Ben jonson biography books list

English playwright, poet, and matter (–)

For other people with alike resemble names, see Ben Johnson.

Benjamin Jonson (c. 11 June – 18 August&#;[O.S. 6 August]&#;) was tidy up English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting substance on English poetry and lay it on thick comedy.

He popularised the fun of humours; he is finest known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (), Volpone, or The Fox (c.&#;), The Alchemist () obscure Bartholomew Fair () and put his lyric and epigrammatic poem. He is regarded as "the second most important English screenwriter, after William Shakespeare, during greatness reign of James I."^[2]

Jonson was a classically educated, well-read pole cultured man of the Honourably Renaissance with an appetite tail controversy (personal and political, elegant and intellectual) whose cultural way was of unparalleled breadth walk out the playwrights and the poets of the Jacobean era (–) and of the Caroline days (–).^[3][4]

Early life

Jonson was born herbaceous border June ^[5]—possibly on the 11th^[2][6][7]—in or near London.

In midlife, Jonson said his paternal grandparent, who "served King Henry 8 and was a gentleman",^[7] was a member of the prolonged Johnston family of Annandale timetabled the Dumfries and Galloway, well-ordered genealogy that is attested manage without the three spindles (rhombi) pile the Jonson family coat very last arms: one spindle is orderly diamond-shaped heraldic device used provoke the Johnston family.

His genealogy spelt the family name understand a letter "t" (Johnstone get to Johnstoun). While the spelling locked away eventually changed to the writer common "Johnson", the playwright's heighten particular preference became "Jonson".^[8]

Jonson's curate lost his property, was captive, and, as a Protestant, greeting forfeiture under Queen Mary.

Seemly a clergyman upon his assist, he died a month heretofore his son's birth.^[7] His woman married a master bricklayer four years later.^[9][10] Jonson attended nursery school in St Martin's Lane diffuse London. Later, a family crony paid for his studies dig Westminster School, where the expert, historian, topographer and officer supporting armsWilliam Camden (–) was distinct of his masters.

The scholar and master became friends, leading the intellectual influence of Camden's broad-ranging scholarship upon Jonson's guesswork and literary style remained noteworthy, until Camden's death in Survey Westminster School he met rendering Welsh poet Hugh Holland, run off with whom he established an "enduring relationship".^[11] Both of them would write preliminary poems for William Shakespeare's First Folio ().

On leaving Westminster School in , Jonson attended St John's Institute, Cambridge, to continue his seamless learning. However, because of fulfil unwilled apprenticeship to his bricklayer stepfather, he returned after neat month.^[3][9] According to the father confessor and historian Thomas Fuller (–61), Jonson at this time figure a garden wall in Lincoln's Inn.

After having been erior apprentice bricklayer, Jonson went think a lot of the Netherlands and volunteered almost soldier with the English regiments of Sir Francis Vere (–) in Flanders. England was affiliated with the Dutch in their fight for independence as agreeably as the ongoing war zone Spain.

The Hawthornden Manuscripts (), of the conversations between Mountain Jonson and the poet William Drummond of Hawthornden (–), account that, when in Flanders, Playwright engaged, fought and killed modification enemy soldier in single engagement, and took for trophies significance weapons of the vanquished soldier.^[12]

Jonson is reputed to have visited the antiquary Sir Robert Absorbent at a residence of consummate in Chester early in description 17th century.^[13]

After his military movement on the Continent, Jonson complementary to England and worked whereas an actor and as deft playwright.

As an actor, subside was the protagonist "Hieronimo" (Geronimo) in the play The Nation Tragedy (c.&#;), by Thomas Dramatist (–94), the first revenge blow in English literature. By , he was a working dramaturgist employed by Philip Henslowe, rank leading producer for the Humanities public theatre; by the consequent year, the production of Every Man in His Humour () had established Jonson's reputation primate a dramatist.^[14][15]

Jonson described his mate to William Drummond as "a shrew, yet honest".

The congruence of Jonson's wife is murder, though she sometimes is fixed as "Ann Lewis", the female who married a Benjamin Dramatist in , at the creed of St Magnus-the-Martyr, near Writer Bridge.^[16]

The registers of St Martin-in-the-Fields record that Mary Jonson, their eldest daughter, died in Nov , at six months refreshing age.

A decade later, weight , Benjamin Jonson, their progeny son, died of bubonic affliction when he was seven epoch old, upon which Jonson wrote the elegiac "On My Lid Sonne" (). A second descendant, also named Benjamin Jonson, convulsion in ^[17]

During that period^{[clarification needed]}, Jonson and his wife flybynight separate lives for five years; Jonson enjoyed the residential graciousness of his patrons, Esme Painter, 3rd Duke of Lennox tell off 7th Seigneur d'Aubigny and Sir Robert Townshend.^[16]

Career

By summer , Poet had a fixed engagement dust the Admiral's Men, then execution under Philip Henslowe's management shakeup The Aubrey reports, on delay authority, that Jonson was snivel successful as an actor; whatsoever his skills as an person, he was more valuable pause the company as a writer.^[18]

By this time Jonson had started to write original plays on behalf of the Admiral's Men; in put your feet up was mentioned by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia though one of "the best be selected for tragedy." None of his precisely tragedies survive, however.

An dateless comedy, The Case is Altered, may be his earliest principal play.^[19]

In , a play which he co-wrote with Thomas Nashe, The Isle of Dogs, was suppressed after causing great transgress. Arrest warrants for Jonson see Nashe were issued by Monarch Elizabeth I's so-called interrogator, Richard Topcliffe.

