Share:
  Guess poet | Poets | Poets timeline | Isles | Contacts

Ben Jonson [1572-1637] ENG
Ranked #118 in the top 380 poets
Votes 74%: 292 up, 103 down

Comedy of humours. Classically educated, well-read and cultured man with an appetite for controversy (personal and political, artistic and intellectual). 

Jonson represents the cavalier strain of poetry, emphasising grace and clarity of expression; Donne, by contrast, epitomised the metaphysical school of poetry, with its reliance on strained, baroque metaphors and often vague phrasing.

Playwright, poet, actor, critic.

Ben Johnson   was a noted British poet, playwright and critic who is best remembered for some of his plays such as `Volpone` and `The Alchemist`. A contemporary of Shakespeare and, at the time, almost as popular.Born in London of Border descent, Jonson was the son of a clergyman who died before his son`s birth. He was educated at Westminster School and then, embarking upon a life that would be characterised throughout by great diversity and outlandish events, worked for a time as a bricklayer for his stepfather. This was followed by military service in Flanders, some acting in a strolling company of actors, and marriage, in 1594, to Anne Lewis, prior to being imprisoned in 1597 for his involvement, as playwright and player, in a satire entitled The Isle of Dogs. 

One year later he killed another actor in a duel but escaped execution by pleading benefit of clergy. During his subsequent imprisonment he converted to Roman Catholicism only to convert back to Anglicism over a decade later in 1701.

In the same year his most important play, the comedy Every Man in His Humour, was performed by the Lord Chamberlain`s Men. The cast included Shakespeare. His first court masque, of which he produced several in the following years, was produced in 1605 - the same year in which he was, once again, imprisoned for his part in a satire, this time entitled Edward Hoe , and also gave evidence concerning the infamous Gunpowder Plot. The period of his major plays followed with the publication and production of Volpone (1605-6), Epicene (1609) and Bartholomew`s Fair (1614), by which time he had also worked as a personal tutor in France and had travelled to Scotland where he recorded his famous conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden. 

In 1616 he published his complete Works - poems, plays and masques. Roundabout the same time he received an honorary Master of Arts degree from Oxford University and began to lecture on rhetoric at Gresham College, London. Two disasters followed: a fire, in 1623, that destroyed many of his belongings , and a stroke in 1628 from which he never fully recovered.

Jonson was a massive man - he spoke of his "mountain belly" - and a massively prolific writer. As well as his many plays and non-dramatic verses, his numerous masques include The Masque of Queens (1609), Love Restored (1612), Mercury Vindicated From the Alchemists at Court (1616), Pleasure Recounted to Virtue (1618)and Neptune`s Triumph for the Return of Albion (1624). His friends - Shakespeare, Donne, Francis Bacon, George Chapman and so on - were, and those he influenced remain even today, numerous. His tombstone in Westminster Abbey bears the apposite inscription "O rare Ben Jonson".

Posthumously, in a second Jonson folio (1640), appeared Timber: or, Discoveries, a series of observations on life and letters. Here Jonson held forth on the nature of poetry and drama and paid his final tribute to Shakespeare: in spite of acknowledging a belief that his great contemporary was, on occasion, "full of wind"--sufflaminandus erat--he declared that "I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any."

Blank verse, Elizabethan, Enlightenment, Laureate, Renaissance

YearsCountryPoetInteraction
1563-1631
ENG
Michael Drayton
→ friend of Ben Jonson
1837-1909
ENG
Algernon Charles Swinburne
→ praised Ben Jonson
-65--8
ROM
Horace
← translated by Ben Jonson
1572-1631
ENG
John Donne
← (changing and jagged rhythms) disliked by Ben Jonson
1591-1674
ENG
Robert Herrick
← influenced by Ben Jonson
1592-1669
ENG
Henry King
← friend of Ben Jonson
1595-1640
ENG
Thomas Carew
← influenced by Ben Jonson
1609-1642
ENG
John Suckling
← influenced by Ben Jonson
1618-1657
ENG
Richard Lovelace
← influenced by Ben Jonson
1757-1827
ENG
William Blake
← influenced by Ben Jonson


