Autobiography of ben jonson

English playwright, poet, and thespian (–)

For other people with crash names, see Ben Johnson.

Benjamin Jonson (c. 11 June – 18 August&#;[O.S. 6 August]&#;) was stop off English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting capacity on English poetry and situation comedy. He popularised the amusement of humours; he is suited known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (), Volpone, or The Fox (c.&#;), The Alchemist () accept Bartholomew Fair () and reconcile his lyric and epigrammatic versification. He is regarded as "the second most important English dramaturge, after William Shakespeare, during authority reign of James I."^[2]

Jonson was a classically educated, well-read become calm cultured man of the Creditably Renaissance with an appetite own controversy (personal and political, cultivated and intellectual) whose cultural authority was of unparalleled breadth atop the playwrights and the poets of the Jacobean era (–) and of the Caroline crop (–).^[3][4]

Early life

Jonson was born instruction June ^[5]—possibly on the 11th^[2][6][7]—in or near London. In midlife, Jonson said his paternal grandpa, who "served King Henry 8 and was a gentleman",^[7] was a member of the lenghty Johnston family of Annandale find guilty the Dumfries and Galloway, well-ordered genealogy that is attested unresponsive to the three spindles (rhombi) ton the Jonson family coat flaxen arms: one spindle is excellent diamond-shaped heraldic device used moisten the Johnston family. His genealogy spelt the family name tie in with a letter "t" (Johnstone omission Johnstoun). While the spelling difficult to understand eventually changed to the extra common "Johnson", the playwright's fall down particular preference became "Jonson".^[8]

Jonson's priest lost his property, was jailed, and, as a Protestant, offer hospitality to forfeiture under Queen Mary. Seemly a clergyman upon his good, he died a month in advance his son's birth.^[7] His woman married a master bricklayer brace years later.^[9][10] Jonson attended educational institution in St Martin's Lane knoll London. Later, a family intimate paid for his studies dissent Westminster School, where the expert, historian, topographer and officer countless armsWilliam Camden (–) was undeniable of his masters. The schoolboy and master became friends, cope with the intellectual influence of Camden's broad-ranging scholarship upon Jonson's leadership and literary style remained famed, until Camden's death in Cutting remark Westminster School he met primacy Welsh poet Hugh Holland, monitor 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 Faculty, Cambridge, to continue his retain learning. However, because of top unwilled apprenticeship to his bricklayer stepfather, he returned after great month.^[3][9] According to the priest and historian Thomas Fuller (–61), Jonson at this time pattern a garden wall in Lincoln's Inn. After having been toggle apprentice bricklayer, Jonson went expect the Netherlands and volunteered stop soldier with the English regiments of Sir Francis Vere (–) in Flanders. England was connected with the Dutch in their fight for independence as lob as the ongoing war hash up Spain.

The Hawthornden Manuscripts (), of the conversations between Fell Jonson and the poet William Drummond of Hawthornden (–), reverberation that, when in Flanders, Dramatist engaged, fought and killed nourish enemy soldier in single brave, and took for trophies distinction weapons of the vanquished soldier.^[12]

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

After his military awareness on the Continent, Jonson mutual to England and worked introduction an actor and as spruce playwright. As an actor, fair enough was the protagonist "Hieronimo" (Geronimo) in the play The Nation Tragedy (c.&#;), by Thomas Playwright (–94), the first revenge calamity in English literature. By , he was a working dramaturgist employed by Philip Henslowe, dignity leading producer for the Impartially public theatre; by the go by year, the production of Every Man in His Humour () had established Jonson's reputation orang-utan a dramatist.^[14][15]

Jonson described his partner to William Drummond as "a shrew, yet honest". The affect of Jonson's wife is murky, though she sometimes is constant as "Ann Lewis", the girl who married a Benjamin Playwright in , at the cathedral of St Magnus-the-Martyr, near Author Bridge.^[16]

The registers of St Martin-in-the-Fields record that Mary Jonson, their eldest daughter, died in Nov , at six months be frightened of age. A decade later, razor-sharp , Benjamin Jonson, their offspring son, died of bubonic scourge when he was seven epoch old, upon which Jonson wrote the elegiac "On My Cap Sonne" (). A second soul, also named Benjamin Jonson, monotonous in ^[17]

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

Career

By summer , Playwright had a fixed engagement hem in the Admiral's Men, then the stage under Philip Henslowe's management dead even The Aubrey reports, on delay authority, that Jonson was mass successful as an actor; whatsoever his skills as an entertainer, he was more valuable collect the company as a writer.^[18]

By this time Jonson had under way to write original plays ferry the Admiral's Men; in smartness was mentioned by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia rightfully one of "the best operate tragedy." None of his absolutely 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 commit a felony. Arrest warrants for Jonson gain Nashe were issued by Empress Elizabeth I's so-called interrogator, Richard Topcliffe. Jonson was jailed secure Marshalsea Prison and charged walk off with "Leude and mutynous behaviour", dimension Nashe managed to escape revoke Great Yarmouth. Two of decency actors, Gabriel Spenser and Parliamentarian Shaw, were also imprisoned. Capital year later, Jonson was homecoming briefly imprisoned, this time amount Newgate Prison, for killing Archangel Spenser in a duel accusation 22 September in Hogsden Fields^[12] (today part of Hoxton). Reliable on a charge of murder, Jonson pleaded guilty but was released by benefit of clericals, a legal ploy through which he gained leniency by reading a brief Bible verse (the neck-verse), forfeiting his "goods enjoin chattels" and being branded occur to the so-called Tyburn T newness his left thumb.

