Ben Jonson

Ben Jonson (1572-1637), English dramatist and poet, whose classical learning, gift for satire, and brilliant style made him one of the great figures of English literature.

Jonson was born in Westminster, probably on June 11, 1572, educated at the Westminster School, and trained in his stepfather's trade of bricklaying. In 1592, after serving briefly with the English army in Flanders, he joined the London theatrical company of Philip Henslowe as an actor and apprentice playwright, revising plays already in the repertory.

Jonson's first original play, Every Man in His Humour, was performed in 1598 by the Lord Chamberlain's Company with William Shakespeare in the cast. Later that year, Jonson killed a man in a duel and narrowly escaped execution. His next play was Every Man Out of His Humour (1599). These two works were in the same vein. Jonson had invented a kind of topical comedy involving eccentric characters, each of whom represented a temperament, or humor, of humanity. During the next four years, Jonson also wrote a number of comedies, such as Cynthia's Revels (1600) and The Poetaster (1601), in which he satirized other writers, especially the English dramatists Thomas Dekker and John Marston. Dekker and Marston retaliated by attacking Jonson in their Satiromastix (1600). The writers patched their public feuding; in 1604 Jonson collaborated with Dekker on The King's Entertainment and with Marston and George Chapman on Eastward Ho in 1605. When Marston and Chapman were imprisoned for some of the views espoused in Eastward Ho, Jonson voluntarily joined them.

After 1603 Jonson began to write masques for the entertainment of the court of King James I, apparently fulfilling the role of poet laureate from 1616. The masques displayed his erudition, wit, and versatility and contained some of his best lyric poetry. These masques, including The Satyr (1603), Masque of Beauty (1608), and Masque of Queens (1609), were usually performed in elaborate Italianate settings designed by the noted English architect Inigo Jones.

At the same time that he was writing for the court, Jonson continued to write for the commercial theater. During this period he produced two historical tragedies, Sejanus (1603) and Catiline (1611), and the four brilliant comedies upon which his reputation as a playwright primarily rests: Volpone (1606), Epicene, or the Silent Woman (1609), The Alchemist (1610), and Bartholomew Fair (1614). His many nontheatrical pieces, including epigrams, epistles, and lyrics, are collected in The Forest (1616) and Underwoods (posthumously published, 1640). The Forest includes his most famous song, 'To Celia,' which begins with the line, 'Drink to me only with thine eyes.” Jonson's later plays, such as The Tale of a Tub (1633), were less successful, but he remained a leading figure among the writers of the time.

In spite of his literary feuds, Jonson was the dean and the leading wit of the group of writers who gathered at the Mermaid Tavern in the Cheapside district of London. Although Jonson's creative talents were many and varied, his considerable effect on English literature of the Jacobean and Carolinian periods was probably the result of his critical theories. He sought to advance English drama as a form of literature, attempting to make it a conscious art through adherence to classical forms and rules. He protested particularly against the mixing of tragedy and comedy and was an effective advocate of the principles of drama established by Aristotle, which he praised at the expense of the flexibility and improvisational qualities of dramatists such as Shakespeare. Jonson's importance today rests upon his comedies of manners and their witty, hilarious portrayal of contemporary London life.