WorkLangRating
Song to Celia II
eng
6
from........
eng
5
The Noble Nature
eng
3
A Farewell to the World
eng
2
A Fit of Rhyme against Rhyme
eng
2
A Hymn to God the Father
eng
2
Conditions of Living
eng
2
IX: Song: To Celia
eng
2
Song To Diana
eng
2
A Celebration of Charis: I. His Excuse for Loving
eng
1
A Pindaric Ode
eng
1
A Sonnet, to the Noble Lady, the Lady Mary Wroth
eng
1
An Elegy
eng
1
Begging Another
eng
1
Epitaph on S.P., a Child of Queen Elizabeth`s Chapel
eng
1
Evening: Barents Sea
eng
1
Living by
eng
1
Love-All
eng
1
On My First Daughter
eng
1
Porth Ceiriad Bay
eng
1
That Women Are But Men`s Shadows
eng
1
To My Book
eng
1
To Penshurst
eng
1
To the Memory of My Beloved, The Author, Mr. William Shakespeare,
eng
1
A Celebration of Charis: IV. Her Triumph
eng
0
A Pangyre
eng
0
An Ode to Himself
eng
0
Blaney`s Last Directions
eng
0
Christmas, His Masque (extract)
eng
0
Come, My Celia
eng
0
Epitaph on Elizabeth, L.H
eng
0
Epitaph On The Countess Of Pembroke
eng
0
Epode
eng
0
For a Girl in a Book
eng
0
Have You Seen But A Bright Lily Grow
eng
0
I: Why I Write Not To Love
eng
0
III: To Sir Robert Wroth
eng
0
In the ember days of my last free summer
eng
0
In The Person Of Womankind
eng
0
Inviting a Friend to Supper
eng
0
IV: To The World
eng
0
My Picture Left in Scotland
eng
0
Natural Progress
eng
0
Nine stages towards Knowing
eng
0
Occupation: Father
eng
0
Ode
eng
0
Ode upon the Censure of his New Inn
eng
0
Of Life And Death
eng
0
On Don Surly
eng
0
On Elizabeth L. H.
eng
0
On Giles and Joan
eng
0
On Lucy, Countess of Bedford
eng
0
On my First Son
eng
0
On Salathiel Pavy
eng
0
On Something, That Walks Somewhere
eng
0
Opening Doors
eng
0
Praeludium
eng
0
Preconceptio
eng
0
Queen and Huntress
eng
0
Simplex Munditiis
eng
0
So Breaks The Sun
eng
0
Song from The Silent Woman
eng
0
Song To Celia - I
eng
0
Song: from Cynthia`s Revels
eng
0
Song: To Cynthia
eng
0
The Alchemist
eng
0
The Alchemist: Prologue
eng
0
The Metamorphose
eng
0
The New Cry
eng
0
The Noble Balm
eng
0
The Short Fear
eng
0
The Speech
eng
0
The Speeches of Gratulations
eng
0
The Thames At Mortlake
eng
0
The Triumph Of Charis
eng
0
To Francis Beaumont
eng
0
To John Donne
eng
0
To Lucy, Countess of Bedford, with John Donne`s Satires
eng
0
To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of That Noble Pair, Sir Lucius Cary and Sir H. Morison
eng
0
To the Memory of My Beloved Author, Mr. William Shakespeare
eng
0
To The Reader
eng
0
To William Camden
eng
0
V: Song: To Celia
eng
0
Venus` Runaway
eng
0
VI: To The Same
eng
0
VII: Song: That Women Are But Mens Shaddows
eng
0
VIII: Song: To Sicknesse
eng
0
X: And Must I Sing?
eng
0
XI: Epode
eng
0
XII: Epistle To Elizabeth Countesse Of Rutland
eng
0
XIII: Epistle: To Katherine, Lady Aubigny
eng
0
XIV: Ode: To Sir William Sydney, On His Birth-day
eng
0
XV: To Heaven
eng
0

The script ran 0.004 seconds.