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Ben Jonson


Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – 6 August 1637) was an English playwright, poet, actor, and literary critic of the 17th century, whose artistry exerted a lasting impact upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours. He is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone, or The Fox (c. 1606), The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614) and for his lyric poetry; he is generally regarded as the second most important English playwright during the reign of James I after William Shakespeare.

Jonson was a classically educated, well-read and cultured man of the English Renaissance with an appetite for controversy (personal and political, artistic and intellectual) whose cultural influence was of unparalleled breadth upon the playwrights and the poets of the Jacobean era (1603–1625) and of the Caroline era (1625–1642). By summer 1597, Jonson had a fixed engagement in the Admiral's Men, then performing under Philip Henslowe's management at The Rose. John Aubrey reports, on uncertain authority, that Jonson was not successful as an actor; whatever his skills as an actor, he was evidently more valuable to the company as a writer. By this time Jonson had begun to write original plays for the Admiral's Men; in 1598 he was mentioned by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia as one of "the best for tragedy." None of his early tragedies survive, however. An undated comedy, The Case is Altered, may be his earliest surviving play.

In 1597 a play which he co-wrote with Thomas Nashe, The Isle of Dogs, was suppressed after causing great offence. Arrest warrants for Jonson and Nashe were issued by Queen Elizabeth I's so-called interrogator, Richard Topcliffe. Jonson was jailed in Marshalsea Prison and charged with "Leude and mutynous behaviour", while Nashe managed to escape to Great Yarmouth. Two of the actors, Gabriel Spenser and Robert Shaw, were also imprisoned. A year later, Jonson was again briefly imprisoned, this time in Newgate Prison, for killing Gabriel Spenser in a duel on 22 September 1598 in Hogsden Fields (today part of Hoxton). Tried on a charge of manslaughter, Jonson pleaded guilty but was released by benefit of clergy, a legal ploy through which he gained leniency by reciting a brief bible verse (the neck-verse), forfeiting his 'goods and chattels' and being branded on his left thumb. While in jail Jonson converted to Catholicism, possibly through the influence of fellow-prisoner Father Thomas Wright, a Jesuit priest.

In 1598 Jonson produced his first great success, Every Man in His Humour, capitalising on the vogue for humorous plays which George Chapman had begun with An Humorous Day's Mirth. William Shakespeare was among the first actors to be cast. Jonson followed this in 1599 with Every Man out of His Humour, a pedantic attempt to imitate Aristophanes. It is not known whether this was a success on stage, but when published it proved popular and went through several editions.

Jonson's other work for the theatre in the last years of Elizabeth I's reign was marked by fighting and controversy. Cynthia's Revels was produced by the Children of the Chapel Royal at Blackfriars Theatre in 1600. It satirised both John Marston, who Jonson believed had accused him of lustfulness in Histriomastix, and Thomas Dekker. Jonson attacked the two poets again in Poetaster (1601). Dekker responded with Satiromastix, subtitled "the untrussing of the humorous poet". The final scene of this play, whilst certainly not to be taken at face value as a portrait of Jonson, offers a caricature that is recognisable from Drummond's report – boasting about himself and condemning other poets, criticising performances of his plays and calling attention to himself in any available way.

This "War of the Theatres" appears to have ended with reconciliation on all sides. Jonson collaborated with Dekker on a pageant welcoming James I to England in 1603 although Drummond reports that Jonson called Dekker a rogue. Marston dedicated The Malcontent to Jonson and the two collaborated with Chapman on Eastward Ho, a 1605 play whose anti-Scottish sentiment briefly landed both authors in jail.

Excerpt from Wikipedia

Plays

  1. A Tale of a Tub
  2. The Isle of Dogs
  3. The Case is Altered
  4. Every Man in His Humour
  5. Every Man out of His Humour
  6. Cynthia's Revels
  7. The Poetaster
  8. Sejanus His Fall
  9. Eastward Ho
  10. Volpone
  11. Epicoene, or the Silent Woman
  12. The Alchemist
  13. Catiline His Conspiracy
  14. Bartholomew Fair
  15. The Devil is an Ass
  16. The Staple of News
  17. The New Inn, or The Light Heart
  18. The Magnetic Lady, or Humors Reconciled
  19. The Sad Shepherd
  20. Mortimer His Fall

Masques

  1. The Coronation Triumph
  2. A Private Entertainment of the King and Queen on May-Day
  3. The Entertainment of the Queen and Prince Henry at Althorp
  4. The Masque of Blackness
  5. Hymenaei
  6. The Entertainment of the Kings of Great Britain and Denmark
  7. The Masque of Beauty
  8. The Masque of Queens
  9. The Hue and Cry After Cupid
  10. The Entertainment at Britain's Burse
  11. The Speeches at Prince Henry's Barriers
  12. Oberon, the Faery Prince
  13. Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly
  14. Love Restored
  15. A Challenge at Tilt, at a Marriage
  16. The Irish Masque at Court
  17. Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists
  18. The Golden Age Restored
  19. Christmas, His Masque
  20. The Vision of Delight
  21. Lovers Made Men
  22. Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue
  23. For the Honour of Wales
  24. News from the New World Discovered in the Moon
  25. The Entertainment at Blackfriars
  26. Pan's Anniversary
  27. The Gypsies Metamorphosed
  28. The Masque of Augurs
  29. Time Vindicated to Himself and to His Honours
  30. Neptune's Triumph for the Return of Albion
  31. The Masque of Owls at Kenilworth
  32. The Fortunate Isles and Their Union
  33. Love's Triumph Through Callipolis
  34. Chloridia: Rites to Chloris and Her Nymphs
  35. The King's Entertainment at Welbeck in Nottinghamshire
  36. Love's Welcome at Bolsover

Other Works

  1. Epigrams
  2. The Forest
  3. On My First Sonne
  4. A Discourse of Love
  5. Barclay's Argenis
  6. The Execration against Vulcan
  7. Horace's Art of Poetry
  8. Underwood
  9. English Grammar
  10. Timber
  11. To Celia

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