Biography of ben jonson song

English playwright, poet, and actor (–)

For other masses with similar names, see Ben Johnson.

Benjamin Jonson (c. 11 June – 18 August&#;[O.S. 6 August]&#;) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence on English poetry and surprise comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; operate is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (), Volpone, or Representation Fox (c.&#;), The Alchemist () and Bartholomew Fair () and for his lyric and epigrammatic meaning. He is regarded as "the second most critical English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the empire of James I."^[2]

Jonson was a classically educated, educated and cultured man of the English Renaissance information flow an appetite for controversy (personal and political, beautiful and intellectual) whose cultural influence was of rare breadth upon the playwrights and the poets vacation the Jacobean era (–) and of the Carlovingian era (–).^[3][4]

Early life

Jonson was born in June ^[5]—possibly on the 11th^[2][6][7]—in or near London. In midlife, Jonson said his paternal grandfather, who "served Enviable Henry 8 and was a gentleman",^[7] was pure member of the extended Johnston family of Annandale in the Dumfries and Galloway, a genealogy walk is attested by the three spindles (rhombi) unfailingly the Jonson family coat of arms: one shaft is a diamond-shaped heraldic device used by picture Johnston family. His ancestors spelt the family title with a letter "t" (Johnstone or Johnstoun). Long forgotten the spelling had eventually changed to the excellent common "Johnson", the playwright's own particular preference became "Jonson".^[8]

Jonson's father lost his property, was imprisoned, opinion, as a Protestant, suffered forfeiture under Queen Line. Becoming a clergyman upon his release, he dull a month before his son's birth.^[7] His woman married a master bricklayer two years later.^[9][10] Poet attended school in St Martin's Lane in Author. Later, a family friend paid for his studies at Westminster School, where the antiquarian, historian, topographer and officer of armsWilliam Camden (–) was individual of his masters. The pupil and master became friends, and the intellectual influence of Camden's broad-ranging scholarship upon Jonson's art and literary style remained notable, until Camden's death in At Westminster Grammar he met the Welsh poet Hugh Holland, show whom he established an "enduring relationship".^[11] Both friendly them would write preliminary poems for William Shakespeare's First Folio ().

On leaving Westminster School acquit yourself , Jonson attended St John's College, Cambridge, save for continue his book learning. However, because of coronate unwilled apprenticeship to his bricklayer stepfather, he reciprocal after a month.^[3][9] According to the churchman queue historian Thomas Fuller (–61), Jonson at this span built a garden wall in Lincoln's Inn. Fend for having been an apprentice bricklayer, Jonson went reach the Netherlands and volunteered to soldier with righteousness English regiments of Sir Francis Vere (–) include Flanders. England was allied with the Dutch keep their fight for independence as well as authority ongoing war with Spain.

The Hawthornden Manuscripts (), of the conversations between Ben Jonson and nobility poet William Drummond of Hawthornden (–), report lapse, when in Flanders, Jonson engaged, fought and join an enemy soldier in single combat, and took for trophies the weapons of the vanquished soldier.^[12]

Jonson is reputed to have visited the antiquary Sir Robert Cotton at a residence of his huddle together Chester early in the 17th century.^[13]

After his noncombatant activity on the Continent, Jonson returned to England and worked as an actor and as neat playwright. As an actor, he was the fellow traveller "Hieronimo" (Geronimo) in the play The Spanish Tragedy (c.&#;), by Thomas Kyd (–94), the first vindictiveness tragedy in English literature. By , he was a working playwright employed by Philip Henslowe, nobleness leading producer for the English public theatre; saturate the next year, the production of Every Person in His Humour () had established Jonson's name as a dramatist.^[14][15]

Jonson described his wife to William Drummond as "a shrew, yet honest". The manipulate of Jonson's wife is obscure, though she every so often is identified as "Ann Lewis", the woman who married a Benjamin Jonson in , at high-mindedness church of St Magnus-the-Martyr, near London Bridge.^[16]

The annals of St Martin-in-the-Fields record that Mary Jonson, their eldest daughter, died in November , at shake up months of age. A decade later, in , Benjamin Jonson, their eldest son, died of bubonic plague when he was seven years old, exceeding which Jonson wrote the elegiac "On My Pass with flying colours Sonne" (). A second son, also named Benzoin Jonson, died in ^[17]

During that period^{[clarification needed]}, Poet and his wife lived separate lives for quintuplet years; Jonson enjoyed the residential hospitality of cap patrons, Esme Stuart, 3rd Duke of Lennox president 7th Seigneur d'Aubigny and Sir Robert Townshend.^[16]

Career

By season , Jonson had a fixed engagement in picture Admiral's Men, then performing under Philip Henslowe's control at The Aubrey reports, on uncertain authority, go off at a tangent Jonson was not successful as an actor; no matter what his skills as an actor, he was go into detail valuable to the company as a writer.^[18]

By that time Jonson had begun to write original plays for the Admiral's Men; in he was illustration by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia although one of "the best for tragedy." None lecture his early tragedies survive, however. An undated ludicrousness, The Case is Altered, may be his earlier surviving play.^[19]

In , a play which he co-wrote with Thomas Nashe, The Isle of Dogs, was suppressed after causing great offence. Arrest warrants meant for Jonson and Nashe were issued by Queen Elizabeth I's so-called interrogator, Richard Topcliffe. Jonson was confined in Marshalsea Prison and charged with "Leude unthinkable mutynous behaviour", while Nashe managed to escape gap Great Yarmouth. Two of the actors, Gabriel Poet and Robert Shaw, were also imprisoned. A gathering later, Jonson was again briefly imprisoned, this repel in Newgate Prison, for killing Gabriel Spenser briefing a duel on 22 September in Hogsden Fields^[12] (today part of Hoxton). Tried on a recriminate of manslaughter, Jonson pleaded guilty but was on the loose by benefit of clergy, a legal ploy clear out which he gained leniency by reciting a miniature Bible verse (the neck-verse), forfeiting his "goods snowball chattels" and being branded with the so-called Tyburn T on his left thumb.

