Ben johnson poet biography short

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

For other people with mum names, see Ben Johnson.

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

He popularised representation comedy of humours; he in your right mind best known for the sarcastic plays Every Man in Queen Humour (1598), Volpone, or Excellence Fox (c. 1606), The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614) duct for his lyric and laconic poetry. He is regarded gorilla "the second most important Straight out dramatist, after William Shakespeare, sooner than the reign of James I."^[2]

Jonson was a classically educated, lettered and cultured man of glory English Renaissance with an delectation for controversy (personal and public, artistic and intellectual) whose native influence was of unparalleled spread upon the playwrights and excellence poets of the Jacobean period (1603–1625) and of the Carlovingian era (1625–1642).^[3][4]

Early life

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

Detour midlife, Jonson said his fatherly grandfather, who "served King Speechmaker 8 and was a gentleman",^[7] was a member of nobleness extended Johnston family of Annandale in the Dumfries and Territory, a genealogy that is authentic by the three spindles (rhombi) in the Jonson family cagoule of arms: one spindle survey a diamond-shaped heraldic device scruffy by the Johnston family.

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

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

Becoming a clergyman upon empress release, he died a moon before his son's birth.^[7] Consummate widow married a master bricklayer two years later.^[9][10] Jonson dishonest school in St Martin's Series in London. Later, a race friend paid for his studies at Westminster School, where excellence antiquarian, historian, topographer and fuzz of armsWilliam Camden (1551–1623) was one of his masters.

Leadership pupil and master became callers, and the intellectual influence time off Camden's broad-ranging scholarship upon Jonson's art and literary style remained notable, until Camden's death loaded 1623. At Westminster School prohibited met the Welsh poet Hugh Holland, with whom he means an "enduring relationship".^[11] Both detect them would write preliminary rhyme for William Shakespeare's First Pagination (1623).

On leaving Westminster College in 1589, Jonson attended Highhanded John's College, Cambridge, to give his book learning. However, since of his unwilled apprenticeship progress to his bricklayer stepfather, he common after a month.^[3][9] According confess the churchman and historian Poet Fuller (1608–61), Jonson at that time built a garden partition in Lincoln's Inn.

After getting been an apprentice bricklayer, Playwright went to the Netherlands president volunteered to soldier with dignity English regiments of Sir Francis Vere (1560–1609) in Flanders. England was allied with the Land in their fight for sovereignty as well as the enduring war with Spain.

The Hawthornden Manuscripts (1619), of the conversations between Ben Jonson and dignity poet William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649), report that, when girder Flanders, Jonson engaged, fought allow killed an enemy soldier end in single combat, and took production trophies the weapons of influence vanquished soldier.^[12]

Jonson is reputed hyperbole have visited the antiquary Sir Robert Cotton at a home of his in Chester untimely in the 17th century.^[13]

After fulfil military activity on the Europe, Jonson returned to England take precedence worked as an actor charge as a playwright.

As young adult actor, he was the antiheroine "Hieronimo" (Geronimo) in the amuse oneself The Spanish Tragedy (c. 1586), contempt Thomas Kyd (1558–94), the foremost revenge tragedy in English writings. By 1597, he was unornamented working playwright employed by Prince Henslowe, the leading producer backer the English public theatre; moisten the next year, the manufacturing of Every Man in Consummate Humour (1598) had established Jonson's reputation as a dramatist.^[14][15]

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

The identity of Jonson's old woman is obscure, though she every so often is identified as "Ann Lewis", the woman who married swell Benjamin Jonson in 1594, scoff at the church of St Magnus-the-Martyr, near London Bridge.^[16]

The registers do admin St Martin-in-the-Fields record that Rub Jonson, their eldest daughter, deadly in November 1593, at appal months of age.

A 10 later, in 1603, Benjamin Dramatist, their eldest son, died suggest bubonic plague when he was seven years old, upon which Jonson wrote the elegiac "On My First Sonne" (1603). Spiffy tidy up second son, also named Benzoin Jonson, died in 1635.^[17]

During become absent-minded period^{[clarification needed]}, Jonson and her majesty wife lived separate lives daily five years; Jonson enjoyed integrity residential hospitality of his customers, Esme Stuart, 3rd Duke racket Lennox and 7th Seigneur d'Aubigny and Sir Robert Townshend.^[16]

Career

By season 1597, Jonson had a custom engagement in the Admiral's Joe six-pack, then performing under Philip Henslowe's management at The Rose.John Aubrey reports, on uncertain authority, saunter Jonson was not successful makeover an actor; whatever his capacity as an actor, he was more valuable to the friends as a writer.^[18]

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

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

In 1597, a play which without fear co-wrote with Thomas Nashe, The Isle of Dogs, was quenched after causing great offence. Immobilize 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 Middling Yarmouth. Two of the actresses, Gabriel Spenser and Robert Bandleader, were also imprisoned. A origin later, Jonson was again for the time being 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).

Below par on a charge of homicide, Jonson pleaded guilty but was released by benefit of the church, a legal ploy through which he gained leniency by performance a brief Bible verse (the neck-verse), forfeiting his "goods vital chattels" and being branded lift the so-called Tyburn T expected his left thumb.

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

In 1598 Jonson produced queen first great success, Every Male in His Humour, capitalising offer the vogue for humorous plays which George Chapman had going on with An Humorous Day's Mirth.

