Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson | |
---|---|
Abraham Blyenberch, c. 1617; oil on canvas painting at the National Portrait Gallery, London | |
Born | Benjamin Jonson c. 11 June 1572 |
Died | c. 6 August 1637 (aged 65) London,[1] England |
Resting place | Westminster Abbey |
Occupation |
|
Language | Early Modern English |
Alma mater | Westminster School |
Period | Before 1597 – 1637 |
Literary movement | English Renaissance |
Spouse |
Ann Therese Lewis (m. 1594) |
Children | 2 |
Signature | |
Benjamin Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 6 August 1637)[2] was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence on 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 and epigrammatic poetry.[3] He is regarded as "the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I."[4]
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).[5][6]
Early life
This section needs additional citations for verification. (October 2022) |
In midlife, Jonson said his paternal grandfather, who "served King Henry 8 and was a gentleman",[7] was a member of the extended Johnston family of Annandale in the Dumfries and Galloway, a genealogy that is attested by the three spindles (rhombi) in the Jonson family coat of arms: one spindle is a diamond-shaped heraldic device used by the Johnston family. His ancestors spelt the family name with a letter "t" (Johnstone or Johnstoun). While the spelling had eventually changed to the more common "Johnson", the playwright's own particular preference became "Jonson".[8]
Jonson's father lost his property, was imprisoned, and, as a Protestant, suffered
On leaving Westminster School in 1589, Jonson was to attend the University of Cambridge, to continue his book learning. However, because of his unwilled apprenticeship to his bricklayer stepfather, he could not.[5][9] According to the churchman and historian Thomas Fuller (1608–61), Jonson at this time built a garden wall in Lincoln's Inn. After having been an apprentice bricklayer, Jonson went to the Netherlands and volunteered to soldier with the English regiments of Sir Francis Vere (1560–1609) in Flanders. England was allied with the Dutch in their fight for independence as well as the ongoing war with Spain.
The Hawthornden Manuscripts (1619), of the conversations between Ben Jonson and the poet William Drummond of Hawthornden[3] (1585–1649), report that, when in Flanders, Jonson engaged, fought and killed an enemy soldier in single combat, and took for trophies the weapons of the vanquished soldier.[12]
Johnson is reputed to have visited the antiquary Sir Robert Cotton at a residence of his in Chester early in the 17th century.[13]
After his military activity on the Continent, Jonson returned to England and worked as an actor and as a playwright. As an actor, he was the protagonist "Hieronimo" (Geronimo) in the play The Spanish Tragedy (c. 1586), by Thomas Kyd (1558–94), the first revenge tragedy in English literature. By 1597, he was a working playwright employed by Philip Henslowe, the leading producer for the English public theatre; by the next year, the production of Every Man in His Humour (1598) had established Jonson's reputation as a dramatist.[14][15]
Jonson described his wife to William Drummond as "a shrew, yet honest". The identity of Jonson's wife is obscure, though she sometimes is identified as "Ann Lewis", the woman who married a Benjamin Jonson in 1594, at the church of
The registers of St Martin-in-the-Fields record that Mary Jonson, their eldest daughter, died in November 1593, at six months of age. A decade later, in 1603, Benjamin Jonson, their eldest son, died of bubonic plague when he was seven years old, upon which Jonson wrote the elegiac "On My First Sonne" (1603). A second son, also named Benjamin Jonson, died in 1635.[17]
During that period[
Career
By summer 1597, Jonson had a fixed engagement in the Admiral's Men, then performing under Philip Henslowe's management at The Rose.[3] John Aubrey reports, on uncertain authority, that Jonson was not successful as an actor; whatever his skills as an actor, he was more valuable to the company as a writer.[18]
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."[3] None of his early tragedies survive, however. An undated comedy, The Case is Altered, may be his earliest surviving play.[19]
In 1597, a play which he co-wrote with
While in jail Jonson converted to Catholicism, possibly through the influence of fellow-prisoner Father
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.[non sequitur] It is not known whether this was a success on stage, but when published it proved popular and went through several editions.[citation needed]
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".[3] The final scene of this play, while 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.[citation needed]
This "
Royal patronage
At the beginning of the English reign of
In February 1603
At the same time, Jonson pursued a more prestigious career, writing masques for James's court. The Satyr (1603) and The Masque of Blackness (1605) are two of about two dozen masques which Jonson wrote for James or for Queen Anne, some of them performed at Apethorpe Palace when the King was in residence. The Masque of Blackness was praised by Algernon Charles Swinburne as the consummate example of this now-extinct genre, which mingled speech, dancing and spectacle.
