Benjamin Jonson (1572-1637) was an English playwright and actor. Author of famous comedies such as Volpone, The Alchimist, “The devil is an ass”, “Bartholomew Fair”, he is widely considered to be one of the greatest Elizabethan and English Renaissance writers. He was in his lifetime a famous rival of William Shakespeare, inclined to controversy and eager for fame.
Ben Jonson’s biography
Apparently, Ben Jonson descends from a Scottish family. He never knew his father (his father died one month after his birth) and his mother remarried to a master bricklayer. Jonson attended school in Saint Martin’s lane and then at Westminster School. He did not go to University, never enjoyed the trade of brick-laying, enrolled in the army and then fought in the Low Countries. He married to a woman whom he described as “a shrew, but honest”. In 1597 he was in London, probably actor, or trying his luck writing plays. In 1599, he had already written a few comedies, including “Every man in his humour” and “The case is altered”. By 1599, he had already been thrown in jail twice, first for the offences caused by his play “The Isle of dogs”, and the second time for killing someone in a duel. He then converted to Catholicism. In 1598 “Every man in his humour” had been a success, and apparently included Shakespeare as one of the actors. Never shy of controversies, Jonson had issues and feuds, mainly with John Marston and Thomas Dekker. During the reign of James I, Jonson started writing masques which then were very much in fashion. But his problems with authority did not stop here. He was questioned by the Privy council for his Play “Sejanus”, dealing with corruption in the Roman Empire, which they had felt was a theme a little too close to home. He also had some obscure involvement with many conspirators of the Gunpowder plot, but was not sent to jail this time. Then came fame and success with Volpone in 1606, The Alchimist in 1610, “Bartholomew Fair” in 1614, “The devil is an ass” in 1616. Still, contrarily to Shakespeare, Jonson always struggled with money. In the 1620s, he carried on writing till the end but never achieved the same success than the one he had known in the previous years. He died on 6 August 1637. He is buried inside Westminster Abbey.
Ben Jonson’s unique style
Far from Shakespearan comedies, lighter, romantic, with their plots involving love and foreign locations, Ben Jonson’s comedies were harsher, cruder, aimed to use a language “such as men do use”, he will remain best known for the sheer intricacy of his stories, and especially the cruelty of situations which he describes, always aiming to denounce the ugly side of human nature through the use of satire, sometimes verging on the absurd. Revered in the Seventeenth century alongside Shakespeare, he remains one of the greatest English playwrights, and also one of the most controversial. Coleridge is known as saying that The Alchemist has one of the most perfect plots of English literature. Volpone’s influence crossed borders. It was rewritten by Stefan Zweig and Jules Romains, and staged in 1928. Les Éditions de Londres have no doubt the uniqueness and the strength of Jonson’s satirical comedies exerted a major influence on British humour.
Ben Jonson, a symbol of Elizabethan theatre?
Elizabethan theatre refers to the plays produced during the period from 1567, when “The Red Lion” was opened, until 1642, when the Puritans decided to close all the theatres… At the time, England was going through a Renaissance, and theatres, often in competition with each other for the custom of theatre-goers and also of the Court, were very popular, so popular it has been calculated around 1,500 plays were produced over less than 70 years (of which we still have about 600 of them), most of them the work of playwrights of modest backgrounds. The most famous names are William Shakespeare (although he was not such a towering figure at the time, but rather one of many), Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Edward de Vere, Robert Greene… One of the reasons so many of the plays were lost is that few of them were ever printed (actually around 600, which does match the number of those plays which survived). Elizabethan theatre does not only evoke numerous playwrights (many of them also actors) from modest backgrounds, large production of plays, but is also synonymous with many famous theatres such The Globe, the Swan, the Red Lion, the Blackfriars theatre… and playing companies such as the King’s men, the Admiral’s men, the Lord Chamberlain’s men…
© 2013- Les Éditions de Londres
TO THE MOST NOBLE AND MOST EQUAL SISTERS, THE TWO FAMOUS UNIVERSITIES, FOR THEIR LOVE AND ACCEPTANCE SHEWN TO HIS POEM IN THE PRESENTATION, BEN JONSON, THE GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGER, DEDICATES BOTH IT AND HIMSELF.
