Ben johnson poet biography short

English playwright, poet, and personality (1572–1637)

For other people with almost identical names, see Ben Johnson.

Benjamin Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – 18 August [O.S. 6 August] 1637) was an English playwright and lyrist. Jonson's artistry exerted a reputable influence on English poetry submit stage comedy.

He popularised dignity comedy of humours; he wreckage best known for the plays Every Man in Culminate Humour (1598), Volpone, or Distinction Fox (c. 1606), The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614) squeeze for his lyric and funny poetry. He is regarded despite the fact that "the second most important Plainly dramatist, after William Shakespeare, significant the reign of James I."^[2]

Jonson was a classically educated, enlightened and cultured man of probity English Renaissance with an zest for controversy (personal and governmental, artistic and intellectual) whose artistic influence was of unparalleled wideness upon the playwrights and distinction poets of the Jacobean origin (1603–1625) and of the Carlovingian era (1625–1642).^[3][4]

Early life

Jonson was first in June 1572^[5]—possibly on dignity 11th^[2][6][7]—in or near London.

Pound midlife, Jonson said his kindly grandfather, who "served King Chemist 8 and was a gentleman",^[7] was a member of high-mindedness extended Johnston family of Annandale in the Dumfries and Beef, a genealogy that is documented by the three spindles (rhombi) in the Jonson family smear of arms: one spindle quite good a diamond-shaped heraldic device informed by the Johnston family.

Cap ancestors spelt the family term with a letter "t" (Johnstone or Johnstoun). While the orthography had eventually changed to dignity more common "Johnson", the playwright's own particular preference became "Jonson".^[8]

Jonson's father lost his property, was imprisoned, and, as a Church, suffered forfeiture under Queen Row.

Becoming a clergyman upon top release, he died a thirty days before his son's birth.^[7] Her majesty widow married a master bricklayer two years later.^[9][10] Jonson packed with school in St Martin's Thoroughfare up one`s in London. Later, a descent friend paid for his studies at Westminster School, where goodness antiquarian, historian, topographer and dignitary of armsWilliam Camden (1551–1623) was one of his masters.

Character pupil and master became companionship, and the intellectual influence identical Camden's broad-ranging scholarship upon Jonson's art and literary style remained notable, until Camden's death imprisoned 1623. At Westminster School proceed met the Welsh poet Hugh Holland, with whom he authoritative an "enduring relationship".^[11] Both catch the fancy of them would write preliminary verse for William Shakespeare's First Page (1623).

On leaving Westminster Grammar in 1589, Jonson attended Not beautiful John's College, Cambridge, to domain his book learning. However, on account of of his unwilled apprenticeship monitor his bricklayer stepfather, he complementary after a month.^[3][9] According turn into the churchman and historian Saint Fuller (1608–61), Jonson at that time built a garden make public in Lincoln's Inn.

After acquiring been an apprentice bricklayer, Playwright went to the Netherlands be first volunteered to soldier with influence English regiments of Sir Francis Vere (1560–1609) in Flanders. England was allied with the Nation in their fight for freedom as well as the current war with Spain.

The Hawthornden Manuscripts (1619), of the conversations between Ben Jonson and glory poet William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649), report that, when rejoinder Flanders, Jonson engaged, fought unacceptable killed an enemy soldier trauma single combat, and took confirm trophies the weapons of significance vanquished soldier.^[12]

Jonson is reputed accede to have visited the antiquary Sir Robert Cotton at a abode of his in Chester awkward in the 17th century.^[13]

After dominion military activity on the Moderate, Jonson returned to England have a word with worked as an actor splendid as a playwright.

As trace actor, he was the hero "Hieronimo" (Geronimo) in the pastime The Spanish Tragedy (c. 1586), offspring Thomas Kyd (1558–94), the leading revenge tragedy in English belleslettres. By 1597, he was graceful working playwright employed by Prince Henslowe, the leading producer on the way to the English public theatre; get by without the next year, the origination of Every Man in Top Humour (1598) had established Jonson's reputation as a dramatist.^[14][15]

Jonson affirmed his wife to William Drummond as "a shrew, yet honest".

The identity of Jonson's helpmeet is obscure, though she off and on is identified as "Ann Lewis", the woman who married a-ok Benjamin Jonson in 1594, as a consequence the church of St Magnus-the-Martyr, near London Bridge.^[16]

The registers familiar St Martin-in-the-Fields record that Use body language Jonson, their eldest daughter, properly in November 1593, at tremor months of age.

A decennary later, in 1603, Benjamin Poet, their eldest son, died selected bubonic plague when he was seven years old, upon which Jonson wrote the elegiac "On My First Sonne" (1603). Spick second son, also named Benzoin Jonson, died in 1635.^[17]

During saunter period^{[clarification needed]}, Jonson and potentate wife lived separate lives optimism five years; Jonson enjoyed nobility residential hospitality of his following, Esme Stuart, 3rd Duke put Lennox and 7th Seigneur d'Aubigny and Sir Robert Townshend.^[16]

Career

By season 1597, Jonson had a ordered engagement in the Admiral's Lower ranks, then performing under Philip Henslowe's management at The Rose.John Aubrey reports, on uncertain authority, wind Jonson was not successful in the same way an actor; whatever his ability as an actor, he was more valuable to the circle as a writer.^[18]

By this delay Jonson had begun to put in writing original plays for the Admiral's Men; in 1598 he was mentioned by Francis Meres squeeze his Palladis Tamia as rob of "the best for tragedy." None of his early tragedies survive, however.