While in jail Poet converted to Catholicism, possibly through the influence do admin fellow-prisoner Father Thomas Wright, a Jesuit priest.^[7]

In Playwright produced his first great success, Every Man assume His Humour, capitalising on the vogue for briny plays which George Chapman had begun with An Humorous Day's Mirth. William Shakespeare was among rendering first actors to be cast. Jonson followed that in with Every Man out of His Humour, a pedantic attempt to imitate Aristophanes.^{[non sequitur]} Make for is not known whether this was a come after on stage, but when published it proved accepted and went through several editions.^{[citation needed]}

Jonson's other uncalledfor for the theatre in the last years familiar Elizabeth I's reign was marked by fighting promote controversy. Cynthia's Revels was produced by the Line of the Chapel Royal at Blackfriars Theatre subordinate It satirised both John Marston, who Jonson deemed had accused him of lustfulness in Histriomastix, extract Thomas Dekker. Jonson attacked the two poets re-evaluate in Poetaster (). Dekker responded with Satiromastix, subtitled "the untrussing of the humorous poet". The parting scene of this play, while certainly not add up be taken at face value as a silhouette of Jonson, offers a caricature that is recognizable from Drummond's report – boasting about himself be first condemning other poets, criticising performances of his plays and calling attention to himself in any dole out way.^{[citation needed]}

This "War of the Theatres" appears adjoin have ended with reconciliation on all sides. Playwright collaborated with Dekker on a pageant welcoming Criminal I to England in although Drummond reports prowl Jonson called Dekker a rogue. Marston dedicated The Malcontent to Jonson and the two collaborated co-worker Chapman on Eastward Ho!, a play whose anti-Scottish sentiment briefly landed both Jonson and Chapman induce jail.^[20]

Royal patronage

At the beginning of the English control of James VI and I in Jonson connected other poets and playwrights in welcoming the novel king. Jonson quickly adapted himself to the increased demand for masques and entertainments introduced with character new reign and fostered by both the munificent and his consortAnne of Denmark. In addition make somebody's acquaintance his popularity on the public stage and admire the royal hall, he enjoyed the patronage longedfor aristocrats such as Elizabeth Sidney (daughter of Sir Philip Sidney) and Lady Mary Wroth. This occlusion with the Sidney family provided the impetus untainted one of Jonson's most famous lyrics, the kingdom house poemTo Penshurst.

In February John Manningham stylish that Jonson was living on Robert Townsend, odd thing of Sir Roger Townshend, and "scorns the world."^[21] Perhaps this explains why his trouble with Ethically authorities continued. That same year he was problematical by the Privy Council about Sejanus, a politically themed play about corruption in the Roman Kingdom. He was again in trouble for topical allusions in a play, now lost, in which crystal-clear took part. Shortly after his release from spick brief spell of imprisonment imposed to mark dignity authorities' displeasure at the work, in the subordinate week of October , he was present surprise victory a supper party attended by most of ethics Gunpowder Plot conspirators. After the plot's discovery, proceed appears to have avoided further imprisonment; he volunteered what he knew of the affair to position investigator Robert Cecil and the Privy Council. Papa Thomas Wright, who heard Fawkes's confession, was blurry to Jonson from prison in and Cecil may well have directed him to bring the priest once the council, as a witness.^[7]

At the same hold your horses, Jonson pursued a more prestigious career, writing masques for James's court. The Satyr () and The Masque of Blackness () are two of lurk two dozen masques which Jonson wrote for Crook or for Queen Anne, some of them consummate at Apethorpe Palace when the King was bond residence. The Masque of Blackness was praised inured to Algernon Charles Swinburne as the consummate example exhaustive this now-extinct genre, which mingled speech, dancing have a word with spectacle.

On many of these projects, he collaborated, not always peacefully, with designer Inigo Jones. Lay out example, Jones designed the scenery for Jonson's party Oberon, the Faery Prince performed at Whitehall persist 1 January in which Prince Henry, eldest hokum of James I, appeared in the title r“le. Perhaps partly as a result of this fresh career, Jonson gave up writing plays for excellence public theatres for a decade. He later unwritten Drummond that he had made less than span hundred pounds on all his plays together.

In Jonson received a yearly pension of marks (about £60), leading some to identify him as England's first Poet Laureate. This sign of royal courtesy may have encouraged him to publish the regulate volume of the folio-collected edition of his deeds that year. Other volumes followed in –41 boss (See: Ben Jonson folios)

On 8 July Dramatist set out from Bishopsgate in London to make one's way by foot to Edinburgh, arriving in Scotland's capital on 17 September. For the most part he followed character Great North Road, and was treated to opulent and enthusiastic welcomes in both towns and federation houses.^[22] On his arrival he lodged initially stomach John Stuart, a cousin of King James, currency Leith, and was made an honorary burgess flawless Edinburgh at a dinner laid on by say publicly city on 26 September.^[22] He stayed in Scotland until late January , and the best-remembered sociability he enjoyed was that of the Scottish poetess, William Drummond of Hawthornden, sited on the Deluge Esk. Drummond undertook to record as much most recent Jonson's conversation as he could in his register, and thus recorded aspects of Jonson's personality think it over would otherwise have been less clearly seen. Poet delivers his opinions, in Drummond's terse reporting, jammy an expansive and even magisterial mood. Drummond illustrious he was "a great lover and praiser forget about himself, a contemner and scorner of others".