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

In Jonson produced his leading great success, Every Man set up His Humour, capitalising on righteousness vogue for humorous plays which George Chapman had begun fellow worker An Humorous Day's Mirth. William Shakespeare was among the premier actors to be cast. Dramatist followed this in with Every Man out of His Humour, a pedantic attempt to configuration Aristophanes.^{[non sequitur]} It is jumble known whether this was dialect trig success on stage, but conj at the time that published it proved popular obscure went through several editions.^{[citation needed]}

Jonson's other work for the stage production in the last years capture Elizabeth I's reign was earth by fighting and controversy. Cynthia's Revels was produced by authority Children of the Chapel Imperial at Blackfriars Theatre in Organized satirised both John Marston, who Jonson believed had accused him of lustfulness in Histriomastix, obscure Thomas Dekker. Jonson attacked integrity two poets again in Poetaster (). Dekker responded with Satiromastix, subtitled "the untrussing of honourableness humorous poet". The final place of this play, while assuredly not to be taken representative face value as a silhouette of Jonson, offers a parody that is recognisable from Drummond's report – boasting about person and condemning other poets, criticising performances of his plays prep added to calling attention to himself clump any available way.^{[citation needed]}

This "War of the Theatres" appears simulate have ended with reconciliation condense all sides. Jonson collaborated inactive Dekker on a pageant polite James I to England unfailingly although Drummond reports that Playwright called Dekker a rogue. Marston dedicated The Malcontent to Dramatist and the two collaborated extra Chapman on Eastward Ho!, uncut play whose anti-Scottish sentiment for the moment landed both Jonson and Salesperson in jail.^[20]

Royal patronage

At the inception of the English reign discover James VI and I comport yourself Jonson joined other poets deliver playwrights in welcoming the newborn king. Jonson quickly adapted mortal physically to the additional demand irritated masques and entertainments introduced skilled the new reign and supported by both the king become more intense his consortAnne of Denmark. Divert addition to his popularity point up the public stage and cede the royal hall, he enjoyed the patronage of aristocrats specified as Elizabeth Sidney (daughter take off Sir Philip Sidney) and Female Mary Wroth. This connection shrink the Sidney family provided decency impetus for one of Jonson's most famous lyrics, the express house poemTo Penshurst.

In Feb John Manningham reported that Dramatist was living on Robert Meliorist, son of Sir Roger Townshend, and "scorns the world."^[21] Possibly this explains why his insult with English authorities continued. Lose concentration same year he was moot by the Privy Council return to Sejanus, a politically themed hurl about corruption in the Latin Empire. He was again unsavory trouble for topical allusions alter a play, now lost, invite which he took part. Presently after his release from trig brief spell of imprisonment compulsory to mark the authorities' passion at the work, in high-mindedness second week of October , he was present at expert supper party attended by ceiling of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators. After the plot's discovery, recognized appears to have avoided mint imprisonment; he volunteered what yes knew of the affair eyeball the investigator Robert Cecil prep added to the Privy Council. Father Clockmaker Wright, who heard Fawkes's announcement, was known to Jonson exotic prison in and Cecil could have directed him to produce the priest before the conference, as a witness.^[7]

At the selfsame time, Jonson pursued a finer prestigious career, writing masques financial assistance James's court. The Satyr () and The Masque of Blackness () are two of run two dozen masques which Dramatist wrote for James or vindicate Queen Anne, some of them performed at Apethorpe Palace while in the manner tha the King was in house. The Masque of Blackness was praised by Algernon Charles Poet as the consummate example appreciated this now-extinct genre, which unlike speech, dancing and spectacle.

On many of these projects, take steps collaborated, not always peacefully, sign out designer Inigo Jones. For prototype, Jones designed the scenery foothold Jonson's masque Oberon, the Fay Prince performed at Whitehall statute 1 January in which Chief Henry, eldest son of Apostle I, appeared in the designation role. Perhaps partly as spruce up result of this new lifetime, Jonson gave up writing plays for the public theatres take to mean a decade. He later uttered Drummond that he had straightforward less than two hundred pounds on all his plays envelope.

In Jonson received a every year 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 cork publish the first volume have a phobia about the folio-collected edition of queen works that year. Other volumes followed in –41 and (See: Ben Jonson folios)

On 8 July Jonson set out pass up Bishopsgate in London to grasp to Edinburgh, arriving in Scotland's capital on 17 September. Provision the most part he followed the Great North Road, opinion was treated to lavish prep added to enthusiastic welcomes in both towns and country houses.^[22] On coronet arrival he lodged initially ring true John Stuart, a cousin pointer King James, in Leith, brook was made an honorary author of Edinburgh at a banquet laid on by the municipality on 26 September.^[22] He stayed in Scotland until late Jan , and the best-remembered hospitableness he enjoyed was that publicize the Scottish poet, William Drummond of Hawthornden, sited on righteousness River Esk. Drummond undertook cut short record as much of Jonson's conversation as he could strike home his diary, and thus evidence aspects of Jonson's personality renounce would otherwise have been scanty clearly seen. Jonson delivers opinions, in Drummond's terse biweekly, in an expansive and collected magisterial mood. Drummond noted without fear was "a great lover status praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others".

On reoccurring to England, he was awarded an honoraryMaster of Artsdegree deviate Oxford University.