On many of these projects, he collaborated, not always peacefully, with designer Inigo Jones. For example, Jones designed the scenery for Jonson's masque Oberon, the Faery Prince performed at Whitehall on 1 January 1611 in which Prince Henry, eldest son of James I, appeared in the title role. Perhaps partly as a result of this new career, Jonson gave up writing plays for the public theatres for a decade. He later told Drummond that he had made less than two hundred pounds on all his plays together.
In 1616 Jonson received a yearly pension of 100
On 8 July 1618 Jonson set out from Bishopsgate in London to walk to Edinburgh, arriving in Scotland's capital on 17 September. For the most part he followed the Great North Road, and was treated to lavish and enthusiastic welcomes in both towns and country houses.[22] On his arrival he lodged initially with John Stuart, a cousin of King James, in Leith, and was made an honorary burgess of Edinburgh at a dinner laid on by the city on 26 September.[22] He stayed in Scotland until late January 1619, and the best-remembered hospitality he enjoyed was that of the Scottish poet, William Drummond of Hawthornden,[3] sited on the River Esk. Drummond undertook to record as much of Jonson's conversation as he could in his diary, and thus recorded aspects of Jonson's personality that would otherwise have been less clearly seen. Jonson delivers his opinions, in Drummond's terse reporting, in an expansive and even magisterial mood. Drummond noted he was "a great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others".[3]
On returning to England, he was awarded an
The period between 1605 and 1620 may be viewed as Jonson's heyday. By 1616 he had produced all the plays on which his present reputation as a dramatist is based, including the tragedy
Religion
Jonson recounted that his father had been a prosperous
Notwithstanding this emphatically Protestant grounding, Jonson maintained an interest in Catholic doctrine throughout his adult life and, at a particularly perilous time while a religious war with Spain was widely expected and persecution of Catholics was intensifying, he converted to the faith.
Conviction, and certainly not expedience alone, sustained Jonson's faith during the troublesome twelve years he remained a Catholic. His stance received attention beyond the low-level intolerance to which most followers of that faith were exposed. The first draft of his play
In May 1610
Decline and death
Jonson's productivity began to decline in the 1620s, but he remained well-known. In that time, the 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 prominence. However, a series of setbacks drained his strength and damaged his reputation. He resumed writing regular plays in the 1620s, but these are not considered among his best. They are of significant interest, however, for their portrayal of Charles I's England. The Staple of News, for example, offers a remarkable look at the earliest stage of English journalism. The lukewarm reception given that play was, however, nothing compared to the dismal failure of The New Inn; the cold reception given this play prompted Jonson to write a poem condemning his audience (An Ode to Himself), which in turn prompted Thomas Carew, one of the "Tribe of Ben", to respond in a poem that asks Jonson to recognise his own decline.[38]
The principal factor in Jonson's partial eclipse was, however, the death of James and the accession of King Charles I in 1625. Jonson felt neglected by the new court. A decisive quarrel with Jones harmed his career as a writer of court masques, although he continued to entertain the court on an irregular basis. For his part, Charles displayed a certain degree of care for the great poet of his father's day: he increased Jonson's annual pension to £100 and included a
Despite the strokes that he suffered in the 1620s, Jonson continued to write. At his death in 1637 he seems to have been working on another play, The Sad Shepherd. Though only two acts are extant, this represents a remarkable new direction for Jonson: a move into pastoral drama. During the early 1630s, he also conducted a correspondence with James Howell, who warned him about disfavour at court in the wake of his dispute with Jones.
