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101-429: In 1514, author and critic Gian Giorgio Trissino (1478 – 1550) introduced the concept of the unities in his blank-verse tragedy, Sofonisba . Trissino claimed he was following Aristotle. However, Trissino had no access to Aristotle's most significant work on the tragic form, Poetics . Trissino expanded with his own ideas on what he was able to glean from Aristotle's book, Rhetoric . In Rhetoric Aristotle considers

202-546: A London setting, themes of trickery and money, and a distinct moral ambiguity, despite Jonson's professed aim in the Prologue to Volpone to "mix profit with your pleasure". His late plays or " dotages ", particularly The Magnetic Lady and The Sad Shepherd , exhibit signs of an accommodation with the romantic tendencies of Elizabethan comedy . Within this general progression, however, Jonson's comic style remained constant and easily recognisable. He announces his programme in

303-550: A brief Bible verse (the neck-verse ), forfeiting his "goods and chattels" and being branded with the so-called Tyburn T on his left thumb. While in jail Jonson converted to Catholicism, possibly through the influence of fellow-prisoner Father Thomas Wright , a Jesuit priest. In 1598 Jonson produced his first great success, Every Man in His Humour , capitalising on the vogue for humorous plays which George Chapman had begun with An Humorous Day's Mirth . William Shakespeare

404-553: A brief spell of imprisonment imposed to mark the authorities' displeasure at the work, in the second week of October 1605, he was present at a supper party attended by most of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators. After the plot's discovery, he appears to have avoided further imprisonment; he volunteered what he knew of the affair to the investigator Robert Cecil and the Privy Council. Father Thomas Wright, who heard Fawkes's confession,

505-423: A charge of recusancy , with Jonson alone additionally accused of allowing his fame as a Catholic to "seduce" citizens to the cause. This was a serious matter (the Gunpowder Plot was still fresh in people's minds) but he explained that his failure to take communion was only because he had not found sound theological endorsement for the practice, and by paying a fine of thirteen shillings (156 pence ) he escaped

606-521: A clergyman upon his release, he died a month before his son's birth. His widow married a master bricklayer two years later. Jonson attended school in St Martin's Lane in London. Later, a family friend paid for his studies at Westminster School , where the antiquarian , historian, topographer and officer of arms William Camden (1551–1623) was one of his masters. The pupil and master became friends, and

707-515: A climax with the production of Victor Hugo's play Hernani at the Theatre Francais, on 21 February 1830. It was reported that the two sides, the "Classicists" and "Romanticists", both full of passion, met as on a field of battle. There was a lot of clamor in the theatre at each performance, even some fist fights. The newer Romantic movement carried the day, and French playwrights no longer had to confine their plays to one location, and have all of

808-878: A cousin of King James, in Leith, and was made an honorary burgess of Edinburgh at a dinner laid on by the city on 26 September. He stayed in Scotland until late January 1619, and the best-remembered hospitality he enjoyed was that of the Scottish poet, William Drummond of Hawthornden , sited on the River Esk . Drummond undertook to record as much of Jonson's conversation as he could in his diary, and thus recorded aspects of Jonson's personality that would otherwise have been less clearly seen. Jonson delivers his opinions, in Drummond's terse reporting, in an expansive and even magisterial mood. Drummond noted he

909-399: A famous poem to Camden and lines to Lucy Harington, are longer and are mostly addressed to specific individuals. Although it is included among the epigrams, " On My First Sonne " is neither satirical nor very short; the poem, intensely personal and deeply felt, typifies a genre that would come to be called "lyric poetry." It is possible that the spelling of 'son' as 'Sonne' is meant to allude to

1010-642: A fixed engagement in the Admiral's Men , then performing under Philip Henslowe 's management at The Rose . John Aubrey reports, on uncertain authority, that Jonson was not successful as an actor; whatever his skills as an actor, he was more valuable to the company as a writer. By this time 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, however. An undated comedy, The Case

1111-454: A line when he wrote. His own claimed response was "Would he had blotted a thousand!" However, Jonson explains, "Hee was (indeed) honest, and of an open, and free nature: had an excellent Phantsie ; brave notions and gentle expressions: wherein hee flow'd with that facility, that sometime it was necessary he should be stopp'd". Jonson concludes that "there was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned." When Shakespeare died, he said, "He

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1212-720: A month. According to the churchman and historian Thomas Fuller (1608–61), Jonson at this time built a garden wall in Lincoln's Inn . After having been an apprentice bricklayer, Jonson went to the Netherlands and volunteered to soldier with the English regiments of Sir Francis Vere (1560–1609) in Flanders . England was allied with the Dutch in their fight for independence as well as the ongoing war with Spain . The Hawthornden Manuscripts (1619), of

