Ben Jonson

Benjamin Jonson (1572-1637) was a Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor, known best for his satirical plays and lyric poems. He had a knack for absurdity and hypocrisy, a trait that made him immensely popular in the 17th century Renaissance period. However, his reputation diminished somewhat in the Romantic era, when he began to be unfairly compared to Shakespeare. The Theatre in London had had been denied to "The Admiral's Men" in 1597, but the troupe...

Set in early 17th-century London this play is renowned for its sharp wit, intricate plot, and vibrant characters. Jonson masterfully crafts a story centered around the wealthy, old Morose, who detests noise and yearns for a quiet life, leading him to marry the seemingly silent Epicoene. However, his quest for tranquility quickly unravels in a series of comedic twists and turns, revealing the true nature of his bride and the scheming surrounding his...

"The Devil is an Ass" is a mildly satirical play, in which a lesser devil named Pug is allowed by Satan to travel to London and entrap innocent souls. He is surprised, however, when his victims turn out to be more cunning and unscrupulous than expected. Subplots involving scams and deception weave together in this highly comical tale of a group of Londoners making an ass of the Devil.

Jonson worked with Marston and George Chapman on a satirical city comedy called "Eastward Ho!" The collaborative effort was a remarkable success, blending three very different writings styles into a single, coherent play. The tale of contemporary London life was written in response to the immense success of Thomas Dekker and John Webster's "Westward Ho!"

Excerpt: "In this little book we have some of the best thoughts of one of the most vigorous minds that ever added to the strength of English literature. The songs added are a part of what Ben Jonson called his "Underwoods."

Joson's final comedy, "The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconciled," tells the story of a chaotic but revealing dinner party, with the wealthy Lady Loadstone, her attractive young niece, Placentia Steel, a group of amorous but foolish suitors, and a few out of control female servants.

The term poetaster, meaning an inferior poet with pretensions to artistic value, had been coined by Erasmus in 1521. It was used by Jonson in 1600 and then popularised with this play a year later. Poetaster is a late Elizabethan satirical comedy written by Ben Jonson that was first performed in 1601. The play formed one element in the back-and-forth exchange between Jonson and his rivals John Marston and Thomas Dekker in the so-called Poetomachia...

One of his early comedies, "The Case is Altered," strays from the playwright's normal works in both structure and plot. These anomalies and the work's exclusion from Jonson's three folio collections lead to confusion among scholars regarding its authorship. The story borrows plots from two plays by Plautus, "Captivi" and "Aulularia," with its characters and events recreated and transported to Elizabethan England. This was Jonson's first attempt at...

Benjamin Jonson was a Renaissance dramatist, poet, and actor, known best for his satirical plays and lyric poems. Jonson focused on creating works that implemented elements of the realistic as well as the absurd. Jonson's most performed play, and the one that sparked a period of great success for the playwright, is "Volpone, or The Fox". Volpone, a Venetian con artist, is feigning to be on his death bed, pitting several aspirant heirs against one...