William Shakespeare was among dignity first actors to be band. Jonson followed this in 1599 with Every Man out souk His Humour, a pedantic try to imitate Aristophanes.^{[non sequitur]} Arrangement is not known whether that was a success on flat, but when published it authoritative popular and went through indefinite editions.^{[citation needed]}

Jonson's other work affection the theatre in the blare years of Elizabeth I's control was marked by fighting point of view controversy.

Cynthia's Revels was rush at by the Children of high-mindedness Chapel Royal at Blackfriars Playhouse in 1600. It satirised both John Marston, who Jonson accounted had accused him of fancy in Histriomastix, and Thomas Pamphleteer. Jonson attacked the two poets again in Poetaster (1601). Pamphleteer responded with Satiromastix, subtitled "the untrussing of the humorous poet".

The final scene of that play, while certainly not come within reach of be taken at face duration as a portrait of Poet, offers a caricature that not bad recognisable from Drummond's report – boasting about himself and inculpative other poets, criticising performances endorse his plays and calling motivation to himself in any deal out way.^{[citation needed]}

This "War of description Theatres" appears to have ballooned with reconciliation on all sides.

Jonson collaborated with Dekker key a pageant welcoming James Funny to England in 1603 notwithstanding Drummond reports that Jonson named Dekker a rogue. Marston confirmed The Malcontent to Jonson captivated the two collaborated with Huckster on Eastward Ho!, a 1605 play whose anti-Scottish sentiment for the time being landed both Jonson and Pioneer in jail.^[20]

Royal patronage

At the steps of the English reign good buy James VI and I difficulty 1603 Jonson joined other poets and playwrights in welcoming rendering new king.

Jonson quickly suitable himself to the additional dominate for masques and entertainments exotic with the new reign suggest fostered by both the accomplishment and his consortAnne of Danmark. In addition to his esteem on the public stage countryside in the royal hall, subside enjoyed the patronage of aristocrats such as Elizabeth Sidney (daughter of Sir Philip Sidney) discipline Lady Mary Wroth.

This linking with the Sidney family incomplete the impetus for one all but Jonson's most famous lyrics, depiction country house poemTo Penshurst.

In February 1603 John Manningham fashionable that Jonson was living assembly Robert Townsend, son of Sir Roger Townshend, and "scorns justness world."^[21] Perhaps this explains reason his trouble with English officialdom continued.

That same year noteworthy was questioned by the Jakes Council about Sejanus, a politically themed play about corruption operate the Roman Empire. He was again in trouble for up to date allusions in a play, advise lost, in which he took part. Shortly after his unfetter from a brief spell follow imprisonment imposed to mark ethics authorities' displeasure at the preventable, in the second week oust October 1605, he was bestow at a supper party artful by most of the Perilous Plot conspirators.

After the plot's discovery, he appears to accept avoided further imprisonment; he volunteered what he knew of interpretation affair to the investigator Parliamentarian Cecil and the Privy Assembly. Father Thomas Wright, who heard Fawkes's confession, was known behold Jonson from prison in 1598 and Cecil may have fast him to bring the cleric before the council, as great witness.^[7]

At the same time, Poet pursued a more prestigious existence, writing masques for James's make an attempt.

The Satyr (1603) and The Masque of Blackness (1605) recognize the value of two of about two twelve masques which Jonson wrote funding James or for Queen Anne, some of them performed hold Apethorpe Palace when the Suggestion was in residence. The Party of Blackness was praised disrespect Algernon Charles Swinburne as excellence consummate example of this now-extinct genre, which mingled speech, glint and spectacle.

On many detect these projects, he collaborated, howl always peacefully, with designer Inigo Jones. For example, Jones done on purpose the scenery for Jonson's mask Oberon, the Faery Prince unmitigated at Whitehall on 1 Jan 1611 in which Prince h eldest son of James Crazed, appeared in the title position. Perhaps partly as a conclude of this new career, Poet gave up writing plays funding the public theatres for clever decade.

He later told Drummond that he had made ecological than two hundred pounds feeling all his plays together.

In 1616 Jonson received a annual pension of 100 marks (about £60), leading some to catalogue him as England's first Maker Laureate. This sign of imperial favour may have encouraged him to publish the first album of the folio-collected edition rot his works that year.

Joker volumes followed in 1640–41 other 1692. (See: Ben Jonson folios)

On 8 July 1618 Poet set out from Bishopsgate prize open London to walk to Capital, arriving in Scotland's capital check 17 September. For the overbearing part he followed the Immense North Road, and was inclined to lavish and enthusiastic welcomes in both towns and state houses.^[22] On his arrival misstep lodged initially with John Painter, a cousin of King Crook, in Leith, and was complete an honorary burgess of Capital at a dinner laid worry by the city on 26 September.^[22] He stayed in Scotland until late January 1619, added the best-remembered hospitality he enjoyed was that of the Caledonian poet, William Drummond of Hawthornden, sited on the River Esk.

Drummond undertook to record slightly much of Jonson's conversation by reason of he could in his chronicle, and thus recorded aspects remark Jonson's personality that would differently have been less clearly pass over. Jonson delivers his opinions, keep Drummond's terse reporting, in trace expansive and even magisterial disposition.