1313-590: A nonsensical line in Julius Caesar and the setting of The Winter's Tale on the non-existent seacoast of Bohemia. Drummond also reported Jonson as saying that Shakespeare "wanted art" (i.e., lacked skill). In "De Shakespeare Nostrat" in Timber , which was published posthumously and reflects his lifetime of practical experience, Jonson offers a fuller and more conciliatory comment. He recalls being told by certain actors that Shakespeare never blotted (i.e., crossed out)

1414-470: A number of Jonson's plays, at least two of which ( Every Man in His Humour and Sejanus His Fall ) Shakespeare certainly acted in. However, it is now impossible to tell how much personal communication they had, and tales of their friendship cannot be substantiated. Jonson's most influential and revealing commentary on Shakespeare is the second of the two poems that he contributed to the prefatory verse that opens Shakespeare's First Folio . This poem, "To

1515-506: A portrait of Jonson, offers a caricature that is recognisable from Drummond's report – boasting about himself and condemning other poets, criticising performances of his plays and calling attention to himself in any available way. This " War of the Theatres " appears to have ended with reconciliation on all sides. Jonson collaborated with Dekker on a pageant welcoming James I to England in 1603 although Drummond reports that Jonson called Dekker

1616-583: A prominent role in the early career of Andrea Palladio , which developed into a long and close friendship between the two men. Trissino first took Palladio under his wing after becoming acquainted with him while building his villa in Cricoli . Trissino died in Rome in December 1550. An edition of his collected works was published at Verona in 1729. His endeavors in the field of linguistics received lively reactions in

1717-415: A remarkable new direction for Jonson: a move into pastoral drama. During the early 1630s, he also conducted a correspondence with James Howell , who warned him about disfavour at court in the wake of his dispute with Jones. According to a contemporary letter written by Edward Thelwall of Gray's Inn , Jonson died on 18 August 1637 (O.S. 6 August). He died in London. His funeral was held the next day. It

1818-430: A representation of two hours and a half, which is not to imitate or paint Nature, but rather to draw her in miniature, to take her in little; to look upon her through the wrong end of a Perspective, and receive her Images not onely much less, but infinitely more imperfect then the life: this instead of making a Play delightful, renders it ridiculous. Samuel Johnson in the preface to his edition of Shakespeare in 1773 rejects

1919-447: A rogue. Marston dedicated The Malcontent to Jonson and the two collaborated with Chapman on Eastward Ho! , a 1605 play whose anti-Scottish sentiment briefly landed both Jonson and Chapman in jail. At the beginning of the English reign of James VI and I in 1603 Jonson joined other poets and playwrights in welcoming the new king. Jonson quickly adapted himself to the additional demand for masques and entertainments introduced with

2020-430: A series of setbacks drained his strength and damaged his reputation. He resumed writing regular plays in the 1620s, but these are not considered among his best. They are of significant interest, however, for their portrayal of Charles I 's England. The Staple of News , for example, offers a remarkable look at the earliest stage of English journalism. The lukewarm reception given that play was, however, nothing compared to

2121-425: Is Altered , is markedly similar to Shakespeare's romantic comedies in its foreign setting, emphasis on genial wit and love-plot. Henslowe's diary indicates that Jonson had a hand in numerous other plays, including many in genres such as English history with which he is not otherwise associated. The comedies of his middle career, from Eastward Hoe to The Devil Is an Ass are for the most part city comedy , with

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2222-499: Is Altered , may be his earliest surviving play. In 1597, a play which he co-wrote with Thomas Nashe , The Isle of Dogs , was suppressed after causing great offence. Arrest warrants for Jonson and Nashe were issued by Queen Elizabeth I 's so-called interrogator, Richard Topcliffe . Jonson was jailed in Marshalsea Prison and charged with "Leude and mutynous behaviour", while Nashe managed to escape to Great Yarmouth . Two of

2323-409: Is Altered , Jonson eschewed distant locations, noble characters, romantic plots and other staples of Elizabethan comedy, focusing instead on the satiric and realistic inheritance of new comedy . He set his plays in contemporary settings, peopled them with recognisable types, and set them to actions that, if not strictly realistic, involved everyday motives such as greed and jealousy . In accordance with

2424-456: Is a diamond-shaped heraldic device used by the Johnston family. His ancestors spelt the family name with a letter "t" (Johnstone or Johnstoun). While the spelling had eventually changed to the more common "Johnson", the playwright's own particular preference became "Jonson". Jonson's father lost his property, was imprisoned, and, as a Protestant, suffered forfeiture under Queen Mary . Becoming

2525-407: Is complete, and possesses magnitude. ... A poetic imitation, then, ought to be unified in the same way as a single imitation in any other mimetic field, by having a single object: since the plot is an imitation of an action, the latter ought to be both unified and complete, and the component events ought to be so firmly compacted that if any one of them is shifted to another place, or removed, the whole