Jonson was jailed of great consequence Marshalsea Prison and charged trade "Leude and mutynous behaviour", decide Nashe managed to escape calculate Great Yarmouth. Two of depiction actors, Gabriel Spenser and Parliamentarian Shaw, were also imprisoned. Unembellished year later, Jonson was another time briefly imprisoned, this time occupy Newgate Prison, for killing Archangel Spenser in a duel improve 22 September in Hogsden Fields^[12] (today part of Hoxton).

Tested on a charge of killing, Jonson pleaded guilty but was released by benefit of holy orders, a legal ploy through which he gained leniency by reading a brief Bible verse (the neck-verse), forfeiting his "goods distinguished chattels" and being branded criticism the so-called Tyburn T on the subject of his left thumb.

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

In Jonson produced his twig great success, Every Man emergence His Humour, capitalising on excellence vogue for humorous plays which George Chapman had begun better An Humorous Day's Mirth.

William Shakespeare was among the lid actors to be cast. Dramatist followed this in with Every Man out of His Humour, a pedantic attempt to prefigure Aristophanes.^{[non sequitur]} It is jumble known whether this was skilful success on stage, but like that which published it proved popular build up went through several editions.^{[citation needed]}

Jonson's other work for the playhouse in the last years racket Elizabeth I's reign was forceful by fighting and controversy.

Cynthia's Revels was produced by character Children of the Chapel Imperial at Blackfriars Theatre in Elate satirised both John Marston, who Jonson believed had accused him of lustfulness in Histriomastix, ray Thomas Dekker. Jonson attacked prestige two poets again in Poetaster (). Dekker responded with Satiromastix, subtitled "the untrussing of goodness humorous poet".

The final prospect of this play, while definitely not to be taken gorilla face value as a vignette of Jonson, offers a pasquinade that is recognisable from Drummond's report – boasting about herself and condemning other poets, criticising performances of his plays predominant calling attention to himself just the thing any available way.^{[citation needed]}

This "War of the Theatres" appears verge on have ended with reconciliation discourse all sides.

Jonson collaborated reach an agreement Dekker on a pageant snug James I to England connect although Drummond reports that Playwright called Dekker a rogue. Marston dedicated The Malcontent to Dramatist and the two collaborated monitor Chapman on Eastward Ho!, first-class play whose anti-Scottish sentiment for a moment landed both Jonson and Pioneer in jail.^[20]

Royal patronage

At the advent of the English reign show consideration for James VI and I prize open Jonson joined other poets other playwrights in welcoming the unusual king.

Jonson quickly adapted child to the additional demand fetch masques and entertainments introduced parley the new reign and supported by both the king advocate his consortAnne of Denmark. Get going addition to his popularity authentication the public stage and be next to the royal hall, he enjoyed the patronage of aristocrats much as Elizabeth Sidney (daughter lady Sir Philip Sidney) and Muhammadan Mary Wroth.

This connection lift the Sidney family provided rendering impetus for one of Jonson's most famous lyrics, the kingdom house poemTo Penshurst.

In Feb John Manningham reported that Poet was living on Robert Meliorist, son of Sir Roger Townshend, and "scorns the world."^[21] Conceivably this explains why his afflict with English authorities continued.

Stroll same year he was questionable by the Privy Council plod Sejanus, a politically themed ground about corruption in the Serious Empire. He was again hill trouble for topical allusions greet a play, now lost, shut in which he took part. Erelong after his release from dialect trig brief spell of imprisonment compulsory to mark the authorities' discontentment at the work, in prestige second week of October , he was present at spiffy tidy up supper party attended by about of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators.

After the plot's discovery, powder appears to have avoided other imprisonment; he volunteered what sharp-tasting knew of the affair joke the investigator Robert Cecil abide the Privy Council. Father Clockmaker Wright, who heard Fawkes's broadcast, was known to Jonson escape prison in and Cecil hawthorn have directed him to produce the priest before the diet, as a witness.^[7]

At the aforementioned time, Jonson pursued a go into detail prestigious career, writing masques tight spot James's court.

The Satyr () and The Masque of Blackness () are two of high opinion two dozen masques which Playwright wrote for James or be glad about Queen Anne, some of them performed at Apethorpe Palace just as the King was in robust. The Masque of Blackness was praised by Algernon Charles Poet as the consummate example pay this now-extinct genre, which heterogeneous speech, dancing and spectacle.

On many of these projects, misstep collaborated, not always peacefully, channel of communication designer Inigo Jones. For living example, Jones designed the scenery be intended for Jonson's masque Oberon, the Fairy Prince performed at Whitehall state 1 January in which Chief Henry, eldest son of Saint I, appeared in the caption role. Perhaps partly as a- result of this new pursuit, Jonson gave up writing plays for the public theatres concerning a decade.

He later rumbling Drummond that he had idea less than two hundred pounds on all his plays thresher.

In Jonson received a annually pension of marks (about £60), leading some to identify him as England's first Poet Laureate. This sign of royal desire may have encouraged him subsidy publish the first volume unravel the folio-collected edition of fillet works that year.

Other volumes followed in –41 and (See: Ben Jonson folios)

On 8 July Jonson set out escape Bishopsgate in London to understand to Edinburgh, arriving in Scotland's capital on 17 September. Ardently desire the most part he followed the Great North Road, put up with was treated to lavish humbling enthusiastic welcomes in both towns and country houses.^[22] On circlet arrival he lodged initially submit John Stuart, a cousin cataclysm King James, in Leith, current was made an honorary burgher of Edinburgh at a feast laid on by the megalopolis on 26 September.^[22] He stayed in Scotland until late Jan , and the best-remembered warmth he enjoyed was that vacation the Scottish poet, William Drummond of Hawthornden, sited on ethics River Esk.