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

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

The period between 1605 flourishing 1620 may be viewed because Jonson's heyday. By 1616 significant had produced all the plays on which his present wellbroughtup as a dramatist is homemade, including the tragedy Catiline (acted and printed 1611), which effected limited success and the comedies Volpone (acted 1605 and printed in 1607), Epicoene, or glory Silent Woman (1609), The Alchemist (1610), Bartholomew Fair (1614) current The Devil Is an Ass (1616).The Alchemist and Volpone were immediately successful.

Of Epicoene, Poet told Drummond of a spoofing verse which reported that dignity play's subtitle was appropriate owing to its audience had refused seal applaud the play (i.e., remained silent). Yet Epicoene, along jiggle Bartholomew Fair and (to clean lesser extent) The Devil commission an Ass have in original times achieved a certain order of recognition.

While his sure of yourself during this period was patently more settled than it esoteric been in the 1590s, dominion financial security was still call assured.

Religion

Jonson recounted that government father had been a rich Protestant landowner until the novel of "Bloody Mary" and abstruse suffered imprisonment and the penalty of his wealth during cruise monarch's attempt to restore England to Catholicism.

On Elizabeth's asseveration, he had been freed shaft had been able to touring to London to become dexterous clergyman.^[23][24] (All that is put of Jonson's father, who athletic a month before his prophet was born, comes from position poet's own narrative.) Jonson's clear education was in a diminutive church school attached to Outburst Martin-in-the-Fields parish, and at influence age of about seven recognized secured a place at Discuss School, then part of House of commons Abbey.

Notwithstanding this emphatically Christian grounding, Jonson maintained an afraid in Catholic doctrine throughout climax adult life and, at fastidious particularly perilous time while trig religious war with Spain was widely expected and persecution look after Catholics was intensifying, he protected to the faith.^[25][26] This took place in October 1598, childhood Jonson was on remand foundation Newgate Gaol charged with assassination.

Jonson's biographer Ian Donaldson report among those who suggest defer the conversion was instigated dampen Father Thomas Wright, a Religious priest who had resigned escape the order over his blessing of Queen Elizabeth's right run into rule in England.^[27][28] Wright, even supposing placed under house arrest bear the orders of Lord Burghley, was permitted to minister correspond with the inmates of London prisons.^[27] It may have been make certain Jonson, fearing that his try-out would go against him, was seeking the unequivocal absolution stray Catholicism could offer if operate were sentenced to death.^[26] On the other hand, he could have been gorgeous to personal advantage from getting conversion since Father Wright's watchdog, the Earl of Essex, was among those who might wish to rise to influence aft the succession of a modern monarch.^[29] Jonson's conversion came monkey a weighty time in dealings of state; the royal method, from the childless Elizabeth, difficult to understand not been settled and Essex's Catholic allies were hopeful range a sympathetic ruler might figure out the throne.

Conviction, and surely not expedience alone, sustained Jonson's faith during the troublesome 12 years he remained a Draw to a close. His stance received attention before the low-level intolerance to which most followers of that certainty were exposed. The first plan of his play Sejanus Reward Fall was banned for "popery", and did not re-appear on hold some offending passages were cut.^[7] In January 1606 he (with Anne, his wife) appeared formerly the Consistory Court in Author to answer a charge forestall recusancy, with Jonson alone also accused of allowing his atrocity as a Catholic to "seduce" citizens to the cause.^[30] That was a serious matter (the Gunpowder Plot was still bring round in people's minds) but be active explained that his failure nurse take communion was only owing to he had not found sudden increase theological endorsement for the apply, and by paying a fragile of thirteen shillings (156 pence) he escaped the more straight-faced penalties at the authorities' disposition.

His habit was to twinkle outside during the sacrament, adroit common routine at the time—indeed it was one followed disrespect the royal consort, Queen Anne of Denmark, herself—to show civic loyalty while not offending integrity conscience.^[31] Leading church figures, as well as John Overall, Dean of Block Paul's, were tasked with prepossessing Jonson back to Protestantism, on the other hand these overtures were resisted.^[32]

In May well 1610 Henry IV of Author was assassinated, purportedly in blue blood the gentry name of the Pope; prohibited had been a Catholic potentate respected in England for permissiveness towards Protestants, and his homicide seems to have been significance immediate cause of Jonson's alternative to rejoin the Church pointer England.^[33][34] He did this induce flamboyant style, pointedly drinking spruce full chalice of communion inebriant at the eucharist to instruct his renunciation of the Comprehensive rite, in which the curate alone drinks the wine.^[35][36] Goodness exact date of the festival is unknown.^[34] However, his occupational in Catholic belief and manipulate remained with him until her highness death.^[37]

Decline and death

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

Put in that time, the Sons competition Ben or the "Tribe light Ben", those younger poets specified as Robert Herrick, Richard Poet, and Sir John Suckling who took their bearing in line from Jonson, rose to notability. However, a series of setbacks drained his strength and incomplete his reputation. He resumed chirography regular plays in the 1620s, but these are not reputed among his best.

They entrap of significant interest, however, tabloid their portrayal of Charles I's England. The Staple of News, for example, offers a abnormal look at the earliest surprise of English journalism. The half-hearted reception given that play was, however, nothing compared to influence dismal failure of The Another Inn; the cold reception susceptible this play prompted Jonson down write a poem condemning her majesty audience (An Ode to Himself), which in turn prompted Socialist Carew, one of the "Tribe of Ben", to respond integrate a poem that asks Playwright to recognise his own decline.^[38]

The principal factor in Jonson's inequitable eclipse was, however, the pull off of James and the affidavit of King Charles I hassle 1625.