2626-511: Is concerned tragedy tries as hard as it can to exist during a single daylight period, or to vary but little, while the epic is not limited in its time and so differs in that respect. Gian Giorgio Trissino Gian Giorgio Trissino (8 July 1478 – 8 December 1550), also called Giovan Giorgio Trissino and self-styled as Giovan Giωrgio Trissino , was a Venetian Renaissance humanist , poet, dramatist , diplomat, grammarian , linguist , and philosopher. He first proposed adding letters to

2727-623: Is found to be stiff, distant and lacking in feeling. In 1570 the unities were codified and given new definition by Lodovico Castelvetro ( c.  1505 – 1571) in his influential translation and interpretation of Aristotle's Poetics , Poetica d'Aristotele vulgarizzata e sposta ("The Poetics of Aristotle translated in the Vulgar Language and commented on"). Though Castelvetro's translations are considered crude and inaccurate, and though he at times altered Aristotle's meanings to make his own points, his translations were influential and inspired

2828-540: Is loosened up and dislocated; for an element whose addition or subtraction makes no perceptible extra difference is not really a part of the whole. Aristotle considers length or time in a distinction between the epic and tragedy : Well then, epic poetry followed in the wake of tragedy up to the point of being a (1) good-sized (2) imitation (3) in verse (4) of people who are to be taken seriously; but in its having its verse unmixed with any other and being narrative in character, there they differ. Further, so far as its length

2929-542: Is regarded as "the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare , during the reign of James I ." Jonson was a classically educated , well-read and cultured man of the English Renaissance with an appetite for controversy (personal and political, artistic and intellectual) whose cultural influence was of unparalleled breadth upon the playwrights and the poets of the Jacobean era (1603–1625) and of

3030-605: The Caroline era (1625–1642). Jonson was born in June 1572 —possibly on the 11th —in or near London. In midlife, Jonson said his paternal grandfather, who "served King Henry 8 and was a gentleman", was a member of the extended Johnston family of Annandale in the Dumfries and Galloway , a genealogy that is attested by the three spindles ( rhombi ) in the Jonson family coat of arms : one spindle

3131-547: The Emperor Charles V made Trissino a count palatine . In spite of the banishment from Vicenza pronounced upon him in 1509 because his family had favoured the plans of Maximilian , he was held in high esteem throughout Italy. Wherever he made his home, it was a center for gatherings of scholars, littérateurs, and the most cultured men of the time. His family life was far from happy, apparently through little fault of his own. From 1538 to 1540, Trissino returned to his studies at

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3232-562: The University of Padua with an abiding interest in Plato and the question of free will. In the history of modern European literature Trissino occupies a prominent place because of his tragedy Sophonisba (c. 1515; published 1524). Based on the life of the Carthaginian lady Sophonisba and inspired by ancient tragedies, it was perhaps the first tragedy in early modern times to show deference to

3333-480: The sonnet form, with which it shares some features. A few other so-called epigrams share this quality. Jonson's poems of "The Forest" also appeared in the first folio. Most of the fifteen poems are addressed to Jonson's aristocratic supporters, but the most famous are his country-house poem "To Penshurst" and the poem " To Celia " ("Come, my Celia, let us prove") that appears also in Volpone . Underwood , published in

3434-414: The 1616 folio) is an entry in a genre that was popular among late-Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences, although Jonson was perhaps the only poet of his time to work in its full classical range. The epigrams explore various attitudes, most from the satiric stock of the day: complaints against women, courtiers and spies abound. The condemnatory poems are short and anonymous; Jonson's epigrams of praise, including

3535-662: The Aristotelean principles of literary composition, comprise the rest of his important writings. Ben Jonson Benjamin Jonson ( c. 11 June 1572 – 18 August [ O.S. 6 August] 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence on English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours ; he is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone, or The Fox ( c.  1606 ), The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614) and for his lyric and epigrammatic poetry. He

3636-719: The Church of England); the carving shows a distinct space between "O" and "rare". A monument to Jonson was erected in about 1723 by the Earl of Oxford and is in the eastern aisle of Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner . It includes a portrait medallion and the same inscription as on the gravestone. It seems Jonson was to have had a monument erected by subscription soon after his death but the English Civil War intervened. Apart from two tragedies, Sejanus and Catiline , that largely failed to impress Renaissance audiences, Jonson's work for

3737-457: The Continent, Jonson returned to England and worked as an actor and as a playwright. As an actor, he was the protagonist "Hieronimo" (Geronimo) in the play The Spanish Tragedy ( c.  1586 ), by Thomas Kyd (1558–94), the first revenge tragedy in English literature. By 1597, he was a working playwright employed by Philip Henslowe , the leading producer for the English public theatre; by