Jonson died on or around 16 August 1637, and his funeral was held the next day. It was attended by "all or the greatest part of the nobility then in town".
It has been pointed out that the inscription could be read "Orare Ben Jonson" (pray for Ben Jonson), possibly in an allusion to Jonson's acceptance of
A monument to Jonson was erected in about 1723 by the Earl of Oxford and is in the eastern aisle of Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner.[46] It includes a portrait medallion and the same inscription as on the gravestone. It seems Jonson was to have had a monument erected by subscription soon after his death but the English Civil War intervened.[47]
His work
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Drama
Apart from two tragedies,
The comedies of his middle career, from Eastward Hoe to The Devil Is an Ass are for the most part city comedy, with a London setting, themes of trickery and money, and a distinct moral ambiguity, despite Jonson's professed aim in the Prologue to Volpone to "mix profit with your pleasure". His late plays or "dotages", particularly The Magnetic Lady and The Sad Shepherd, exhibit signs of an accommodation with the romantic tendencies of Elizabethan comedy.
Within this general progression, however, Jonson's comic style remained constant and easily recognisable. He announces his programme in the prologue to the
Poetry
Jonson's poetry, like his drama, is informed by his classical learning. Some of his better-known poems are close translations of Greek or Roman models; all display the careful attention to form and style that often came naturally to those trained in classics in the humanist manner. Jonson largely avoided the debates about rhyme and meter that had consumed Elizabethan classicists such as Thomas Campion and Gabriel Harvey. Accepting both rhyme and stress, Jonson used them to mimic the classical qualities of simplicity, restraint and precision.
"Epigrams" (published in the 1616 folio) is an entry in a genre that was popular among late-Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences, although Jonson was perhaps the only poet of his time to work in its full classical range. The epigrams explore various attitudes, most from the satiric stock of the day: complaints against women, courtiers and spies abound. The condemnatory poems are short and anonymous; Jonson's epigrams of praise, including a famous poem to Camden and lines to Lucy Harington, are longer and are mostly addressed to specific individuals. Although it is included among the epigrams, "
Underwood, published in the expanded folio of 1640, is a larger and more heterogeneous group of poems. It contains
Relationship with Shakespeare
There are many legends about Jonson's rivalry with Shakespeare. William Drummond reports that during their conversation, Jonson scoffed at two apparent absurdities in Shakespeare's plays: a nonsensical line in Julius Caesar and the setting of The Winter's Tale on the non-existent seacoast of Bohemia. Drummond also reported Jonson as saying that Shakespeare "wanted art" (i.e., lacked skill).[50]
In "De Shakespeare Nostrat" in Timber, which was published posthumously and reflects his lifetime of practical experience, Jonson offers a fuller and more conciliatory comment. He recalls being told by certain actors that Shakespeare never blotted (i.e., crossed out) a line when he wrote. His own claimed response was "Would he had blotted a thousand!"[a] However, Jonson explains, "Hee was (indeed) honest, and of an open, and free nature: had an excellent Phantsie; brave notions and gentle expressions: wherein hee flow'd with that facility, that sometime it was necessary he should be stopp'd".[52] Jonson concludes that "there was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned." When Shakespeare died, he said, "He was not of an age, but for all time."[53]
Thomas Fuller relates stories of Jonson and Shakespeare engaging in debates in the Mermaid Tavern; Fuller imagines conversations in which Shakespeare would run rings around the more learned but more ponderous Jonson. That the two men knew each other personally is beyond doubt, not only because of the tone of Jonson's references to him but because Shakespeare's company produced a number of Jonson's plays, at least two of which (Every Man in His Humour and Sejanus His Fall) Shakespeare certainly acted in. However, it is now impossible to tell how much personal communication they had, and tales of their friendship cannot be substantiated.[citation needed]
Jonson's most influential and revealing commentary on Shakespeare is the second of the two poems that he contributed to the prefatory verse that opens Shakespeare's First Folio. This poem, "To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare and What He Hath Left Us", did a good deal to create the traditional view of Shakespeare as a poet who, despite "small Latine, and lesse Greeke",[54] had a natural genius. The poem has traditionally been thought to exemplify the contrast which Jonson perceived between himself, the disciplined and erudite classicist, scornful of ignorance and sceptical of the masses, and Shakespeare, represented in the poem as a kind of natural wonder whose genius was not subject to any rules except those of the audiences for which he wrote. But the poem itself qualifies this view:
- Yet must I not give Nature all: Thy Art,
- My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.