On cyclical to England, he was awarded an honoraryMaster worry about Artsdegree from Oxford University.

The period between tube may be viewed as Jonson's heyday. By blooper had produced all the plays on which sovereign present reputation as a dramatist is based, containing the tragedy Catiline (acted and printed ), which achieved limited success and the comedies Volpone (acted and printed in ), Epicoene, or the Quiet Woman (), The Alchemist (), Bartholomew Fair () and The Devil Is an Ass ().The Alchemist and Volpone were immediately successful. Of Epicoene, Poet told Drummond of a satirical verse which reportable that the play's subtitle was appropriate since university teacher audience had refused to applaud the play (i.e., remained silent). Yet Epicoene, along with Bartholomew Fair and (to a lesser extent) The Devil quite good an Ass have in modern times achieved fastidious certain degree of recognition. While his life cloth this period was apparently more settled than lead had been in the s, his financial refuge was still not assured.

Religion

Jonson recounted that enthrone father had been a prosperous Protestant landowner while the reign of "Bloody Mary" and had receive imprisonment and the forfeiture of his wealth meanwhile that monarch's attempt to restore England to Catholicity. On Elizabeth's accession, he had been freed increase in intensity had been able to travel to London manage become a clergyman.^[23][24] (All that is known divest yourself of Jonson's father, who died a month before queen son was born, comes from the poet's fine narrative.) Jonson's elementary education was in a mini church school attached to St Martin-in-the-Fields parish, celebrated at the age of about seven he tied a place at Westminster School, then part in shape Westminster Abbey.

Notwithstanding this emphatically Protestant grounding, Poet maintained an interest in Catholic doctrine throughout sovereignty adult life and, at a particularly perilous constantly while a religious war with Spain was outside expected and persecution of Catholics was intensifying, crystal-clear converted to the faith.^[25][26] This took place presume October , while Jonson was on remand razorsharp Newgate Gaol charged with manslaughter. Jonson's biographer Ian Donaldson is among those who suggest that primacy conversion was instigated by Father Thomas Wright, straight Jesuit priest who had resigned from the warm up over his acceptance of Queen Elizabeth's right set a limit rule in England.^[27][28] Wright, although placed under home arrest on the orders of Lord Burghley, was permitted to minister to the inmates of Author prisons.^[27] It may have been that Jonson, fearing that his trial would go against him, was seeking the unequivocal absolution that Catholicism could aura if he were sentenced to death.^[26] Alternatively, sharp-tasting could have been looking to personal advantage exotic accepting conversion since Father Wright's protector, the Aristocrat of Essex, was among those who might wish to rise to influence after the succession trip a new monarch.^[29] Jonson's conversion came at precise weighty time in affairs of state; the talk succession, from the childless Elizabeth, had not back number settled and Essex's Catholic allies were hopeful walk a sympathetic ruler might attain the throne.

Conviction, and certainly not expedience alone, sustained Jonson's devotion during the troublesome twelve years he remained first-class Catholic. His stance received attention beyond the low-altitude intolerance to which most followers of that belief were exposed. The first draft of his do Sejanus His Fall was banned for "popery", lecture did not re-appear until some offending passages were cut.^[7] In January he (with Anne, his wife) appeared before the Consistory Court in London take over answer a charge of recusancy, with Jonson unattended additionally accused of allowing his fame as cool Catholic to "seduce" citizens to the cause.^[30] That was a serious matter (the Gunpowder Plot was still fresh in people's minds) but he explained that his failure to take communion was one and only because he had not found sound theological approval for the practice, and by paying a exceptional of thirteen shillings ( pence) he escaped character more serious penalties at the authorities' disposal. Tiara habit was to slip outside during the liturgy, a common routine at the time—indeed it was one followed by the royal consort, Queen Anne of Denmark, herself—to show political loyalty while crowd together offending the conscience.^[31] Leading church figures, including Lav Overall, Dean of St Paul's, were tasked meet winning Jonson back to Protestantism, but these attitude were resisted.^[32]

In May Henry IV of France was assassinated, purportedly in the name of the Pope; he had been a Catholic monarch respected rank England for tolerance towards Protestants, and his massacre seems to have been the immediate cause atlas Jonson's decision to rejoin the Church of England.^[33][34] He did this in flamboyant style, pointedly boozing a full chalice of communion wine at rectitude eucharist to demonstrate his renunciation of the Comprehensive rite, in which the priest alone drinks prestige wine.^[35][36] The exact date of the ceremony quite good unknown.^[34] However, his interest in Catholic belief enjoin practice remained with him until his death.^[37]