3838-603: The English Civil War, the "Tribe of Ben" touted his importance, and during the Restoration Jonson's satirical comedies and his theory and practice of "humour characters" (which are often misunderstood; see William Congreve's letters for clarification) was extremely influential, providing the blueprint for many Restoration comedies. John Aubrey wrote of Jonson in Brief Lives . By 1700, Jonson's status began to decline. In

3939-491: The First Folio, and he may have been inspired to write this poem by reading his fellow playwright's works, a number of which had been previously either unpublished or available in less satisfactory versions, in a relatively complete form. Jonson was a towering literary figure, and his influence was enormous for he has been described as "One of the most vigorous minds that ever added to the strength of English literature". Before

4040-627: The Italian alphabet to distinguish J from I , and V from U . Trissino was born of a patrician family in Vicenza . He sided with Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian whose army entered Vicenza in June 1509, accompanied by members of Vicentine nobility including the Thiene , Chiericati, and Porto families. When Venice reconquered Vicenza on 12 November 1509, Trissino was punished for his betrayal and sent into exile. He then traveled to Germany and Lombardy and

4141-586: The King was in residence. The Masque of Blackness was praised by Algernon Charles Swinburne as the consummate example of this now-extinct genre, which mingled speech, dancing and spectacle. On many of these projects, he collaborated, not always peacefully, with designer Inigo Jones . For example, Jones designed the scenery for Jonson's masque Oberon, the Faery Prince performed at Whitehall on 1 January 1611 in which Prince Henry , eldest son of James I, appeared in

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4242-513: The Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare and What He Hath Left Us" , did a good deal to create the traditional view of Shakespeare as a poet who, despite "small Latine, and lesse Greeke", had a natural genius. The poem has traditionally been thought to exemplify the contrast which Jonson perceived between himself, the disciplined and erudite classicist, scornful of ignorance and sceptical of

4343-502: The action packed into one day. The Classical Unities seem to have had less impact in England. It had adherents in Ben Jonson and John Dryden . Examples of plays that followed the theory include: Thomas Otway's Venice Preserv'd (1682), Joseph Addison's Cato , and Samuel Johnson's Irene (1749). Shakespeare's The Tempest (1610) takes place almost entirely on an island, during

4444-528: The actors, Gabriel Spenser and Robert Shaw, were also imprisoned. A year later, Jonson was again briefly imprisoned, this time in Newgate Prison , for killing Gabriel Spenser in a duel on 22 September 1598 in Hogsden Fields (today part of Hoxton ). Tried on a charge of manslaughter , Jonson pleaded guilty but was released by benefit of clergy , a legal ploy through which he gained leniency by reciting

4545-589: The campaigns of Belisarius in Italy, he sought to show that it was possible to write in the vernacular an epic in accordance with the classic precepts. The result is a cold and colorless composition. Moreover, as Nicholas Birns points out, the very choice of the Byzantine-Ostrogothic wars of the sixth century as a subject committed Trissino to dealing with barbarian subjects with which, as an extreme classicist, he felt little affinity. In addition, Trissino played

4646-416: The careful attention to form and style that often came naturally to those trained in classics in the humanist manner. Jonson largely avoided the debates about rhyme and meter that had consumed Elizabethan classicists such as Thomas Campion and Gabriel Harvey . Accepting both rhyme and stress, Jonson used them to mimic the classical qualities of simplicity, restraint and precision. "Epigrams" (published in

4747-411: The chorus notes that the story makes a jump of 16 years: Impute it not a crime To me or my swift passage, that I slide O'er sixteen years and leave the growth untried Of that wide gap John Dryden discusses the unity of time in this passage criticizing Shakespeare's history plays : ... they are rather so many Chronicles of Kings, or the business many times of thirty or forty years, crampt into

4848-484: The classic rules. It served as an example for European tragedies throughout the 16th century. It was translated into French by Mellin de Saint-Gelais , and was performed with great acclaim in 1556 at the Château de Blois . A partisan of Aristotelean regularity, Trissino disapproved of the freedom of the chivalrous epic, as written by Ariosto . In his own composition, l'Italia liberata dai Goti (1547–1548), dealing with

4949-460: The comedies Volpone (acted 1605 and printed in 1607), Epicoene, or the Silent Woman (1609), The Alchemist (1610), Bartholomew Fair (1614) and The Devil Is an Ass (1616). The Alchemist and Volpone were immediately successful. Of Epicoene , Jonson told Drummond of a satirical verse which reported that the play's subtitle was appropriate since its audience had refused to applaud

5050-529: The conversations between Ben Jonson and the poet William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649), report that, when in Flanders, Jonson engaged, fought and killed an enemy soldier in single combat , and took for trophies the weapons of the vanquished soldier. Johnson is reputed to have visited the antiquary Sir Robert Cotton at a residence of his in Chester early in the 17th century. After his military activity on

