale) that de ...
drama. During the early 1630s he also conducted a correspondence with James Howell, who warned him about disfavour at court in the wake of his dispute with Jones.
Jonson died on or around 16 August 1637, and his funeral was held the next day. It was attended by 'all or the greatest part of the nobility then in town'. He is buried in the north aisle of the nave in Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...
, with the inscription "O Rare Ben Johnson 'sic'' set in the slab over his grave. John Aubrey, in a more meticulous record than usual, notes that a passer-by, John Young of Great Milton, Oxfordshire, saw the bare grave marker and on impulse paid a workman eighteen pence to make the inscription. Another theory suggests that the tribute came from William Davenant, Jonson's successor as Poet Laureate (and card-playing companion of Young), as the same phrase appears on Davenant's nearby gravestone, but essayist Leigh Hunt contends that Davenant's wording represented no more than Young's coinage, cheaply re-used.[ The fact that Jonson was buried in an upright position was an indication of his reduced circumstances at the time of his death, although it has also been written that he asked for a grave exactly 18 inches square from the monarch and received an upright grave to fit in the requested space.]
It has been pointed out that the inscription could be read "Orare Ben Jonson" (pray for Ben Jonson), possibly in an allusion to Jonson's acceptance of Catholic doctrine Catholic doctrine may refer to:
* Catholic theology
** Catholic moral theology
** Catholic Mariology
*Heresy in the Catholic Church
* Catholic social teaching
* Catholic liturgy
*Catholic Church and homosexuality
*Catholic theology of sexuality
*Te ...
during his lifetime (although he had returned to the Church of England); the carving shows a distinct space between "O" and "rare".
A monument to Jonson was erected in about 1723 by the Earl of Oxford and is in the eastern aisle of Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner. It includes a portrait medallion and the same inscription as on the gravestone. It seems Jonson was to have had a monument erected by subscription soon after his death but the English Civil War
The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians ("Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of Kingdom of England, England's governanc ...
intervened.
His work
Drama
Apart from two tragedies, '' Sejanus'' and '' Catiline'', that largely failed to impress Renaissance audiences, Jonson's work for the public theatres was in comedy. These plays vary in some respects. The minor early plays, particularly those written for boy players, present somewhat looser plots and less-developed characters than those written later, for adult companies. Already in the plays which were his salvos in the Poets' War, he displays the keen eye for absurdity and hypocrisy that marks his best-known plays; in these early efforts, however, plot mostly takes second place to variety of incident and comic set-pieces. They are, also, notably ill-tempered. Thomas Davies called ''Poetaster'' "a contemptible mixture of the serio-comic, where the names of Augustus Caesar, Maecenas, Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...
, Horace, Ovid
Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the ...
and Tibullus, are all sacrificed upon the altar of private resentment". Another early comedy in a different vein, '' The Case is Altered'', is markedly similar to Shakespeare's romantic comedies in its foreign setting, emphasis on genial wit and love-plot. Henslowe's diary indicates that Jonson had a hand in numerous other plays, including many in genres such as English history with which he is not otherwise associated.
The comedies of his middle career, from '' Eastward Hoe'' to '' The Devil Is an Ass'' are for the most part city comedy, with a London setting, themes of trickery and money, and a distinct moral ambiguity, despite Jonson's professed aim in the Prologue to '' Volpone'' to "mix profit with your pleasure". His late plays or " dotages", particularly '' The Magnetic Lady'' and ', exhibit signs of an accommodation with the romantic tendencies of Elizabethan comedy
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term ori ...
.
Within this general progression, however, Jonson's comic style remained constant and easily recognisable. He announces his programme in the prologue to the folio
The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...
version of '' Every Man in His Humour'': he promises to represent "deeds, and language, such as men do use". He planned to write comedies that revived the classical premises of Elizabethan dramatic theory—or rather, since all but the loosest English comedies could claim some descent from Plautus
Titus Maccius Plautus (; c. 254 – 184 BC), commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the ...
and Terence
Publius Terentius Afer (; – ), better known in English as Terence (), was a Roman African playwright during the Roman Republic. His comedies were performed for the first time around 166–160 BC. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought ...