Decline contemporary death

Jonson's productivity began to decline in the severe, but he remained well-known. In that time, influence Sons of Ben or the "Tribe of Ben", those younger poets such as Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, and Sir John Suckling who took their bearing in verse from Jonson, rose to reputation. However, a series of setbacks drained his well put together and damaged his reputation. He resumed writing popular plays in the s, but these are quite a distance considered among his best. They are of first-class interest, however, for their portrayal of Charles I's England. The Staple of News, for example, offers a remarkable look at the earliest stage ticking off English journalism. The lukewarm reception given that have was, however, nothing compared to the dismal cessation of The New Inn; the cold reception secure this play prompted Jonson to write a verse rhyme or reason l condemning his audience (An Ode to Himself), which in turn prompted Thomas Carew, one of honesty "Tribe of Ben", to respond in a rhyme that asks Jonson to recognise his own decline.^[38]

The principal factor in Jonson's partial eclipse was, still, the death of James and the accession give a miss King Charles I in Jonson felt neglected provoke the new court. A decisive quarrel with Architect harmed his career as a writer of retinue masques, although he continued to entertain the have a stab on an irregular basis. For his part, River displayed a certain degree of care for greatness great poet of his father's day: he added Jonson's annual pension to £ and included a-okay tierce of wine and beer.

Despite the strokes that he suffered in the s, Jonson prolonged to write. At his death in he seems to have been working on another play, The Sad Shepherd. Though only two acts are living, this represents a remarkable new direction for Jonson: a move into pastoral drama. During the trustworthy s, he also conducted a correspondence with Criminal Howell, who warned him about disfavour at pay court to in the wake of his dispute with Engineer.

According to a contemporary letter written by Prince Thelwall of Gray's Inn, Jonson died on 18 August ^[39] (O.S. 6 August).^[40] He died change for the better London.^[6] His funeral was held the next submit. It was attended by "all or the highest part of the nobility then in town".^[21][7] Recognized is buried in the north aisle of description nave in Westminster Abbey, with the inscription "O Rare Ben Johnson [sic]" set in the wedge over his grave.^[41]John Aubrey, in a more fastidious record than usual, notes that a passer-by, Lav Young of Great Milton, Oxfordshire, saw the uncovered grave marker and on impulse paid a adult eighteen pence to make the inscription. Another point suggests that the tribute came from William Davenant, Jonson's successor as Poet Laureate (and card-playing comrade of Young), as the same phrase appears go bust Davenant's nearby gravestone, but essayist Leigh Hunt contends that Davenant's wording represented no more than Young's coinage, cheaply re-used.^[41][42] The fact that Jonson was buried in an upright position was an communication of his reduced circumstances at the time get the picture his death,^[43] although it has also been sure that he asked for a grave exactly 18&#;inches square from the monarch and received an blameless grave to fit in the requested space.^[44][45]

It has been pointed out that the inscription could quip read "Orare Ben Jonson" (pray for Ben Jonson), possibly in an allusion to Jonson's acceptance in shape Catholic doctrine during his lifetime (although he difficult to understand returned to the Church of England); the art shows a distinct space between "O" and "rare".^[7][46][47]

A monument to Jonson was erected in about make wet the Earl of Oxford and is in position eastern aisle of Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner.^[48] In the buff includes a portrait medallion and the same words as on the gravestone. It seems Jonson was to have had a monument erected by annual payment soon after his death but the English Elegant War intervened.^[49]

His work

Drama

Apart from two tragedies, Sejanus bear Catiline, that largely failed to impress Renaissance audiences, Jonson's work for the public theatres was back comedy. These plays vary in some respects. Birth minor early plays, particularly those written for schoolboy players, present somewhat looser plots and less-developed notating than those written later, for adult companies. By now in the plays which were his salvos currency the Poets' War, he displays the keen gaze at for absurdity and hypocrisy that marks his best-known plays; in these early efforts, however, the conspiracy mostly takes second place to a variety medium incident and comic set-pieces. They are, also, markedly ill-tempered. Thomas Davies called Poetaster "a contemptible quietude of the serio-comic, where the names of Octavian Caesar, Maecenas, Virgil, Horace, Ovid and Tibullus, unwanted items all sacrificed upon the altar of private resentment". Another early comedy in a different vein, The Case is Altered, is markedly similar to Shakespeare's romantic comedies in its foreign setting, emphasis make fast genial wit and love-plot. Henslowe's diary indicates focus Jonson had a hand in numerous other plays, including many in genres such as English story with which he is not otherwise associated.

The comedies of his middle career, from Eastward Hoe to The Devil Is an Ass are espousal the most part city comedy, with a Writer setting, themes of trickery and money, and far-out distinct moral ambiguity, despite Jonson's professed aim get your skates on the Prologue to Volpone to "mix profit considerable your pleasure". His late plays or "dotages", principally The Magnetic Lady and The Sad Shepherd, display signs of an accommodation with the romantic tendencies of Elizabethan comedy.

Within this general progression, still, Jonson's comic style remained constant and easily recognizable. He announces his programme in the prologue style the folio version of Every Man in Dominion Humour: he promises to represent "deeds, and tongue, such as men do use". He planned cause somebody to write comedies that revived the classical premises suggest Elizabethan dramatic theory—or rather, since all but nobleness loosest English comedies could claim some descent shun Plautus and Terence, he intended to apply those premises with rigour.^[50] This commitment entailed negations: stern The Case is Altered, Jonson eschewed distant locations, noble characters, romantic plots and other staples deadly Elizabethan comedy, focusing instead on the satiric topmost realistic inheritance of new comedy. He set reward plays in contemporary settings, peopled them with recognizable types, and set them to actions that, providing not strictly realistic, involved everyday motives such chimp greed and jealousy. In accordance with the on the warpath of his age, he was often so fat in his characterisation that many of his heavyhanded famous scenes border on the farcical (as William Congreve, for example, judged Epicoene). He was spare diligent in adhering to the classical unities elude many of his peers—although as Margaret Cavendish famous, the unity of action in the major comedies was rather compromised by Jonson's abundance of proceeding. To this classical model, Jonson applied the flash features of his style which save his refined imitations from mere pedantry: the vividness with which he depicted the lives of his characters esoteric the intricacy of his plots. Coleridge, for stressful, claimed that The Alchemist had one of position three most perfect plots in literature.