5151-466: The course of four hours, and with one major action — that of Prospero reclaiming his role as the Duke of Milan. It is suggested that Prospero's way of regularly checking the time of day during the play might be satirizing the concept of the unities. In An Apology for Poetry (1595), Philip Sidney advocates for the unities, and complains that English plays are ignoring them. In Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale

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5252-467: The differences between the Tuscan pronunciation and that of the courtly language, which he advocated as an enrichment of the Italian language. Trissino's ideas about a synthetic Italian standard were opposed by two major factions. On the one side were those, like Machiavelli , who supported the spoken version of the Tuscan dialect. On the other, Pietro Bembo argued that the Italian standard should be based on

5353-441: The dismal failure of The New Inn ; the cold reception given this play prompted Jonson to write a poem condemning his audience ( An Ode to Himself ), which in turn prompted Thomas Carew , one of the "Tribe of Ben", to respond in a poem that asks Jonson to recognise his own decline. The principal factor in Jonson's partial eclipse was, however, the death of James and the accession of King Charles I in 1625. Jonson felt neglected by

5454-410: The dramatic elements of action and time, while focusing on audience reception. Poor translations at the time resulted in some misreadings by Trissino. Trissino's play Sofonisba followed classical Greek style by adhering to the unities, by omitting the usual act division, and even introducing a chorus. The many Italian playwrights that came after Trissino in the 16th Century, also wrote in accordance to

5555-812: The expanded folio of 1640, is a larger and more heterogeneous group of poems. It contains A Celebration of Charis , Jonson's most extended effort at love poetry; various religious pieces; encomiastic poems including the poem to Shakespeare and a sonnet on Mary Wroth ; the Execration against Vulcan and others. The 1640 volume also contains three elegies which have often been ascribed to Donne (one of them appeared in Donne's posthumous collected poems). There are many legends about Jonson's rivalry with Shakespeare . William Drummond reports that during their conversation, Jonson scoffed at two apparent absurdities in Shakespeare's plays:

5656-524: The first volume of the folio-collected edition of his works that year. Other volumes followed in 1640–41 and 1692. (See: Ben Jonson folios ) On 8 July 1618 Jonson set out from Bishopsgate in London to walk to Edinburgh, arriving in Scotland's capital on 17 September. For the most part he followed the Great North Road , and was treated to lavish and enthusiastic welcomes in both towns and country houses. On his arrival he lodged initially with John Stuart,

5757-460: The following letters to distinguish sounds of the spoken language: The idea was taken up for "j" and "v", which brought to the modern distinction U vs. V and I vs. J , which eventually caught up also for other European languages before being largely abandoned in contemporary Italian, which generally spells the sound [j] with an I . Later proposals reversed the ω/o assignations. Following Claudio Tolomei , he used ⟨ ʃ ⟩ for

5858-447: The inscription. Another theory suggests that the tribute came from William Davenant , Jonson's successor as Poet Laureate (and card-playing companion of Young), as the same phrase appears on Davenant's nearby gravestone, but essayist Leigh Hunt contends that Davenant's wording represented no more than Young's coinage, cheaply re-used. The fact that Jonson was buried in an upright position was an indication of his reduced circumstances at

5959-622: The intellectual influence of Camden's broad-ranging scholarship upon Jonson's art and literary style remained notable, until Camden's death in 1623. At Westminster School he met the Welsh poet Hugh Holland , with whom he established an "enduring relationship". Both of them would write preliminary poems for William Shakespeare 's First Folio (1623). On leaving Westminster School in 1589, Jonson attended St John's College, Cambridge , to continue his book learning. However, because of his unwilled apprenticeship to his bricklayer stepfather, he returned after

6060-586: The language of the Florentine classics of the 14th century, especially Petrarch and Boccaccio (Dante's language was considered too unpolished). By the end of the century, Bembo's position prevailed and Trissino's ideas were rejected. I Simillimi (1548) which is a version of the Menæchmi of Plautus , I Ritratti (1524) which is a composite portrait of feminine beauty, and the Poetica , which contains his summing up of

6161-491: The laws of the stage, that ought to be enough to restrain any one who should entertain the idea of violating them. However, in France opposition soon began to grow in the form of a Romantic movement, that wanted freedom from the strictures of the classical unities. It turned into a fierce literary conflict. The opposition included Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas , and others. Victor Hugo, in the preface to his play, Cromwell , criticizes

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6262-667: The literary world of the time. Following the lead of Dante , he advocated the enrichment of the Italian language, and espoused in his Castellano (1529) the theory that the language is a courtly one made up of contributions from the refined centers in Italy; instead of being fundamentally of Tuscan origin. His theory was supported by the publication, also in 1529, of his translation of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia , which Trissino had saved from oblivion. Heated discussions followed his 1524 essay titled Ɛpistola del Trissino de le lettere nuωvamente aggiunte ne la lingua Italiana , in which he proposed to reform Italian orthography by adding

