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Ben Jonson Biography

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JONSON, Ben (Benjamin) (?1573–1637). An English dramatist, born probably at Westminster in 1573. His grandfather belonged to one of the Johnstone families of Annandale. His father, who was a "minister," died a month before the dramatist’s birth; and his mother soon married a "master bricklayer" living near Charing Cross. Ben was sent to Westminster School at the expense of William Camden, then second master there, and a famous scholar, to whom he was surely indebted for the beginnings of his solid learning. It is commonly stated, on the authority of Fuller, that from Westminster he proceeded to St. John’s College, Cambridge. For the assertion there is, however, no real evidence. After he had won a name in letters, Jonson received from each university the degree of M.A., but—in his own words—"by their favour, not his studie." He was taken from school and put to the craft of his stepfather. Disliking this occupation, he went to the Low Countries, where he joined the English troops against Spain. While there, he killed one of the enemy in view of both armies. He returned to England about 1592 and "betook himself to his wonted studies." Near this time he also married a. "wife who was a shrew yet honest." Precisely when he began writing for the stage is not known; but the date is probably not earlier than 1595. Two years later he was both actor and playwright in Henslowe's company. In 1598 he wrote a tragedy for this company and was mentioned by Meres as one of "the best for tragedy." These plays are lost. His first extant play is the famous Every Man in his Humour, performed by the lord chamberlain's servants, at the Globe Theatre, in September, 1598. Shakespeare himself played a part in this first noteworthy English comedy of character. While the play was on the stage, Jonson quarreled with an actor in Henslowe's company named Gabriel Spenser and killed him in a duel (September 22). He was imprisoned for a short time; but, by pleading benefit of clergy, he escaped with branding on the left thumb and loss of goods and chattels. The next year Jonson produced Every Man Out of his Humour and perhaps had already written The Case is Altered, an adaptation of Plautus. During the next 15 years he brought out Cynthia's Revels (1600), The Poetaster (1601), Sejanus, a tragedy (1603), Catiline, a tragedy (1611); and his greatest comedies, Volpone (1605), Epicœne, or the Silent Woman, best of all (1609), The Alchemist (1610), and Bartholomew Fair (1614). In 1616 came a poorer comedy, The Devil is an Ass. The regular stage Jonson now forsook for 10 years, and his later comedies have little interest. At his death he left fragments of a beautiful pastoral, The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood.

With the accession of James he had begun for the court a series of festive performances which he classed as entertainments, barriers, and masques. They had respectively, as the centre of interest, a complimentary speech, "a mock tournament, and a masqued dance. They were presented with elaborate machinery furnished by Inigo Jones (q.v.). But the general plan and the verse, often exquisite, were Jonson's. Besides masques, Jonson also composed many poems. Scattered through his comedies, written mostly in prose, are well-known songs, as "Still to be neat, still to be drest." But his larger poetic fame rests upon his charming epigrams (short poems embodying one idea), and the collections entitled The Forest and Underwoods. Unsurpassed of their kind are the lines "On Lucy, Countess of Bedford," and the "Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke." And in a series of essays called Discoveries he displayed his solid character and ripe wisdom.

During these years Jonson lived a varied life. His combativeness led to "many quarrels" with Marston, one of his collaborators, whom he "beat," and satirized, in conjunction with Dekker in the Poetaster. When, in 1604, Chapman and Marston were sent to prison for certain passages in their Eastward Ho, offensive to the court, Jonson, who had a slight hand in the play, voluntarily joined them (1605). The next year he was also imprisoned with Chapman. But for the most part he enjoyed the favor of the King, whom he pleased by his masques and in other ways. In 1616 he was granted a royal pension of 100 marks, afterward raised to £200, and might have been knighted, it is said, had he wished. In 1613 he was abroad with the son of Sir Walter Raleigh, to whose History of the World he contributed the account of the Punic wars. In the summer of 1618 he traveled on foot to Scotland, returning the next year. He visited the poet Drummond at Hawthornden, about 11 miles from Edinburgh, in conversations with whom he spoke very freely of his contemporaries and of his own early life. His friends among the aristocracy were many, especially among the Sidneys. From the Earl of Pembroke he received every year £20 to buy books. Convivial by nature, he ruled as monarch at the hostelries where gathered poets and dramatists, first at the Mermaid and then at the Devil Tavern. Of Shakespeare, who no doubt was one of his early associates, he said late in life: "I loved the man and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any." He died Aug. 6, 1637, and was buried in West-minster Abbey, where his tombstone bears the inscription, "O rare Ben Jonson." Jonson’s work is the best representation of classic ideals in the English drama, adapting to contemporary life the spirit of ancient comedy. His aim was to depict for ridicule and satire the "humours" of society, i.e., affectations in conduct, dress, and speech. His comedies he aptly described as "comical satires."

The first volume of the first folio edition of Jonson's Works, as revised by himself, was published in 1616. Every Man in his Humour, as published in 1601, was Italian in setting. In the folio of 1616 it first appeared as now generally known, with its scene shifted to London and the names of the characters in English. The second volume of the first folio appeared in installments between 1630 and 1641. The only critical edition in the nineteenth century was that of Gifford (9 vols., London, 1816; revised by Cunningham, 1875). It is not a careful piece of work. A convenient edition of the plays is Complete Plays (2 vols., New York and London, 1910), with introduction by F. E. Schelling. Selected plays, edited by B. Nicholson, with an introduction by C. H. Herford, were published in the Mermaid Series (3 vols., London and New York, 1894 and 1903).