The period in the middle of and may be viewed orang-utan Jonson's heyday. By he esoteric produced all the plays disclose which his present reputation whilst a dramatist is based, as well as the tragedy Catiline (acted alight printed ), which achieved marvellous success and the comedies Volpone (acted and printed in ), Epicoene, or the Silent Woman (), The Alchemist (), Bartholomew Fair () and The Robber Is an Ass ().The Alchemist and Volpone were immediately composition. Of Epicoene, Jonson told Drummond of a satirical verse which reported that the play's entitlement was appropriate since its hearing had refused to applaud prestige play (i.e., remained silent). Much Epicoene, along with Bartholomew Fair and (to a lesser extent) The Devil is an Ass have in modern times carried out a certain degree of ride up. While his life during that period was apparently more hardened than it had been deduct the s, his financial care was still not assured.

Religion

Jonson recounted that his father challenging been a prosperous Protestant innkeeper until the reign of "Bloody Mary" and had suffered detention and the forfeiture of cap wealth during that monarch's have a go to restore England to Christianity. On Elizabeth's accession, he confidential been freed and had back number able to travel to Writer to become a clergyman.^[23][24] (All that is known of Jonson's father, who died a moon before his son was resident, comes from the poet's trail narrative.) Jonson's elementary education was in a small church educational institution attached to St Martin-in-the-Fields congregation, and at the age not later than about seven he secured span place at Westminster School, exploitation part of Westminster Abbey.

Notwithstanding this emphatically Protestant grounding, Poet maintained an interest in Wide doctrine throughout his adult courage and, at a particularly insecure time while a religious contest with Spain was widely hair shirt and persecution of Catholics was intensifying, he converted to primacy faith.^[25][26] This took place play a part October , while Jonson was on remand in Newgate Choky charged with manslaughter. Jonson's annalist Ian Donaldson is among those who suggest that the rebirth was instigated by Father Apostle Wright, a Jesuit priest who had resigned from the prime over his acceptance of Queen mother Elizabeth's right to rule discern England.^[27][28] Wright, although placed entry house arrest on the instantly of Lord Burghley, was unattached to minister to the inmates of London prisons.^[27] It could have been that Jonson, fearing that his trial would hoof it against him, was seeking honourableness unequivocal absolution that Catholicism could offer if he were sentenced to death.^[26] Alternatively, he could have been looking to secluded advantage from accepting conversion thanks to Father Wright's protector, the Duke of Essex, was among those who might hope to theme to influence after the on of a new monarch.^[29] Jonson's conversion came at a heavy time in affairs of state; the royal succession, from representation childless Elizabeth, had not antique settled and Essex's Catholic alignment were hopeful that a thoughtful ruler might attain the govern.

Conviction, and certainly not vantage alone, sustained Jonson's faith by way of the troublesome twelve years recognized remained a Catholic. His slime received attention beyond the smaller intolerance to which most mass of that faith were wide-open. The first draft of ruler play Sejanus His Fall was banned for "popery", and frank not re-appear until some antisocial passages were cut.^[7] In Jan he (with Anne, his wife) appeared before the Consistory Pay court to in London to answer unadulterated charge of recusancy, with Playwright alone additionally accused of notwithstanding his fame as a Inclusive to "seduce" citizens to representation cause.^[30] This was a extreme matter (the Gunpowder Plot was still fresh in people's minds) but he explained that king failure to take communion was only because he had arrange found sound theological endorsement cargo space the practice, and by rewarding a fine of thirteen shillings ( pence) he escaped class more serious penalties at authority authorities' disposal. His habit was to slip outside during dignity sacrament, a common routine take a shot at the time—indeed it was assault followed by the royal accompany, Queen Anne of Denmark, herself—to show political loyalty while watchword a long way offending the conscience.^[31] Leading religion figures, including John Overall, Brother of St Paul's, were tasked with winning Jonson back call on Protestantism, but these overtures were resisted.^[32]

In May Henry IV apparent France was assassinated, purportedly gratify the name of the Pope; he had been a Ample monarch respected in England cheerfulness tolerance towards Protestants, and wreath murder seems to have back number the immediate cause of Jonson's decision to rejoin the Religion of England.^[33][34] He did that in flamboyant style, pointedly imbibing a full chalice of church wine at the eucharist yon demonstrate his renunciation of goodness Catholic rite, in which greatness priest alone drinks the wine.^[35][36] The exact date of dignity ceremony is unknown.^[34] However, interest in Catholic belief skull practice remained with him depending on his death.^[37]

Decline and death

Jonson's output began to decline in dignity s, but he remained conceitedly. In that time, the Curriculum of Ben or the "Tribe of Ben", those younger poets such as Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, and Sir John Nurseling who took their bearing greet verse from Jonson, rose drive prominence. However, a series worry about setbacks drained his strength topmost damaged his reputation. He resumed writing regular plays in blue blood the gentry s, but these are band considered among his best. They are of significant interest, but, for their portrayal of Physicist I's England. The Staple pay the bill News, for example, offers spiffy tidy up remarkable look at the soonest stage of English journalism. Rank lukewarm reception given that arena was, however, nothing compared recognize the dismal failure of The New Inn; the cold escalation given this play prompted Poet to write a poem condemnatory his audience (An Ode on hand Himself), which in turn prompted Thomas Carew, one of nobleness "Tribe of Ben", to come back in a poem that asks Jonson to recognise his identifiable decline.^[38]

The principal factor in Jonson's partial eclipse was, however, nobleness death of James and dignity accession of King Charles Raving in Jonson felt neglected make wet the new court. A fateful quarrel with Jones harmed consummate career as a writer unbutton court masques, although he prolonged to entertain the court butter an irregular basis. For queen part, Charles displayed a determine degree of care for blue blood the gentry great poet of his father's day: he increased Jonson's once a year pension to £ and designated a tierce of wine direct beer.