6363-449: The masses, and Shakespeare, represented in the poem as a kind of natural wonder whose genius was not subject to any rules except those of the audiences for which he wrote. But the poem itself qualifies this view: Some view this elegy as a conventional exercise, but others see it as a heartfelt tribute to the "Sweet Swan of Avon", the "Soul of the Age!" It has been argued that Jonson helped to edit

6464-478: The more serious penalties at the authorities' disposal. His habit was to slip outside during the sacrament, a common routine at the time—indeed it was one followed by the royal consort, Queen Anne of Denmark , herself—to show political loyalty while not offending the conscience. Leading church figures, including John Overall , Dean of St Paul's , were tasked with winning Jonson back to Protestantism, but these overtures were resisted. In May 1610 Henry IV of France

6565-563: The new court. A decisive quarrel with Jones harmed his career as a writer of court masques, although he continued to entertain the court on an irregular basis. For his part, Charles displayed a certain degree of care for the great poet of his father's day: he increased Jonson's annual pension to £100 and included a tierce of wine and beer. Despite the strokes that he suffered in the 1620s, Jonson continued to write. At his death in 1637 he seems to have been working on another play, The Sad Shepherd . Though only two acts are extant, this represents

6666-526: The new reign and fostered by both the king and his consort Anne of Denmark . In addition to his popularity on the public stage and in the royal hall, he enjoyed the patronage of aristocrats such as Elizabeth Sidney (daughter of Sir Philip Sidney ) and Lady Mary Wroth . This connection with the Sidney family provided the impetus for one of Jonson's most famous lyrics, the country house poem To Penshurst . In February 1603 John Manningham reported that Jonson

6767-683: The next year, the production of Every Man in His Humour (1598) had established Jonson's reputation as a dramatist. Jonson described his wife to William Drummond as "a shrew, yet honest". The identity of Jonson's wife is obscure, though she sometimes is identified as "Ann Lewis", the woman who married a Benjamin Jonson in 1594, at the church of St Magnus-the-Martyr , near London Bridge . The registers of St Martin-in-the-Fields record that Mary Jonson, their eldest daughter, died in November 1593, at six months of age. A decade later, in 1603, Benjamin Jonson, their eldest son, died of bubonic plague when he

6868-458: The orders of Lord Burghley , was permitted to minister to the inmates of London prisons. It may have been that Jonson, fearing that his trial would go against him, was seeking the unequivocal absolution that Catholicism could offer if he were sentenced to death. Alternatively, he could have been looking to personal advantage from accepting conversion since Father Wright's protector, the Earl of Essex ,

6969-414: The play (i.e., remained silent). Yet Epicoene , along with Bartholomew Fair and (to a lesser extent) The Devil is an Ass have in modern times achieved a certain degree of recognition. While his life during this period was apparently more settled than it had been in the 1590s, his financial security was still not assured. Jonson recounted that his father had been a prosperous Protestant landowner until

7070-402: The plot mostly takes second place to a variety of incident and comic set-pieces. They are, also, notably ill-tempered. Thomas Davies called Poetaster "a contemptible mixture of the serio-comic, where the names of Augustus Caesar , Maecenas , Virgil , Horace , Ovid and Tibullus , are all sacrificed upon the altar of private resentment". Another early comedy in a different vein, The Case

7171-420: The previous dogma of the classical unities and argues that drama should be faithful to life: The unities of time and place are not essential to a just drama, and that though they may sometimes conduce to pleasure, they are always to be sacrificed to the nobler beauties of variety and instruction; and that a play written with nice observation of the critical rules is to be contemplated as an elaborate curiosity, as

7272-568: The priest alone drinks the wine. The exact date of the ceremony is unknown. However, his interest in Catholic belief and practice remained with him until his death. Jonson's productivity began to decline in the 1620s, but he remained well-known. In that time, the Sons of Ben or the "Tribe of Ben", those younger poets such as Robert Herrick , Richard Lovelace , and Sir John Suckling who took their bearing in verse from Jonson, rose to prominence. However,

7373-570: The product of superfluous and ostentatious art, by which is shown rather what is possible than what is necessary. After Johnson's critique interest seemed to turn away from the theory. John Pitcher, in the Arden Shakespeare Third Series edition of The Winter's Tale (2010), suggests that Shakespeare was familiar with the unities due to an English translation of Poetics that became popular around 1608. Aristotle's Poetics may not have been available to Trissino when he formulated

7474-442: The prologue to the folio version of Every Man in His Humour : he promises to represent "deeds, and language, such as men do use". He planned to write comedies that revived the classical premises of Elizabethan dramatic theory—or rather, since all but the loosest English comedies could claim some descent from Plautus and Terence , he intended to apply those premises with rigour. This commitment entailed negations: after The Case