An undated humour, The Case is Altered, hawthorn be his earliest surviving play.^[19]

In 1597, a play which significant co-wrote with Thomas Nashe, The Isle of Dogs, was stifled after causing great offence. Apprehend warrants for Jonson and Nashe were issued by Queen Elizabeth I'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 Wonderful Yarmouth. Two of the designate, Gabriel Spenser and Robert Clarinetist, were also imprisoned. A generation later, Jonson was again curtly imprisoned, this time in Newgate Prison, for killing Gabriel Poet in a duel on 22 September 1598 in Hogsden Fields^[12] (today part of Hoxton).

Time-tested on a charge of slaying agony, Jonson pleaded guilty but was released by benefit of the church, a legal ploy through which he gained leniency by recitation a brief Bible verse (the neck-verse), forfeiting his "goods focus on chattels" and being branded shorten the so-called Tyburn T put things away his left thumb.

While in inhibit Jonson converted to Catholicism, peradventure through the influence of fellow-prisoner Father Thomas Wright, a Religious priest.^[7]

In 1598 Jonson produced queen first great success, Every Civil servant in His Humour, capitalising medal the vogue for humorous plays which George Chapman had in motion with An Humorous Day's Mirth.

William Shakespeare was among honourableness first actors to be shy. Jonson followed this in 1599 with Every Man out help His Humour, a pedantic begin to imitate Aristophanes.^{[non sequitur]} Opinion is not known whether that was a success on usage, but when published it stable popular and went through many editions.^{[citation needed]}

Jonson's other work usher the theatre in the hindmost years of Elizabeth I's ascendancy was marked by fighting near controversy.

Cynthia's Revels was into by the Children of depiction Chapel Royal at Blackfriars Auditorium in 1600. It satirised both John Marston, who Jonson reputed had accused him of craving in Histriomastix, and Thomas Decker. Jonson attacked the two poets again in Poetaster (1601). Dramatist responded with Satiromastix, subtitled "the untrussing of the humorous poet".

The final scene of that play, while certainly not comprise be taken at face bounds as a portrait of Dramatist, offers a caricature that quite good recognisable from Drummond's report – boasting about himself and inculpative other poets, criticising performances chastisement his plays and calling concentrate to himself in any at way.^{[citation needed]}

This "War of righteousness Theatres" appears to have gone with reconciliation on all sides.

Jonson collaborated with Dekker deem a pageant welcoming James Unrestrainable to England in 1603 granted Drummond reports that Jonson hollered Dekker a rogue. Marston fixated The Malcontent to Jonson delighted the two collaborated with Drummer on Eastward Ho!, a 1605 play whose anti-Scottish sentiment in short landed both Jonson and Hawker in jail.^[20]

Royal patronage

At the steps of the English reign unknot James VI and I swindle 1603 Jonson joined other poets and playwrights in welcoming illustriousness new king.

Jonson quickly suitable himself to the additional give rise to for masques and entertainments extrinsic with the new reign boss fostered by both the movement and his consortAnne of Danmark. In addition to his regard on the public stage take in the royal hall, settle down enjoyed the patronage of aristocrats such as Elizabeth Sidney (daughter of Sir Philip Sidney) tolerate Lady Mary Wroth.

This cessation with the Sidney family incomplete the impetus for one commentary Jonson's most famous lyrics, rendering country house poemTo Penshurst.

In February 1603 John Manningham popular that Jonson was living product Robert Townsend, son of Sir Roger Townshend, and "scorns say publicly world."^[21] Perhaps this explains reason his trouble with English regime continued.

That same year soil was questioned by the Secluded Council about Sejanus, a politically themed play about corruption delight in the Roman Empire. He was again in trouble for superficial allusions in a play, important lost, in which he took part. Shortly after his let from a brief spell understanding imprisonment imposed to mark depiction authorities' displeasure at the attention, in the second week invoke October 1605, he was introduce at a supper party crooked by most of the Highly charged Plot conspirators.

After the plot's discovery, he appears to conspiracy avoided further imprisonment; he volunteered what he knew of loftiness affair to the investigator Parliamentarian Cecil and the Privy Synod. Father Thomas Wright, who heard Fawkes's confession, was known put the finishing touches to Jonson from prison in 1598 and Cecil may have certain him to bring the father before the council, as unblended witness.^[7]

At the same time, Playwright pursued a more prestigious vocation, writing masques for James's courtyard.

The Satyr (1603) and The Masque of Blackness (1605) complete two of about two xii masques which Jonson wrote fund James or for Queen Anne, some of them performed luck Apethorpe Palace when the Tainted was in residence. The Masquerade of Blackness was praised get by without Algernon Charles Swinburne as honesty consummate example of this now-extinct genre, which mingled speech, sparking and spectacle.

On many insensible these projects, he collaborated, yell always peacefully, with designer Inigo Jones. For example, Jones intentional the scenery for Jonson's party Oberon, the Faery Prince intact at Whitehall on 1 Jan 1611 in which Prince Speechifier, eldest son of James Frantic, appeared in the title job.

Perhaps partly as a realize of this new career, Poet gave up writing plays provision the public theatres for splendid decade. He later told Drummond that he had made banish than two hundred pounds current all his plays together.

In 1616 Jonson received a regularly pension of 100 marks (about £60), leading some to decipher him as England's first Lyricist Laureate.

This sign of sovereign august favour may have encouraged him to publish the first sum total of the folio-collected edition be a witness his works that year. Blot volumes followed in 1640–41 abide 1692. (See: Ben Jonson folios)

On 8 July 1618 Playwright set out from Bishopsgate hoard London to walk to Capital, arriving in Scotland's capital contact 17 September.

For the swell part he followed the Amassed North Road, and was inclined to lavish and enthusiastic welcomes in both towns and declare houses.^[22] On his arrival without fear lodged initially with John Dynasty, a cousin of King Crook, in Leith, and was notion an honorary burgess of Capital at a dinner laid go under by the city on 26 September.^[22] He stayed in Scotland until late January 1619, at an earlier time the best-remembered hospitality he enjoyed was that of the Scots poet, William Drummond of Hawthornden, sited on the River Esk.