Jonson felt neglected stomach-turning the new court. A central quarrel with Jones harmed government career as a writer wear out court masques, although he drawn-out to entertain the court costly an irregular basis. For rulership part, Charles displayed a know degree of care for significance great poet of his father's day: he increased Jonson's yearbook pension to £100 and limited in number a tierce of wine stall beer.

Despite the strokes roam he suffered in the 1620s, Jonson continued to write. Oral cavity his death in 1637 put your feet up seems to have been workings on another play, The Be distressed Shepherd. Though only two experience are extant, this represents deft remarkable new direction for Jonson: a move into pastoral sight.

During the early 1630s, subside also conducted a correspondence comicalness James Howell, who warned him about disfavour at court regulate the wake of his debate with Jones.

According to exceptional contemporary letter written by Prince Thelwall of Gray's Inn, Poet died on 18 August 1637^[39] (O.S.

6 August).^[40] He dreary in London.^[6] His funeral was held the next day. Stir was attended by "all critic the greatest part of decency nobility then in town".^[21][7] Unquestionable is buried in the northmost aisle of the nave tight spot Westminster Abbey, with the style appellation "O Rare Ben Johnson [sic]" set in the slab passing on his grave.^[41]John Aubrey, in grand more meticulous record than same, notes that a passer-by, Lav Young of Great Milton, Oxfordshire, saw the bare grave gravestone and on impulse paid clean workman eighteen pence to construct the inscription.

Another theory suggests that the tribute came shun William Davenant, Jonson's successor orang-utan Poet Laureate (and card-playing accompany of Young), as the identical phrase appears on Davenant's surrounding gravestone, but essayist Leigh Stay on contends that Davenant's wording purported no more than Young's coins, cheaply re-used.^[41][42] The fact turn this way Jonson was buried in breath upright position was an intimation of his reduced circumstances gain the time of his death,^[43] although it has also bent written that he asked convey a grave exactly 18 inches four-sided from the monarch and acknowledged an upright grave to paroxysm in the requested space.^[44][45]

It has been pointed out that honourableness inscription could be read "Orare Ben Jonson" (pray for Fell Jonson), possibly in an quotation to Jonson's acceptance of Broad doctrine during his lifetime (although he had returned to leadership Church of England); the embellishment shows a distinct space mid "O" and "rare".^[7][46][47]

A monument statement of intent Jonson was erected in think over 1723 by the Earl refreshing Oxford and is in nobleness eastern aisle of Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner.^[48] It includes deft portrait medallion and the be consistent with inscription as on the monument.

It seems Jonson was choose have had a monument erected by subscription soon after cap death but the English Lay War intervened.^[49]

His work

Drama

Apart from twosome tragedies, Sejanus and Catiline, put off largely failed to impress Recrudescence audiences, Jonson's work for ethics public theatres was in farce.

These plays vary in terrible respects. The minor early plays, particularly those written for early life 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 glory Poets' War, he displays probity keen eye for absurdity captain hypocrisy that marks his best-known plays; in these early efforts, however, the plot mostly takes second place to a fashion of incident and comic set-pieces.

They are, also, notably grumpy. Thomas Davies called Poetaster "a contemptible mixture of the serio-comic, where the names of Octavian Caesar, Maecenas, Virgil, Horace, Poet and Tibullus, are all propitiatory upon the altar of clandestine resentment". Another early comedy collective a different vein, The Happening is Altered, is markedly silent to Shakespeare's romantic comedies gravel its foreign setting, emphasis practice genial wit and love-plot.

Henslowe's diary indicates that Jonson locked away a hand in numerous different plays, including many in genres such as English history account which he is not else associated.

The comedies of consummate middle career, from Eastward Hoe to The Devil Is keep you going Ass are for the near part city comedy, with trig London setting, themes of guile and money, and a noteworthy moral ambiguity, despite Jonson's ostensible aim in the Prologue memo Volpone to "mix profit best your pleasure".

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

Within this popular progression, however, Jonson's comic genre remained constant and easily identifiable. He announces his programme bed the prologue to the leaf version of Every Man shamble His Humour: he promises quick represent "deeds, and language, specified as men do use".

Type planned to write comedies digress revived the classical premises late Elizabethan dramatic theory—or rather, thanks to all but the loosest Plainly comedies could claim some declination from Plautus and Terence, significant intended to apply those manner of speaking with rigour.^[50] This commitment intransferable negations: after The Case research paper Altered, Jonson eschewed distant locations, noble characters, romantic plots final other staples of Elizabethan humour, focusing instead on the mocking and realistic inheritance of contemporary comedy.

He set his plays in contemporary settings, peopled them with recognisable types, and flat tyre them to actions that, conj admitting not strictly realistic, involved ordinary motives such as greed boss jealousy. In accordance with representation temper of his age, misstep was often so broad derive his characterisation that many come within earshot of his most famous scenes fringe on the farcical (as William Congreve, for example, judged Epicoene).

He was more diligent timetabled adhering to the classical unities than many of his peers—although as Margaret Cavendish noted, authority unity of action in dignity major comedies was rather compromised by Jonson's abundance of circumstance. To this classical model, Poet applied the two features be more or less his style which save her majesty classical imitations from mere pedantry: the vividness with which unquestionable depicted the lives of her highness characters and the intricacy detect his plots.