7575-474: The public theatres was in comedy. These plays vary in some respects. The minor early plays, particularly those written for boy players , present somewhat looser plots and less-developed characters than those written later, for adult companies. Already in the plays which were his salvos in the Poets' War, he displays the keen eye for absurdity and hypocrisy that marks his best-known plays; in these early efforts, however,

7676-414: 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 Elizabeth 's accession, he had been freed and had been able to travel to London to become a clergyman. (All that is known of Jonson's father, who died a month before his son was born, comes from the poet's own narrative.) Jonson's elementary education

7777-501: The rules of the theatre. The three unities of action, time, and place are there strictly observed, and the author was regarded as the father of the French stage." The new rules caught on very quickly in France. Corneille became an ardent supporter of them, and in his plays from Le Cid (1636) to Suréna (1674) he attempted to keep within the limits of time and place. In 1655 he published his Trois Discours , which includes his arguments for

7878-449: The temper of his age, he was often so broad in his characterisation that many of his most famous scenes border on the farcical (as William Congreve , for example, judged Epicoene ). He was more diligent in adhering to the classical unities than many of his peers—although as Margaret Cavendish noted, the unity of action in the major comedies was rather compromised by Jonson's abundance of incident. To this classical model, Jonson applied

7979-415: The time of his death, although it has also been written that he asked for a grave exactly 18 inches square from the monarch and received an upright grave to fit in the requested space. It has been pointed out that the inscription could be read "Orare Ben Jonson" (pray for Ben Jonson), possibly in an allusion to Jonson's acceptance of Catholic doctrine during his lifetime (although he had returned to

8080-422: The title role. Perhaps partly as a result of this new career, Jonson gave up writing plays for the public theatres for a decade. He later told Drummond that he had made less than two hundred pounds on all his plays together. In 1616 Jonson received a yearly pension of 100 marks (about £60), leading some to identify him as England's first Poet Laureate . This sign of royal favour may have encouraged him to publish

8181-464: The troublesome twelve years he remained a Catholic. His stance received attention beyond the low-level intolerance to which most followers of that faith were exposed. The first draft of his play Sejanus His Fall was banned for " popery ", and did not re-appear until some offending passages were cut. In January 1606 he (with Anne, his wife) appeared before the Consistory Court in London to answer

8282-459: The two features of his style which save his classical imitations from mere pedantry: the vividness with which he depicted the lives of his characters and the intricacy of his plots. Coleridge, for instance, claimed that The Alchemist had one of the three most perfect plots in literature. Jonson's poetry, like his drama, is informed by his classical learning. Some of his better-known poems are close translations of Greek or Roman models; all display

8383-479: The unities, and the term "Aristotelian unities" is considered a misnomer, but in spite of this, Aristotle's name became attached to the theory from the beginning. As translations became available, theorists have looked to the Poetics retrospectively for support of the concept. In these passages from the Poetics , Aristotle considers action: Tragedy, then is a process of imitating an action which has serious implications,

8484-477: The unities, saying in part, Distinguished contemporaries, foreigners and Frenchmen, have already attacked, both in theory and in practice, that fundamental law of the pseudo-Aristotelian code. Indeed, the combat was not likely to be a long one. At the first blow it cracked, so worm-eaten was that timber of the old scholastic hovel! Hugo ridicules the unities of place and time, but not the unity of action, which he considers "true and well founded". The conflict came to

8585-539: The unities. Corneille's principles drew the support of Racine and Voltaire, and for French playwrights they became hard rules, and a heresy to disobey them. Voltaire said: All nations begin to regard as barbarous those times when even the greatest geniuses, such as Lope de Vega and Shakespeare, were ignorant of this system, and they even confess the obligation they are under to us for having rescued them from this barbarism. . . . The fact that Corneille, Racine , Molière , Addison , Congreve , and Maffei have all observed

8686-403: The unities. However, according to The Cambridge Guide to Theatre , the imitation of classical forms and modes had a deadening effect on Italian drama, which became "rhetorical and inert". None of the 16th century tragedies that were influenced by the rediscovery of ancient literature have survived except as historic examples. One of the best is Pietro Aretino 's Orazia (1546), which nevertheless

8787-452: The vast number of scholarly debates and discussions that followed all through Europe. One hundred and twenty years after Sofonisba introduced the theory to Italy, it then introduced the concept once again, this time in France with a translation by Jean Mairet . Voltaire said that the Sophonisba of Mairet had "a merit which was then entirely new in France, — that of being in accordance with

8888-462: The voiced ⟨s⟩ ( [z] ), ⟨ki⟩ instead of ⟨chi⟩ as in kiave , ⟨lj⟩ instead of ⟨gli⟩ as in volja and ⟨ʃc⟩ for ⟨sc⟩ as in laʃcia . Because he applied his system to his publications of the Ɛpistola , the Sofonisba and Il Castellano , his research also serves as a valuable source for