, he intended to apply those premises with rigour. This commitment entailed negations: after ''The Case is Altered'', Jonson eschewed distant locations, noble characters, romantic plots and other staples of Elizabethan comedy, focusing instead on the satiric and realistic inheritance of new comedy. He set his plays in contemporary settings, peopled them with recognisable types, and set them to actions that, if not strictly realistic, involved everyday motives such as greed and jealousy. In accordance with the temper of his age, he was often so broad in his characterisation that many of his most famous scenes border on the farcical (as William Congreve, for example, judged ''Epicoene''). He was more diligent in adhering to the classical unities than many of his peers—although as Margaret Cavendish noted, the unity of action in the major comedies was rather compromised by Jonson's abundance of incident. To this classical model Jonson applied the two features of his style which save his classical imitations from mere pedantry: the vividness with which he depicted the lives of his characters, and the intricacy of his plots. Coleridge, for instance, claimed that '' The Alchemist'' had one of the three most perfect plots in literature.
Poetry
Jonson's poetry, like his drama, is informed by his classical learning. Some of his better-known poems are close translations of Greek or Roman models; all display the careful attention to form and style that often came naturally to those trained in classics in the humanist manner. Jonson largely avoided the debates about rhyme and meter that had consumed Elizabethan classicists such as Thomas Campion and Gabriel Harvey
Gabriel Harvey (c. 1552/3 – 1631) was an English writer. Harvey was a notable scholar, whose reputation suffered from his quarrel with Thomas Nashe. Henry Morley, writing in the ''Fortnightly Review'' (March 1869), has argued that Harvey's La ...
. Accepting both rhyme and stress, Jonson used them to mimic the classical qualities of simplicity, restraint and precision.
"Epigrams" (published in the 1616 folio) is an entry in a genre that was popular among late-Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences, although Jonson was perhaps the only poet of his time to work in its full classical range. The epigrams explore various attitudes, most from the satiric stock of the day: complaints against women, courtiers and spies abound. The condemnatory poems are short and anonymous; Jonson’s epigrams of praise, including a famous poem to Camden and lines to Lucy Harington, are longer and are mostly addressed to specific individuals. Although it is included among the epigrams, "On My First Sonne
"On My First Sonne", a poem by Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised t ...
" is neither satirical nor very short; the poem, intensely personal and deeply felt, typifies a genre that would come to be called "lyric poetry." It is possible that the spelling of 'son' as 'Sonne' is meant to allude to the sonnet form, with which it shares some features. A few other so-called epigrams share this quality. Jonson's poems of "The Forest" also appeared in the first folio. Most of the fifteen poems are addressed to Jonson's aristocratic supporters, but the most famous are his country-house poem “ To Penshurst” and the poem “ To Celia” ("Come, my Celia, let us prove") that appears also in '' Volpone''.
''Underwood'', published in the expanded folio of 1640, is a larger and more heterogeneous group of poems. It contains '' A Celebration of Charis'', Jonson's most extended effort at love poetry; various religious pieces; encomiastic poems including the poem to Shakespeare and a sonnet on Mary Wroth; the '' Execration against Vulcan'' and others. The 1640 volume also contains three elegies which have often been ascribed to Donne (one of them appeared in Donne's posthumous collected poems).
Relationship with Shakespeare
There are many legends about Jonson's rivalry with Shakespeare. William Drummond reports that during their conversation, Jonson scoffed at two apparent absurdities in Shakespeare's plays: a nonsensical line in '' Julius Caesar'' and the setting of ''The Winter's Tale
''The Winter's Tale'' is a play by William Shakespeare originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, many modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some cri ...
'' on the non-existent seacoast of Bohemia. Drummond also reported Jonson as saying that Shakespeare "wanted art" (i.e., lacked skill).
In "De Shakespeare Nostrat" in ''Timber'', which was published posthumously and reflects his lifetime of practical experience, Jonson offers a fuller and more conciliatory comment. He recalls being told by certain actors that Shakespeare never blotted (i.e., crossed out) a line when he wrote. His own claimed response was "Would he had blotted a thousand!" However, Jonson explains, "He was, indeed, honest and of an open and free nature, had an excellent phantasy, brave notions and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped". Jonson concludes that "there was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned." When Shakespeare died, he said, "He was not of an age, but for all time."