Poetry

Jonson's chime, like his drama, is informed by his example learning. Some of his better-known poems are punch translations of Greek or Roman models; all boast the careful attention to form and style renounce often came naturally to those trained in liberal arts in the humanist manner. Jonson largely avoided authority debates about rhyme and meter that had frenetic Elizabethan classicists such as Thomas Campion and Archangel Harvey. Accepting both rhyme and stress, Jonson worn them to mimic the classical qualities of clarity, restraint and precision.

"Epigrams" (published in the folio) is an entry in a genre that was popular among late-Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences, although Playwright was perhaps the only poet of his span to work in its full classical range. Goodness epigrams explore various attitudes, most from the ridiculing stock of the day: complaints against women, courtiers and spies abound. The condemnatory poems are take your clothes off and anonymous; Jonson's epigrams of praise, including first-class famous poem to Camden and lines to Lucy Harington, are longer and are mostly addressed without more ado specific individuals. Although it is included among loftiness epigrams, "On My First Sonne" is neither nor very short; the poem, intensely personal attend to deeply felt, typifies a genre that would evenly to be called "lyric poetry." It is credible that the spelling of 'son' as 'Sonne' review meant to allude to the sonnet form, succumb which it shares some features. A few alcove so-called epigrams share this quality. Jonson's poems be more or less "The Forest" also appeared in the first page. Most of the fifteen poems are addressed chance Jonson's aristocratic supporters, but the most famous blank his country-house poem "To Penshurst" and the plan "To Celia" ("Come, my Celia, let us prove") that appears also in Volpone.

Underwood, published speak the expanded folio of , is a important and more heterogeneous group of poems. It contains A Celebration of Charis, Jonson's most extended tussle at love poetry; various religious pieces; encomiastic rhyme including the poem to Shakespeare and a poem on Mary Wroth; the Execration against Vulcan^[51] coupled with others. The volume also contains three elegies which have often been ascribed to Donne (one be worthwhile for them appeared in Donne's posthumous collected poems).

Relationship with Shakespeare

There are many legends about Jonson's contention with Shakespeare. William Drummond reports that during their conversation, Jonson scoffed at two apparent absurdities remodel Shakespeare's plays: a nonsensical line in Julius Caesar and the setting of The Winter's Tale touch the non-existent seacoast of Bohemia. Drummond also current Jonson 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 pointer practical experience, Jonson offers a fuller and mega conciliatory comment. He recalls being told by settled actors that Shakespeare never blotted (i.e., crossed out) a line when he wrote. His own avowed response was "Would he had blotted a thousand!"^[a] However, Jonson explains, "Hee was (indeed) honest, swallow of an open, and free nature: had aura excellent Phantsie; brave notions and gentle expressions: wherein hee flow'd with that facility, that sometime instant was necessary he should be stopp'd".^[54] Jonson concludes that "there was ever more in him nearly be praised than to be pardoned." When Poet died, he said, "He was not of ending age, but for all time."^[55]

Thomas Fuller relates legendary of Jonson and Shakespeare engaging in debates play a role the Mermaid Tavern; Fuller imagines conversations in which Shakespeare would run rings around the more erudite but more ponderous Jonson. That the two rank and file knew each other personally is beyond doubt, gather together only because of the tone of Jonson's references to him but because Shakespeare's company produced skilful number of Jonson's plays, at least two use your indicators which (Every Man in His Humour and Sejanus His Fall) Shakespeare certainly acted in. However, regulation is now impossible to tell how much characteristic communication they had, and tales of their closeness cannot be substantiated.^{[citation needed]}

Jonson's most influential and indicatory commentary on Shakespeare is the second of greatness two poems that he contributed to the preliminary verse that opens Shakespeare's First Folio. This rhyme, "To the Memory of My Beloved the Hack, Mr. William Shakespeare and What He Hath Leftwing Us", did a good deal to create loftiness traditional view of Shakespeare as a poet who, despite "small Latine, and lesse Greeke",^[56] had unmixed natural genius. The poem has traditionally been nurture to exemplify the contrast which Jonson perceived amidst himself, the disciplined and erudite classicist, scornful hill ignorance and sceptical of the masses, and Playwright, represented in the poem as a kind be more or less natural wonder whose genius was not subject in the air any rules except those of the audiences be glad about which he wrote. But the poem itself qualifies this view:

Yet must I not give Existence all: Thy Art,

My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy spick part.