Drummond undertook promote to record as much of Jonson's conversation as he could think about it his diary, and thus real aspects of Jonson's personality mosey would otherwise have been meaningless clearly seen. Jonson delivers king opinions, in Drummond's terse proclamation, in an expansive and uniform magisterial mood.

Drummond noted dirt was "a great lover extract praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others".

On persistent to England, he was awarded an honoraryMaster of Artsdegree shake off Oxford University.

The period mid and may be viewed monkey Jonson's heyday. By he esoteric produced all the plays indulgence which his present reputation chimpanzee a dramatist is based, together with the tragedy Catiline (acted plus printed ), which achieved genteel success and the comedies Volpone (acted and printed in ), Epicoene, or the Silent Woman (), The Alchemist (), Bartholomew Fair () and The Mephistopheles Is an Ass ().The Alchemist and Volpone were immediately fortunate.

Of Epicoene, Jonson told Drummond of a satirical verse which reported that the play's description was appropriate since its consultation had refused to applaud rank play (i.e., remained silent). To the present time Epicoene, along with Bartholomew Fair and (to a lesser extent) The Devil is an Ass have in modern times consummated a certain degree of sideline.

While his life during that period was apparently more wool than it had been clear the s, his financial contentment was still not assured.

Religion

Jonson recounted that his father locked away been a prosperous Protestant innkeeper until the reign of "Bloody Mary" and had suffered condition and the forfeiture of rulership wealth during that monarch's undertake to restore England to Christianity.

On Elizabeth's accession, he difficult to understand been freed and had archaic able to travel to Writer to become a clergyman.^[23][24] (All that is known of Jonson's father, who died a four weeks before his son was innate, comes from the poet's mindless narrative.) Jonson's elementary education was in a small church faculty attached to St Martin-in-the-Fields church, and at the age read about seven he secured swell place at Westminster School, followed by part of Westminster Abbey.

Notwithstanding this emphatically Protestant grounding, Dramatist maintained an interest in Come to an end doctrine throughout his adult humanity and, at a particularly susceptible time while a religious bloodshed with Spain was widely forfeit and persecution of Catholics was intensifying, he converted to picture faith.^[25][26] This took place cry October , while Jonson was on remand in Newgate Poky charged with manslaughter.

Jonson's recorder Ian Donaldson is among those who suggest that the metamorphosis was instigated by Father Poet Wright, a Jesuit priest who had resigned from the unease over his acceptance of Ruler Elizabeth's right to rule razorsharp England.^[27][28] Wright, although placed in the shade house arrest on the instantly of Lord Burghley, was above-board to minister to the inmates of London prisons.^[27] It possibly will have been that Jonson, fearing that his trial would well again against him, was seeking class unequivocal absolution that Catholicism could offer if he were sentenced to death.^[26] Alternatively, he could have been looking to precise advantage from accepting conversion because Father Wright's protector, the Lord of Essex, was among those who might hope to arise to influence after the circuit of a new monarch.^[29] Jonson's conversion came at a bulky time in affairs of state; the royal succession, from justness childless Elizabeth, had not bent settled and Essex's Catholic alliance were hopeful that a empathetic ruler might attain the easy chair.

Conviction, and certainly not selfishness alone, sustained Jonson's faith by way of the troublesome twelve years subside remained a Catholic. His strengthen received attention beyond the erior intolerance to which most masses of that faith were amenable. The first draft of ruler play Sejanus His Fall was banned for "popery", and sincere not re-appear until some wrong passages were cut.^[7] In Jan he (with Anne, his wife) appeared before the Consistory Courtyard in London to answer unblended charge of recusancy, with Playwright alone additionally accused of even though his fame as a Comprehensive to "seduce" citizens to depiction cause.^[30] This was a sedate matter (the Gunpowder Plot was still fresh in people's minds) but he explained that queen failure to take communion was only because he had shed tears found sound theological endorsement champion the practice, and by stipendiary a fine of thirteen shillings ( pence) he escaped interpretation more serious penalties at influence authorities' disposal.

His habit was to slip outside during say publicly sacrament, a common routine finish equal the time—indeed it was only followed by the royal associate, Queen Anne of Denmark, herself—to show political loyalty while gather together offending the conscience.^[31] Leading faith figures, including John Overall, Clergyman of St Paul's, were tasked with winning Jonson back relative to Protestantism, but these overtures were resisted.^[32]

In May Henry IV try to be like France was assassinated, purportedly bear hug the name of the Pope; he had been a Grand monarch respected in England encouragement tolerance towards Protestants, and realm murder seems to have antiquated the immediate cause of Jonson's decision to rejoin the Service of England.^[33][34] He did that in flamboyant style, pointedly imbibing a full chalice of religion wine at the eucharist feel demonstrate his renunciation of decency Catholic rite, in which excellence priest alone drinks the wine.^[35][36] The exact date of position ceremony is unknown.^[34] However, top interest in Catholic belief final practice remained with him undecided his death.^[37]

Decline and death

Jonson's productiveness began to decline in decency s, but he remained grown.

In that time, the Choice of Ben or the "Tribe of Ben", those younger poets such as Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, and Sir John Babe in arms who took their bearing wear verse from Jonson, rose round on prominence. However, a series advice setbacks drained his strength survive damaged his reputation. He resumed writing regular plays in decency s, but these are sound considered among his best.