Thomas Fuller relates stories of Jonson and Shakespeare engaging in debates in the Mermaid Tavern; Fuller imagines conversations in which Shakespeare would run rings around the more learned but more ponderous Jonson. That the two men knew each other personally is beyond doubt, not only because of the tone of Jonson's references to him but because Shakespeare's company produced a number of Jonson's plays, at least two of which ('' Every Man in His Humour'' and ''Sejanus His Fall
''Sejanus His Fall'', a 1603 play by Ben Jonson, is a tragedy about Sejanus, Lucius Aelius Sejanus, the favourite of the Roman emperor Tiberius.
''Sejanus His Fall'' was performed at court in 1603, and at the Globe Theatre in 1604. The latter ...
'') Shakespeare certainly acted in. However, it is now impossible to tell how much personal communication they had, and tales of their friendship cannot be substantiated.
Jonson's most influential and revealing commentary on Shakespeare is the second of the two poems that he contributed to the prefatory verse that opens Shakespeare's First Folio. This poem, "To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare and What He Hath Left Us", did a good deal to create the traditional view of Shakespeare as a poet who, despite "small Latine, and lesse Greeke", had a natural genius. The poem has traditionally been thought to exemplify the contrast which Jonson perceived between himself, the disciplined and erudite classicist, scornful of ignorance and sceptical of the masses, and Shakespeare, represented in the poem as a kind of natural wonder whose genius was not subject to any rules except those of the audiences for which he wrote. But the poem itself qualifies this view:
:Yet must I not give Nature all: Thy Art,
:My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.
Some view this elegy as a conventional exercise, but others see it as a heartfelt tribute to the "Sweet Swan of Avon", the "Soul of the Age!" It has been argued that Jonson helped to edit the First Folio, and he may have been inspired to write this poem by reading his fellow playwright's works, a number of which had been previously either unpublished or available in less satisfactory versions, in a relatively complete form.
Reception and influence
Jonson was a towering literary figure, and his influence was enormous for he has been described as 'One of the most vigorous minds that ever added to the strength of English literature'. Before the English Civil War, the "Tribe of Ben" touted his importance, and during the Restoration Jonson's satirical comedies and his theory and practice of "humour characters" (which are often misunderstood; see William Congreve's letters for clarification) was extremely influential, providing the blueprint for many Restoration comedies. John Aubrey wrote of Jonson in '' Brief Lives''. By 1700 Jonson's status began to decline. In the Romantic era, Jonson suffered the fate of being unfairly compared and contrasted to Shakespeare, as the taste for Jonson's type of satirical comedy decreased. Jonson was at times greatly appreciated by the Romantics, but overall he was denigrated for not writing in a Shakespearean vein.
In 2012, after more than two decades of research, Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer.
Cambr ...
published the first new edition of Jonson's complete works for 60 years.
Drama
As G. E. Bentley notes in ''Shakespeare and Jonson: Their Reputations in the Seventeenth Century Compared'', Jonson's reputation was in some respects equal to Shakespeare's in the 17th century. After the English theatres were reopened on the Restoration of Charles II, Jonson's work, along with Shakespeare's and Fletcher
Fletcher may refer to:
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's, formed the initial core of the Restoration repertory. It was not until after 1710 that Shakespeare's plays (ordinarily in heavily revised forms) were more frequently performed than those of his Renaissance contemporaries. Many critics since the 18th century have ranked Jonson below only Shakespeare among English Renaissance dramatists
English usually refers to:
* English language
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English may also refer to:
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* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
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. Critical judgment has tended to emphasise the very qualities that Jonson himself lauds in his prefaces, in ''Timber'', and in his scattered prefaces and dedications: the realism and propriety of his language, the bite of his satire, and the care with which he plotted his comedies.
For some critics, the temptation to contrast Jonson (representing art or craft) with Shakespeare (representing nature, or untutored genius) has seemed natural; Jonson himself may be said to have initiated this interpretation in the second folio, and Samuel Butler drew the same comparison in his commonplace book
Commonplace books (or commonplaces) are a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into books. They have been kept from antiquity, and were kept particularly during the Renaissance and in the nineteenth century. Such books are simi ...
later in the century.