Some view this elegy as a conventional exercise, but others see it as a heartfelt tribute to the "Sweet Swan of Avon", the "Soul of the Age!" It has been argued that Jonson helped to edit the First Folio, and he may have been inspired to write this poem by reading his fellow playwright's works, a number of which had been previously either unpublished or available in less satisfactory versions, in a relatively complete form.[citation needed]
Reception and influence
Jonson was a towering literary figure, and his influence was enormous for he has been described as "One of the most vigorous minds that ever added to the strength of English literature".[55] Before the English Civil War, the "Tribe of Ben" touted his 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 letters for clarification) was extremely influential, providing the blueprint for many Restoration comedies. John Aubrey wrote of Jonson in Brief Lives. By 1700, Jonson's status began to decline. In the Romantic era, Jonson suffered the fate of being unfairly compared and contrasted to Shakespeare, as the taste for Jonson's type of satirical comedy decreased. Jonson was at times greatly appreciated by the Romantics, but overall he was denigrated for not writing in a Shakespearean vein.
In 2012, after more than two decades of research, Cambridge University Press published the first new edition of Jonson's complete works for 60 years.[56]
Drama
As G. E. Bentley notes in Shakespeare and Jonson: Their Reputations in the Seventeenth Century Compared, Jonson's reputation was in some respects equal to Shakespeare's in the 17th century. After the English theatres were reopened on the
For some critics, the temptation to contrast Jonson (representing art or craft) with Shakespeare (representing nature, or untutored genius) has seemed natural; Jonson himself may be said to have initiated this interpretation in the second folio, and Samuel Butler drew the same comparison in his commonplace book later in the century.
At the Restoration, this sensed difference became a kind of critical dogma.
In this period, Alexander Pope is exceptional in that he noted the tendency to exaggeration in these competing critical portraits: "It is ever the nature of Parties to be in extremes; and nothing is so probable, as that because Ben Jonson had much the most learning, it was said on the one hand that Shakespear had none at all; and because Shakespear had much the most wit and fancy, it was retorted on the other, that Jonson wanted both."[57] For the most part, the 18th century consensus remained committed to the division that Pope doubted; as late as the 1750s, Sarah Fielding could put a brief recapitulation of this analysis in the mouth of a "man of sense" encountered by David Simple.
Though his stature declined during the 18th century, Jonson was still read and commented on throughout the century, generally in the kind of comparative and dismissive terms just described.
The romantic revolution in criticism brought about an overall decline in the critical 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 observing man; but he cared only to observe what was open to, and likely to impress, the senses." Coleridge placed Jonson second only to Shakespeare; other romantic critics were less approving. The early 19th century was the great age for recovering Renaissance drama. Jonson, whose reputation had survived, appears to have been less interesting to some readers than writers such as Thomas Middleton or John Heywood, who were in some senses "discoveries" of the 19th century. Moreover, the emphasis which the romantic writers placed on imagination, and their concomitant tendency to distrust studied art, lowered Jonson's status, if it also sharpened their awareness of the difference traditionally noted between Jonson and Shakespeare. This trend was by no means universal, however; William Gifford, Jonson's first editor of the 19th century, did a great deal to defend Jonson's reputation during this period of general decline. In the next era, Swinburne, who was more interested in Jonson than most Victorians, wrote, "The flowers of his growing have every quality but one which belongs to the rarest and finest among flowers: they have colour, form, variety, fertility, vigour: the one thing they want is fragrance" – by "fragrance," Swinburne means spontaneity.
