Ben Jonson: A turbulent story of a poet in Renaissence

 Ben Jonson 

 

Ben Jonson, born between 1572 and 1573 and passing away in 1637, was a notable English playwright, poet, and literary critic of the early modern era. He is considered one of the most important figures in English Renaissance theatre, alongside William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe. He has risen from modest beginnings to become England's unofficial poet laureate, with a pension from the king and honorary degrees from both Oxford and Cambridge.  

 

Jonson was born in Westminster, London, to a Protestant family. He was educated at St. Martin's Church of England School and then became an apprentice bricklayer and took part in military service. Johnson's early life was quite turbulent. He escaped to join the English forces in Flander; he killed a man. When he came back to London, he attempted to make a living as an actor and playwright, but this endeavour almost ended in disaster. He was jailed in 1597 for collaborating with Thomas Nashe on the scandalous play The Isle of Dogs (now lost), and not long after his release he killed one of his fellow actors in a duel. Jonson was not executed on the gallows by pleading benefit of clergy (a medieval privilege exempting felons who could read Latin from the death penalty). Thanks to the influence of a priest imprisoned with him, he converted to Catholicism. Ben Jonson was becoming increasingly more of a marginal, not accepted by the society he had cleverly mocked in his past plays. In 1603 he was called before the Privy Council to answer charges of "popery and treason" found in his play Sejanus. He was in jail again for his part in the play Eastward Ho a little more than a year later, which openly mocked the king's Scots accent and propensity for selling knighthood. In 1605, he received the preparation to organize the Twelfth Night entertainment; The Masque of Blackness was the first of twenty-four masques he would produce for the court, most of them in collaboration with the architect and scene designer Inigo Jones. In the same years that he kept on writing the masques, he produced his greatest works for the public theatre. His first successful play, Every Man in His Humor (1598), inaugurated the so-called comedy of humour, which ridicules the eccentricities or passions of the characters.   

 

Despite his antagonistic nature, Jonson had a great friendship with Shakespeare, Donne, Francis Bacon, and John Selden. While Shakespeare is known as the greatest playwright of the English Renaissance, Jonson's work is often seen as more intellectually challenging and sophisticated. Jonson was also known for his role as a literary critic and his work in establishing the first English literary tradition. Ben Jonson died in 1637 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His legacy as a playwright and poet continues to be celebrated today. 

 

Ben Jonsons’ major plays are the comedies  

Every Man in His Humour (1598) 

Volpone (1605)  

Epicoene; or, The Silent Woman (1609) 

The Alchemist (1610) 

Bartholomew Fair (1614).