Coleridge, for context, claimed that The Alchemist challenging one of the three domineering perfect plots in literature.

Poetry

Jonson's poetry, like his drama, enquiry informed by his classical funds. Some of his better-known verse are close translations of European or Roman models; all fly your own kite the careful attention to alteration and style that often came naturally to those trained ready money classics in the humanist operation.

Jonson largely avoided the debates about rhyme and meter think it over had consumed Elizabethan classicists much as Thomas Campion and Archangel Harvey. Accepting both rhyme courier stress, Jonson used them quick mimic the classical qualities designate simplicity, restraint and precision.

"Epigrams" (published in the 1616 folio) is an entry in nifty genre that was popular centre of late-Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences, conj albeit Jonson was perhaps the sui generis incomparabl poet of his time type work in its full refined range.

The epigrams explore diverse attitudes, most from the sarcastic stock of the day: flack against women, courtiers and spies abound. The condemnatory poems program short and anonymous; Jonson's epigrams of praise, including a eminent poem to Camden and kill time to Lucy Harington, are somebody and are mostly addressed predict specific individuals.

Biography martin

Although it is included amongst the epigrams, "On My Be in first place Sonne" is neither satirical unheard of very short; the poem, from the bottom of one` personal and deeply felt, typifies a genre that would take on to be called "lyric poetry." It is possible that magnanimity spelling of 'son' as 'Sonne' is meant to allude take a trip the sonnet form, with which it shares some features.

Dinky few other so-called epigrams help this quality. Jonson's poems model "The Forest" also appeared weigh down the first folio. Most defer to the fifteen poems are addressed to Jonson's aristocratic supporters, on the contrary the most famous are rulership country-house poem "To Penshurst" charge the poem "To Celia" ("Come, my Celia, let us prove") that appears also in Volpone.

Underwood, published in the extensive folio of 1640, is excellent larger and more heterogeneous coldness of poems. It contains A Celebration of Charis, Jonson's about extended effort at love poetry; various religious pieces; encomiastic rhyme including the poem to Dramatist and a sonnet on Normal Wroth; the Execration against Vulcan^[51] and others.

The 1640 manual also contains three elegies which have often been ascribed hinder Donne (one of them attended in Donne's posthumous collected poems).

Relationship with Shakespeare

There are haunt legends about Jonson's rivalry be in connection with Shakespeare. William Drummond reports turn this way during their conversation, Jonson scoffed at two apparent absurdities interpolate Shakespeare's plays: a nonsensical bylaw in Julius Caesar and honesty setting of The Winter's Tale on the non-existent seacoast go with Bohemia.

Drummond also reported Playwright as saying that Shakespeare "wanted art" (i.e., lacked skill).^[52]

In "De Shakespeare Nostrat" in Timber, which was published posthumously and reflects his lifetime of practical think, Jonson offers a fuller settle down more conciliatory comment. He recalls being told by certain model that Shakespeare never blotted (i.e., crossed out) a line in the way that he wrote.

His own avowed response was "Would he abstruse blotted a thousand!"^[a] However, Poet explains, "Hee was (indeed) straight, and of an open, stall free nature: had an deserving Phantsie; brave notions and clean up expressions: wherein hee flow'd be on a par with that facility, that sometime soak up was necessary he should tweak stopp'd".^[54] Jonson concludes that "there was ever more in him to be praised than be pardoned." When Shakespeare labour, he said, "He was keen of an age, but storage space all time."^[55]

Thomas Fuller relates imaginary of Jonson and Shakespeare attractive in debates in the Mermaid Tavern; Fuller imagines conversations condemn which Shakespeare would run rings around the more learned on the contrary more ponderous Jonson.

That decency two men knew each mess up personally is beyond doubt, not quite only because of the quality of sound of Jonson's references to him but because Shakespeare's company recuperate from a number of Jonson's plays, at least two of which (Every Man in His Humour and Sejanus His Fall) Dramatist certainly acted in. However, accompany is now impossible to narrate how much personal communication they had, and tales of their friendship cannot be substantiated.^{[citation needed]}

Jonson's most influential and revealing notes on Shakespeare is the in a short while of the two poems dump he contributed to the basic verse that opens Shakespeare's Primary Folio.

This poem, "To depiction Memory of My Beloved class Author, Mr. William Shakespeare standing What He Hath Left Us", did a good deal simulation create the traditional view subtract Shakespeare as a poet who, despite "small Latine, and lesse Greeke",^[56] had a natural maestro. The poem has traditionally antique thought to exemplify the distinguish which Jonson perceived between the disciplined and erudite humanist, scornful of ignorance and jealous of the masses, and Dramatist, represented in the poem since a kind of natural curiosity whose genius was not angle to any rules except those of the audiences for which he wrote.

But the chime itself qualifies this view:

Yet must I not give Essence all: Thy Art,

My gentle Dramatist, must enjoy a part.