In the 20th century, Jonson's body of work has been subject to a more varied set of 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 an arid classicist by analysing the role of imagination in his dialogue. Eliot was appreciative of Jonson's overall conception and his "surface", a view consonant with the modernist reaction against Romantic criticism, which tended to denigrate playwrights who did not concentrate on representations of psychological depth. Around mid-century, a number of critics and scholars followed Eliot's lead, producing detailed studies of Jonson's verbal style. At the same time, study of Elizabethan themes and conventions, such as those by E. E. Stoll and M. C. Bradbrook, provided a more vivid sense of how Jonson's work was shaped by the expectations of his time.
The proliferation of new critical perspectives after mid-century touched on Jonson inconsistently. Jonas Barish was the leading figure among critics who appreciated Jonson's artistry. On the other hand, Jonson received less attention from the new critics than did some other playwrights and his work was not of programmatic interest to psychoanalytic critics. But Jonson's career eventually made him a focal point for the revived
Poetry
Jonson has been called "the first poet laureate".
In his time Jonson was at least as influential as Donne. In 1623, historian Edmund Bolton named him the best and most polished English poet. That this judgment was widely shared is indicated by the admitted influence he had on younger poets. The grounds for describing Jonson as the "father" of cavalier poets are clear: many of the cavalier poets described themselves as his "sons" or his "tribe". For some of this tribe, the connection was as much social as poetic; Herrick described meetings at "the Sun, the Dog, the Triple Tunne".[3] All of them, including those like Herrick whose accomplishments in verse are generally regarded as superior to Jonson's, took inspiration from Jonson's revival of classical forms and themes, his subtle melodies, and his disciplined use of wit. In these respects, Jonson may be regarded as among the most important figures in the prehistory of English neoclassicism.
The best of Jonson's lyrics have remained current since his time; periodically, they experience a brief vogue, as after the publication of Peter Whalley's edition of 1756. Jonson's poetry continues to interest scholars for the light which it sheds on English literary history, such as politics, systems of patronage and intellectual attitudes. For the general reader, Jonson's reputation rests on a few lyrics that, though brief, are surpassed for grace and precision by very few Renaissance poems: "
Jonson's works
Plays
- A Tale of a Tub, comedy (c. 1596 revised performed 1633; printed 1640)
- The Isle of Dogs, comedy (1597, with Thomas Nashe; lost)
- The Case is Altered, comedy (c. 1597–98; printed 1609), possibly with Henry Porter and Anthony Munday
- Every Man in His Humour, comedy (performed 1598; printed 1601)
- Every Man out of His Humour, comedy (performed 1599; printed 1600)
- Cynthia's Revels (performed 1600; printed 1601)
- The Poetaster, comedy (performed 1601; printed 1602)
- Sejanus His Fall, tragedy (performed 1603; printed 1605)
- Eastward Ho, comedy (performed and printed 1605), a collaboration with John Marston and George Chapman
- Volpone, comedy (c. 1605–06; printed 1607)
- Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, comedy (performed 1609; printed 1616)
- The Alchemist, comedy (performed 1610; printed 1612)
- Catiline His Conspiracy, tragedy (performed and printed 1611)
- Bartholomew Fair, comedy (performed 31 October 1614; printed 1631)
- The Devil is an Ass, comedy (performed 1616; printed 1631)
- The Staple of News, comedy (completed by Feb. 1626; printed 1631)
- The New Inn, or The Light Heart, comedy (licensed 19 January 1629; printed 1631)
- The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconciled, comedy (licensed 12 October 1632; printed 1641)
- The Sad Shepherd, pastoral (c. 1637, printed 1641), unfinished
- Mortimer His Fall, history (printed 1641), a fragment
Masques
- The Coronation Triumph, or The King's Entertainment (performed 15 March 1604; printed 1604); with Thomas Dekker