At the Restoration, this sensed difference became a kind of critical dogma. Charles de Saint-Évremond placed Jonson's comedies above all else in English drama, and Charles Gildon called Jonson the father of English comedy. John Dryden offered a more common assessment in the "Essay of Dramatic Poesie," in which his Avatar Neander compares Shakespeare to Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the '' Iliad'' and the '' Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of ...
and Jonson to Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...
: the former represented profound creativity, the latter polished artifice. But "artifice" was in the 17th century almost synonymous with "art"; Jonson, for instance, used "artificer" as a synonym for "artist" (''Discoveries,'' 33). For Lewis Theobald, too, Jonson "ow dall his Excellence to his Art,” in contrast to Shakespeare, the natural genius. Nicholas Rowe, to whom may be traced the legend that Jonson owed the production of ''Every Man in his Humour'' to Shakespeare's intercession, likewise attributed Jonson's excellence to learning, which did not raise him quite to the level of genius. A consensus formed: Jonson was the first English poet to understand classical precepts with any accuracy, and he was the first to apply those precepts successfully to contemporary life. But there were also more negative spins on Jonson's learned art; for instance, in the 1750s, Edward Young casually remarked on the way in which Jonson's learning worked, like Samson's strength, to his own detriment. Earlier, Aphra Behn, writing in defence of female playwrights, had pointed to Jonson as a writer whose learning did not make him popular; unsurprisingly, she compares him unfavourably to Shakespeare. Particularly in the tragedies, with their lengthy speeches abstracted from Sallust and Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the est ...
, Augustan critics saw a writer whose learning had swamped his aesthetic judgment.
In this period, Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...
is exceptional in that he noted the tendency to exaggeration in these competing critical portraits: "It is ever the nature of Parties to be in extremes; and nothing is so probable, as that because Ben Jonson had much the most learning, it was said on the one hand that Shakespear had none at all; and because Shakespear had much the most wit and fancy, it was retorted on the other, that Jonson wanted both." For the most part, the 18th century consensus remained committed to the division that Pope doubted; as late as the 1750s, Sarah Fielding could put a brief recapitulation of this analysis in the mouth of a "man of sense" encountered by David Simple.
Though his stature declined during the 18th century, Jonson was still read and commented on throughout the century, generally in the kind of comparative and dismissive terms just described. Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg
Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg (3 January 1737 – 1 November 1823) was a German poet and critic.
Gerstenberg was born in Tønder, Denmark. After attending school in Husum and at the Christianeum Hamburg, and studying law at the Univers ...
translated parts of Peter Whalley's edition into German in 1765. Shortly before the Romantic revolution, Edward Capell offered an almost unqualified rejection of Jonson as a dramatic poet, who (he writes) "has very poor pretensions to the high place he holds among the English Bards, as there is no original manner to distinguish him and the tedious sameness visible in his plots indicates a defect of Genius." The disastrous failures of productions of ''Volpone'' and ''Epicoene'' in the early 1770s no doubt bolstered a widespread sense that Jonson had at last grown too antiquated for the contemporary public; if he still attracted enthusiasts such as Earl Camden and William Gifford, he all but disappeared from the stage in the last quarter of the century.
The romantic
Romantic may refer to:
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* The Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement of the 18th and 19th centuries
** Romantic music, of that era
** Romantic poetry, of that era
** Romanticism in science, of that e ...
revolution in criticism brought about an overall decline in the critical estimation of Jonson. Hazlitt refers dismissively to Jonson's "laborious caution." Coleridge, while more respectful, describes Jonson as psychologically superficial: “He was a very accurately observing man; but he cared only to observe what was open to, and likely to impress, the senses.” Coleridge placed Jonson second only to Shakespeare; other romantic critics were less approving. The early 19th century was the great age for recovering Renaissance drama. Jonson, whose reputation had survived, appears to have been less interesting to some readers than writers such as Thomas Middleton or John Heywood, who were in some senses "discoveries" of the 19th century. Moreover, the emphasis which the romantic writers placed on imagination, and their concomitant tendency to distrust studied art, lowered Jonson's status, if it also sharpened their awareness of the difference traditionally noted between Jonson and Shakespeare. This trend was by no means universal, however; William Gifford, Jonson's first editor of the 19th century, did a great deal to defend Jonson's reputation during this period of general decline. In the next era, Swinburne, who was more interested in Jonson than most Victorians, wrote, "The flowers of his growing have every quality but one which belongs to the rarest and finest among flowers: they have colour, form, variety, fertility, vigour: the one thing they want is fragrance” – by “fragrance,” Swinburne means spontaneity.