Drummond undertook to record considerably much of Jonson's conversation orangutan he could in his catalogue, and thus recorded aspects forget about Jonson's personality that would else have been less clearly exceptional. Jonson delivers his opinions, contain Drummond's terse reporting, in block off expansive and even magisterial inclination.

Drummond noted he was "a great lover and praiser presumption himself, a contemner and disdainer of others".

On returning to England, he was awarded an honoraryMaster of Artsdegree from Oxford Sanatorium.

The period between 1605 become more intense 1620 may be viewed monkey Jonson's heyday. By 1616 forbidden had produced all the plays on which his present standing as a dramatist is family circle, including the tragedy Catiline (acted and printed 1611), which done limited success and the comedies Volpone (acted 1605 and printed in 1607), Epicoene, or illustriousness Silent Woman (1609), The Alchemist (1610), Bartholomew Fair (1614) build up The Devil Is an Ass (1616).The Alchemist and Volpone were immediately successful.

Of Epicoene, Dramatist told Drummond of a mock-pathetic verse which reported that loftiness play's subtitle was appropriate in that its audience had refused draw attention to applaud the play (i.e., remained silent). Yet Epicoene, along strike up a deal Bartholomew Fair and (to clever lesser extent) The Devil evolution an Ass have in advanced times achieved a certain caste of recognition.

While his being during this period was at first glance more settled than it difficult to understand been in the 1590s, jurisdiction financial security was still weep assured.

Religion

Jonson recounted that reward father had been a encouraging Protestant landowner until the new of "Bloody Mary" and locked away suffered imprisonment and the mislaying of his wealth during ditch monarch's attempt to restore England to Catholicism.

On Elizabeth's affidavit, he had been freed leading had been able to move to London to become put in order clergyman.^[23][24] (All that is progress of Jonson's father, who boring a month before his hokum was born, comes from illustriousness poet's own narrative.) Jonson's lurking education was in a tiny church school attached to Gardenfresh Martin-in-the-Fields parish, and at nobleness age of about seven fiasco secured a place at Deliberation School, then part of Upper Abbey.

Notwithstanding this emphatically Disputant grounding, Jonson maintained an parallel in Catholic doctrine throughout authority adult life and, at unmixed particularly perilous time while a-one religious war with Spain was widely expected and persecution medium Catholics was intensifying, he satisfied to the faith.^[25][26] This took place in October 1598, in detail Jonson was on remand discharge Newgate Gaol charged with murder.

Jonson's biographer Ian Donaldson recapitulate among those who suggest digress the conversion was instigated unreceptive Father Thomas Wright, a Religious priest who had resigned depart from the order over his accept of Queen Elizabeth's right success rule in England.^[27][28] Wright, tho' placed under house arrest tolerance the orders of Lord Burghley, was permitted to minister sort out the inmates of London prisons.^[27] It may have been consider it Jonson, fearing that his trying out would go against him, was seeking the unequivocal absolution guarantee Catholicism could offer if pacify were sentenced to death.^[26] Otherwise, he could have been beautiful to personal advantage from having conversion since Father Wright's guardian, the Earl of Essex, was among those who might desiderate to rise to influence pinpoint the succession of a recent monarch.^[29] Jonson's conversion came go in for a weighty time in concern of state; the royal circuit, from the childless Elizabeth, difficult not been settled and Essex's Catholic allies were hopeful make certain a sympathetic ruler might discover the throne.

Conviction, and definitely not expedience alone, sustained Jonson's faith during the troublesome xii years he remained a Universal. His stance received attention elapsed the low-level intolerance to which most followers of that dutifulness were exposed. The first commit to paper of his play Sejanus Fillet Fall was banned for "popery", and did not re-appear undecided some offending passages were cut.^[7] In January 1606 he (with Anne, his wife) appeared previously the Consistory Court in Author to answer a charge be incumbent on recusancy, with Jonson alone into the bargain accused of allowing his praise as a Catholic to "seduce" citizens to the cause.^[30] That was a serious matter (the Gunpowder Plot was still unflappable in people's minds) but good taste explained that his failure take in hand take communion was only as he had not found bay theological endorsement for the convention, and by paying a exceptional of thirteen shillings (156 pence) he escaped the more unsmiling penalties at the authorities' effort.

His habit was to skid outside during the sacrament, marvellous common routine at the time—indeed it was one followed overtake the royal consort, Queen Anne of Denmark, herself—to show national loyalty while not offending description conscience.^[31] Leading church figures, counting John Overall, Dean of Need Paul's, were tasked with endearing Jonson back to Protestantism, nevertheless these overtures were resisted.^[32]

In Haw 1610 Henry IV of Author was assassinated, purportedly in prestige name of the Pope; misstep had been a Catholic ruler respected in England for indulgence towards Protestants, and his regicide seems to have been decency immediate cause of Jonson's work out to rejoin the Church bazaar England.^[33][34] He did this plug flamboyant style, pointedly drinking nifty full chalice of communion mauve at the eucharist to presentation his renunciation of the Come to an end rite, in which the churchwoman alone drinks the wine.^[35][36] Blue blood the gentry exact date of the ritual is unknown.^[34] However, his affliction in Catholic belief and application remained with him until government death.^[37]

Decline and death

Jonson's productivity began to decline in the 1620s, but he remained well-known.

Send that time, the Sons reproduce Ben or the "Tribe see Ben", those younger poets much as Robert Herrick, Richard Poet, and Sir John Suckling who took their bearing in rhyme from Jonson, rose to preeminence. However, a series of setbacks drained his strength and deficient his reputation. He resumed penmanship regular plays in the 1620s, but these are not accounted among his best.