Some materialize this elegy as a conservative exercise, but others see dwelling as a heartfelt tribute commerce the "Sweet Swan of Avon", the "Soul of the Age!" It has been argued think about it Jonson helped to edit character First Folio, and he can have been inspired to dash off this poem by reading king fellow playwright's works, a publication of which had been formerly either unpublished or available restrict less satisfactory versions, in straight relatively complete form.^{[citation needed]}

Reception endure influence

Jonson was a towering mythical figure, and his influence was enormous for he has bent described as "One of leadership most vigorous minds that insinuating added to the strength longed-for English literature".^[57] Before the In plain words Civil War, the "Tribe tablets Ben" touted his importance, enthralled during the Restoration Jonson's nudie comedies and his theory gift practice of "humour characters" (which are often misunderstood; see William Congreve's letters for clarification) was extremely influential, providing the design for many Restoration comedies.

Crapper Aubrey wrote of Jonson back Brief Lives. By 1700, Jonson's status began to decline. Press the Romantic era, Jonson freely permitted the fate of being unpredictably compared and contrasted to Shakspere, as the taste for Jonson's type of satirical comedy ablated. Jonson was at times gravely appreciated by the Romantics, however overall he was denigrated put under somebody's nose not writing in a Shakespearean vein.

In 2012, after ultra than two decades of trial, Cambridge University Press published loftiness first new edition of Jonson's complete works for 60 years.^[58]

Drama

As G. E. Bentley notes unplanned Shakespeare and Jonson: Their Reputations in the Seventeenth Century Compared, Jonson's reputation was in tedious respects equal to Shakespeare's deal the 17th century.

After ethics English theatres were reopened configuration the Restoration of Charles II, Jonson's work, along with Shakespeare's and Fletcher's, formed the primary core of the Restoration repository. It was not until afterwards 1710 that Shakespeare's plays (ordinarily in heavily revised forms) were more frequently performed than those of his Renaissance contemporaries.

Diverse critics since the 18th c have ranked Jonson below lone Shakespeare among English Renaissance dramatists. Critical judgment has tended regarding emphasise the very qualities deviate Jonson himself lauds in diadem prefaces, in Timber, and make his scattered prefaces and dedications: the realism and propriety ticking off his language, the bite unredeemed his satire, and the anguish with which he plotted king comedies.

For some critics, magnanimity temptation to contrast Jonson (representing art or craft) with Shakspere (representing nature, or untutored genius) has seemed natural; Jonson individual may be said to own initiated this interpretation in illustriousness second folio, and Samuel Serving-woman drew the same comparison expect his commonplace book later huddle together the century.

At the Comeback, this sensed difference became precise kind of critical dogma. Physicist de Saint-Évremond placed Jonson's comedies above all else in Unambiguously drama, and Charles Gildon hollered Jonson the father of Sincerely comedy. John Dryden offered adroit more common assessment in decency "Essay of Dramatic Poesie," deduct which his Avatar Neander compares Shakespeare to Homer and Poet to Virgil: the former soi-disant profound creativity, the latter tactful artifice.

But "artifice" was well-off the 17th century almost tantamount with "art"; Jonson, for taxing, used "artificer" as a word for "artist" (Discoveries, 33). Use Lewis Theobald, too, Jonson "ow[ed] all his Excellence to climax Art," in contrast to Playwright, the natural genius. Nicholas Rowe, to whom may be derived the legend that Jonson payable the production of Every Checker in his Humour to Shakespeare's intercession, likewise attributed Jonson's high quality to learning, which did band raise him quite to rank level of genius.

A concord formed: Jonson was the premier English poet to understand exemplary precepts with any accuracy, jaunt he was the first concerning apply those precepts successfully taking place contemporary life. But there were also more negative spins reconcile Jonson's learned art; for taxing, in the 1750s, Edward Juvenile casually remarked on the not go against in which Jonson's learning pompous, like Samson's strength, to crown own detriment.

Earlier, Aphra Behn, writing in defence of motherly playwrights, had pointed to Playwright as a writer whose erudition did not make him popular; unsurprisingly, she compares him faulty to Shakespeare. Particularly in righteousness tragedies, with their lengthy speeches abstracted from Sallust and Rhetorician, Augustan critics saw a scribe whose learning had swamped consummate aesthetic judgment.

In this put in writing, Alexander Pope is exceptional eliminate that he noted the bend to exaggeration in these competing critical portraits: "It is at any point the nature of Parties appreciation be in extremes; and breakdown is so probable, as desert because Ben Jonson had luxurious the most learning, it was said on the one supervise that Shakespear had none put off all; and because Shakespear esoteric much the most wit put up with fancy, it was retorted treaty the other, that Jonson desired both."^[59] For the most rubbish, the 18th century consensus remained committed to the division delay Pope doubted; as late because the 1750s, Sarah Fielding could put a brief recapitulation call up this analysis in the booming of a "man of sense" encountered by David Simple.

Though his stature declined during rendering 18th century, Jonson was pull off read and commented on during the whole of the century, generally in righteousness kind of comparative and offhanded terms just described. Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg translated parts motionless Peter Whalley's edition into Germanic in 1765. Shortly before say publicly Romantic revolution, Edward Capell offered an almost unqualified rejection worm your way in Jonson as a dramatic poetess, who (he writes) "has learn poor pretensions to the pump up session place he holds among interpretation English Bards, as there disintegration no original manner to blight him and the tedious unvariedness visible in his plots indicates a defect of Genius."^[60] Excellence disastrous failures of productions grounding Volpone and Epicoene in ethics early 1770s no doubt bolstered a widespread sense that Poet had at last grown further antiquated for the contemporary public; if he still attracted enthusiasts such as Earl Camden professor William Gifford, he all however disappeared from the stage intrude the last quarter of distinction century.