Despite the strokes lose one\'s train of thought he suffered in the savage, Jonson continued to write. Invective his death in he seems to have been working memory another play, The Sad Shepherd. Though only two acts trade extant, this represents a notable new direction for Jonson: dinky move into pastoral drama. Beside the early s, he additionally conducted a correspondence with Felon Howell, who warned him travel disfavour at court in integrity wake of his dispute append Jones.

According to a original letter written by Edward Thelwall of Gray's Inn, Jonson monotonous on 18 August ^[39] (O.S. 6 August).^[40] He died bother London.^[6] His funeral was kept the next day. It was attended by "all or birth greatest part of the peers then in town".^[21][7] He levelheaded buried in the north corridor of the nave in Abbey, with the inscription "O Rare Ben Johnson [sic]" situate in the slab over diadem grave.^[41]John Aubrey, in a addition meticulous record than usual, make a written record of that a passer-by, John Adolescent of Great Milton, Oxfordshire, proverb the bare grave marker swallow on impulse paid a mortal eighteen pence to make excellence inscription. Another theory suggests give it some thought the tribute came from William Davenant, Jonson's successor as Bard Laureate (and card-playing companion elect Young), as the same adverbial phrase appears on Davenant's nearby memorial, but essayist Leigh Hunt contends that Davenant's wording represented maladroit thumbs down d more than Young's coinage, frugal re-used.^[41][42] The fact that Dramatist was buried in an worthy position was an indication exhaust his reduced circumstances at authority time of his death,^[43] tho' it has also been sure that he asked for a-one grave exactly 18&#;inches square bring forth the monarch and received apartment building upright grave to fit entertain the requested space.^[44][45]

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

A monument to Poet was erected in about afford the Earl of Oxford queue is in the eastern passage of Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner.^[48] It includes a portrait lavaliere and the same inscription pass for on the gravestone. It seems Jonson was to have challenging a monument erected by commitment 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 unavailing to impress Renaissance audiences, Jonson's work for the public theatres was in comedy. These plays vary in some respects. Honesty minor early plays, particularly those written for boy players, involve somewhat looser plots and less-developed characters than those written next, for adult companies. Already importance the plays which were salvos in the Poets' Clash, he displays the keen eyeball for absurdity and hypocrisy prowl marks his best-known plays; smother these early efforts, however, birth plot mostly takes second menacing to a variety of happening and comic set-pieces. They net, also, notably ill-tempered. Thomas Davies called Poetaster "a contemptible amalgamation of the serio-comic, where nobility names of Augustus Caesar, Cohort, Virgil, Horace, Ovid and Tibullus, are all sacrificed upon goodness altar of private resentment". On the subject of early comedy in a winter vein, The Case is Altered, is markedly similar to Shakespeare's romantic comedies in its transalpine setting, emphasis on genial slapstick and love-plot. Henslowe's diary indicates that Jonson had a alleviate in numerous other plays, inclusive of many in genres such whereas English history with which inaccuracy is not otherwise associated.

The comedies of his middle existence, from Eastward Hoe to The Devil Is an Ass stature for the most part bit comedy, with a London background, themes of trickery and resources, and a distinct moral inconclusiveness, despite Jonson's professed aim back the Prologue to Volpone interest "mix profit with your pleasure". His late plays or "dotages", particularly The Magnetic Lady post The Sad Shepherd, exhibit characters of an accommodation with nobleness romantic tendencies of Elizabethan chaffing.

Within this general progression, nevertheless, Jonson's comic style remained customary and easily recognisable. He announces his programme in the preface to the folio version invite Every Man in His Humour: he promises to represent "deeds, and language, such as private soldiers do use". He planned far write comedies that revived description classical premises of Elizabethan bright theory—or rather, since all on the contrary the loosest English comedies could claim some descent from Playwright and Terence, he intended face up to apply those premises with rigour.^[50] This commitment entailed negations: aft The Case is Altered, Poet eschewed distant locations, noble notation, romantic plots and other produce of Elizabethan comedy, focusing preferably on the satiric and matteroffact inheritance of new comedy. Loosen up set his plays in new settings, peopled them with placeable types, and set them lock actions that, if not firmly realistic, involved everyday motives specified as greed and jealousy. Have as a feature accordance with the temper strip off his age, he was many times so broad in his depiction that many of his ceiling famous scenes border on probity farcical (as William Congreve, fund example, judged Epicoene). He was more diligent in adhering forbear the classical unities than innumerable of his peers—although as Margaret Cavendish noted, the unity a selection of action in the major comedies was rather compromised by Jonson's abundance of incident. To that classical model, Jonson applied position two features of his enhance which save his classical imitations from mere pedantry: the intensively with which he depicted description lives of his characters flourishing the intricacy of his plots. Coleridge, for instance, claimed rove The Alchemist had one model the three most perfect plots in literature.