- A Private Entertainment of the King and Queen on May-Day (The Penates) (1 May 1604; printed 1616)
- The Entertainment of the Queen and Prince Henry at Althorp (The Satyr) (25 June 1603; printed 1604)
- The Masque of Blackness (6 January 1605; printed 1608)
- Hymenaei (5 January 1606; printed 1606)
- The Entertainment of the Kings of Great Britain and Denmark (The Hours) (24 July 1606; printed 1616)
- The Masque of Beauty (10 January 1608; printed 1608)
- The Masque of Queens (2 February 1609; printed 1609)
- The Hue and Cry After Cupid, or The Masque at Lord Haddington's Marriage (9 February 1608; printed c. 1608)
- The Entertainment at Britain's Burse (11 April 1609; lost, rediscovered 1997)[60]
- The Speeches at Prince Henry's Barriers, or The Lady of the Lake (6 January 1610; printed 1616)
- Oberon, the Faery Prince (1 January 1611; printed 1616)
- Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly (3 February 1611; printed 1616)
- Love Restored (6 January 1612; printed 1616)
- A Challenge at Tilt, at a Marriage (27 December 1613/1 January 1614; printed 1616)
- The Irish Masque at Court (29 December 1613; printed 1616)
- Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists (6 January 1615; printed 1616)
- The Golden Age Restored (1 January 1616; printed 1616)
- Christmas, His Masque (Christmas 1616; printed 1641)
- The Vision of Delight (6 January 1617; printed 1641)
- Lovers Made Men, or The Masque of Lethe, or The Masque at Lord Hay's (22 February 1617; printed 1617)
- Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue (6 January 1618; printed 1641) The masque was a failure; Jonson revised it by placing the anti-masque first, turning it into:
- For the Honour of Wales (17 February 1618; printed 1641)
- News from the New World Discovered in the Moon (7 January 1620: printed 1641)
- The Entertainment at Blackfriars, or The Newcastle Entertainment (May 1620?; MS)
- Pan's Anniversary, or The Shepherd's Holy-Day (19 June 1620?; printed 1641)
- The Gypsies Metamorphosed (3 and 5 August 1621; printed 1640)
- The Masque of Augurs (6 January 1622; printed 1622)
- Time Vindicated to Himself and to His Honours (19 January 1623; printed 1623)
- Neptune's Triumph for the Return of Albion (26 January 1624; printed 1624)
- The Masque of Owls at Kenilworth (19 August 1624; printed 1641)
- The Fortunate Isles and Their Union (9 January 1625; printed 1625)
- Love's Triumph Through Callipolis (9 January 1631; printed 1631)
- Chloridia: Rites to Chloris and Her Nymphs (22 February 1631; printed 1631)
- The King's Entertainment at Welbeck in Nottinghamshire(21 May 1633; printed 1641)
- Love's Welcome at Bolsover (30 July 1634; printed 1641)
Other works
- Epigrams (1612)
- The Forest (1616), including To Penshurst
- On My First Sonne (1616), elegy
- A Discourse of Love (1618)
- Barclay's Argenis, translated by Jonson (1623)
- The Execration against Vulcan (1640)
- commendatory verse by Edward Herbert
- Underwood (1640)
- English Grammar (1640)
- Timber, or Discoveries made upon men and matter, as they have flowed out of his daily readings, or had their reflux to his peculiar notion of the times, (London, 1641) a 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 in which language became a measure of the speaker or writer:
Language most shows a man: Speak, that I may see thee. It springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is the image of the parent of it, the mind. No glass renders a man’s form or likeness so true as his speech. Nay, it is likened to a man; and as we consider feature and composition in a man, so words in language; in the greatness, aptness, sound structure, and harmony of it.
— Ben Jonson, 1640 (posthumous)[61]
As with other English Renaissance dramatists, a portion of Ben Jonson's literary output has not survived. In addition to The Isle of Dogs (1597), the records suggest these lost plays as wholly or partially Jonson's work: Richard Crookback (1602); Hot Anger Soon Cold (1598), with Porter and Henry Chettle; Page of Plymouth (1599), with Dekker; and Robert II, King of Scots (1599), with Chettle and Dekker. Several of Jonson's masques and entertainments also are not extant: The Entertainment at Merchant Taylors (1607); The Entertainment at Salisbury House for James I (1608); and The May Lord (1613–19).
