Ben Jonson

A study on Ben Jonson, his life, achievements, and death.

1. BEN JONSON A STUDY ON

2. FAMILY BACKGROUND Ben Jonson was born by the name of ‘ Benjamin Jonson ’ in London on June, 11th, 1572 (two months after his father died.) Jonson's mother then married a bricklayer . His stepfather made him work in the more practical business of bricklaying. B ut by good fortune he was able to attend Westminster School , where he studied under the renowned scholar William Camden .  (He introduced him to classics.) WILLIAM CAMDEN WESTMINSTER SCHOOL IN 17 TH CENTURY VERSUS NOW

3. BEFORE LITERARY CAREER After a few weeks at Cambridge, Jonson was forced to take up bricklaying. Later he is found soldiering in the Netherlands, fighting a duel with an enemy soldier, killing him, and returning home with heroic tales to enlarge upon . He returned to England about 1592 and married Anne Lewis on November 14 th , 1594 . He became an actor and playwright, experiencing the life of a strolling player. He apparently played the leading role of ‘ Hieronimo’ in Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy. Strolling players , 1895–1895 Francis James Barraud

4. LITERARY CAREER Many people thought that English literature, and particularly drama, had already reached as high as it could when Ben Jonson began his career. But Jonson helped it gain even higher goals. Jonson had begun to write in 1597, perhaps with a play called  The Case is Altered .   A nd during 1598 and 1599 he wrote   Every Man In His Humour , was performed in 1598 by The Lord Chamberlain’s Men  at the Globe with  William Shakespeare  in the cast. Jonson became a celebrity, and there was a brief fashion for ' humours ' comedy. His next play,  Every Man Out Of His Humour  (1599), was less successful. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men  

5. IMPRISONMENT In 1597 he was imprisoned in the  Fleet Prison  for his involvement in a satire entitled  The Isle Of Dogs , declared seditious by the authorities. Days after the first performance of  Every Man In His Humour , Jonson killed an actor, Gabriel Spencer , in a duel and only narrowly escaped execution by pleading “benefit of the clergy.” FLEET PRISON.

6. IN THE COURT At the beginning of the reign of  King James I of England in 1603, Jonson joined other poets and playwrights in welcoming the reign of the new king. In 1605, Jonson began to write  masques  for the entertainment of the court. The earliest of his masques,  The Satyr   and The Masque of Blackness were successful   and Jonson seems to have been appointed Court Poet shortly after . He was granted a royal pension in 1616 and thus made, effectively, Poet Laureate of England , the year in which Shakespeare died. Jonson became one of the most successful writers of his era . After the death of King James I of England (1603–1625) in 1625, Jonson suffered a number of setbacks. His talents were not fully appreciated by the new king, and as a result Jonson was frequently short of money . King James I of England

7. LATER LIFE His comedies Volpone or the Foxe (1606) and The Alchemist (1610) were among the most popular and esteemed plays of the time. After his personal library burned in 1623 , Jonson hit a low point in his life. He fell out of favor with the court and suffered several strokes, which made writing extremely arduous . Despite these apparent failures, and in spite of his frequent feuds, Jonson was the dean and the leading wit of the group of writers who gathered at the  Mermaid Tavern . His circle of admirers and friends, who called themselves the "Tribe of Ben," met regularly at the Mermaid Tavern and later at the Devil's Head . Among his followers were nobles such as the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle as well as writers including  Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, Sir John Suckling , James Howell, and Thomas Carew. THE MERMAID TAVERN

8. BEN JONSON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES Jonson was friends with many of the writers of his day, and many of his most well-known poems include tributes to friends such as  Shakespeare , John Donne, and Francis Bacon . Jonson made many jokes about other people and considered himself superior to others . Jonson's personal characteristics partly explain why he placed himself in opposition to the spirit of the age. He was extremely combative. It was almost a necessity for him to quarrel with some person or with some opinion. Jonson deliberately took his stand in opposition to “ the romantic spirit of the age” . Marlowe and Shakespeare had disregarded the classical unities and had developed the drama on romantic lines . He resolved to follow classical traditions and to stick to unity of time and place in the construction of his plots.

9. DEATH Jonson was buried in  Westminster Abbey , with the inscription, "O Rare Ben Jonson," laid in the slab over his grave . A tremendous crowd of mourners attended his burial at Westminster Abbey. He is regarded as one of the major dramatists and poets of the seventeenth century. His admirers and friends contributed to the collection of memorial elegies,  Jonsonus virbius , published in 1638. Jonson's last play,  Sad Shepherd's Tale , was left unfinished at his death and published posthumously in 1641.