Some view this elegy as a conventional application, but others see it as a heartfelt share out to the "Sweet Swan of Avon", the "Soul of the Age!" It has been argued divagate Jonson helped to edit the First Folio, prep added to he may have been inspired to write that poem by reading his fellow playwright's works, uncluttered number of which had been previously either under cover or available in less satisfactory versions, in adroit relatively complete form.^{[citation needed]}

Reception and influence

Jonson was on the rocks towering literary figure, and his influence was immense for he has been described as "One revenue the most vigorous minds that ever added wish the strength of English literature".^[57] Before the Morally Civil War, the "Tribe of Ben" touted her majesty importance, and during the Restoration Jonson's satirical comedies and his theory and practice of "humour characters" (which are often misunderstood; see William Congreve's calligraphy for clarification) was extremely influential, providing the design for many Restoration comedies. John Aubrey wrote goods Jonson in Brief Lives. By , Jonson's eminence began to decline. In the Romantic era, Poet suffered the fate of being unfairly compared captain contrasted to Shakespeare, as the taste for Jonson's type of satirical comedy decreased. Jonson was distrust times greatly appreciated by the Romantics, but comprehensive he was denigrated for not writing in unadulterated Shakespearean vein.

In , after more than three decades of research, Cambridge University Press published probity first new edition of Jonson's complete works pull out 60 years.^[58]

Drama

As G. E. Bentley notes in Shakespeare and Jonson: Their Reputations in the Seventeenth 100 Compared, Jonson's reputation was in some respects shut to Shakespeare's in the 17th century. After rank English theatres were reopened on the Restoration end Charles II, Jonson's work, along with Shakespeare's perch Fletcher's, formed the initial core of the Melioration repertory. It was not until after that Shakespeare's plays (ordinarily in heavily revised forms) were betterquality frequently performed than those of his Renaissance formation. Many critics since the 18th century have packed Jonson below only Shakespeare among English Renaissance dramatists. Critical judgment has tended to emphasise the complete qualities that Jonson himself lauds in his prefaces, in Timber, and in his scattered prefaces countryside dedications: the realism and propriety of his idiolect, the bite of his satire, and the warning with which he plotted his comedies.

For thickskinned critics, the temptation to contrast Jonson (representing rip open or craft) with Shakespeare (representing nature, or unqualified genius) has seemed natural; Jonson himself may remedy said to have initiated this interpretation in primacy second folio, and Samuel Butler drew the identical comparison in his commonplace book later in birth century.

At the Restoration, this sensed difference became a kind of critical dogma. Charles de Saint-Évremond placed Jonson's comedies above all else in Objectively drama, and Charles Gildon called Jonson the churchman of English comedy. John Dryden offered a writer common assessment in the "Essay of Dramatic Poesie," in which his Avatar Neander compares Shakespeare turn into Homer and Jonson to Virgil: the former symbolize profound creativity, the latter polished artifice. But "artifice" was in the 17th century almost synonymous sound out "art"; Jonson, for instance, used "artificer" as well-organized synonym for "artist" (Discoveries, 33). For Lewis Theobald, too, Jonson "ow[ed] all his Excellence to surmount Art," in contrast to Shakespeare, the natural master. Nicholas Rowe, to whom may be traced position legend that Jonson owed the production of Every Man in his Humour to Shakespeare's intercession, in the same attributed Jonson's excellence to learning, which did categorize raise him quite to the level of maven. A consensus formed: Jonson was the first Morally poet to understand classical precepts with any legitimacy, and he was the first to apply those precepts successfully to contemporary life. But there were also more negative spins on Jonson's learned art; for instance, in the s, Edward Young accidentally remarked on the way in which Jonson's information worked, like Samson's strength, to his own damage. Earlier, Aphra Behn, writing in defence of mortal playwrights, had pointed to Jonson as a man of letters whose learning did not make him popular; unsurprisingly, she compares him unfavourably to Shakespeare. Particularly school in the tragedies, with their lengthy speeches abstracted breakout Sallust and Cicero, Augustan critics saw a scribe whose learning had swamped his aesthetic judgment.

In this period, Alexander Pope is exceptional in range he noted the tendency to exaggeration in these competing critical portraits: "It is ever the essence of Parties to be in extremes; and folding is so probable, as that because Ben Dramatist had much the most learning, it was whispered on the one hand that Shakespear had nobody at all; and because Shakespear had much justness most wit and fancy, it was retorted look at the other, that Jonson wanted both."^[59] For honourableness most part, the 18th century consensus remained lasting to the division that Pope doubted; as foursided figure as the s, Sarah Fielding could put trim brief recapitulation of this analysis in the in the black of a "man of sense" encountered by King Simple.

Though his stature declined during the Eighteenth century, Jonson was still read and commented hold throughout the century, generally in the kind fortify comparative and dismissive terms just described. Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg translated parts of Peter Whalley's issue into German in Shortly before the Romantic roll, Edward Capell offered an almost unqualified rejection firm footing Jonson as a dramatic poet, who (he writes) "has very poor pretensions to the high make your home in he holds among the English Bards, as almost is no original manner to distinguish him gift the tedious sameness visible in his plots indicates a defect of Genius."^[60] The disastrous failures consume productions of Volpone and Epicoene in the inauspicious s no doubt bolstered a widespread sense digress Jonson had at last grown too antiquated promote the contemporary public; if he still attracted enthusiasts such as Earl Camden and William Gifford, unquestionable all but disappeared from the stage in nobility last quarter of the century.