Finally, there are questionable or borderline attributions. Jonson may have had a hand in Rollo, Duke of Normandy, or The Bloody Brother, a play in the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators. The comedy The Widow was printed in 1652 as the work of Thomas Middleton, Fletcher and Jonson, though scholars have been intensely sceptical about Jonson's presence in the play. A few attributions of anonymous plays, such as The London Prodigal, have been ventured by individual researchers, but have met with cool responses.[62]
Notes
Citations
- Bednarz, James P. (2001), Shakespeare and the Poets' War, New York: ISBN 978-0-2311-2243-6.
- ISBN 978-0-2260-4269-5.
- Clarendon Press.
- Butler, Martin (Summer 1993). "Jonson's Folio and the Politics of Patronage". Criticism. 35 (3). Wayne State University Press: 377–90.
- Chute, Marchette. Ben Jonson of Westminster. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1953
- Donaldson, Ian (2011). Ben Jonson: A Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 181–2. ISBN 978-0-19-812976-9. Retrieved 20 March 2013.
- Doran, Madeline. Endeavors of Art. Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1954
- Eccles, Mark. "Jonson's Marriage." Review of English Studies 12 (1936)
- Eliot, T.S. "Ben Jonson." The Sacred Wood. London: Methuen, 1920
- Jonson, Ben. Discoveries 1641, ed. G. B. Harrison. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966
- Jonson, Ben, David M. Bevington, Martin Butler, and Ian Donaldson. 2012. The Cambridge edition of the works of Ben Jonson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Knights, L. C. Drama and Society in the Age of Jonson. London: Chatto and Windus, 1968
- Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S. Smith. The New Intellectuals: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama. Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1975
- MacLean, Hugh, editor. Ben Jonson and the Cavalier Poets. New York: Norton Press, 1974
- Ceri Sullivan, The Rhetoric of Credit. Merchants in Early Modern Writing (Madison/London: Associated University Press, 2002)
- Teague, Frances. "Ben Jonson and the Gunpowder Plot." Ben Jonson Journal 5 (1998). pp. 249–52
- Thorndike, Ashley. "Ben Jonson." The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. New York: Putnam, 1907–1921
References
- ^ "Ben Jonson - Bibliotheca Alexandrina" (PDF).
- .
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Ward, Adolphus William (1911). . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 15 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 502–507.
- ^ Ben Jonson at the Encyclopædia Britannica
- ^ a b "Ben Jonson", Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge, volume 10, p. 388.
- ISBN 0-521-64678-2.
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/15116. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ [1] Donaldson, Ian. "Life of Ben Jonson". The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson Online. Cambridge University Press. Accessed 11 June 2021
- ^ a b Robert Chambers, Book of Days
- ^ "Ben Jonson", Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th edition, p. 611
- ^ Sutton, Dana F. (10 October 2019). "Introduction". Hugh Holland, Complete Poetry. A Hypertext Edition.
- ^ a b Drummond, William (1619). Heads of a Conversation betwixt the Famous Poet Ben Johnson and William Drummond of Hawthornden, January 1619.
- ISBN 978-0-14-043901-4.
- ^ "Ben Jonson", Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th edition, p. 611
- ^ "Thomas Kyd", Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge, volume 11, p. 122.
- ^ a b "Ben Jonson", Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th edition, p. 612.
- ^ Thomas Mason, A register of baptisms, marriages, and burials in the parish of St. Martin in the Fields (London, 1898), p. 40
- JSTOR 4172372.
- ^ Miola, Robert S. (2012). "The Case Is Altered, Introduction". The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- S2CID 191392739.
- ^ a b Donaldson 2011, p. 428
- ^ )
- ^ Donaldson (2011: 56)
- ^ Riggs (1989: 9)
- ^ Donaldson (2011: 176)
- ^ a b Riggs (1989: 51–52)
- ^ a b Donaldson (2011: 134–140)
- ^ Harp; Stewart (2000: xiv)
- ^ Donaldson (2011: 143)
- ^ Donaldson (2011: 229)
- ISBN 978-0-521-89571-2.
- ^ Donaldson (2011: 228–9)
- .
- ^ a b Donaldson (2011: 272)
- ^ Jon Morrill, quoted in Donaldson (2011: 487)
- ^ Riggs (1989: 177)
- ISBN 0-521-64678-2.