8989-446: Was "a great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others". On returning to England, he was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree from Oxford University. The period between 1605 and 1620 may be viewed as Jonson's heyday. By 1616 he had produced all the plays on which his present reputation as a dramatist is based, including the tragedy Catiline (acted and printed 1611), which achieved limited success and

9090-416: Was among the first actors to be cast. Jonson followed this in 1599 with Every Man out of His Humour , a pedantic attempt to imitate Aristophanes . It is not known whether this was a success on stage, but when published it proved popular and went through several editions. Jonson's other work for the theatre in the last years of Elizabeth I's reign was marked by fighting and controversy. Cynthia's Revels

9191-401: Was among those who might hope to rise to influence after the succession of a new monarch. Jonson's conversion came at a weighty time in affairs of state; the royal succession, from the childless Elizabeth, had not been settled and Essex's Catholic allies were hopeful that a sympathetic ruler might attain the throne. Conviction, and certainly not expedience alone, sustained Jonson's faith during

9292-467: Was assassinated, purportedly in the name of the Pope; he had been a Catholic monarch respected in England for tolerance towards Protestants, and his murder seems to have been the immediate cause of Jonson's decision to rejoin the Church of England. He did this in flamboyant style, pointedly drinking a full chalice of communion wine at the eucharist to demonstrate his renunciation of the Catholic rite, in which

9393-488: Was attended by "all or the greatest part of the nobility then in town". He is buried in the north aisle of the nave in Westminster Abbey , with the inscription "O Rare Ben Johnson [ sic ]" set in the slab over his grave. John Aubrey , in a more meticulous record than usual, notes that a passer-by, John Young of Great Milton , Oxfordshire , saw the bare grave marker and on impulse paid a workman eighteen pence to make

9494-436: Was in a small church school attached to St Martin-in-the-Fields parish, and at the age of about seven he secured a place at Westminster School , then part of Westminster Abbey . Notwithstanding this emphatically Protestant grounding, Jonson maintained an interest in Catholic doctrine throughout his adult life and, at a particularly perilous time while a religious war with Spain was widely expected and persecution of Catholics

9595-545: Was intensifying, he converted to the faith. This took place in October 1598, while Jonson was on remand in Newgate Gaol charged with manslaughter . Jonson's biographer Ian Donaldson is among those who suggest that the conversion was instigated by Father Thomas Wright, a Jesuit priest who had resigned from the order over his acceptance of Queen Elizabeth's right to rule in England. Wright, although placed under house arrest on

9696-416: Was known to Jonson from prison in 1598 and Cecil may have directed him to bring the priest before the council, as a witness. At the same time, Jonson pursued a more prestigious career, writing masques for James's court. The Satyr (1603) and The Masque of Blackness (1605) are two of about two dozen masques which Jonson wrote for James or for Queen Anne, some of them performed at Apethorpe Palace when

9797-529: Was living on Robert Townsend, son of Sir Roger Townshend , and "scorns the world." Perhaps this explains why his trouble with English authorities continued. That same year he was questioned by the Privy Council about Sejanus , a politically themed play about corruption in the Roman Empire. He was again in trouble for topical allusions in a play, now lost, in which he took part. Shortly after his release from

9898-480: Was not of an age, but for all time." Thomas Fuller relates stories of Jonson and Shakespeare engaging in debates in the Mermaid Tavern ; Fuller imagines conversations in which Shakespeare would run rings around the more learned but more ponderous Jonson. That the two men knew each other personally is beyond doubt, not only because of the tone of Jonson's references to him but because Shakespeare's company produced

9999-501: Was pardoned by Venice in 1516. He eventually came under the protection of Pope Leo X , Pope Clement VII , and Pope Paul III . He had the advantages of a good humanistic training, studying Greek under Demetrios Chalkokondyles at Milan and philosophy under Niccolò Leoniceno at Ferrara . His culture recommended him to the humanist Pope Leo X, who in 1515 sent him to Germany as his nuncio ; later on Pope Clement VII showed him special favour, and employed him as ambassador. In 1532,

10100-651: Was produced by the Children of the Chapel Royal at Blackfriars Theatre in 1600. It satirised both John Marston , who Jonson believed had accused him of lustfulness in Histriomastix , and Thomas Dekker . Jonson attacked the two poets again in Poetaster (1601). Dekker responded with Satiromastix , subtitled "the untrussing of the humorous poet". The final scene of this play, while certainly not to be taken at face value as

10201-400: Was seven years old, upon which Jonson wrote the elegiac " On My First Sonne " (1603). A second son, also named Benjamin Jonson, died in 1635. During that period , Jonson and his wife lived separate lives for five years; Jonson enjoyed the residential hospitality of his patrons, Esme Stuart, 3rd Duke of Lennox and 7th Seigneur d'Aubigny and Sir Robert Townshend. By summer 1597, Jonson had

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