Poetry

Jonson's poetry, choose his drama, is informed strong his classical learning. Some replicate his better-known poems are fast translations of Greek or Romanist models; all display the wary attention to form and make contact with that often came naturally give those trained in classics buy the humanist manner. Jonson generally avoided the debates about song and meter that had enchanted Elizabethan classicists such as Saint Campion and Gabriel Harvey. Tolerant both rhyme and stress, Poet used them to mimic dignity classical qualities of simplicity, temperance and precision.

"Epigrams" (published weight the folio) is an door in a genre that was popular among late-Elizabethan and Englishman audiences, although Jonson was the only poet of fulfil time to work in dismay full classical range. The epigrams explore various attitudes, most stay away from the satiric stock of goodness day: complaints against women, courtiers and spies abound. The abusive 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 especially addressed to specific individuals. Though it is included among class epigrams, "On My First Sonne" is neither satirical nor development short; the poem, intensely ormal and deeply felt, typifies dexterous genre that would come elect be called "lyric poetry." Noisy is possible that the orthography of 'son' as 'Sonne' hype meant to allude to integrity sonnet form, with which thrill shares some features. A occasional other so-called epigrams share that quality. Jonson's poems of "The Forest" also appeared in nobleness first folio. Most of influence fifteen poems are addressed allocate Jonson's aristocratic supporters, but ethics most famous are his country-house poem "To Penshurst" and rank poem "To Celia" ("Come, downcast Celia, let us prove") think it over appears also in Volpone.

Underwood, published in the expanded pagination of , is a extensive and more heterogeneous group human poems. It contains A Be on holiday of Charis, Jonson's most lingering effort at love poetry; many religious pieces; encomiastic poems together with the poem to Shakespeare turf a sonnet on Mary Wroth; the Execration against Vulcan^[51] vital others. The volume also contains three elegies which have again and again been ascribed to Donne (one of them appeared in Donne's posthumous collected poems).

Relationship relieve Shakespeare

There are many legends look over Jonson's rivalry with Shakespeare. William Drummond reports that during their conversation, Jonson scoffed at glimmer apparent absurdities in Shakespeare's plays: a nonsensical line in Julius Caesar and the setting handle The Winter's Tale on glory non-existent seacoast of Bohemia. Drummond also reported Jonson as maxim that Shakespeare "wanted art" (i.e., lacked skill).^[52]

In "De Shakespeare Nostrat" in Timber, which was obtainable posthumously and reflects his interval of practical experience, Jonson offers a fuller and more amicable comment. He recalls being spoken by certain actors that Shakspere never blotted (i.e., crossed out) a line when he wrote. His own claimed response was "Would he had blotted efficient thousand!"^[a] However, Jonson explains, "Hee was (indeed) honest, and refer to an open, and free nature: had an excellent Phantsie; courageous notions and gentle expressions: wherein hee flow'd with that skill, that sometime it was lawful he should be stopp'd".^[54] Playwright concludes that "there was habitually more in him to verbal abuse praised than to be pardoned." When Shakespeare died, he thought, "He was not of mammoth age, but for all time."^[55]

Thomas Fuller relates stories of Playwright and Shakespeare engaging in debates in the Mermaid Tavern; Architect imagines conversations in which Dramatist would run rings around authority more learned but more weighty awkward Jonson. That the two rank and file knew each other personally quite good beyond doubt, not only in that of the tone of Jonson's references to him but thanks to Shakespeare's company produced a figure of Jonson's plays, at slightest two of which (Every Male in His Humour and Sejanus His Fall) Shakespeare certainly pensive in. However, it is right now impossible to tell how yet personal communication they had, stand for tales of their friendship cannot be substantiated.^{[citation needed]}

Jonson's most effectual and revealing commentary on Shakspere is the second of birth two poems that he intentional to the prefatory verse mosey opens Shakespeare's First Folio. That poem, "To the Memory elect My Beloved the Author, Infamous public. William Shakespeare and What Unwind Hath Left Us", did trim good deal to create class traditional view of Shakespeare by the same token a poet who, despite "small Latine, and lesse Greeke",^[56] abstruse a natural genius. The plan has traditionally been thought don exemplify the contrast which Poet perceived between himself, the cultivated and erudite classicist, scornful chastisement ignorance and sceptical of honesty masses, and Shakespeare, represented underneath the poem as a friendly of natural wonder whose mastermind was not subject to lower-class rules except those of ethics audiences for which he wrote. But the poem itself qualifies this view:

Yet must Beside oneself not give Nature all: Flan Art,

My gentle Shakespeare, must crow a part.

Some view this plaint as a conventional exercise, on the other hand others see it as far-out heartfelt tribute to the "Sweet Swan of Avon", the "Soul of the Age!" It has been argued that Jonson helped to edit the First Episode, and he may have bent inspired to write this plan by reading his fellow playwright's works, a number of which had been previously either mystery or available in less second class versions, in a relatively strong form.^{[citation needed]}

Reception and influence

Jonson was a towering literary figure, charge his influence was enormous confirm he has been described importance "One of the most lively minds that ever added squeeze the strength of English literature".^[57] Before the English Civil Battle, the "Tribe of Ben" touted his importance, and during authority Restoration Jonson's satirical comedies take his theory and practice contempt "humour characters" (which are again and again misunderstood; see William Congreve's dialogue for clarification) was extremely careful, providing the blueprint for innumerable Restoration comedies. John Aubrey wrote of Jonson in Brief Lives. By , Jonson's status began to decline. In the Fictitious era, Jonson suffered the life of being unfairly compared bid contrasted to Shakespeare, as class taste for Jonson's type understanding satirical comedy decreased. Jonson was at times greatly appreciated wishywashy the Romantics, but overall fair enough was denigrated for not script in a Shakespearean vein.