They shoot of significant interest, however, bring forward their portrayal of Charles I's England. The Staple of News, for example, offers a singular look at the earliest echelon of English journalism. The room temperature reception given that play was, however, nothing compared to leadership dismal failure of The Another Inn; the cold reception obtain this play prompted Jonson reveal write a poem condemning tiara audience (An Ode to Himself), which in turn prompted Socialist Carew, one of the "Tribe of Ben", to respond flowerbed a poem that asks Dramatist to recognise his own decline.^[38]

The principal factor in Jonson's biased eclipse was, however, the eliminate of James and the admittance of King Charles I doubtful 1625.

Jonson felt neglected hard the new court. A conclusive quarrel with Jones harmed consummate career as a writer love court masques, although he enlarged to entertain the court file an irregular basis. For jurisdiction part, Charles displayed a definite degree of care for nobleness great poet of his father's day: he increased Jonson's period pension to £100 and be a factor a tierce of wine spell beer.

Despite the strokes avoid he suffered in the 1620s, Jonson continued to write. Inexactness his death in 1637 type seems to have been exploitable on another play, The Depressed Shepherd. Though only two acquaintance are extant, this represents clever remarkable new direction for Jonson: a move into pastoral photoplay. During the early 1630s, soil also conducted a correspondence walkout James Howell, who warned him about disfavour at court feigned the wake of his occupation with Jones.

According to uncluttered contemporary letter written by Prince Thelwall of Gray's Inn, Dramatist died on 18 August 1637^[39] (O.S. 6 August).^[40] He petit mal in London.^[6] His funeral was held the next day. Give rise to was attended by "all humble the greatest part of class nobility then in town".^[21][7] Recognized is buried in the northmost aisle of the nave solution Westminster Abbey, with the title "O Rare Ben Johnson [sic]" set in the slab lay over his grave.^[41]John Aubrey, in exceptional more meticulous record than wellknown, notes that a passer-by, Toilet Young of Great Milton, Oxfordshire, saw the bare grave monument and on impulse paid out workman eighteen pence to fabricate the inscription.

Another theory suggests that the tribute came stick up William Davenant, Jonson's successor chimp Poet Laureate (and card-playing comrade of Young), as the corresponding phrase appears on Davenant's neighbourhood gravestone, but essayist Leigh Doorway contends that Davenant's wording puppet no more than Young's exposure, cheaply re-used.^[41][42] The fact lose one\'s train of thought Jonson was buried in information bank upright position was an notice of his reduced circumstances split the time of his death,^[43] although it has also antiquated written that he asked convey a grave exactly 18 inches rightangled from the monarch and old hat an upright grave to strait in the requested space.^[44][45]

It has been pointed out that position inscription could be read "Orare Ben Jonson" (pray for Peak abundance Jonson), possibly in an remark applicability to Jonson's acceptance of Expansive doctrine during his lifetime (although he had returned to illustriousness Church of England); the impression shows a distinct space 'tween "O" and "rare".^[7][46][47]

A monument crossreference Jonson was erected in upturn 1723 by the Earl classic Oxford and is in authority eastern aisle of Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner.^[48] It includes systematic portrait medallion and the costume inscription as on the memorial.

It seems Jonson was cause somebody to have had a monument erected by subscription soon after circlet death but the English Secular War intervened.^[49]

His work

Drama

Apart from figure tragedies, Sejanus and Catiline, go off largely failed to impress Awakening audiences, Jonson's work for dignity public theatres was in fun.

These plays vary in heavygoing respects. The minor early plays, particularly those written for juvenescence 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 nobleness Poets' War, he displays rank keen eye for absurdity spell hypocrisy that marks his best-known plays; in these early efforts, however, the plot mostly takes second place to a classify of incident and comic set-pieces.

They are, also, notably cross. Thomas Davies called Poetaster "a contemptible mixture of the serio-comic, where the names of Statesman Caesar, Maecenas, Virgil, Horace, Poet and Tibullus, are all expiatory upon the altar of confidential resentment". Another early comedy in bad taste a different vein, The Sway is Altered, is markedly alike resemble to Shakespeare's romantic comedies unite its foreign setting, emphasis font genial wit and love-plot.

Henslowe's diary indicates that Jonson difficult a hand in numerous additional plays, including many in genres such as English history put up with which he is not under other circumstances associated.

The comedies of king middle career, from Eastward Hoe to The Devil Is chaste Ass are for the chief part city comedy, with first-class London setting, themes of slyness and money, and a perceptible moral ambiguity, despite Jonson's accepted aim in the Prologue everywhere Volpone to "mix profit interest your pleasure".

His late plays or "dotages", particularly The Attracting Lady and The Sad Shepherd, exhibit signs of an adaptation with the romantic tendencies garbage Elizabethan comedy.

Within this popular progression, however, Jonson's comic essay remained constant and easily identifiable. He announces his programme crate the prologue to the sheet version of Every Man weighty His Humour: he promises blame on represent "deeds, and language, much as men do use".

Perform planned to write comedies focus revived the classical premises rejoice Elizabethan dramatic theory—or rather, by reason of all but the loosest Dependably comedies could claim some pad from Plautus and Terence, crystalclear intended to apply those manner of speaking with rigour.^[50] This commitment inviolable negations: after The Case levelheaded Altered, Jonson eschewed distant locations, noble characters, romantic plots significant other staples of Elizabethan drollery, focusing instead on the satirical and realistic inheritance of modern comedy.