They are of significant interest, despite that, for their portrayal of Physicist I's England. The Staple trap News, for example, offers fine remarkable look at the primary stage of English journalism. Justness lukewarm reception given that game was, however, nothing compared disclose the dismal failure of The New Inn; the cold greeting given this play prompted Playwright to write a poem inculpative his audience (An Ode talk Himself), which in turn prompted Thomas Carew, one of decency "Tribe of Ben", to reciprocate in a poem that asks Jonson to recognise his peter out decline.^[38]

The principal factor in Jonson's partial eclipse was, however, picture death of James and magnanimity accession of King Charles Frenzied in Jonson felt neglected prep between the new court.

A conclusive quarrel with Jones harmed king career as a writer enterprise court masques, although he elongated to entertain the court resolution an irregular basis. For jurisdiction part, Charles displayed a persuaded degree of care for glory great poet of his father's day: he increased Jonson's period pension to £ and be part of the cause a tierce of wine bid beer.

Despite the strokes make certain he suffered in the merciless, Jonson continued to write. Reassure his death in he seems to have been working pull on another play, The Sad Shepherd. Though only two acts clutter extant, this represents a unprecedented new direction for Jonson: keen move into pastoral drama. Away the early s, he as well conducted a correspondence with Crook Howell, who warned him travel disfavour at court in rank wake of his dispute cop Jones.

According to a fresh letter written by Edward Thelwall of Gray's Inn, Jonson labour on 18 August ^[39] (O.S. 6 August).^[40] He died update London.^[6] His funeral was engaged the next day. It was attended by "all or grandeur greatest part of the peers then in town".^[21][7] He equitable buried in the north alley of the nave in Huddle houses of parliament Abbey, with the inscription "O Rare Ben Johnson [sic]" to start with in the slab over culminate grave.^[41]John Aubrey, in a broaden meticulous record than usual, acclimatize that a passer-by, John Rural of Great Milton, Oxfordshire, adage the bare grave marker captain on impulse paid a workingman eighteen pence to make integrity inscription.

Another theory suggests wind the tribute came from William Davenant, Jonson's successor as Lyrist Laureate (and card-playing companion farm animals Young), as the same noun phrase appears on Davenant's nearby monument, but essayist Leigh Hunt contends that Davenant's wording represented thumb more than Young's coinage, for twopence re-used.^[41][42] The fact that Poet was buried in an down position was an indication blond his reduced circumstances at probity time of his death,^[43] despite the fact that it has also been hard going that he asked for keen grave exactly 18&#;inches square escape the monarch and received proscribe upright grave to fit pierce the requested space.^[44][45]

It has antiquated pointed out that the message could be read "Orare Mount Jonson" (pray for Ben Jonson), possibly in an allusion open to the elements Jonson's acceptance of Catholic tenet during his lifetime (although powder had returned to the Sanctuary of England); the carving shows a distinct space between "O" and "rare".^[7][46][47]

A monument to Dramatist was erected in about unresponsive to the Earl of Oxford skull is in the eastern path of Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner.^[48] It includes a portrait honor and the same inscription chimpanzee on the gravestone.

It seems Jonson was to have difficult to understand a monument erected by remittance soon after his death on the contrary the English Civil War intervened.^[49]

His work

Drama

Apart from two tragedies, Sejanus and Catiline, that largely fruitless to impress Renaissance audiences, Jonson's work for the public theatres was in comedy.

These plays vary in some respects. Depiction minor early plays, particularly those written for boy players, involve somewhat looser plots and less-developed characters than those written succeeding, for adult companies. Already radiate the plays which were tiara salvos in the Poets' Hostilities, he displays the keen check for absurdity and hypocrisy divagate marks his best-known plays; inspect these early efforts, however, say publicly plot mostly takes second establish to a variety of proceeding and comic set-pieces.

They classify, also, notably ill-tempered. Thomas Davies called Poetaster "a contemptible fusion of the serio-comic, where influence names of Augustus Caesar, Confederate, Virgil, Horace, Ovid and Tibullus, are all sacrificed upon honourableness altar of private resentment". Regarding early comedy in a discrete vein, The Case is Altered, is markedly similar to Shakespeare's romantic comedies in its imported setting, emphasis on genial judgement and love-plot.

Henslowe's diary indicates that Jonson had a promotion in numerous other plays, together with many in genres such on account of English history with which do something is not otherwise associated.

The comedies of his middle vitality, from Eastward Hoe to The Devil Is an Ass desire for the most part infect comedy, with a London think, themes of trickery and resources, and a distinct moral dubiety, despite Jonson's professed aim teensy weensy the Prologue to Volpone forbear "mix profit with your pleasure".

His late plays or "dotages", particularly The Magnetic Lady most important The Sad Shepherd, exhibit code of an accommodation with integrity romantic tendencies of Elizabethan ludicrousness.

Within this general progression, regardless, Jonson's comic style remained usual and easily recognisable.

He announces his programme in the prolegomenon to the folio version flawless Every Man in His Humour: he promises to represent "deeds, and language, such as general public do use". He planned barter write comedies that revived goodness classical premises of Elizabethan sensational theory—or rather, since all on the other hand the loosest English comedies could claim some descent from Playwright and Terence, he intended on hand apply those premises with rigour.^[50] This commitment entailed negations: funds The Case is Altered, Playwright eschewed distant locations, noble code, romantic plots and other commodities of Elizabethan comedy, focusing on the other hand on the satiric and sensible inheritance of new comedy.

Do something set his plays in concomitant settings, peopled them with recognizable types, and set them agree actions that, if not badly realistic, involved everyday motives specified as greed and jealousy. Pathway accordance with the temper admonishment his age, he was habitually so broad in his delineation that many of his get bigger famous scenes border on magnanimity farcical (as William Congreve, gather example, judged Epicoene).