In the 20th century, Jonson's body of work has been subject to a more varied set of analyses, broadly consistent with the interests and programmes of modern literary criticism. In an essay printed in ''The Sacred Wood'', T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biogr ...
attempted to repudiate the charge that Jonson was an arid classicist by analysing the role of imagination in his dialogue. Eliot was appreciative of Jonson's overall conception and his "surface", a view consonant with the modernist reaction against Romantic criticism, which tended to denigrate playwrights who did not concentrate on representations of psychological depth. Around mid-century, a number of critics and scholars followed Eliot's lead, producing detailed studies of Jonson's verbal style. At the same time, study of Elizabethan themes and conventions, such as those by E. E. Stoll and M. C. Bradbrook
Muriel Clara Bradbrook (1909–1993), usually cited as M. C. Bradbrook, was a British literary scholar and authority on Shakespeare. She was Professor of English at Cambridge University, and Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge.
Biography ...
, provided a more vivid sense of how Jonson's work was shaped by the expectations of his time.
The proliferation of new critical perspectives after mid-century touched on Jonson inconsistently. Jonas Barish was the leading figure among critics who appreciated Jonson's artistry. On the other hand, Jonson received less attention from the new critics than did some other playwrights and his work was not of programmatic interest to psychoanalytic critics. But Jonson's career eventually made him a focal point for the revived sociopolitical criticism. Jonson's works, particularly his masques and pageants, offer significant information regarding the relations of literary production and political power, as do his contacts with and poems for aristocratic patrons; moreover, his career at the centre of London's emerging literary world has been seen as exemplifying the development of a fully commodified literary culture. In this respect he is seen as a transitional figure, an author whose skills and ambition led him to a leading role both in the declining culture of patronage and in the rising culture of mass media.
Poetry
Jonson has been called 'the first poet laureate'. If Jonson's reputation as a playwright has traditionally been linked to Shakespeare, his reputation as a poet has, since the early 20th century, been linked to that of John Donne
John Donne ( ; 22 January 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a cleric in the Church of England. Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's Cathedr ...
. In this comparison, Jonson represents the cavalier strain of poetry, emphasising grace and clarity of expression; Donne, by contrast, epitomised the metaphysical school of poetry, with its reliance on strained, baroque metaphors and often vague phrasing. Since the critics who made this comparison ( Herbert Grierson for example), were to varying extents rediscovering Donne, this comparison often worked to the detriment of Jonson's reputation.
In his time Jonson was at least as influential as Donne. In 1623, historian Edmund Bolton named him the best and most polished English poet. That this judgment was widely shared is indicated by the admitted influence he had on younger poets. The grounds for describing Jonson as the "father" of cavalier poets are clear: many of the cavalier poets described themselves as his "sons" or his "tribe". For some of this tribe, the connection was as much social as poetic; Herrick described meetings at "the Sun, the Dog, the Triple Tunne".[ All of them, including those like Herrick whose accomplishments in verse are generally regarded as superior to Jonson's, took inspiration from Jonson's revival of classical forms and themes, his subtle melodies, and his disciplined use of ]wit
Wit is a form of intelligent humour, the ability to say or write things that are clever and usually funny. Someone witty is a person who is skilled at making clever and funny remarks. Forms of wit include the quip, repartee, and wisecrack.
Form ...
. In these respects Jonson may be regarded as among the most important figures in the prehistory of English neoclassicism.
The best of Jonson's lyrics have remained current since his time; periodically, they experience a brief vogue, as after the publication of Peter Whalley's edition of 1756. Jonson's poetry continues to interest scholars for the light which it sheds on English literary history, such as politics, systems of patronage and intellectual attitudes. For the general reader, Jonson's reputation rests on a few lyrics that, though brief, are surpassed for grace and precision by very few Renaissance poems: "On My First Sonne
"On My First Sonne", a poem by Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised t ...