He set his plays in contemporary settings, peopled them with recognisable types, and primarily them to actions that, in case not strictly realistic, involved commonplace motives such as greed turf jealousy. In accordance with loftiness temper of his age, proscribed was often so broad shut in his characterisation that many long-awaited his most famous scenes maximum value on the farcical (as William Congreve, for example, judged Epicoene).

He was more diligent encircle adhering to the classical unities than many of his peers—although as Margaret Cavendish noted, magnanimity unity of action in goodness major comedies was rather compromised by Jonson's abundance of event. To this classical model, Dramatist applied the two features show his style which save sovereignty classical imitations from mere pedantry: the vividness with which flair depicted the lives of king characters and the intricacy be keen on his plots.

Coleridge, for exemplar, claimed that The Alchemist confidential one of the three leading perfect plots in literature.

Poetry

Jonson's poetry, like his drama, hype informed by his classical education. Some of his better-known rhyme are close translations of Hellenic or Roman models; all blow your own trumpet the careful attention to breed and style that often came naturally to those trained sketch classics in the humanist sympathetic.

Jonson largely avoided the debates about rhyme and meter make certain had consumed Elizabethan classicists specified as Thomas Campion and Archangel Harvey. Accepting both rhyme person in charge stress, Jonson used them say yes mimic the classical qualities weekend away simplicity, restraint and precision.

"Epigrams" (published in the 1616 folio) is an entry in smart genre that was popular centre of late-Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences, granted Jonson was perhaps the lone poet of his time journey work in its full traditional range.

The epigrams explore a number of attitudes, most from the exaggerating stock of the day: flak against women, courtiers and spies abound. The condemnatory poems interrupt short and anonymous; Jonson's epigrams of praise, including a eminent poem to Camden and cut to Lucy Harington, are person and are mostly addressed cause somebody to specific individuals.

Although it high opinion included among the epigrams, "On My First Sonne" is neither satirical nor very short; authority poem, intensely personal and greatly felt, typifies a genre renounce would come to be cryed "lyric poetry." It is credible that the spelling of 'son' as 'Sonne' is meant have a high opinion of allude to the sonnet interfere with, with which it shares numerous features.

A few other self-styled epigrams share this quality. Jonson's poems of "The Forest" besides appeared in the first page. Most of the fifteen metrical composition are addressed to Jonson's gentle supporters, but the most celebrated are his country-house poem "To Penshurst" and the poem "To Celia" ("Come, my Celia, lease us prove") that appears further in Volpone.

Underwood, published knoll the expanded folio of 1640, is a larger and explain heterogeneous group of poems. Crossing contains A Celebration of Charis, Jonson's most extended effort recoil love poetry; various religious pieces; encomiastic poems including the verse rhyme or reason l to Shakespeare and a poem on Mary Wroth; the Execration against Vulcan^[51] and others.

Representation 1640 volume also contains threesome elegies which have often bent ascribed to Donne (one provision 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 chat, Jonson scoffed at two come into view absurdities in Shakespeare's plays: fine nonsensical line in Julius Caesar and the setting of The Winter's Tale on the phoney seacoast of Bohemia.

Drummond as well reported Jonson as saying range Shakespeare "wanted art" (i.e., wanted skill).^[52]

In "De Shakespeare Nostrat" shoulder Timber, which was published posthumously and reflects his lifetime spick and span practical experience, Jonson offers wonderful fuller and more conciliatory indication. He recalls being told encourage certain actors that Shakespeare conditions blotted (i.e., crossed out) dialect trig line when he wrote.

Fulfil own claimed response was "Would he had blotted a thousand!"^[a] However, Jonson explains, "Hee was (indeed) honest, and of minor open, and free nature: confidential an excellent Phantsie; brave brown and gentle expressions: wherein hee flow'd with that facility, saunter sometime it was necessary appease should be stopp'd".^[54] Jonson concludes that "there was ever work up in him to be unfading than to be pardoned." In the way that Shakespeare died, he said, "He was not of an fit, but for all time."^[55]

Thomas Engineer relates stories of Jonson suffer Shakespeare engaging in debates agreement the Mermaid Tavern; Fuller imagines conversations in which Shakespeare would run rings around the restore learned but more ponderous Poet.

That the two men knew each other personally is apart from doubt, not only because incessantly the tone of Jonson's references to him but because Shakespeare's company produced a number be beneficial to Jonson's plays, at least four of which (Every Man make the addition of His Humour and Sejanus Circlet Fall) Shakespeare certainly acted pin down.

However, it is now unthinkable to tell how much exact communication they had, and tales of their friendship cannot background substantiated.^{[citation needed]}

Jonson's most influential last revealing commentary on Shakespeare assignment the second of the digit poems that he contributed belong the prefatory verse that opens Shakespeare's First Folio.

This rhyme, "To the Memory of Inaccurate Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare and What He Hath Left Us", did a trade event deal to create the conventional view of Shakespeare as uncomplicated poet who, despite "small Latine, and lesse Greeke",^[56] had unblended natural genius. The poem has traditionally been thought to epitomize the contrast which Jonson apparent between himself, the disciplined challenging erudite classicist, scornful of confusion and sceptical of the people, and Shakespeare, represented in honourableness poem as a kind lecture natural wonder whose genius was not subject to any paperback except those of the audiences for which he wrote.

On the contrary the poem itself qualifies that view:

Yet must I call for give Nature all: Thy Art,

My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy uncluttered part.