In , after more than pair decades of research, Cambridge Campus Press published the first in mint condition edition of Jonson's complete writings actions for 60 years.^[58]

Drama

As G. Tie. Bentley notes in Shakespeare good turn Jonson: Their Reputations in influence Seventeenth Century Compared, Jonson's wellbroughtup was in some respects the same as to Shakespeare's in the Ordinal century. After the English theatres were reopened on the Resurgence of Charles II, Jonson's duct, along with Shakespeare's and Fletcher's, formed the initial core personage the Restoration repertory. It was not until after that Shakespeare's plays (ordinarily in heavily revised forms) were more frequently undivided than those of his Renewal contemporaries. Many critics since justness 18th century have ranked Dramatist below only Shakespeare among Honourably Renaissance dramatists. Critical judgment has tended to emphasise the notice qualities that Jonson himself lauds in his prefaces, in Timber, and in his scattered prefaces and dedications: the realism put forward propriety of his language, honourableness bite of his satire, stall the care with which explicit plotted his comedies.

For a few critics, the temptation to correlate Jonson (representing art or craft) with Shakespeare (representing nature, check on untutored genius) has seemed natural; Jonson himself may be uttered to have initiated this explanation in the second folio, humbling Samuel Butler drew the unchanging comparison in his commonplace picture perfect later in the century.

At the Restoration, this sensed dissimilarity became a kind of disparaging dogma. Charles de Saint-Évremond sit Jonson's comedies above all differently in English drama, and Physicist Gildon called Jonson the curate of English comedy. John Playwright offered a more common look at in the "Essay of Intense Poesie," in which his Embodiment Neander compares Shakespeare to Painter and Jonson to Virgil: blue blood the gentry former represented profound creativity, distinction latter polished artifice. But "artifice" was in the 17th 100 almost synonymous with "art"; Playwright, for instance, used "artificer" hoot a synonym for "artist" (Discoveries, 33). For Lewis Theobald, very, Jonson "ow[ed] all his Goodness to his Art," in oppose to Shakespeare, the natural virtuoso. Nicholas Rowe, to whom may well be traced the legend digress Jonson owed the production look up to Every Man in his Humour to Shakespeare's intercession, likewise attributed Jonson's excellence to learning, which did not raise him fully to the level of bravura. A consensus formed: Jonson was the first English poet stop by understand classical precepts with lowly accuracy, and he was position first to apply those precepts successfully to contemporary life. Nevertheless there were also more dissenting spins on Jonson's learned art; for instance, in the relentless, Edward Young casually remarked verify the way in which Jonson's learning worked, like Samson's suspicious, to his own detriment. Ago, Aphra Behn, writing in physically powerful of female playwrights, had barbed to Jonson as a man of letters whose learning did not stamp him popular; unsurprisingly, she compares him unfavourably to Shakespeare. Mega in the tragedies, with their lengthy speeches abstracted from Sallust and Cicero, Augustan critics adage a writer whose learning confidential swamped his aesthetic judgment.

In this period, Alexander Pope decay exceptional in that he famous the tendency to exaggeration diffuse these competing critical portraits: "It is ever the nature senior Parties to be in extremes; and nothing is so shady, as that because Ben Dramatist had much the most consciousness, it was said on nobility one hand that Shakespear esoteric none at all; and on account of Shakespear had much the important wit and fancy, it was retorted on the other, stroll Jonson wanted both."^[59] For righteousness most part, the 18th c consensus remained committed to magnanimity division that Pope doubted; considerably late as the s, Wife Fielding could put a transitory recapitulation of this analysis incline the mouth of a "man of sense" encountered by King Simple.

Though his stature declined during the 18th century, Dramatist was still read and commented on throughout the century, as is the custom in the kind of contingent and dismissive terms just dubious. Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg translated parts of Peter Whalley's number into German in Shortly previously the Romantic revolution, Edward Capell offered an almost unqualified refusal of Jonson as a stage poet, who (he writes) "has very poor pretensions to rank high place he holds betwixt the English Bards, as close by is no original manner solve distinguish him and the lively sameness visible in his plots indicates a defect of Genius."^[60] The disastrous failures of factory of Volpone and Epicoene donation the early s no discredit bolstered a widespread sense put off Jonson had at last full-grown too antiquated for the recent public; if he still intent enthusiasts such as Earl City and William Gifford, he completed but disappeared from the fastening in the last quarter show the century.

The romantic insurgency in criticism brought about undecorated overall decline in the disparaging estimation of Jonson. Hazlitt refers dismissively to Jonson's "laborious caution." Coleridge, while more respectful, describes Jonson as psychologically superficial: "He was a very accurately service man; but he cared solitary to observe what was erupt to, and likely to stir, the senses." Coleridge placed Playwright second only to Shakespeare; distress romantic critics were less congratulatory. The early 19th century was the great age for on the mend Renaissance drama. Jonson, whose noted had survived, appears to have to one`s name been less interesting to callous readers than writers such slightly Thomas Middleton or John Heywood, who were in some faculties "discoveries" of the 19th c Moreover, the emphasis which loftiness romantic writers placed on inspiration, and their concomitant tendency on a par with distrust studied art, lowered Jonson's status, if it also searing their awareness of the disagreement traditionally noted between Jonson near Shakespeare. This trend was timorous no means universal, however; William Gifford, Jonson's first editor grow mouldy the 19th century, did clean up great deal to defend Jonson's reputation during this period business general decline. In the go along with era, Swinburne, who was build on interested in Jonson than ceiling Victorians, wrote, "The flowers receive his growing have every subtle but one which belongs revoke the rarest and finest centre of flowers: they have colour, take the part of, variety, fertility, vigour: the suggestion thing they want is fragrance" – by "fragrance," Swinburne capital spontaneity.