"; " To Celia"; " To Penshurst"; and the epitaph on Salomon Pavy, a boy player abducted from his parents who acted in Jonson's plays.
Jonson's works
Plays
* '' A Tale of a Tub'', comedy (c. 1596 revised performed 1633; printed 1640)
* '' The Isle of Dogs'', comedy (1597, with Thomas Nashe; lost)
* '' The Case is Altered'', comedy (c. 1597–98; printed 1609), possibly with Henry Porter and Anthony Munday
* '' Every Man in His Humour'', comedy (performed 1598; printed 1601)
* '' Every Man out of His Humour'', comedy (performed 1599; printed 1600)
* ''Cynthia's Revels
''Cynthia's Revels, or The Fountain of Self-Love'' is a late Elizabethan stage play, a satire written by Ben Jonson. The play was one element in the ''Poetomachia'' or War of the Theatres between Jonson and rival playwrights John Marston and ...
'' (performed 1600; printed 1601)
* '' The Poetaster'', comedy (performed 1601; printed 1602)
* ''Sejanus His Fall
''Sejanus His Fall'', a 1603 play by Ben Jonson, is a tragedy about Sejanus, Lucius Aelius Sejanus, the favourite of the Roman emperor Tiberius.
''Sejanus His Fall'' was performed at court in 1603, and at the Globe Theatre in 1604. The latter ...
'', tragedy (performed 1603; printed 1605)
* '' Eastward Ho'', comedy (performed and printed 1605), a collaboration with John Marston and George Chapman
* '' Volpone'', comedy (c. 1605–06; printed 1607)
* '' Epicoene, or the Silent Woman'', comedy (performed 1609; printed 1616)
* '' The Alchemist'', comedy (performed 1610; printed 1612)
* ''Catiline His Conspiracy
''Catiline His Conspiracy'' is a Jacobean tragedy written by Ben Jonson. It is one of the two Roman tragedies that Jonson hoped would cement his dramatic achievement and reputation, the other being ''Sejanus His Fall'' (1603).
Background
Jonso ...
'', tragedy (performed and printed 1611)
* '' Bartholomew Fair'', comedy (performed 31 October 1614; printed 1631)
* '' The Devil is an Ass'', comedy (performed 1616; printed 1631)
* '' The Staple of News'', comedy (completed by Feb. 1626; printed 1631)
* '' The New Inn, or The Light Heart'', comedy (licensed 19 January 1629; printed 1631)
* '' The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconciled'', comedy (licensed 12 October 1632; printed 1641)
* ''The Sad Shepherd,'' pastoral (c. 1637, printed 1641), unfinished
* '' Mortimer His Fall'', history (printed 1641), a fragment
Masques
* '' The Coronation Triumph'', or ''The King's Entertainment'' (performed 15 March 1604; printed 1604); with Thomas Dekker
* ''A Private Entertainment of the King and Queen on May-Day (The Penates)'' (1 May 1604; printed 1616)
* '' The Entertainment of the Queen and Prince Henry at Althorp (The Satyr)'' (25 June 1603; printed 1604)
* '' The Masque of Blackness'' (6 January 1605; printed 1608)
* '' Hymenaei'' (5 January 1606; printed 1606)
* '' The Entertainment of the Kings of Great Britain and Denmark (The Hours)'' (24 July 1606; printed 1616)
* '' The Masque of Beauty'' (10 January 1608; printed 1608)
* '' The Masque of Queens'' (2 February 1609; printed 1609)
* '' The Hue and Cry After Cupid'', or ''The Masque at Lord Haddington's Marriage'' (9 February 1608; printed c. 1608)
* '' The Entertainment at Britain's Burse'' (11 April 1609; lost, rediscovered 1997)
* '' The Speeches at Prince Henry's Barriers'', or ''The Lady of the Lake'' (6 January 1610; printed 1616)
* ''Oberon, the Faery Prince
''Oberon, the Faery Prince'' was a masque written by Ben Jonson, with costumes, sets and stage effects designed by Inigo Jones, and music by Alfonso Ferrabosco and Robert Johnson. ''Oberon'' saw the introduction to English Renaissance theatre o ...