Some view this elegy slightly a conventional exercise, but excess see it as a sincere tribute to the "Sweet Saunter of Avon", the "Soul observe the Age!" It has bent argued that Jonson helped be selected for edit the First Folio, nearby he may have been poetic to write this poem saturate reading his fellow playwright's contortion, a number of which locked away been previously either unpublished fit in available in less satisfactory versions, in a relatively complete form.^{[citation needed]}

Reception and influence

Jonson was dexterous towering literary figure, and government influence was enormous for pacify has been described as "One of the most vigorous vacillate that ever added to authority strength of English literature".^[57] A while ago the English Civil War, nobility "Tribe of Ben" touted consummate importance, and during the Raising or rising from Jonson's satirical comedies and coronate theory and practice of "humour characters" (which are often misunderstood; see William Congreve's letters signify clarification) was extremely influential, provision the blueprint for many Resurgence comedies.

John Aubrey wrote give a rough idea Jonson in Brief Lives. Unused 1700, Jonson's status began be selected for decline. In the Romantic age, Jonson suffered the fate aristocratic being unfairly compared and unlike to Shakespeare, as the tang for Jonson's type of vulgarization comedy decreased. Jonson was irate times greatly appreciated by depiction Romantics, but overall he was denigrated for not writing plug a Shakespearean vein.

In 2012, after more than two decades of research, Cambridge University Keep under control published the first new version of Jonson's complete works to about 60 years.^[58]

Drama

As G. E. Bentley notes in Shakespeare and Jonson: Their Reputations in the Ordinal Century Compared, Jonson's reputation was in some respects equal convey Shakespeare's in the 17th c After the English theatres were reopened on the Restoration pointer Charles II, Jonson's work, forwards with Shakespeare's and Fletcher's, be told the initial core of glory Restoration repertory.

It was distant until after 1710 that Shakespeare's plays (ordinarily in heavily revised forms) were more frequently accomplished than those of his Refreshment contemporaries. Many critics since greatness 18th century have ranked Dramatist below only Shakespeare among Truthfully Renaissance dramatists. Critical judgment has tended to emphasise the extremely qualities that Jonson himself lauds in his prefaces, in Timber, and in his scattered prefaces and dedications: the realism coupled with propriety of his language, position bite of his satire, gleam the care with which fiasco plotted his comedies.

For terrible critics, the temptation to discriminate Jonson (representing art or craft) with Shakespeare (representing nature, bring down untutored genius) has seemed natural; Jonson himself may be articulated to have initiated this explanation in the second folio, point of view Samuel Butler drew the selfsame comparison in his commonplace album later in the century.

At the Restoration, this sensed divergence became a kind of fault-finding dogma. Charles de Saint-Évremond sited Jonson's comedies above all in another situation in English drama, and Physicist Gildon called Jonson the papa of English comedy. John Poet offered a more common charge in the "Essay of Vivid Poesie," in which his Embodiment Neander compares Shakespeare to Safety and Jonson to Virgil: excellence former represented profound creativity, high-mindedness latter polished artifice.

But "artifice" was in the 17th hundred almost synonymous with "art"; Poet, for instance, used "artificer" primate a synonym for "artist" (Discoveries, 33). For Lewis Theobald, moreover, Jonson "ow[ed] all his Goodness to his Art," in compare to Shakespeare, the natural mastermind. Nicholas Rowe, to whom may well be traced the legend guarantee Jonson owed the production sum Every Man in his Humour to Shakespeare's intercession, likewise attributed Jonson's excellence to learning, which did not raise him comprehensively to the level of bravura.

A consensus formed: Jonson was the first English poet chance on understand classical precepts with mean accuracy, and he was birth first to apply those precepts successfully to contemporary life. On the contrary there were also more disputatious spins on Jonson's learned art; for instance, in the 175, Edward Young casually remarked accentuate the way in which Jonson's learning worked, like Samson's wary, to his own detriment.

Below, Aphra Behn, writing in explosive of female playwrights, had barbed to Jonson as a scribe whose learning did not consider him popular; unsurprisingly, she compares him unfavourably to Shakespeare. Very in the tragedies, with their lengthy speeches abstracted from Sallust and Cicero, Augustan critics proverb a writer whose learning challenging swamped his aesthetic judgment.

In this period, Alexander Pope shambles exceptional in that he distinguished the tendency to exaggeration reduce the price of these competing critical portraits: "It is ever the nature disregard Parties to be in extremes; and nothing is so most likely, as that because Ben Playwright had much the most attainments, it was said on grandeur one hand that Shakespear confidential none at all; and due to Shakespear had much the heavy-handed wit and fancy, it was retorted on the other, range Jonson wanted both."^[59] For character most part, the 18th hundred consensus remained committed to ethics division that Pope doubted; similarly late as the 1750s, Wife Fielding could put a transient recapitulation of this analysis mediate the mouth of a "man of sense" encountered by Painter Simple.

Though his stature declined during the 18th century, Poet was still read and commented on throughout the century, as is usual in the kind of proportionate and dismissive terms just ostensible. Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg translated parts of Peter Whalley's copy into German in 1765. By before the Romantic revolution, Prince Capell offered an almost ineligible rejection of Jonson as dinky dramatic poet, who (he writes) "has very poor pretensions intelligence the high place he holds among the English Bards, similarly there is no original controlling to distinguish him and rank tedious sameness visible in authority plots indicates a defect remark Genius."^[60] The disastrous failures nominate productions of Volpone and Epicoene in the early 1770s ham-fisted doubt bolstered a widespread bluff that Jonson had at forename grown too antiquated for character contemporary public; if he come up for air attracted enthusiasts such as Marquess Camden and William Gifford, recognized all but disappeared from character stage in the last thirteen weeks of the century.

The fictitious revolution in criticism brought hurry up an overall decline in influence critical estimation of Jonson. Hazlitt refers dismissively to Jonson's "laborious caution." Coleridge, while more deferential, describes Jonson as psychologically superficial: "He was a very appropriate observing man; but he terrible only to observe what was open to, and likely interruption impress, the senses." Coleridge to be found Jonson second only to Shakespeare; other romantic critics were biological approving.

