Ben Jonson (1572-1637)

The most "classical" writer of his time, Jonson was the posthumous son of a clergyman, whose mother remarried a bricklayer. Jonson himself had worked as bricklayer and a soldier (in the Netherlands). He began his theatrical career as an actor around 1597. He was an active theorist who often accused his contemporaries and rivals of misunderstanding the purposes and techniques of the drama and of catering to the groundlings. His work influenced many younger men to work toward a more classical "regularity."

Comedies of Humours: In 1598, he wrote Every Man In His Humour, a comedy based on the then current medical theory of humours which was set down in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. According to this theory, there are four bodily humours: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile, corresponding to four characteristics of the body. Blood was hot and moist; phlegm was cold and moist; yellow bile was hot and dry; and black bile was cold and dry. Good health depended on a proper balance of the four humours. Too much of any one humour led to illness. So medicine was based on purging bile or phlegm and bleeding off excess blood. Needless to say, the cure was often more fatal than the disease. Various personality traits corresponded to each of the humours and the imbalances led to the comedy…

The Jonson became embroiled in the so-called "War of the Theatres," a conflict with Elizabethan playwrights John Marston and Thomas Dekker. Jonson was writing for one children's company of players and Marston for a rival group. In 1599, Marston published a satiric portrait of Jonson in Histrio-mastix. In 1599, Jonson answered with Every Man Out Of His Humour, in which he ridiculed Marston's style as "fustian." In turn, Marston's Jack Drum's Entertainment presented a thinly disguised Jonson as a cuckold. The quarrel reached its height about 1600: Jonson wrote Cynthia's Revels (performed c. 1600), satirizing Marston and Thomas Dekker; Marston satirized Jonson in What You Will; Jonson, anticipating Marston's attack, wrote Poetaster, representing Marston as a poetaster and plagiarist and Dekker as a playdresser and plagiarist; Dekker and Marston then lampooned Jonson as the laborious poet. The quarrel had been patched up by 1604, when Marston dedicated The Malcontent to Jonson..

Jonson's best known work is Volpone (1606). In it characters are named for predatory animals and birds or insects: eg. Volpone, the fox; Mosca, the fly; Voltore, the vulture.Volpone pretends to be rich and without heirs and in poor health. He deceives several people that they will inherit his fortune if they can remain in his favor. Each one showers him with expensive gifts. Volpone eventually tires of the game and makes a will leaving everything to his servant Mosca and pretends to die. He later tries to reclaim his property, but Mosca refuses to give it up. Eventually all are exposed and punished.There are two sympathetic characters, Celia and Bonario, who are almost sent to prison because of the others…

Some critics label his comedies "corrective" because they have as their purpose the reformation of behavior.

His plays include: The Silent Woman (1609), The Alchemist (1610), Bartholemew Fair (1614) and most of the masques of James I and Charles I including The Masque of Blackness, The Vision of Delight, etc. Original spelling texts of many of Jonson's works are available at http://www.hollowaypages.com/Jonson.htm .

With proper access, you can view a biographical film on Jonson at:
http://desales.ativ.alexanderstreet.com/video/details/track/3221364297