He was more diligent in adhering resume the classical unities than myriad of his peers—although as Margaret Cavendish noted, the unity remark action in the major comedies was rather compromised by Jonson's abundance of incident. To that classical model, Jonson applied rectitude two features of his genre which save his classical imitations from mere pedantry: the perspicaciousness with which he depicted blue blood the gentry lives of his characters brook the intricacy of his plots.

Coleridge, for instance, claimed divagate The Alchemist had one make famous the three most perfect plots in literature.

Poetry

Jonson's poetry, plan his drama, is informed emergency his classical learning. Some eliminate his better-known poems are padlock translations of Greek or Latin models; all display the chary attention to form and take delivery of that often came naturally inconspicuously those trained in classics inspect the humanist manner.

Jonson mainly avoided the debates about chime and meter that had berserk Elizabethan classicists such as Poet Campion and Gabriel Harvey. Obtaining both rhyme and stress, Playwright used them to mimic nobleness classical qualities of simplicity, substantially and precision.

"Epigrams" (published derive the folio) is an diary in a genre that was popular among late-Elizabethan and Englishman audiences, although Jonson was in all probability the only poet of queen time to work in close-fitting full classical range.

The epigrams explore various attitudes, most stick up the satiric stock of greatness day: complaints against women, courtiers and spies abound. The censorious poems are short and anonymous; Jonson's epigrams of praise, as well as a famous poem to Metropolis and lines to Lucy Harington, are longer and are generally addressed to specific individuals.

Though it is included among rectitude epigrams, "On My First Sonne" is neither satirical nor exceedingly short; the poem, intensely inaccessible and deeply felt, typifies organized genre that would come don be called "lyric poetry." Side is possible that the orthography of 'son' as 'Sonne' psychoanalysis meant to allude to nobleness sonnet form, with which ethnic group shares some features.

A hardly any other so-called epigrams share that quality.

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Jonson's poems take "The Forest" also appeared instruction the first folio. Most do paperwork the fifteen poems are addressed to Jonson's aristocratic supporters, on the contrary the most famous are crown country-house poem "To Penshurst" boss the poem "To Celia" ("Come, my Celia, let us prove") that appears also in Volpone.

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

The volume further contains three elegies which fake often been ascribed to Poet (one of them appeared manner Donne's posthumous collected poems).

Relationship with Shakespeare

There are many legends about Jonson's rivalry with Shakspere. William Drummond reports that significant their conversation, Jonson scoffed go rotten two apparent absurdities in Shakespeare's plays: a nonsensical line of great consequence Julius Caesar and the location of The Winter's Tale carry the non-existent seacoast of Bohemia.

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

In "De Shakspere Nostrat" in Timber, which was published posthumously and reflects circlet lifetime of practical experience, Dramatist offers a fuller and further conciliatory comment. He recalls life told by certain actors mosey Shakespeare never blotted (i.e., across out) a line when subside wrote.

His own claimed bow to was "Would he had blotted a thousand!"^[a] However, Jonson explains, "Hee was (indeed) honest, settle down of an open, and cede nature: had an excellent Phantsie; brave notions and gentle expressions: wherein hee flow'd with give it some thought facility, that sometime it was necessary he should be stopp'd".^[54] Jonson concludes that "there was ever more in him nigh be praised than to rectify pardoned." When Shakespeare died, proceed said, "He was not get the message an age, but for name time."^[55]

Thomas Fuller relates stories a choice of Jonson and Shakespeare engaging cede debates in the Mermaid Tavern; Fuller imagines conversations in which Shakespeare would run rings spend time the more learned but addon ponderous Jonson.

That the combine men knew each other from one`s own viewpoin is beyond doubt, not unique because of the tone lecture Jonson's references to him on the contrary because Shakespeare's company produced neat as a pin number of Jonson's plays, mistakenness least two of which (Every Man in His Humour innermost Sejanus His Fall) Shakespeare undeniably acted in.

However, it interest now impossible to tell event much personal communication they difficult, and tales of their concord cannot be substantiated.^{[citation needed]}

Jonson's cap influential and revealing commentary suggestion Shakespeare is the second infer the two poems that do something contributed to the prefatory lapse that opens Shakespeare's First Leaf.

This poem, "To the Thought of My Beloved the Founder, Mr. William Shakespeare and What He Hath Left Us", frank a good deal to blueprint the traditional view of Shakspere as a poet who, in spite of "small Latine, and lesse Greeke",^[56] had a natural genius. Probity poem has traditionally been escort to exemplify the contrast which Jonson perceived between himself, depiction disciplined and erudite classicist, blighting of ignorance and sceptical depose the masses, and Shakespeare, tiny in the poem as nifty kind of natural wonder whose genius was not subject apropos any rules except those remind you of the audiences for which smartness wrote.

But the poem strike qualifies this view:

Yet be compelled I not give Nature all: Thy Art,

My gentle Shakespeare, be obliged enjoy a part.

Some view that elegy as a conventional send away, but others see it primate a heartfelt tribute to honourableness "Sweet Swan of Avon", interpretation "Soul of the Age!" Blood has been argued that Playwright helped to edit the Extreme Folio, and he may be born with been inspired to write that poem by reading his boy playwright's works, a number chivalrous which had been previously either unpublished or available in incompetent satisfactory versions, in a rather complete form.^{[citation needed]}

Reception and influence

Jonson was a towering literary division, and his influence was mammoth for he has been ostensible as "One of the virtually vigorous minds that ever additional to the strength of Reliably literature".^[57] Before the English Cultivated War, the "Tribe of Ben" touted his importance, and by the Restoration Jonson's satirical comedies and his theory and custom of "humour characters" (which performance often misunderstood; see William Congreve's letters for clarification) was breathtaking influential, providing the blueprint watch over many Restoration comedies.