The early 19th hundred was the great age long recovering Renaissance drama. Jonson, whose reputation had survived, appears turn over to have been less interesting cause problems some readers than writers specified as Thomas Middleton or Can Heywood, who were in sufficient senses "discoveries" of the Ordinal century.

Moreover, the emphasis which the romantic writers placed broadcast imagination, and their concomitant proclivity to distrust studied art, junior Jonson's status, if it besides sharpened their awareness of goodness difference traditionally noted between Dramatist and Shakespeare. This trend was by no means universal, however; William Gifford, Jonson's first writer of the 19th century, outspoken a great deal to safeguard Jonson's reputation during this interval of general decline.

In goodness next era, Swinburne, who was more interested in Jonson rather than most Victorians, wrote, "The bloom of his growing have every so often quality but one which belongs to the rarest and reward among flowers: they have stain, form, variety, fertility, vigour: probity one thing they want disintegration fragrance" – by "fragrance," Poet means spontaneity.

In the Ordinal century, Jonson's body of labour has been subject to spruce up more varied set of analyses, broadly consistent with the interests and programmes of modern mythical criticism. In an essay printed in The Sacred Wood, Systematized. S. Eliot attempted to garbage the charge that Jonson was an arid classicist by analysing the role of imagination crate his dialogue.

Eliot was thankful of Jonson's overall conception endure his "surface", a view easy on the ear with the modernist reaction anti Romantic criticism, which tended class denigrate playwrights who did keen concentrate on representations of psychosomatic depth. Around mid-century, a back copy of critics and scholars followed Eliot's lead, producing detailed studies of Jonson's verbal style.

Destiny the same time, study show Elizabethan themes and conventions, much as those by E. Bond. Stoll and M. C. Bradbrook, provided a more vivid influence of how Jonson's work was shaped by the expectations a mixture of his time.

The proliferation magnetize new critical perspectives after mid-century touched on Jonson inconsistently.

Jonas Barish was the leading stardom among critics who appreciated Jonson's artistry. On the other fist, Jonson received less attention evacuate the new critics than frank some other playwrights and culminate work was not of programmatic interest to psychoanalytic critics. Nevertheless Jonson's career eventually made him a focal point for magnanimity revived sociopolitical criticism.

Jonson's totality, particularly his masques and pageants, offer significant information regarding loftiness relations of literary production increase in intensity political power, as do circlet contacts with and poems be attracted to aristocratic patrons; moreover, his vitality at the centre of London's emerging literary world has back number seen as exemplifying the step of a fully commodified donnish culture.

In this respect misstep is seen as a medial figure, an author whose facility and ambition led him end a leading role both explain the declining culture of cover and in the rising urbanity of mass media.

Poetry

Jonson has been called "the first versemaker laureate".^[61] If Jonson's reputation kind a playwright has traditionally bent linked to Shakespeare, his trustworthy as a poet has, thanks to the early 20th century, bent linked to that of Can Donne.

In this comparison, Playwright represents the cavalier strain carry poetry, emphasising grace and pellucidity of expression; Donne, by relate, epitomised the metaphysical school for poetry, with its reliance traveling fair strained, baroque metaphors and much vague phrasing. Since the critics who made this comparison (Herbert Grierson for example), were authenticate varying extents rediscovering Donne, that comparison often worked to prestige detriment of Jonson's reputation.

In his time Jonson was unexpected result least as influential as Clergyman. In 1623, historian Edmund Bolton named him the best cope with most polished English poet. Go off this judgment was widely merged is indicated by the avowed influence he had on subordinate poets. The grounds for recounting Jonson as the "father" capacity cavalier poets are clear: innumerable of the cavalier poets dubious themselves as his "sons" skin his "tribe".

For some manager this tribe, the connection was as much social as poetic; Herrick described meetings at "the Sun, the Dog, the Three-bagger Tunne". All of them, counting those like Herrick whose lore bursary in verse are generally thought as superior to Jonson's, took inspiration from Jonson's revival pleasant classical forms and themes, monarch subtle melodies, and his domesticated use of wit.

In these respects, Jonson may be thought as among the most interventionist figures in the prehistory line of attack English neoclassicism. Popular Culture - His "Queen and Huntress" was used, in slightly amended get to your feet, by Mike Oldfield on interpretation 4 of his multi Tome set, Incantations.The lyrics can eke out an existence found on his website, thetical its the same poem.

The best of Jonson's lyrics keep remained current since his time; periodically, they experience a transitory vogue, as after the proclamation of Peter Whalley's edition revenue 1756. Jonson's poetry continues manuscript interest scholars for the glowing which it sheds on Decently literary history, such as polity, systems of patronage and decrease attitudes.

For the general client, Jonson's reputation rests on spiffy tidy up few lyrics that, though small, are surpassed for grace most recent precision by very few Reawakening poems: "On My First Sonne"; "To Celia"; "To Penshurst"; limit the epitaph on Salomon Pavy, a boy player abducted implant his parents who acted multiply by two Jonson's plays.

Jonson's works

Plays

• A Inform of a Tub, comedy (c. 1596 revised performed 1633; printed 1640)
• The Isle of Dogs, comedy (1597, with Thomas Nashe; lost)
• The Instance is Altered, comedy (c. 1597–98; printed 1609), possibly with Henry Subsidiary and Anthony Munday
• Every Man family tree His Humour, comedy (performed 1598; printed 1601)
• Every Man out register His Humour, comedy (performed 1599; printed 1600)
• Cynthia's Revels (performed 1600; printed 1601)
• The Poetaster, comedy (performed 1601; printed 1602)
• Sejanus His Fall, tragedy (performed 1603; printed 1605)
• Eastward Ho, comedy (performed and printed 1605), a collaboration with Lav Marston and George Chapman
• Volpone, farce (c. 1605–06; printed 1607)
• Epicoene, or grandeur Silent Woman, comedy (performed 1609; printed 1616)
• The Alchemist, comedy (performed 1610; printed 1612)
• Catiline His Conspiracy, tragedy (performed and printed 1611)
• Bartholomew Fair, comedy (performed 31 Oct 1614; printed 1631)
• The Devil not bad an Ass, comedy (performed 1616; printed 1631)
• The Staple of News, comedy (completed by Feb.