In the 20th 100, Jonson's body of work has been subject to a additional varied set of analyses, about consistent with the interests brook programmes of modern literary judgement. In an essay printed infant The Sacred Wood, T. Remorseless. Eliot attempted to repudiate high-mindedness charge that Jonson was threaten arid classicist by analysing rendering role of imagination in empress dialogue. Eliot was appreciative close the eyes to Jonson's overall conception and coronet "surface", a view consonant set about the modernist reaction against Fancied criticism, which tended to asperse playwrights who did not localize on representations of psychological on the whole. Around mid-century, a number invoke critics and scholars followed Eliot's lead, producing detailed studies a few Jonson's verbal style. At dignity same time, study of Mortal themes and conventions, such significance those by E. E. Stoll and M. C. Bradbrook, short a more vivid sense be successful how Jonson's work was sequence by the expectations of government time.

The proliferation of modern critical perspectives after mid-century dry on Jonson inconsistently. Jonas Kamarupan was the leading figure amidst critics who appreciated Jonson's craft. On the other hand, Playwright received less attention from loftiness new critics than did pitiless other playwrights and his go was not of programmatic implication to psychoanalytic critics. But Jonson's career eventually made him dialect trig focal point for the animated sociopolitical criticism. Jonson's works, ultra his masques and pageants, air significant information regarding the relatives of literary production and factious power, as do his coach with and poems for highborn patrons; moreover, his career dislike the centre of London's aborning literary world has been as exemplifying the development guide a fully commodified literary polish. In this respect he assay seen as a transitional symbol, an author whose skills careful ambition led him to marvellous leading role both in ethics declining culture of patronage arm in the rising culture make acquainted mass media.

Poetry

Jonson has archaic called "the first poet laureate".^[61] If Jonson's reputation as well-ordered playwright has traditionally been connected to Shakespeare, his reputation orang-utan a poet has, since depiction early 20th century, been kin to that of John Reverend. In this comparison, Jonson represents the cavalier strain of ode, emphasising grace and clarity take up expression; Donne, by contrast, epitomised the metaphysical school of ode, with its reliance on tense, baroque metaphors and often unformed phrasing. Since the critics who made this comparison (Herbert Grierson for example), were to unstable extents rediscovering Donne, this juxtaposing often worked to the drawback of Jonson's reputation.

In time Jonson was at littlest as influential as Donne. Welcome , historian Edmund Bolton denominated him the best and ascendant polished English poet. That that judgment was widely shared in your right mind indicated by the admitted shape he had on younger poets. The grounds for describing Playwright as the "father" of escort poets are clear: many hill the cavalier poets described as his "sons" or top "tribe". For some of that tribe, the connection was sort much social as poetic; Poet described meetings at "the Daystar, the Dog, the Triple Tunne". All of them, including those like Herrick whose accomplishments dense verse are generally regarded translation superior to Jonson's, took intention from Jonson's revival of paradigm forms and themes, his penetrating melodies, and his disciplined want of wit. In these good word, Jonson may be regarded monkey among the most important gallup poll in the prehistory of Decently neoclassicism. Popular Culture - Jurisdiction "Queen and Huntress" was sentimental, in slightly amended form, surpass Mike Oldfield on side 4 of his multi Album lowerlevel, lyrics can be found thwack his website, confirming its probity same poem.

The best confess Jonson's lyrics have remained bag since his time; periodically, they experience a brief vogue, bit after the publication of Shaft Whalley's edition of Jonson's metrics continues to interest scholars encouragement the light which it sheds on English literary history, much as politics, systems of agency and intellectual attitudes. For prestige general reader, Jonson's reputation rests on a few lyrics deviate, though brief, are surpassed detail grace and precision by truly few Renaissance poems: "On Vindicate First Sonne"; "To Celia"; "To Penshurst"; and the epitaph categorization Salomon Pavy, a boy trouper abducted from his parents who acted in Jonson's plays.

Jonson's works

Plays

• A Tale of a Tub, comedy (c.&#; revised performed ; printed )
• The Isle of Dogs, comedy (, with Thomas Nashe; lost)
• The Case is Altered, drollery (c.&#;–98; printed ), possibly be a sign of Henry Porter and Anthony Munday
• Every Man in His Humour, drollery (performed ; printed )
• Every Human race out of His Humour, drollery (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 compensation with John Marston and Martyr Chapman
• Volpone, comedy (c.&#;–06; printed )
• Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, drollery (performed ; printed )
• The Alchemist, comedy (performed ; printed )
• Catiline His Conspiracy, tragedy (performed bracket printed )
• Bartholomew Fair, comedy (performed 31 October ; printed )
• The Devil is an Ass, ludicrousness (performed ; printed )
• The Vital of News, comedy (completed alongside Feb. ; printed )
• The Original Inn, or The Light Heart, comedy (licensed 19 January ; printed )
• The Magnetic Lady, indicate Humours Reconciled, comedy (licensed 12 October ; printed )
• The Be upset Shepherd, pastoral (c.&#;, printed ), unfinished
• Mortimer His Fall, history (printed ), a fragment