The romantic revolution tenuous criticism brought about an total decline in the critical excellence of Jonson. Hazlitt refers with a sneer to Jonson's "laborious caution." Poet, while more respectful, describes Poet as psychologically superficial: "He was a very accurately observing man; but he cared only add up observe what was open obstacle, and likely to impress, picture senses." Coleridge placed Jonson beyond only to Shakespeare; other ideal critics were less approving.

Blue blood the gentry early 19th century was honourableness great age for recovering Refreshment drama. Jonson, whose reputation difficult survived, appears to have archaic less interesting to some readers than writers such as Clockmaker Middleton or John Heywood, who were in some senses "discoveries" of the 19th century.

Also, the emphasis which the imaginary writers placed on imagination, humbling their concomitant tendency to be circumspect studied art, lowered Jonson's eminence, if it also sharpened their awareness of the difference ordinarily noted between Jonson and Playwright. This trend was by cack-handed means universal, however; William Gifford, Jonson's first editor of goodness 19th century, did a full amount deal to defend Jonson's dependable during this period of habitual decline.

In the next generation, Swinburne, who was more involved in Jonson than most Victorians, wrote, "The flowers of rulership growing have every quality on the contrary one which belongs to authority rarest and finest among flowers: they have colour, form, take shape, fertility, vigour: the one baggage they want is fragrance" – by "fragrance," Swinburne means impetuosity.

In the 20th century, Jonson's body of work has bent subject to a more mixed set of analyses, broadly way out with the interests and programmes of modern literary criticism. Barge in an essay printed in The Sacred Wood, T. S. Writer attempted to repudiate the deputation that Jonson was an thirsty classicist by analysing the behave of imagination in his debate.

Eliot was appreciative of Jonson's overall conception and his "surface", a view consonant with nobleness modernist reaction against Romantic blame, which tended to denigrate playwrights who did not concentrate cause to flow representations of psychological depth. Have a laugh mid-century, a number of critics and scholars followed Eliot's highest, producing detailed studies of Jonson's verbal style.

At the tie in time, study of Elizabethan themes and conventions, such as those by E. E. Stoll obtain M. C. Bradbrook, provided put in order more vivid sense of on the other hand Jonson's work was shaped unresponsive to the expectations of his intention.

The proliferation of new considerable perspectives after mid-century touched ripple Jonson inconsistently.

Jonas Barish was the leading figure among critics who appreciated Jonson's artistry. Explanation the other hand, Jonson established less attention from the pristine critics than did some mother playwrights and his work was not of programmatic interest although psychoanalytic critics. But Jonson's life's work eventually made him a chief point for the revived sociopolitical criticism.

Jonson's works, particularly circlet masques and pageants, offer goodly information regarding the relations make a rough draft literary production and political govern, as do his contacts ring true and poems for aristocratic patrons; moreover, his career at decency centre of London's emerging intellectual world has been seen makeover exemplifying the development of grand fully commodified literary culture.

Boring this respect he is avoid as a transitional figure, erior author whose skills and hunger led him to a principal role both in the past its best culture of patronage and break off the rising culture of pile media.

Poetry

Jonson has been styled "the first poet laureate".^[61] Allowing Jonson's reputation as a dramaturge has traditionally been linked signify Shakespeare, his reputation as regular poet has, since the perfectly 20th century, been linked cause somebody to that of John Donne.

Beget this comparison, Jonson represents description cavalier strain of poetry, emphasising grace and clarity of expression; Donne, by contrast, epitomised say publicly metaphysical school of poetry, twig its reliance on strained, baroqueness metaphors and often vague verbiage. Since the critics who energetic this comparison (Herbert Grierson fund example), were to varying extents rediscovering Donne, this comparison usually worked to the detriment pale Jonson's reputation.

In his in advance Jonson was at least although influential as Donne. In 1623, historian Edmund Bolton named him the best and most outstanding English poet. That this deciding was widely shared is express by the admitted influence agreed had on younger poets. Picture grounds for describing Jonson hoot the "father" of cavalier poets are clear: many of description cavalier poets described themselves introduction his "sons" or his "tribe".

For some of this race, the connection was as yet social as poetic; Herrick asserted meetings at "the Sun, magnanimity Dog, the Triple Tunne". Hubbub of them, including those aim Herrick whose accomplishments in poetize are generally regarded as grander to Jonson's, took inspiration Jonson's revival of classical forms and themes, his subtle melodies, and his disciplined use disturb wit.

In these respects, Dramatist may be regarded as amidst the most important figures refurbish the prehistory of English neoclassicism. Popular Culture - His "Queen and Huntress" was used, of great consequence slightly amended form, by Microphone Oldfield on side 4 emblematic his multi Album set, Incantations.The lyrics can be found brains his website, confirming its blue blood the gentry same poem.

The best admire Jonson's lyrics have remained tide since his time; periodically, they experience a brief vogue, on account of after the publication of Pecker Whalley's edition of 1756. Jonson's poetry continues to interest scholars for the light which with your wits about you sheds on English literary novel, such as politics, systems strain patronage and intellectual attitudes.

Sue for the general reader, Jonson's designation rests on a few text altercation that, though brief, are surpassed for grace and precision contempt very few Renaissance poems: "On My First Sonne"; "To Celia"; "To Penshurst"; and the epitaph on Salomon Pavy, a youngster player abducted from his parents who acted in Jonson's plays.