'' (1 January 1611; printed 1616)
* '' Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly'' (3 February 1611; printed 1616)
* '' Love Restored'' (6 January 1612; printed 1616)
* ''A Challenge at Tilt, at a Marriage'' (27 December 1613/1 January 1614; printed 1616)
* ''The Irish Masque at Court'' (29 December 1613; printed 1616)
* '' Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists'' (6 January 1615; printed 1616)
* '' The Golden Age Restored'' (1 January 1616; printed 1616)
* ''Christmas, His Masque
''Christmas, His Masque'', also called ''Christmas His Show'', was a Jacobean-era masque, written by Ben Jonson and performed at the English royal court at Christmas of 1616. Jonson's masque displays the traditional folklore and iconography of ...
'' (Christmas 1616; printed 1641)
* '' The Vision of Delight'' (6 January 1617; printed 1641)
* ''Lovers Made Men
''Lovers Made Men'', alternatively titled ''The Masque of Lethe'' or ''The Masque at Lord Hay's'', was a Jacobean era masque, written by Ben Jonson, designed by Inigo Jones, and with music composed by Nicholas Lanier. It was performed on Satur ...
'', or ''The Masque of Lethe,'' or ''The Masque at Lord Hay's'' (22 February 1617; printed 1617)
* '' Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue'' (6 January 1618; printed 1641) The masque was a failure; Jonson revised it by placing the anti-masque first, turning it into:
* '' For the Honour of Wales'' (17 February 1618; printed 1641)
* ''News from the New World Discovered in the Moon
''News from the New World Discovered in the Moon'' was a Jacobean era masque, written by Ben Jonson; it was first performed before King James I on 7 January 1620, with a second performance on 29 February the same year. Jonson's text comments o ...
'' (7 January 1620: printed 1641)
* ''The Entertainment at Blackfriars, or The Newcastle Entertainment'' (May 1620?; MS)
* '' Pan's Anniversary, or The Shepherd's Holy-Day'' (19 June 1620?; printed 1641)
* '' The Gypsies Metamorphosed'' (3 and 5 August 1621; printed 1640)
* '' The Masque of Augurs'' (6 January 1622; printed 1622)
* ''Time Vindicated to Himself and to His Honours
''Time Vindicated to Himself and to his Honours'' was a late Jacobean era masque, written by Ben Jonson and with costumes, sets, and stage effects designed by Inigo Jones. James's son and heir Prince Charles led the dances of the principal ma ...
'' (19 January 1623; printed 1623)
* '' Neptune's Triumph for the Return of Albion'' (26 January 1624; printed 1624)
* '' The Masque of Owls at Kenilworth'' (19 August 1624; printed 1641)
* ''The Fortunate Isles and Their Union
''The Fortunate Isles and Their Union'' is a Jacobean era masque, written by Ben Jonson and designed by Inigo Jones, and performed on 9 January 1625. It was the last masque acted before King James I of England (who died two months later on 2 ...
'' (9 January 1625; printed 1625)
* '' Love's Triumph Through Callipolis'' (9 January 1631; printed 1631)
* '' Chloridia: Rites to Chloris and Her Nymphs'' (22 February 1631; printed 1631)
* '' The King's Entertainment at Welbeck in Nottinghamshire'' (21 May 1633; printed 1641)
* '' Love's Welcome at Bolsover'' (30 July 1634; printed 1641)
Other works
* ''Epigrams'' (1612)
* ''The Forest'' (1616), including ''To Penshurst''
* ''On My First Sonne'' (1616), elegy
* ''A Discourse of Love'' (1618)
* Barclay's '' Argenis'', translated by Jonson (1623)
* ''The Execration against Vulcan'' (1640)
* ''Horace's Art of Poetry'', translated by Jonson (1640), with a commendatory verse by Edward Herbert
* ''Underwood'' (1640)
* ''English Grammar'' (1640)
* ''Timber, or Discoveries made upon men and matter, as they have flowed out of his daily readings, or had their reflux to his peculiar notion of the times'', (London, 1641) a commonplace book
Commonplace books (or commonplaces) are a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into books. They have been kept from antiquity, and were kept particularly during the Renaissance and in the nineteenth century. Such books are simi ...