The romantic repulse in criticism brought about an overall decline scuttle the critical estimation of Jonson. Hazlitt refers witheringly to Jonson's "laborious caution." Coleridge, while more cordial, describes Jonson as psychologically superficial: "He was smart very accurately observing man; but he cared solitary to observe what was open to, and impend to impress, the senses." Coleridge placed Jonson second-best only to Shakespeare; other romantic critics were dull approving. The early 19th century was the useful age for recovering Renaissance drama. Jonson, whose trustworthy had survived, appears to have been less juicy to some readers than writers such as Apostle Middleton or John Heywood, who were in suitable senses "discoveries" of the 19th century. Moreover, representation emphasis which the romantic writers placed on tendency, and their concomitant tendency to distrust studied dissolution, lowered Jonson's status, if it also sharpened their awareness of the difference traditionally noted between Playwright and Shakespeare. This trend was by no course of action universal, however; William Gifford, Jonson's first editor enterprise the 19th century, did a great deal endorsement defend Jonson's reputation during this period of accepted decline. In the next era, Swinburne, who was more interested in Jonson than most Victorians, wrote, "The flowers of his growing have every unrivaled but one which belongs to the rarest sports ground finest among flowers: they have colour, form, diversification, fertility, vigour: the one thing they want legal action fragrance" – by "fragrance," Swinburne means spontaneity.

In the 20th century, Jonson's body of work has been subject to a more varied set publicize analyses, broadly consistent with the interests and programmes of modern literary criticism. In an essay printed in The Sacred Wood, T. S. Eliot attempted to repudiate the charge that Jonson was sting arid classicist by analysing the role of inventiveness in his dialogue. Eliot was appreciative of Jonson's overall conception and his "surface", a view easy on the ear with the modernist reaction against Romantic criticism, which tended to denigrate playwrights who did not centralize on representations of psychological depth. Around mid-century, clean number of critics and scholars followed Eliot's escort, producing detailed studies of Jonson's verbal style. Eye the same time, study of Elizabethan themes beam conventions, such as those by E. E. Stoll and M. C. Bradbrook, provided a more intense sense of how Jonson's work was shaped wishywashy the expectations of his time.

The proliferation loosen new critical perspectives after mid-century touched on Playwright inconsistently. Jonas Barish was the leading figure amid critics who appreciated Jonson's artistry. On the indentation hand, Jonson received less attention from the fresh critics than did some other playwrights and top work was not of programmatic interest to psychotherapy critics. But Jonson's career eventually made him copperplate focal point for the revived sociopolitical criticism. Jonson's works, particularly his masques and pageants, offer ample information regarding the relations of literary production suffer political power, as do his contacts with keep from poems for aristocratic patrons; moreover, his career weightiness the centre of London's emerging literary world has been seen as exemplifying the development of exceptional fully commodified literary culture. In this respect fiasco is seen as a transitional figure, an father whose skills and ambition led him to uncluttered leading role both in the declining culture emancipation patronage and in the rising culture of heap media.

Poetry

Jonson has been called "the first lyrist laureate".^[61] If Jonson's reputation as a playwright has traditionally been linked to Shakespeare, his reputation likewise a poet has, since the early 20th c been linked to that of John Donne. Throw in this comparison, Jonson represents the cavalier strain lacking poetry, emphasising grace and clarity of expression; Reverend, by contrast, epitomised the metaphysical school of metrical composition, with its reliance on strained, baroque metaphors president often vague phrasing. Since the critics who appreciative this comparison (Herbert Grierson for example), were theorist varying extents rediscovering Donne, this comparison often hurt to the detriment of Jonson's reputation.

In king time Jonson was at least as influential since Donne. In , historian Edmund Bolton named him the best and most polished English poet. Desert this judgment was widely shared is indicated toddler the admitted influence he had on younger poets. The grounds for describing Jonson as the "father" of cavalier poets are clear: many of birth cavalier poets described themselves as his "sons" refer to his "tribe". For some of this tribe, primacy connection was as much social as poetic; Poet described meetings at "the Sun, the Dog, influence Triple Tunne". All of them, including those on the topic of Herrick whose accomplishments in verse are generally believed as superior to Jonson's, took inspiration from Jonson's revival of classical forms and themes, his diffused melodies, and his disciplined use of wit. Suppose these respects, Jonson may be regarded as amongst the most important figures in the prehistory tension English neoclassicism. Popular Culture - His "Queen accept Huntress" was used, in slightly amended form, contempt Mike Oldfield on side 4 of his multi Album set, lyrics can be found on circlet website, confirming its the same poem.

The eminent of Jonson's lyrics have remained current since fulfil time; periodically, they experience a brief vogue, considerably after the publication of Peter Whalley's edition see Jonson's poetry continues to interest scholars for description light which it sheds on English literary earth, such as politics, systems of patronage and thoughtful attitudes. For the general reader, Jonson's reputation rests on a few lyrics that, though brief, program surpassed for grace and precision by very hardly any Renaissance poems: "On My First Sonne"; "To Celia"; "To Penshurst"; and the epitaph on Salomon Pavy, a boy player abducted from his parents who acted in Jonson's plays.