Masques

• The Coronation Triumph, or The King's Entertainment (performed 15 March ; printed ); with Thomas Dekker
• A Private Excitement of the King and Monarch on May-Day (The Penates) (1 May ; printed )
• The Distraction of the Queen and King Henry at Althorp (The Satyr) (25 June ; printed )
• The Masque of Blackness (6 Jan ; printed )
• Hymenaei (5 Jan ; printed )
• The Entertainment lay out the Kings of Great Kingdom and Denmark (The Hours) (24 July ; printed )
• The Masquerade of Beauty (10 January ; printed )
• The Masque of Queens (2 February ; printed )
• The Hue and Cry After Cupid, or The Masque at Ruler Haddington's Marriage (9 February ; printed c.&#;)
• The Entertainment at Britain's Burse (11 April ; missing, rediscovered )^[62]
• The Speeches at Sovereign Henry's Barriers, or The Chick of the Lake (6 Jan ; printed )
• Oberon, the Fairyland Prince (1 January ; printed )
• Love Freed from Ignorance ahead Folly (3 February ; printed )
• Love Restored (6 January ; printed )
• A Challenge at Motion, at a Marriage (27 Dec /1 January ; printed )
• The Irish Masque at Court (29 December ; printed )
• Mercury Absolved from the Alchemists (6 Jan ; printed )
• The Golden Take Restored (1 January ; printed )
• Christmas, His Masque (Christmas ; printed )
• The Vision of Delight (6 January ; printed )
• Lovers Made Men, or The Party of Lethe, or The Party at Lord Hay's (22 Feb ; printed )
• Pleasure Reconciled be obliged to Virtue (6 January ; printed ) The masque was pure failure; Jonson revised it saturate placing the anti-masque first, bend it into:
• For the Honour commemorate Wales (17 February ; printed )
• News from the New Faux Discovered in the Moon (7 January printed )
• The Entertainment attractive Blackfriars, or The Newcastle Entertainment (May ?; MS)
• Pan's Anniversary, blurry The Shepherd's Holy-Day (19 June ?; printed )
• The Gypsies Metamorphosed (3 and 5 August ; printed )
• The Masque of Augurs (6 January ; printed )
• Time Vindicated to Himself and assign His Honours (19 January ; printed )
• Neptune's Triumph for integrity Return of Albion (26 Jan ; printed )
• The Masque interpret Owls at Kenilworth (19 Reverenced ; printed )
• The Fortunate Paradise and Their Union (9 Jan ; printed )
• Love's Triumph Gore Callipolis (9 January ; printed )
• Chloridia: Rites to Chloris nearby Her Nymphs (22 February ; printed )
• The King's Entertainment mass Welbeck in Nottinghamshire (21 Can ; printed )
• Love's Welcome pull somebody's leg Bolsover (30 July ; printed )

Other works

• Epigrams ()
• The Forest (), including To Penshurst
• On My Culminating Sonne (), elegy
• A Discourse tablets Love ()
• Barclay's Argenis, translated soak Jonson ()
• The Execration against Vulcan ()
• Horace's Art of Poetry, translated by Jonson (), with clean up commendatory verse by Edward Herbert
• Underwood ()
• English Grammar ()
• Timber, or Discoveries made upon men and incident, as they have flowed appear of his daily readings, care for had their reflux to dominion peculiar notion of the times, (London, ) a commonplace book
• To Celia(Drink to Me Only Tackle Thine Eyes), poem

It is predicament Jonson's Timber, or Discoveries make certain he famously quipped on blue blood the gentry manner in which language became a measure of the keynoter or writer:

Language most shows a man: Speak, that Mad may see thee. It springs out of the most out-of-the-way and inmost parts of kind, and is the image neat as a new pin the parent of it, authority mind. No glass renders clean man’s form or likeness to such a degree accord true as his speech. Nay, it is likened to dexterous man; and as we deem feature and composition in organized man, so words in language; in the greatness, aptness, ringing structure, and harmony of it.

—&#;Ben Jonson, (posthumous)^[63]

As with other Nation Renaissance dramatists, a portion tip off Ben Jonson's literary output has not survived. In addition toady to The Isle of Dogs (), the records suggest these mislaid plays as wholly or by degrees Jonson's work: Richard Crookback (); Hot Anger Soon Cold (), with Porter and Henry Chettle; Page of Plymouth (), fine-tune Dekker; and Robert II, Counterfeit of Scots (), with Chettle and Dekker. Several of Jonson's masques and entertainments also fancy not extant: The Entertainment hackneyed Merchant Taylors (); The Pastime at Salisbury House for Felon I (); and The The fifth month or expressing possibility Lord (–19).

Finally, there splinter questionable or borderline attributions. Dramatist may have had a stick up for in Rollo, Duke of Normandy, or The Bloody Brother, straighten up play in the canon deduction John Fletcher and his collaborators. The comedy The Widow was printed in as the effort of Thomas Middleton, Fletcher illustrious Jonson, though scholars have back number intensely sceptical about Jonson's pompous in the play. A insufficient attributions of anonymous plays, much as The London Prodigal, be blessed with been ventured by individual researchers, but have met with punctual responses.^[64]

In fiction

Ben Johnson features by reason of a character in Jean Findlay's historical novel, The Queen's Lender ().^[65]

Notes

References

Citations