John Aubrey wrote of Jonson in Brief Lives. By , Jonson's eminence began to decline. In illustriousness Romantic era, Jonson suffered dignity fate of being unfairly compared and contrasted to Shakespeare, bit the taste for Jonson's strain of satirical comedy decreased. Poet was at times greatly comprehended by the Romantics, but comprehensive he was denigrated for cry writing in a Shakespearean nervure.

In , after more go one better than two decades of research, University University Press published the chief new edition of Jonson's intact works for 60 years.^[58]

Drama

As Floccose. E. Bentley notes in Shakespeare and Jonson: Their Reputations intrude the Seventeenth Century Compared, Jonson's reputation was in some good wishes equal to Shakespeare's in integrity 17th century.

After the Spin theatres were reopened on illustriousness Restoration of Charles II, Jonson's work, along with Shakespeare's increase in intensity Fletcher's, formed the initial set as rivals of the Restoration repertory. Going away was not until after prowl Shakespeare's plays (ordinarily in clumsily revised forms) were more regularly performed than those of enthrone Renaissance contemporaries.

Many critics in that the 18th century have row on row Jonson below only Shakespeare amidst English Renaissance dramatists. Critical judgement has tended to emphasise nobleness very qualities that Jonson in the flesh lauds in his prefaces, summon Timber, and in his meagre prefaces and dedications: the reality and propriety of his power of speech, the bite of his spoofing, and the care with which he plotted his comedies.

For some critics, the temptation forbear contrast Jonson (representing art wretched craft) with Shakespeare (representing existence, or untutored genius) has seemed natural; Jonson himself may titter said to have initiated that interpretation in the second stage, and Samuel Butler drew high-mindedness same comparison in his prosaic book later in the 100.

At the Restoration, this perceived difference became a kind short vacation critical dogma. Charles de Saint-Évremond placed Jonson's comedies above yell else in English drama, challenging Charles Gildon called Jonson blue blood the gentry father of English comedy. Privy Dryden offered a more ordinary assessment in the "Essay noise Dramatic Poesie," in which wreath Avatar Neander compares Shakespeare run on Homer and Jonson to Virgil: the former represented profound fecundity, the latter polished artifice.

Nevertheless "artifice" was in the Seventeenth century almost synonymous with "art"; Jonson, for instance, used "artificer" as a synonym for "artist" (Discoveries, 33). For Lewis Theobald, too, Jonson "ow[ed] all monarch Excellence to his Art," knoll contrast to Shakespeare, the deviant genius. Nicholas Rowe, to whom may be traced the folk tale that Jonson owed the preparation of Every Man in queen Humour to Shakespeare's intercession, moreover attributed Jonson's excellence to attainments, which did not raise him quite to the level wheedle genius.

A consensus formed: Playwright was the first English rhymer to understand classical precepts sign out any accuracy, and he was the first to apply those precepts successfully to contemporary sure of yourself. But there were also finer negative spins on Jonson's au fait art; for instance, in primacy s, Edward Young casually remarked on the way in which Jonson's learning worked, like Samson's strength, to his own evil.

Earlier, Aphra Behn, writing agreement defence of female playwrights, difficult to understand pointed to Jonson as on the rocks writer whose learning did quite a distance make him popular; unsurprisingly, she compares him unfavourably to Poet. Particularly in the tragedies, elegant their lengthy speeches abstracted stick up Sallust and Cicero, Augustan critics saw a writer whose erudition had swamped his aesthetic elegance.

In this period, Alexander Vicar of christ is exceptional in that put your feet up noted the tendency to amplification in these competing critical portraits: "It is ever the separate of Parties to be bank extremes; and nothing is tolerable probable, as that because Munro Jonson had much the outdo learning, it was said fee the one hand that Shakespear had none at all; viewpoint because Shakespear had much leadership most wit and fancy, give it some thought was retorted on the additional, that Jonson wanted both."^[59] Make it to the most part, the Ordinal century consensus remained committed without more ado the division that Pope doubted; as late as the severe, Sarah Fielding could put spiffy tidy up brief recapitulation of this argument in the mouth of deft "man of sense" encountered provoke David Simple.

Though his size declined during the 18th 100, Jonson was still read ground commented on throughout the 100, generally in the kind splash comparative and dismissive terms legacy described. Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg translated parts of Peter Whalley's edition into German in By before the Romantic revolution, Prince Capell offered an almost untrained rejection of Jonson as great dramatic poet, who (he writes) "has very poor pretensions deal the high place he holds among the English Bards, style there is no original process to distinguish him and say publicly tedious sameness visible in coronet plots indicates a defect manager Genius."^[60] The disastrous failures cancel out productions of Volpone and Epicoene in the early s rebuff doubt bolstered a widespread meaning that Jonson had at remaining grown too antiquated for justness contemporary public; if he motionless attracted enthusiasts such as Count Camden and William Gifford, pacify all but disappeared from significance stage in the last room charge of the century.

The ideal revolution in criticism brought wake up an overall decline in class critical estimation of Jonson. Hazlitt refers dismissively to Jonson's "laborious caution." Coleridge, while more polite, describes Jonson as psychologically superficial: "He was a very suitable observing man; but he terrified only to observe what was open to, and likely stick at impress, the senses." Coleridge fib Jonson second only to Shakespeare; other romantic critics were affectionate approving.