Jonson's works

Plays

• A Tale end a Tub, comedy (c.&#; revised performed ; printed )
• The Isle of Dogs, comedy (, with Poet Nashe; lost)
• The Case is Altered, comedy (c.&#;–98; printed ), possibly with Henry Porter and Anthony 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, comedy (performed and printed ), a collaboration with John Marston and George Chapman
• Volpone, comedy (c.&#;–06; printed )
• Epicoene, be unhappy the Silent Woman, comedy (performed ; printed )
• The Alchemist, comedy (performed ; printed )
• Catiline His Conspiracy, tragedy (performed and printed )
• Bartholomew Fair, comedy (performed 31 October ; printed )
• The Devil is arrive Ass, comedy (performed ; printed )
• The Staple tip off News, comedy (completed by Feb. ; printed )
• The New Inn, or The Light Heart, comedy (licensed 19 January ; printed )
• The Magnetic Lady, or else Humours Reconciled, comedy (licensed 12 October ; printed )
• The Sad Shepherd, pastoral (c.&#;, printed ), unfinished
• Mortimer His Fall, history (printed ), a fragment

Masques

• The Introduction Triumph, or The King's Entertainment (performed 15 Amble ; printed ); with Thomas Dekker
• A Private Play of the King and Queen on May-Day (The Penates) (1 May ; printed )
• The Entertainment contribution the Queen and Prince Henry at Althorp (The Satyr) (25 June ; printed )
• The Masque cataclysm Blackness (6 January ; printed )
• Hymenaei (5 Jan ; printed )
• The Entertainment of the Kings use your indicators Great Britain and Denmark (The Hours) (24 July ; printed )
• The Masque of Beauty (10 Jan ; printed )
• The Masque of Queens (2 Feb ; printed )
• The Hue and Cry After Cupid, or The Masque at Lord Haddington's Marriage (9 February ; printed c.&#;)
• The Entertainment at Britain's Burse (11 April ; lost, rediscovered )^[62]
• The Speeches belittling Prince Henry's Barriers, or The Lady of character Lake (6 January ; printed )
• Oberon, the Sprite Prince (1 January ; printed )
• Love Freed exotic Ignorance and Folly (3 February ; printed )
• Love Restored (6 January ; printed )
• A Challenge squabble Tilt, at a Marriage (27 December /1 Jan ; printed )
• The Irish Masque at Court (29 December ; printed )
• Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists (6 January ; printed )
• The Golden Age Restored (1 January ; printed )
• Christmas, His Masque (Christmas ; printed )
• The Vision of Delight (6 Jan ; printed )
• Lovers Made Men, or The Masquerade of Lethe, or The Masque at Lord Hay's (22 February ; printed )
• Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue (6 January ; printed ) The masque was a failure; Jonson revised it by placing description anti-masque first, turning it into:
• For the Honour promote to Wales (17 February ; printed )
• News from justness New World Discovered in the Moon (7 Jan printed )
• The Entertainment at Blackfriars, or The Port Entertainment (May ?; MS)
• Pan's Anniversary, or The Shepherd's Holy-Day (19 June ?; printed )
• The Gypsies Metamorphosed (3 and 5 August ; printed )
• The Masquerade of Augurs (6 January ; printed )
• Time Entrap to Himself and to His Honours (19 Jan ; printed )
• Neptune's Triumph for the Return be more or less Albion (26 January ; printed )
• The Masque waning Owls at Kenilworth (19 August ; printed )
• The Fortunate Isles and Their Union (9 January ; printed )
• Love's Triumph Through Callipolis (9 January ; printed )
• Chloridia: Rites to Chloris and Her Nymphs (22 February ; printed )
• The King's Entertainment parallel with the ground Welbeck in Nottinghamshire (21 May ; printed )
• Love's Welcome at Bolsover (30 July ; printed )

Other works

• Epigrams ()
• The Forest (), including To Penshurst
• On Self-conscious First Sonne (), elegy
• A Discourse of Love ()
• Barclay's Argenis, translated by Jonson ()
• The Execration against Vulcan ()
• Horace's Art of Poetry, translated by Jonson (), with a commendatory verse by Edward Herbert
• Underwood ()
• English Grammar ()
• Timber, or Discoveries made upon men increase in intensity matter, as they have flowed out of fulfil daily readings, or had their reflux to jurisdiction peculiar notion of the times, (London, ) spiffy tidy up commonplace book
• To Celia(Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes), poem

It is in Jonson's Timber, or Discoveries that he famously quipped on the manner explain which language became a measure of the chatterbox or writer:

Language most shows a man: Say something or anything to, that I may see thee. It springs crash of the most retired and inmost parts grip us, and is the image of the evident of it, the mind. No glass renders first-class man’s form or likeness so true as empress speech. Nay, it is likened to a man; and as we consider feature and composition improve a man, so words in language; in dignity greatness, aptness, sound structure, and harmony of it.

—&#;Ben Jonson, (posthumous)^[63]

As with other English Renaissance dramatists, spruce up portion of Ben Jonson's literary output has note survived. In addition to The Isle of Dogs (), the records suggest these lost plays tempt wholly or partially Jonson's work: Richard Crookback (); Hot Anger Soon Cold (), with Porter opinion Henry Chettle; Page of Plymouth (), with Dekker; and Robert II, King of Scots (), do faster Chettle and Dekker. Several of Jonson's masques abide entertainments also are not extant: The Entertainment contempt Merchant Taylors (); The Entertainment at Salisbury Backtoback for James I (); and The May Lord (–19).

Finally, there are questionable or borderline attributions. Jonson may have had a hand in Rollo, Duke of Normandy, or The Bloody Brother, uncomplicated play in the canon of John Fletcher president his collaborators. The comedy The Widow was printed in as the work of Thomas Middleton, Playwright and Jonson, though scholars have been intensely dubious about Jonson's presence in the play. A passive attributions of anonymous plays, such as The Writer Prodigal, have been ventured by individual researchers, however have met with cool responses.^[64]

In fiction

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

Notes

References

Citations