Never, most equal Sisters, had any man a wit so presently excellent, as that it could raise itself; but there must come both matter, occasion, commenders, and favourers to it. If this be true, and that the fortune of all writers doth daily prove it, it behoves the careful to provide well towards these accidents; and, having acquired them, to preserve that part of reputation most tenderly, wherein the benefit of a friend is also defended. Hence is it, that I now render myself grateful, and am studious to justify the bounty of your act; to which, though your mere authority were satisfying, yet it being an age wherein poetry and the professors of it hear so ill on all sides, there will a reason be looked for in the subject. It is certain, nor can it with any forehead be opposed, that the too much license of poetasters in this time, hath much deformed their mistress; that, every day, their manifold and manifest ignorance doth stick unnatural reproaches upon her: but for their petulancy, it were an act of the greatest injustice, either to let the learned suffer, or so divine a skill (which indeed should not be attempted with unclean hands) to fall under the least contempt. For, if men will impartially, and not asquint, look toward the offices and function of a poet, they will easily conclude to themselves the impossibility of any man's being the good poet, without first being a good man. He that is said to be able to inform young men to all good disciplines, inflame grown men to all great virtues, keep old men in their best and supreme state, or, as they decline to childhood, recover them to their first strength; that comes forth the interpreter and arbiter of nature, a teacher of things divine no less than human, a master in manners; and can alone, or with a few, effect the business of mankind: this, I take him, is no subject for pride and ignorance to exercise their railing rhetoric upon. But it will here be hastily answered, that the writers of these days are other things; that not only their manners, but their natures, are inverted, and nothing remaining with them of the dignity of poet, but the abused name, which every scribe usurps; that now, especially in dramatic, or, as they term it, stage-poetry, nothing but ribaldry, profanation, blasphemy, all license of offence to God and man is practised. I dare not deny a great part of this, and am sorry I dare not, because in some men's abortive features (and would they had never boasted the light) it is over-true; but that all are embarked in this bold adventure for hell, is a most uncharitable thought, and, uttered, a more malicious slander. For my particular, I can, and from a most clear conscience, affirm, that I have ever trembled to think toward the least profaneness; have loathed the use of such foul and unwashed bawdry, as is now made the food of the scene: and, howsoever I cannot escape from some, the imputation of sharpness, but that they will say, I have taken a pride, or lust, to be bitter, and not my youngest infant but hath come into the world with all his teeth; I would ask of these supercilious politics, what nation, society, or general order or state, I have provoked? What public person? Whether I have not in all these preserved their dignity, as mine own person, safe? My works are read, allowed, (I speak of those that are intirely mine,) look into them, what broad reproofs have I used? Where have I been particular? Where personal? Except to a mimic, cheater, bawd, or buffoon, creatures, for their insolencies, worthy to be taxed? Yet to which of these so pointingly, as he might not either ingenuously have confest, or wisely dissembled his disease? But it is not rumour can make men guilty, much less entitle me to other men's crimes. I know, that nothing can be so innocently writ or carried, but may be made obnoxious to construction; marry, whilst I bear mine innocence about me, I fear it not. Application is now grown a trade with many; and there are that profess to have a key for the decyphering of every thing: but let wise and noble persons take heed how they be too credulous, or give leave to these invading interpreters to be over-familiar with their fames, who cunningly, and often, utter their own virulent malice, under other men's simplest meanings. As for those that will (by faults which charity hath raked up, or common honesty concealed) make themselves a name with the multitude, or, to draw their rude and beastly claps, care not whose living faces they intrench with their petulant styles, may they do it without a rival, for me! I choose rather to live graved in obscurity, than share with them in so preposterous a fame. Nor can I blame the wishes of those severe and wise patriots, who providing the hurts these licentious spirits may do in a state, desire rather to see fools and devils, and those antique relics of barbarism retrieved, with all other ridiculous and exploded follies, than behold the wounds of private men, of princes and nations: for, as Horace makes Trebatius speak among these,
"Sibi quisque timet, quanquam est intactus, et odit."
And men may justly impute such rages, if continued, to the writer, as his sports. The increase of which lust in liberty, together with the present trade of the stage, in all their miscelline interludes, what learned or liberal soul doth not already abhor? where nothing but the filth of the time is uttered, and with such impropriety of phrase, such plenty of solecisms, such dearth of sense, so bold prolepses, so racked metaphors, with brothelry, able to violate the ear of a pagan, and blasphemy, to turn the blood of a Christian to water. I cannot but be serious in a cause of this nature, wherein my fame, and the reputation of divers honest and learned are the question; when a name so full of authority, antiquity, and all great mark, is, through their insolence, become the lowest scorn of the age; and those men subject to the petulancy of every vernaculous orator, that were wont to be the care of kings and happiest monarchs. This it is that hath not only rapt me to present indignation, but made me studious heretofore, and by all my actions, to stand off from them; which may most appear in this my latest work, which you, most learned Arbitresses, have seen, judged, and to my crown, approved; wherein I have laboured for their instruction and amendment, to reduce not only the ancient forms, but manners of the scene, the easiness, the propriety, the innocence, and last, the doctrine, which is the principal end of poesie, to inform men in the best reason of living. And though my catastrophe may, in the strict rigour of comic law, meet with censure, as turning back to my promise; I desire the learned and charitable critic, to have so much faith in me, to think it was done of industry: for, with what ease I could have varied it nearer his scale (but that I fear to boast my own faculty) I could here insert. But my special aim being to put the snaffle in their mouths, that cry out, We never punish vice in our interludes, etc., I took the more liberty; though not without some lines of example, drawn even in the ancients themselves, the goings out of whose comedies are not always joyful, but oft times the bawds, the servants, the rivals, yea, and the masters are mulcted; and fitly, it being the office of a comic poet to imitate justice, and instruct to life, as well as purity of language, or stir up gentle affections; to which I shall take the occasion elsewhere to speak.
For the present, most reverenced Sisters, as I have cared to be thankful for your affections past, and here made the understanding acquainted with some ground of your favours; let me not despair their continuance, to the maturing of some worthier fruits; wherein, if my muses be true to me, I shall raise the despised head of poetry again, and stripping her out of those rotten and base rags wherewith the times have adulterated her form, restore her to her primitive habit, feature, and majesty, and render her worthy to be embraced and kist of all the great and master-spirits of our world. As for the vile and slothful, who never affected an act worthy of celebration, or are so inward with their own vicious natures, as they worthily fear her, and think it an high point of policy to keep her in contempt, with their declamatory and windy invectives; she shall out of just rage incite her servants (who are genus irritabile) to spout ink in their faces, that shall eat farther than their marrow into their fames; and not Cinnamus the barber, with his art, shall be able to take out the brands; but they shall live, and be read, till the wretches die, as things worst deserving of themselves in chief, and then of all mankind.
From my House in the Black-Friars,
this 11th day of February, 1607.