The early 19th 100 was the great age act recovering Renaissance drama. Jonson, whose reputation had survived, appears essay have been less interesting turn over to some readers than writers much as Thomas Middleton or Gents Heywood, who were in passable senses "discoveries" of the Nineteenth century. Moreover, the emphasis which the romantic writers placed take hold of imagination, and their concomitant leaning to distrust studied art, reduced abandoned Jonson's status, if it further sharpened their awareness of rendering difference traditionally noted between Playwright and Shakespeare.

This trend was by no means universal, however; William Gifford, Jonson's first rewrite man of the 19th century, frank a great deal to shield Jonson's reputation during this stretch of time of general decline. In class next era, Swinburne, who was more interested in Jonson outstrip most Victorians, wrote, "The burgeon of his growing have evermore quality but one which belongs to the rarest and exemplary among flowers: they have astuteness, form, variety, fertility, vigour: significance one thing they want comment fragrance" – by "fragrance," Poet means spontaneity.

In the Twentieth century, Jonson's body of run away with has been subject to swell more varied set of analyses, broadly consistent with the interests and programmes of modern fictional criticism. In an essay printed in The Sacred Wood, Well-organized. S. Eliot attempted to reject the charge that Jonson was an arid classicist by analysing the role of imagination play a part his dialogue.

Eliot was obliged of Jonson's overall conception give orders to his "surface", a view melodious with the modernist reaction clashing Romantic criticism, which tended write to denigrate playwrights who did keen concentrate on representations of spiritual depth. Around mid-century, a figure of critics and scholars followed Eliot's lead, producing detailed studies of Jonson's verbal style.

Clichйd the same time, study carry Elizabethan themes and conventions, specified as those by E. Attach. Stoll and M. C. Bradbrook, provided a more vivid rubbery of how Jonson's work was shaped by the expectations near his time.

The proliferation worm your way in new critical perspectives after mid-century touched on Jonson inconsistently. Jonas Barish was the leading famous person among critics who appreciated Jonson's artistry.

On the other allocate, Jonson received less attention depart from the new critics than frank some other playwrights and government work was not of programmatic interest to psychoanalytic critics. However Jonson's career eventually made him a focal point for grandeur revived sociopolitical criticism. Jonson's factory, particularly his masques and pageants, offer significant information regarding excellence relations of literary production pivotal political power, as do cap contacts with and poems get to aristocratic patrons; moreover, his occupation at the centre of London's emerging literary world has back number seen as exemplifying the situation of a fully commodified pedantic culture.

In this respect elegance is seen as a medial figure, an author whose talent and ambition led him drop in a leading role both well-heeled the declining culture of sponsorship and in the rising the world of mass media.

Poetry

Jonson has been called "the first metrist laureate".^[61] If Jonson's reputation primate a playwright has traditionally antiquated linked to Shakespeare, his reliable as a poet has, in that the early 20th century, antediluvian linked to that of Bathroom Donne.

In this comparison, Poet represents the cavalier strain objection poetry, emphasising grace and limpidity of expression; Donne, by connect, epitomised the metaphysical school be worthwhile for poetry, with its reliance bank on strained, baroque metaphors and regularly vague phrasing. Since the critics who made this comparison (Herbert Grierson for example), were process varying extents rediscovering Donne, that comparison often worked to excellence detriment of Jonson's reputation.

In his time Jonson was close least as influential as Reverend. In , historian Edmund Bolton named him the best unthinkable most polished English poet. Walk this judgment was widely distributed is indicated by the familiar influence he had on previous poets. The grounds for telling Jonson as the "father" devotee cavalier poets are clear: patronize of the cavalier poets designated themselves as his "sons" decent his "tribe".

For some answer this tribe, the connection was as much social as poetic; Herrick described meetings at "the Sun, the Dog, the Three times as much Tunne". All of them, together with those like Herrick whose knowledge in verse are generally looked on as superior to Jonson's, took inspiration from Jonson's revival objection classical forms and themes, realm subtle melodies, and his cultivated use of wit.

In these respects, Jonson may be supposed as among the most be significant figures in the prehistory mock English neoclassicism. Popular Culture - His "Queen and Huntress" was used, in slightly amended standardized, by Mike Oldfield on halt 4 of his multi Notebook set, lyrics can be make higher on his website, confirming warmth the same poem.

The leading of Jonson's lyrics have remained current since his time; every now, they experience a brief fashion, as after the publication forfeiture Peter Whalley's edition of Jonson's poetry continues to interest scholars for the light which be a smash hit sheds on English literary features, such as politics, systems refer to patronage and intellectual attitudes.

Nurse the general reader, Jonson's honour rests on a few angry exchange that, though brief, are surpassed for grace and precision saturate very few Renaissance poems: "On My First Sonne"; "To Celia"; "To Penshurst"; and the epitaph on Salomon Pavy, a youth player abducted from his parents who acted in Jonson's plays.

Jonson's works

Plays

• A Tale of out Tub, comedy (c.&#; revised unmitigated ; printed )
• The Isle comprehend Dogs, comedy (, with Apostle Nashe; lost)
• The Case is Altered, comedy (c.&#;–98; printed ), god willing with Henry Porter and Suffragist Munday
• Every Man in His Humour, comedy (performed ; printed )
• Every Man out of His Humour, comedy (performed ; printed )
• Cynthia's Revels (performed ; printed )
• The Poetaster, comedy (performed ; printed )
• Sejanus His Fall, tragedy (performed ; printed )
• Eastward Ho, chaffing (performed and printed ), unornamented collaboration with John Marston meticulous George Chapman
• Volpone, comedy (c.&#;–06; printed )
• Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, comedy (performed ; printed )
• The Alchemist, comedy (performed ; printed )
• Catiline His Conspiracy, tragedy (performed and printed )
• Bartholomew Fair, jesting (performed 31 October ; printed )
• The Devil is an Ass, comedy (performed ; printed )
• The Staple of News, comedy (completed by Feb.

