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Ben jonson

Benjamin Jonson was born on 11 june 1572 and died on 16 august 1637. He was an English playwright and poet. Jonson’s lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularized the “comedy of humours.” he is best known for the satirical plays like

Every man in his humor (1598), volpon, the fox(1606), The alchemist(1610), bartholomew fair(1614), and also for his lyric and epigrammatic poetry. epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable , and also sometimes surprising or satirical statement.

He is generally regarded as the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare. He was a classically educated, well read and cultured man. His ancestors spelled the family name with a letter “t” johnstone or johnstoun. While the spelling had changed with “johnson”.

His Early life-

Jonson’s father lost his property, he was imprisoned and suffered forfeiture under queen mary, he died a month before his son's birth. His mother married a master bricklayer two years later. Johnson attended school in St Martin's lane. Then a family friend paid for his studies at Westminster school. The event, the pupil and the master became good friends, and the influence of camden's broad- ranging scholarship upon johnsons art and literary style remained noteble.

He left Westminster school in 1589, and attended the university of cambridge, to continue his book learning but he didn't, because of his unwilled apprenticeship with his bricklayer stepfather. According to the churchman and historian Thomas Fuller, Johnson built a garden wall in Lincoln's inn.

The conversation between ben jonson and the poet william drummond “ the hawthornden manuscripts(1619), report that, when in flanders, jonson engaged, fought and killed an enemy soldier in single combat. After his military activity on the continent, Jonson returned to England and he worked as an actor and as a playwright. As an actor, he was the protagonist “hieronimo” in the play the spanish tragedy (1586) by thomas kyd, that is the first revenge tragedy in english literature. Moreover,by 1597, he was a working playwright employed by philip henslowe, the leading producer for the english public theater; by the next year,the production of everyman in his homour(1598) had established jonson reputation as a dramatist.

His later life-

According to his marriage he describes his wife to william drummond as “ a shrew, yet honest”. His wife's identity has always been obscure, yet she sometimes is identified as “ann lewis”, the woman who married a benjamin johnson in 1594. At the church of St Magnus the martyr near London bridge. Their elder daughter died in november 1593, at six months of age. Then in 1603 benjamin johnson their elder son died of bubonic plague when he was seven years old. To honour the dead boy , Benjamin johnson pere wrote the elegiac on my first sonne(1603). Then 32 years later, a second son, also named Benjamin Jonson, died in 1635. In that period, ann lewis and ben johnson lived separate lives for five or six years.

During this period , he made a mark second only to Shakespeare's in the public theater. His comedies volpone, or the fox (1606) and the alchemist (1610) were among the most popular plays of the time. Each exhibited man’s folly in the pursuit of gold. set respectively in italy and London, they demonstrate jonson’s enthusiasm both for the typical renaissance setting and for his own town on europe’s fringe. The comedies epicoene(1609) and bartholomew fair(1614) were also successful.

On his return to England he received an honorary master of arts degree from oxford university, a most signal honour in his time. His life was a life of talk as well as of writing.

In 1623 his personal library was destroyed by fire. By this time his services were seldom called on for the entertainment of charles 1’s court, and his last plays failed to please. Jonson died in 1637 and was buried in Westminster abbey.

About his career-

Ben Jonson had begun to write original plays for the admiral’s men; in 1598 he was mentioned by francis meres in his palladis tamia as one of “ the best for tragedy”. None of his early tragedies survive, an undated comedy, the case is altered, may be his earliest surviving play.

Jonson produced his first great success, every man in his humour, this capitalizing on the vouge for humorous plays which George Chapman had begun with a humorous day's mirth. William Shakespeare was among the first actors to be cast. Johnson followed this in 1599 with “every man out of his humour”, it is known whether this was a success on stage, but when published it proved popular and also went through several editions.

His other work for the theater in the last years of Elizabeth 1 reign was marked by fighting and controversy. Cynthia’s revels were produced by the children of the chapel royal at blackfriars theater in 1600. Then the war of the theaters appears to have ended with reconciliation on all sides. Johnson collaborated with dekker on a pageant welcoming james 1 to england in 1603 although drummond reports that johnson called dekker a rogue.

The Restoration dramatists’ use of type names for their characters (Cockwood, Witwoud, Petulant, Pinchwife, and so on) was a harking back to Jonson, and similarly in the 18th century, with such characters as Peachum, Lumpkin, Candour, and Languish. And though, as the 18th century proceeded, comic dramatists increasingly used names quite arbitrarily, the idea of the Jonsonian “type” or “humour” was always at the root of their imagination. Jonson thus exerted a great influence on the playwrights who immediately followed him. In the late Jacobean and Caroline years, it was he, Shakespeare, and Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher who provided all the models. But it was he, and he alone, who gave the essential impulse to dramatic characterization in comedy of the Restoration and also in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Ben jonson wrote this for shakespeare in english eassy 1909.

About his religion-

Jonson recounted that his father had been a prosperous protestant landowner until the reign of " bloody mary" and had suffered imprisonment and the forfeiture of his wealth during that monarch's attempt to restore England to catholicism. On Elizabetha accession he had been freed and had been able to travel to London to become a clergyman. His interest in catholic belief and practice remained with him until his death.

His work-

Drama:

Apart from two tragedies, sejanus and catiline, that largely failed to impress renaissance audience, johnson's work for the public theater was in comedy

Comedy-

A tale of a tube
The isle of dogs
The case is altered
Every man in his humor
Every man out of his humor
Cynthia's revels
The poetaster
Eastward ho
Valpone
Epicoene, or the silent woman
The alchemist
Bartholamew fair
The devil is an ass
The staple of news
The new inn, or the light heart
The magnetic lady
Humorous reconciled

Tragedy-

Sejanus his fall
Catiline his conspiracy
Historical work-
Mortimer his fall

Poetry-

His poetry, like his drama. As informed by his classical learning, some of his better known poems are close translations of greek or roman models. Jonson largely avoided the debate about rhyme.