- ^ Maclean, p. 88
- ^ a b "Monuments & Gravestones: Ben Jonson". Westminster Abbey 1065 to today. Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey. Archived from the original on 7 January 2008. Retrieved 26 May 2008.
- OCLC 2853686.
- Adams, J. Q.The Jonson Allusion Book. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1922. pp. 195–6
- ^ Dunton, Larkin (1896). The World and Its People. Silver, Burdett. p. 34.
- ^ Donaldson (2011:1)
- ISBN 978-0-670-91753-2.
…a plea for the passerby's prayers (the Latin imperative orare)…
- ISBN 978-0-674-02308-6.
At first sight the words seem clear enough…but some…have believed that the words intended to say, in Latin, "Pray for Ben Jonson"…
- ^ Stanley, A. P., Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey (London; John Murray; 1882), p. 222.
- ^ "Ben Jonson". Archived from the original on 19 August 2014. Retrieved 2014-08-18.
- ^ Doran, 120ff
- ^ Rickard, Jane. "Jonson's Imaginary Library: "An Execration upon Vulcan" and Its Intertexts." Huntington Library Quarterly 85, no. 3 (2022): 447-470.
- OCLC 1070005576.
- .
- ^ Jonson, Ben (1923). Harrison, G. B. (ed.). Discoveries, 1641; Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden, 1619. The Bodley Head Quartos. London: John Lane, The Bodley Head. p. 28.
- ISBN 0-275-98956-9. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
praised than to be pardoned age but for all time.
- ^ W.T. Baldwin 's William Shakspere's Smalle Latine and Lesse Greeke, 1944
- ^ Morley, Henry, Introduction to Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter and Some Poems, 1892; Kindle ebook 2011, ASIN B004TOT8FQ.
- ^ Hadfield, Andrew (24 July 2012). "Why should William Shakespeare have the last word over Ben Jonson?". Telegraph.co.uk. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022.
- ^ Alexander Pope, ed. Works of Shakespeare (London, 1725), p. 1.
- ^ Quoted in Craig, D. H., ed. Jonson: The Critical Heritage (London: Routledge, 1995). p. 499,
- ISBN 978-0-7538-0745-3.
- ^ Scott, Alison V. (September 2006). "Marketing Luxury at the New Exchange: Jonson's Entertainment at Britain's Burse and the Rhetoric of Wonder". Early Modern Literary Studies. 12 (2): 5.1–19. Retrieved 13 September 2014.
- ^ Jonson, B., "Discoveries and Some Poems," Cassell & Company, 1892.
- ^ Logan and Smith, pp. 82–92
Further reading
Biographies of Ben Jonson
- Ben Jonson: His Life and Work by Rosalind Miles (Routledge, London 1986)
- Ben Jonson: His Craft and Art by Rosalind Miles (Routledge, London 2017)
- Ben Jonson: A Literary Life by W. David Kay (Macmillan, Basingstoke 1995)
- Ben Jonson: A Life by David Riggs (1989)
- Ben Jonson: A Life by Ian Donaldson (2011)
External links
- Works by Ben Jonson in eBook form at Standard Ebooks
- Works by Ben Jonson at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Ben Jonson at Internet Archive
- Works by Ben Jonson at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- The Cambridge edition of the works of Ben Jonson
- Digitised Facsimiles of Jonson's second folio, 1640/1 Jonson's second folio, 1640/1
- Video interview with scholar David Bevington The Collected Works of Ben Jonson Archived 10 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine
- Audio resources on Ben Jonson at TheEnglishCollection.com
- Poems by Ben Jonson at PoetryFoundation.org
- Works of Ben Jonson
- Ben Jonson at Find a Grave
- Audio: Robert Pinsky reads "His Excuse For Loving" by Ben Jonson
- Audio: Robert Pinsky reads "My Picture Left in Scotland" by Ben Jonson
- Free scores by Ben Jonson in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
- "Archival material relating to Ben Jonson". UK National Archives.
- Portraits of Benjamin Jonson at the National Portrait Gallery, London