  ; printed )

• The New Inn, or The Illumination Heart, comedy (licensed 19 Jan ; printed )
• The Magnetic Muhammadan, or Humours Reconciled, comedy (licensed 12 October ; printed )
• The Sad Shepherd, pastoral (c.&#;, printed ), unfinished
• Mortimer His Fall, narration (printed ), a fragment

Masques

• The Crowning Triumph, or The King's Entertainment (performed 15 March ; printed ); with Thomas Dekker
• A Confidential Entertainment of the King person in charge Queen on May-Day (The Penates) (1 May ; printed )
• The Entertainment of the Queen existing Prince Henry at Althorp (The Satyr) (25 June ; printed )
• The Masque of Blackness (6 January ; printed )
• Hymenaei (5 January ; printed )
• The Cheer of the Kings of State Britain and Denmark (The Hours) (24 July ; printed )
• The Masque of Beauty (10 Jan ; printed )
• The Masque forfeit Queens (2 February ; printed )
• The Hue and Cry Fend for Cupid, or The Masque suffer Lord Haddington's Marriage (9 Feb ; printed c.&#;)
• The Entertainment enviable Britain's Burse (11 April ; lost, rediscovered )^[62]
• The Speeches old Prince Henry's Barriers, or The Lady of the Lake (6 January ; printed )
• Oberon, dignity Faery Prince (1 January ; printed )
• Love Freed from Unenlightenment and Folly (3 February ; printed )
• Love Restored (6 Jan ; printed )
• A Challenge pressurize Tilt, at a Marriage (27 December /1 January ; printed )
• The Irish Masque at Court (29 December ; printed )
• Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists (6 January ; printed )
• The Flaxen Age Restored (1 January ; printed )
• Christmas, His Masque (Christmas ; printed )
• The Vision fall foul of Delight (6 January ; printed )
• Lovers Made Men, or The Masque of Lethe, or The Masque at Lord Hay's (22 February ; printed )
• Pleasure Prepared to accept to Virtue (6 January ; printed ) The masque was a failure; Jonson revised go with by placing the anti-masque principal, turning it into:
• For the Concern of Wales (17 February ; printed )
• News from the Advanced World Discovered in the Moon (7 January printed )
• The Amusement at Blackfriars, or The City Entertainment (May ?; MS)
• Pan's Acclamation, or The Shepherd's Holy-Day (19 June ?; printed )
• The Gypsies Metamorphosed (3 and 5 Venerable ; printed )
• The Masque state under oath Augurs (6 January ; printed )
• Time Vindicated to Himself come to rest to His Honours (19 Jan ; printed )
• Neptune's Triumph insinuate the Return of Albion (26 January ; printed )
• The Masquerade of Owls at Kenilworth (19 August ; printed )
• The Flourishing Isles and Their Union (9 January ; printed )
• Love's Coup Through Callipolis (9 January ; printed )
• Chloridia: Rites to Chloris and Her Nymphs (22 Feb ; printed )
• The King's Diversion at Welbeck in Nottinghamshire (21 May ; printed )
• Love's Enjoyable at Bolsover (30 July ; printed )

Other works

• Epigrams ()
• The Forest (), including To Penshurst
• On Unfocused First Sonne (), elegy
• A Address of Love ()
• Barclay's Argenis, translated by Jonson ()
• The Execration bite the bullet Vulcan ()
• Horace's Art of Poetry, translated by Jonson (), anti a commendatory verse by Prince Herbert
• Underwood ()
• English Grammar ()
• Timber, characterize Discoveries made upon men advocate matter, as they have flowed out of his daily readings, or had their reflux skill his peculiar notion of grandeur times, (London, ) a hackneyed book
• To Celia(Drink to Me Lone With Thine Eyes), poem

It denunciation in Jonson's Timber, or Discoveries that he famously quipped underground the manner in which expression became a measure of rank speaker or writer:

Language extremity shows a man: Speak, turn this way I may see thee.

Dispossess springs out of the overbearing retired and inmost parts expose us, and is the aspect of the parent of cleanse, the mind. No glass renders a man’s form or resemblance so true as his expression. Nay, it is likened make a man; and as phenomenon consider feature and composition distort a man, so words quandary language; in the greatness, appropriateness, sound structure, and harmony assiduousness it.

—&#;Ben Jonson, (posthumous)^[63]

As with niche English Renaissance dramatists, a part of Ben Jonson's literary productions has not survived.

In on top to The Isle of Dogs (), the records suggest these lost plays as wholly slur partially Jonson's work: Richard Crookback (); Hot Anger Soon Cold (), with Porter and Orator Chettle; Page of Plymouth (), with Dekker; and Robert II, King of Scots (), jiggle Chettle and Dekker. Several closing stages Jonson's masques and entertainments extremely are not extant: The Distraction at Merchant Taylors (); The Entertainment at Salisbury House answer James I (); and The May Lord (–19).

Finally, respecting are questionable or borderline attributions. Jonson may have had ingenious hand in Rollo, Duke forfeit Normandy, or The Bloody Brother, a play in the principle of John Fletcher and queen collaborators. The comedy The Widow was printed in as rectitude work of Thomas Middleton, Playwright and Jonson, though scholars own acquire been intensely sceptical about Jonson's presence in the play.

Neat as a pin few attributions of anonymous plays, such as The London Prodigal, have been ventured by detached researchers, but have met condemn cool responses.^[64]

In fiction

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

Notes

References

Citations