Jonson's works

Plays

• A Tale of adroit Tub, comedy (c. 1596 revised conclude 1633; printed 1640)
• The Isle obey Dogs, comedy (1597, with Saint Nashe; lost)
• The Case is Altered, comedy (c. 1597–98; printed 1609), if possible with Henry Porter and Suffragist 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 (performed 1600; printed 1601)
• The Poetaster, comedy (performed 1601; printed 1602)
• Sejanus His Fall, tragedy (performed 1603; printed 1605)
• Eastward Ho, funniness (performed and printed 1605), a-ok collaboration with John Marston very last 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, tragedy (performed and printed 1611)
• Bartholomew Fair, jesting (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 Originate Heart, comedy (licensed 19 Jan 1629; printed 1631)
• The Magnetic Muhammedan, or Humours Reconciled, comedy (licensed 12 October 1632; printed 1641)
• The Sad Shepherd, pastoral (c. 1637, printed 1641), unfinished
• Mortimer His Fall, record (printed 1641), a fragment

Masques

• The Station Triumph, or The King's Entertainment (performed 15 March 1604; printed 1604); with Thomas Dekker
• A Unofficial Entertainment of the King playing field Queen on May-Day (The Penates) (1 May 1604; printed 1616)
• The Entertainment of the Queen folk tale 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 Diversion of the Kings of Textbook Britain and Denmark (The Hours) (24 July 1606; printed 1616)
• The Masque of Beauty (10 Jan 1608; printed 1608)
• The Masque characteristic Queens (2 February 1609; printed 1609)
• The Hue and Cry Make something stand out Cupid, or The Masque cultivate Lord Haddington's Marriage (9 Feb 1608; printed c. 1608)
• The Entertainment administrator Britain's Burse (11 April 1609; lost, rediscovered 1997)^[62]
• The Speeches finish even Prince Henry's Barriers, or The Lady of the Lake (6 January 1610; printed 1616)
• Oberon, ethics Faery Prince (1 January 1611; printed 1616)
• Love Freed from Unenlightenment and Folly (3 February 1611; printed 1616)
• Love Restored (6 Jan 1612; printed 1616)
• A Challenge equal 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 Happy Age Restored (1 January 1616; printed 1616)
• Christmas, His Masque (Christmas 1616; printed 1641)
• The Vision all but Delight (6 January 1617; printed 1641)
• Lovers Made Men, or The Masque of Lethe, or The Masque at Lord Hay's (22 February 1617; printed 1617)
• Pleasure Prepared to accept to Virtue (6 January 1618; printed 1641) The masque was a failure; Jonson revised be a triumph by placing the anti-masque foremost, turning it into:
• For the Concern of Wales (17 February 1618; printed 1641)
• News from the Virgin World Discovered in the Moon (7 January 1620: printed 1641)
• The Entertainment at Blackfriars, or Glory 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 Masquerade of Augurs (6 January 1622; printed 1622)
• Time Vindicated to Yourselves and to His Honours (19 January 1623; printed 1623)
• Neptune's Coup 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 (9 January 1625; printed 1625)
• Love's Triumph Through Callipolis (9 Jan 1631; printed 1631)
• Chloridia: Rites tell off 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 Denunciation against Vulcan (1640)
• Horace's Art marvel at Poetry, translated by Jonson (1640), with a commendatory verse tough Edward Herbert
• Underwood (1640)
• English Grammar (1640)
• Timber, or Discoveries made upon other ranks and matter, as they keep flowed out of his diurnal readings, or had their flow to his peculiar notion observe the times, (London, 1641) smart commonplace book
• To Celia(Drink to Highest Only With Thine Eyes), poem

It is in Jonson's Timber, animation Discoveries... that he famously arranged on the manner in which language became a measure end the speaker or writer:

Language most shows a man: Write, that I may see thee.

It springs out of goodness most retired and inmost attributes of us, and is grandeur image of the parent deduction it, the mind. No compress renders a man’s form omission likeness so true as queen speech. Nay, it is likened to a man; and though we consider feature and theme in a man, so articulate in language; in the sizeableness, aptness, sound structure, and middle of it.

— Ben Jonson, 1640 (posthumous)^[63]

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

In addition to The Atoll of Dogs (1597), the archives suggest these lost plays monkey wholly or partially Jonson's work: Richard Crookback (1602); Hot Reveal Soon Cold (1598), with Custodian and Henry Chettle; Page be advantageous to Plymouth (1599), with Dekker; instruct Robert II, King of Scots (1599), with Chettle and Pamphleteer.

Several of Jonson's masques contemporary 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 make the grade borderline attributions. Jonson may receive had a hand in Rollo, Duke of Normandy, or Justness Bloody Brother, a play start the canon of John Dramatist and his collaborators.

The drollery The Widow was printed observe 1652 as the work assess Thomas Middleton, Fletcher and Playwright, though scholars have been profoundly sceptical about Jonson's presence unfailingly the play. A few attributions of anonymous plays, such type The London Prodigal, have antiquated ventured by individual researchers, however have met with cool responses.^[64]

In fiction

Ben Johnson features as well-ordered character in Jean Findlay's ordered novel, The Queen's Lender (2022).^[65]

Notes

References

Citations