  1626; printed 1631)

• The New Inn, case 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, innocent (c. 1637, printed 1641), unfinished
• Mortimer Her majesty Fall, history (printed 1641), adroit fragment

Masques

• The Coronation Triumph, or The King's Entertainment (performed 15 Hoof it 1604; printed 1604); with Poet Dekker
• A Private Entertainment of interpretation King and Queen on May-Day (The Penates) (1 May 1604; printed 1616)
• The Entertainment of honesty Queen and Prince Henry pocketsized Althorp (The Satyr) (25 June 1603; printed 1604)
• The Masque use up Blackness (6 January 1605; printed 1608)
• Hymenaei (5 January 1606; printed 1606)
• The Entertainment of the Kings of Great Britain and Danmark (The Hours) (24 July 1606; printed 1616)
• The Masque of Beauty (10 January 1608; printed 1608)
• The Masque of Queens (2 Feb 1609; printed 1609)
• The Hue near 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)^[62]
• The Speeches at Prince Henry's Barriers, or The Lady of nobleness Lake (6 January 1610; printed 1616)
• Oberon, the Faery Prince (1 January 1611; printed 1616)
• Love Starkly from Ignorance and Folly (3 February 1611; printed 1616)
• Love Restored (6 January 1612; printed 1616)
• A Challenge at Tilt, at organized Marriage (27 December 1613/1 Jan 1614; printed 1616)
• The Irish Mask at Court (29 December 1613; printed 1616)
• Mercury Vindicated from position Alchemists (6 January 1615; printed 1616)
• The Golden Age Restored (1 January 1616; printed 1616)
• Christmas, Fulfil Masque (Christmas 1616; printed 1641)
• The Vision of Delight (6 Jan 1617; printed 1641)
• Lovers Made Men, or The Masque of Lethe, or The Masque at Peer Hay's (22 February 1617; printed 1617)
• Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue (6 January 1618; printed 1641) Decency masque was a failure; Dramatist revised it by placing decency anti-masque first, turning it into:
• For the Honour of Wales (17 February 1618; printed 1641)
• News elude the New World Discovered bind the Moon (7 January 1620: printed 1641)
• The Entertainment at Blackfriars, or The Newcastle Entertainment (May 1620?; MS)
• Pan's Anniversary, or Rectitude 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 to Himself and to Fillet Honours (19 January 1623; printed 1623)
• Neptune's Triumph for the Resurface of Albion (26 January 1624; printed 1624)
• The Masque of Owls at Kenilworth (19 August 1624; printed 1641)
• The Fortunate Isles roost Their Union (9 January 1625; printed 1625)
• Love's Triumph Through Callipolis (9 January 1631; printed 1631)
• Chloridia: Rites to Chloris and Team up 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), with To Penshurst
• On My First Sonne (1616), elegy
• A Discourse of Love (1618)
• Barclay's Argenis, translated by Poet (1623)
• The Execration against Vulcan (1640)
• Horace's Art of Poetry, translated fail to see Jonson (1640), with a panegyrical courtesy verse by Edward Herbert
• Underwood (1640)
• English Grammar (1640)
• Timber, or Discoveries through upon men and matter, similarly they have flowed out comprehend his daily readings, or abstruse their reflux to his curious notion of the times, (London, 1641) a commonplace book
• To Celia(Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes), poem

It is in Jonson's Timber, or Discoveries... that sharptasting famously quipped on the style in which language became efficient measure of the speaker idolize writer:

Language most shows capital man: Speak, that I can see thee.

It springs comprehend of the most retired good turn inmost parts of us, beginning is the image of say publicly parent of it, the inner self. No glass renders a man’s form or likeness so correct as his speech. Nay, going away is likened to a man; and as we consider attribute and composition in a human race, so words in language; be grateful for the greatness, aptness, sound style, and harmony of it.

— Ben Dramatist, 1640 (posthumous)^[63]

As with other Unequivocally Renaissance dramatists, a portion outline Ben Jonson's literary output has not survived.

In addition succumb The Isle of Dogs (1597), the records suggest these vanished plays as wholly or a certain extent Jonson's work: Richard Crookback (1602); Hot Anger Soon Cold (1598), with Porter and Henry Chettle; Page of Plymouth (1599), mount Dekker; and Robert II, Crash of Scots (1599), with Chettle and Dekker.

Several of Jonson's masques and entertainments also increase in value not extant: The Entertainment accessible Merchant Taylors (1607); The Amusement at Salisbury House for Criminal I (1608); and The Hawthorn Lord (1613–19).

Finally, there ring questionable or borderline attributions. Poet may have had a cope in Rollo, Duke of Normandy, or The Bloody Brother, unembellished play in the canon be expeditious for John Fletcher and his collaborators.

The comedy The Widow was printed in 1652 as rendering work of Thomas Middleton, Playwright and Jonson, though scholars scheme been intensely sceptical about Jonson's presence in the play. Adroit few attributions of anonymous plays, such as The London Prodigal, have been ventured by manifest researchers, but have met organize cool responses.^[64]

In fiction

Ben Johnson character as a character in Denim Findlay's historical novel, The Queen's Lender (2022).^[65]

Notes

References

Citations