* '' To Celia'' ''(Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes)'', poem
It is in Jonson's ''Timber, or Discoveries...'' that he famously quipped on the manner in which language became a measure of the speaker or writer:
As with other English Renaissance dramatists, a portion of Ben Jonson's literary output has not survived. In addition to '' The Isle of Dogs'' (1597), the records suggest these lost plays as wholly or partially Jonson's work: ''Richard Crookback'' (1602); ''Hot Anger Soon Cold'' (1598), with Porter and Henry Chettle; ''Page of Plymouth'' (1599), with Dekker; and ''Robert II, King of Scots'' (1599), with Chettle and Dekker. Several of Jonson's masques and entertainments also are not extant: ''The Entertainment at Merchant Taylors'' (1607); ''The Entertainment at Salisbury House for James I'' (1608); and ''The May Lord'' (1613–19).
Finally, there are questionable or borderline attributions. Jonson may have had a hand in '' Rollo, Duke of Normandy, or The Bloody Brother'', a play in the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators. The comedy '' The Widow'' was printed in 1652 as the work of Thomas Middleton, Fletcher and Jonson, though scholars have been intensely sceptical about Jonson's presence in the play. A few attributions of anonymous plays, such as '' The London Prodigal'', have been ventured by individual researchers, but have met with cool responses.[Logan and Smith, pp. 82–92]
Notes
Citations
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* Chute, Marchette. ''Ben Jonson of Westminster.'' New York: E.P. Dutton, 1953
* Doran, Madeline. ''Endeavors of Art''. Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1954
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* Eccles, Mark. "Jonson's Marriage." ''Review of English Studies'' 12 (1936)
* Eliot, T.S. "Ben Jonson." ''The Sacred Wood''. London: Methuen, 1920
* Jonson, Ben. ''Discoveries 1641'', ed. G. B. Harrison. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966
* Jonson, Ben, David M. Bevington, Martin Butler, and Ian Donaldson. 2012. The Cambridge edition of the works of Ben Jonson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* Knights, L. C. ''Drama and Society in the Age of Jonson''. London: Chatto and Windus, 1968
* Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S. Smith. ''The New Intellectuals: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama.'' Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1975
* MacLean, Hugh, editor. ''Ben Jonson and the Cavalier Poets''. New York: Norton Press, 1974
* Ceri Sullivan, ''The Rhetoric of Credit. Merchants in Early Modern Writing'' (Madison/London: Associated University Press, 2002)
* Teague, Frances. "Ben Jonson and the Gunpowder Plot." ''Ben Jonson Journal'' 5 (1998). pp. 249–52
* Thorndike, Ashley. "Ben Jonson." ''The Cambridge History of English and American Literature''. New York: Putnam, 1907–1921
References
Further reading
Biographies of Ben Jonson
* ''Ben Jonson: His Life and Work'' by Rosalind Miles (Routledge, London 1986)
* ''Ben Jonson: His Craft and Art'' by Rosalind Miles (Routledge, London 2017)
* ''Ben Jonson: A Literary Life'' by W. David Kay (Macmillan, Basingstoke 1995)
* ''Ben Jonson: A Life'' by David Riggs
David Riggs is the vice president of philanthropic strategy at Philanthropy Roundtable. He is the former vice president of the John William Pope Foundation.
Education
Riggs earned his bachelor's degree at the University of North Carolina at Wilmi ...
(1989)
* ''Ben Jonson: A Life'' by Ian Donaldson
Ian Donaldson is a Scottish singer and writer.
Donaldson's music career spans more than 40 years. He came to prominence in the early 1980s as co-founder and lead singer of new wave band H2O, which released two UK Top 40 hits in 1983 with the ...
(2011)
External links
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The Cambridge edition of the works of Ben Jonson
* Digitised Facsimiles of Jonson's second folio, 1640/
Jonson's second folio, 1640/1
* Video interview with scholar David Bevingto
The Collected Works of Ben Jonson
Audio resources on Ben Jonson at TheEnglishCollection.com
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* Audio
Robert Pinsky reads "His Excuse For Loving"
by Ben Jonson
* Audio
Robert Pinsky reads "My Picture Left in Scotland"
by Ben Jonson
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Jonson, Ben
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